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#Business cards printing same day
alwaqasprinting · 1 year
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Business Cards Printing in Dubai | Double Sided Design
Make a premium quality business cards for your business from Al Waqas  Printing. You can get high quality, multiple templates, and designs from here in just a few minutes. Then what is the delay, call us today itself. For more details visit us: https://www.alwaqasprinting.com/business-cards-printing-dubai
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Sticker Printing Dubai | J Designo
Print Shop Near Me | Sticker Printing Service in Dubai
At J Designo, we specialize in high-quality Print Shop Near Me. At our Print Shop we provide services Sticker Printing, Business Cards and Glass Stickers.
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printpallondonsblog · 2 months
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24-Hour Printing Company: Your Go-To Solution for Same Day Printing in London
In today’s fast-paced world, the need for speed and efficiency is more crucial than ever. Whether you’re a business in need of urgent marketing materials or an individual requiring last-minute printing, a reliable 24-hour printing company can be a lifesaver. Enter Printpal London, your top choice for same day printing in London.
Why Choose a 24-Hour Printing Company?
The demand for 24-hour printing services has surged, driven by the need for quick turnarounds in various scenarios:
Urgent Marketing Campaigns: When deadlines loom and your marketing campaign is on the line, having access to a 24-hour printing service can make all the difference. Printpal London ensures your promotional materials are printed swiftly and delivered on time.
Last-Minute Events: Planning a last-minute event? From flyers and posters to brochures and banners, our 24-hour printing services are designed to meet your urgent needs.
Emergency Needs: Whether it’s a critical business presentation or a personal project that requires immediate attention, our same day printing services provide a quick solution.
The Benefits of Same Day Printing in London
Choosing a company like Printpal London for same day printing in London offers numerous advantages:
Speed and Efficiency: Our 24-hour printing service guarantees quick turnaround times without compromising on quality. With over a decade of experience, our skilled printers are adept at handling urgent orders efficiently.
Quality Assurance: Despite the rapid turnaround, quality remains our top priority. We utilize state-of-the-art equipment and high-quality materials to ensure your printed items are of the highest standard.
Convenience: The flexibility of a 24-hour service means you can get your printing done at any time that suits you. This convenience is particularly beneficial for businesses and individuals with tight schedules.
Versatility: From business cards and leaflets to roller banners and brochures, our comprehensive range of printing services covers all your needs. Whether you’re in need of small print runs or large-scale productions, we’ve got you covered.
How Printpal London Stands Out
Printpal London has earned its reputation as a leading printing company in the UK through dedication and excellence. Here’s why we stand out in the crowded field of 24-hour printing services:
Decade of Experience: With over ten years in the industry, we’ve honed our skills and expertise to deliver top-tier printing services. Our experience ensures that we can handle even the most complex and urgent printing requests with ease.
Top-Tier Equipment: Our state-of-the-art printing technology allows us to produce high-quality prints quickly. We invest in the latest equipment to ensure precision and efficiency.
Skilled Team: Our team of skilled printers and designers work tirelessly to meet your needs. From intricate designs to large print runs, we have the expertise to handle a wide range of printing tasks.
Customer-Centric Approach: At Printpal London, customer satisfaction is our top priority. We work closely with our clients to understand their specific needs and deliver customized solutions that exceed expectations.
What We Offer
Printpal London offers an extensive range of printing services in london that cater to various needs:
Business Cards: Professional and high-quality business cards that make a lasting impression.
Posters and Flyers: Eye-catching posters and flyers perfect for marketing and promotional activities.
Leaflets and Brochures: Informative and engaging leaflets and brochures to effectively communicate your message.
Booklets and Roll-Up Banners: Detailed booklets and attention-grabbing roll-up banners for events and presentations.
Business Stationery: Comprehensive business stationery solutions to keep your brand consistent.
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Making the Most of Same Day Printing
To ensure a smooth and efficient printing process, consider the following tips when opting for same day printing services:
Prepare Your Files: Ensure your files are print-ready to avoid any delays. Provide all necessary details and specifications to help us meet your requirements accurately.
Communicate Clearly: Be specific about your needs, including dimensions, quantities, and delivery times. Clear communication helps us deliver exactly what you’re looking for.
Plan Ahead: If possible, plan ahead to allow some buffer time. While we offer same day printing, advance planning can help avoid any last-minute rush.
Conclusion
In a city as dynamic as London, having access to a reliable 24-hour printing company is invaluable. Printpal London is your go-to solution for same-day printing, offering speed, quality, and versatility to meet all your urgent printing needs. With over a decade of experience and a commitment to excellence, we’re here to ensure your printing needs are met promptly and professionally. Contact us today for all your urgent printing requirements, and experience the Printpal London difference.
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suguann · 6 months
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Possessive!Geto who pretends he doesn't care when he overhears that a new high-paying customer comes to the club every Friday to watch you specifically perform on stage, knowing he can’t really do anything about it unless a patron breaks the rules printed on a neon sign above the bar—No touching the dancers unless you're tipping—even if he’s the one in charge.
He’ll smile and nod, shaking hands with big spenders with sleazy smiles in the VIP lounge while his eyes find you from the other side of the room as you climb into another man’s lap.
He can’t stop his jaw from clenching when that same customer tips a month’s worth of rent every week or asks about private shows even though you don't do them. How he notices you smiling prettily for this customer, eyelashes fluttering with stars in your eyes to match the glitter on your cheeks before you walk off stage toward the dressing rooms. 
Sometimes you play the part of making a lonely man feel wanted too well. 
Possessive!Geto whose hand tightens around his glass tumbler, watching the man who’s been coming to see you (now twice a week) slip a thick white card into the top of your stockings. The fact that he touched your thigh with his dirty hands irks Geto the most.
In times like this, he wishes he had never come up with the rule about keeping your relationship a secret—so nobody thinks I’m picking favorites—because regret is a thick pill to swallow.
When you walk up to his office later, Geto wastes no time by dragging you down onto his lap, trailing his nose down the slope of your neck where your soft-smelling perfume is strongest and sucking a bruise into the hollow of your throat for everyone to see. 
You’re still wearing those cross-stitch stockings—the feel of them under his hands making him halfway hard—and he yanks the bodice of your dress down just underneath the swell of your breasts to get rid of the thought of another man touching you.
“B-but, Suguru, we’re at work—”
“Let me enjoy these pretty tits, huh?” he growls before sucking a nipple into his greedy mouth.
You whine his name, and it’s the sweetest sound he’s ever heard.
The blinds to his floor-to-ceiling windows are open, but it's tinted glass so nobody can tell what happens behind locked doors. Except, when he glances toward the busy club below, he wishes everyone in the building could witness what it looks like for you to fall apart under his hands—a personal show you put on just for him.
Only him. His fingers hook inside you to feel you tight and hot around him as a reminder.
Possessive!Geto who has enough one day after that customer asks for another private session—this time, he goes to Geto directly.
It’s a busy night, and every dancer works the floor. Well, almost. 
You’re kneeling between his spread legs, spit dribbling down your chin, whimpering while trying to open your throat for him.
He brushes your hair away from your face, watching your mouth messily slurp around his cock under his desk—his jaw is slack, and his other hand clenches on the armrest of his chair. “So good—fuck, baby—so fucking pretty,” he mutters, his top teeth catching his bottom lip.
His head tilts back when you eagerly fill your mouth with him again and again until he feels you choke, making his thighs flex under your hands. Geto’s thumb smooths an arc across your cheek.
“There you go,” he huffs. “I love that little mouth—”
There’s a knock on his door, and he feels you panic, moving to pull off his cock. But the hand in your hair tightens, keeping you pressed against him. Your nails bite into his skin, tears prickling your lashline as small distressed mewls escape your lips.
“Don’t you dare fucking stop,” he hisses. “Not unless I say so.”
Another knock echoes in his office.
“Come in.”
The customer with the too-shiny tie and a penchant for slipping thousands into your g-string opens the door with a smile on his face and a glint in his eye, sauntering into the room like he owns the place. “How about that deal—”
Whatever he’s about to ask is lost on Geto because his ears are ringing when he feels you swallow around him, and his balls draw up tight against his body, and—
Possessive!Geto who grunts when you moan around his cock as he cums down your throat, his lips twitching at the look of shock on the customer’s face.
“I’ve heard your deal,” he says eventually, glancing down at your glazed eyes and wiping away what little mess escaped your mouth with his thumb. “But she’s not yours to take.”
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georgesmith00x2 · 2 years
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Same Day Delivery Business Cards | Quality Flyer Printing
SameDayPrinting.com is Atlanta's leading online printing service offering the best printing quality, pricing and turn-around time in the industry. That's why Atlanta businesses turn to Same Day Printing for all of their direct marketing needs.
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ateliersss · 19 days
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Oh, take me back to The Night we met
Pairing: Yautja x Fem!Reader Summary: 1936, eighty-eight years ago, you met him, the creature that changed your life in a way that goes beyond human imagination. Cross-posted on AO3: here Warnings: Attempted Rape, SA, Murder, English isn't my first language Word Count: 10.162 After the Blooming Family series
⇨ Surprise! I hope you are surprised because I was starting to doubt myself. I actually believed I wouldn't even finish it this year. Anyways, I wrote the finishing 6.800 words in the last seven hours and my brain is mush. I hope it didn't affect the pace or logic of the plot. If so, I will edit it in a few days. Comments are always appreciated.
⇨ Also, if you tell me I wrote an unrealistic reaction to seeing a Yautja's face for the first time, let me tell you, you and I wouldn't be here if I hadn't reacted the same.
⇨ Want to join the tag list?
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1936, Earth
“Thank you, ma’am.” The soldier in front of you returned your identity card, the national animal printed on it facing you.
You returned his bright smile with a tight one. You were already used to identifying yourself to patrolling soldiers after work. It was for “safety measures”, according to the government.
While you were busy putting away your identity card, the boy looked nervously over his shoulder to his comrade who nodded back to him, encouraging him to finally man up and just tell you what he had rehearsed a dozen times already to eventually make a move on you and ask you out.
“A-And thank you for your service, ma’am!” He blurted out, louder than he intended to, with a soft blush covering his cheeks.
You closed your purse and looked up at him in confusion.
The boy, you now noticed, had to be at least five years younger, probably around the same age as your younger brother, Emil. And you recognized him now, too. He was patrolling around this area two to three times a week.
At your confused face, he gestured a little awkwardly to your uniform, the white dress and blue-grey blouse underneath it. “D-Doctors and nurses are in desperate need in times like these a-and saving lives is a remarkable job!”
“Oh.” You looked down at yourself before you pulled your coat tighter around your body and smiled softly at him. “If that‘s all I‘ll take my leave now. Have a good night, gentlemen.”
He visibly deflated at your words and mumbled a quick “Have a nice evening, ma‘am.” but you barely got half of it when you turned around to continue your way back home. The second your back was facing them your smile dropped.
You hated it, hated this, this so-called life you and everyone around you had to live. Horrible and disgusting things were happening, but no one dared to speak up. You were all trapped, too scared to act, too afraid to do something.
And the people could feel it, the tension that was stretched so tautly that was just waiting to snap. The whole world was holding its breath, deferring that one moment when the match would ignite and reduce everything and everyone to rubble and ash.
Meanwhile, your brother was beaming with pride as he was now considered old enough to join the army and could finally fight for his country. On the other hand, your father, the only other family you still had in this world, was far more reluctant when it came to the plans of the government and his son’s naive blindness of patriotism.
No one was talking about the horrifying wrongs your home country was doing for years now, but everybody knew, everybody saw. And if someone even dared to utter a word about it, they disappeared.
That didn’t stop your father from ranting about it behind the closed doors of your home. He did so, of course, in Emil’s absence. He was family, yes, but nowadays blind obedience could manipulate even a brother and son to go against his own kin.
You loved your brother dearly. He was a good guy and he only held a very strong pride for his home, his people, and his culture. But sadly that was the only thing he acknowledged around others. He denied the “rumors” of a genocide going on and overlooked unintentionally the more sinister motives of others in the world of politics and the military. He was truly and utterly blind, but you couldn’t condemn him for that. Not really.
The Great War ended when Emil was three years old and you remembered him crying when your father told him he couldn’t participate in it anymore. Ignorant of the horrors that happened at the Front, he and a few boys from around the neighborhood would play war and were disappointed when they were told it was over. The worst part was the elder men sitting on benches near their battlefield, telling them their people were the superior power since they had been able to hold their own against three opposing countries in the end.
You sighed and started to fumble around in your purse for your keys as you reached your destination. After a quick look into the mailbox — the usual evening newspaper and another flyer that encouraged men between the ages of twenty and forty-five to sign up for the military — you made your way up to the first floor and poked around in the lock with the key, a little distracted by the newspaper as you were searching the headlines for anything concerning. There was another report about a skinned man found hanging upside down from a church tower. Unbelievable. At times like this and there was a maniac running around, killing people in the most grotesque way for fun.
“I’m home!” You called into the dimly lit hallway, knowing your father was sitting in his usual spot in the living room.
After dropping your purse next to the wardrobe, toeing out of the white pumps, shrugging off the coat, and hanging it on the coat rack, you walked through the corridor and past five doors. The ones leading to the bathroom and the kitchen were open as always, just like the door of Emil’s bedroom. Although it hadn’t been inhabited for a few months now, you would always leave it open after cleaning. It was false reassurance, but that way it seemed as if he was still home.
“How was your day?” Your father asked gruffly from his spot on the wing chair, the morning newspaper still in his hand before it got replaced by the evening issue you handed to him with a kiss to his temple.
 “It was…”
Screams.
Blood.
Wails of a newborn.
A cold body.
“…long.”
“Mhm.” Your father hummed, his eyes scanning the front page before turning it. “Hah! Sightings of another black cloud of smoke and the authorities tell the public another farmhouse burned down. Do they think we are stupid? Unbelievable these people! Think they will get away with it, hiding it from the public eye, and no one would notice!”
You weren’t entirely sure if he had even listened to you, but you didn’t care. You weren’t very eager to start a conversation with him anyway.
“I’m in my room. Call me if you need anything, okay?”
Though you didn’t expect a response, you waited a few seconds — maybe today he would ask if his son had finally sent a letter — before you turned around to retreat to your room.
Since your father had lost his legs in a bomb attack at a munitions factory where he had worked during the Great War, he had changed. A lot. Before he was quite a gentle and jovial man who worked hard and never shied away to show how much he loved his family. Nowadays he was resentful and bitter towards everything happening around him.
It was exhausting, not only listening to his complaints day in and day out but also being nothing more than a maid and caregiver to him. You were the sole breadwinner in this house. You worked yourself to the bone in a business that was equally about life and death but gave you more grief than joy. At least it made the medical care of your father a little easier. The surgery, the medicine, and the wheelchair would have cost you a fortune.
When you would get off work, more would await you at home. Taking care of the household was your responsibility for nine years now since your father wasn’t capable of doing it anymore. After the first week of dusting and sweeping, washing the dirty laundry and ironing the clean ones, going grocery shopping and cooking as well as taking care of your father like washing him, helping him get to the toilet and such, you cried yourself to sleep with the thought of quitting and running away.
But you didn’t.
You were miserable, yes, but you stayed. You stayed with the hope of a better life in the future. Maybe you will be married to a nice man in a few years like your girlfriends already were. You had experience with men, sure, but none of them you would consider fit to be your husband.
In your bedroom, you quickly got rid of your uniform until you were only in your undergarments, a baby-blue silk panty that flowed around your mid-thighs and an uplift brassiere of the same fabric and color, both with a lacy hemstitched design. You were about to throw the white and grey-blue dress to your other dirty clothes when you noticed red speckles on the left sleeve.
Yes, the day had been long, too long for your taste, and when your shift did end, you felt hollow once more. You could still see her in that bed, screaming and crying.
Watching her, you had wondered if you would ever end up like her.
You shifted in your place, second-guessing, before you finally turned and looked at your reflection in the mirror that occupied one corner of your bedroom. You hesitantly lifted your hands and placed them on your belly.
No. Your job showed you women struggle and in pain every day. You would never do that to yourself. Being a mother was not worth the probability of taking your last breath during labor, giving your own life while granting another to your child.
Today was another reminder of that.
The girl in the delivery room, Johanna, was sweet and lively. You met her occasionally on a monthly check-up when you assisted the doctor who took her into his care. She would tell you about her and her husband trying for this baby for years and how excited she was.
You bit the inside of your cheek when tears once again started to well up in your eyes when you thought of how helpless you had felt when you stood in that room. Your colleague, an older and more experienced woman, was holding the crying newborn in her arms. The doctor was doing his all to save the unsavable while Johanna’s body got colder as the dark red spot grew bigger on the white linen of the bed.
Today had shown you once again that you would never let something like that happen to you.
“You have to incise into her abdomen.”
Not ever.
“No!”
Not in a million years.
“No, Mi’ytiar… you have to, you have to.”
You would never put someone else’s life before yours, not even the one of your never-going-to-happen baby.
“Save our baby. Forget me… ju-just save our son… please.”
Sighing, you got ready for bed. You were far too tired this evening to get anything done. The laundry had to wait until tomorrow and your father probably already had eaten, so there was no need to get to the store. For now, you needed to stop thinking.
A whole week passed and you had followed your everyday routine like every other day. Occasionally, when you walked past the room where Johanna had delivered her baby and made her husband a widower, you paused and stared. Instead of the freshly made bed and the stark white linen, you saw her, dying as she bled out. You saw the doctor, yourself by his side and the nurse holding the baby at the foot of the bed.
You jumped when you felt a hand on your shoulder and you turned to see said nurse smiling pitiful at you.
“You are still there, right?” She asked softly, her eyes scanning your face.
You swallowed and nodded. “It’s like that every time I come here. I don’t know why. She’s not the first I watched dying during childbirth.”
The elderly woman patted your cheek and guided you away from the delivery room by the crook of your arm, pulling you away from the sorrowful abyss before you could drown any deeper in it.
“You liked her, that’s why.” She started, “I had a Johanna, too. A long, long time ago. Although she was a lot younger, she was just as excited to be a mother. Poor thing died just like her baby.”
You gasped and now it was you who looked with pity at her. “Why?”
“The baby was stuck.” The older nurse sighed, “She pushed and pushed and tore. By the time the doctor started to cut her open, she died of internal bleeding.” She had to clear her throat before she continued, “The baby died with her. A little boy. He got himself tangled up in the umbilical cord.”
You turned your gaze from her face down to the ground and watched your feet walk an unknown route. Swallowing down your tears, you forced yourself to concentrate on not stumbling over your own feet.
You did like Johanna. You had empathized with her, even though children would never be part of your life. She had just wanted a baby, a part of her and the man she loved united in one body, and all that she got was death. She hadn’t deserved it. At least the thought that she might be together with her baby in heaven now thanks to her belief in God soothed your heart a little.
“Go home, (Y/N).” The elderly nurse interrupted your train of thought.
Looking up, you saw her holding up your purse and coat. Apparently, she had led you to the lounge where the doctors and nurses spent their lunchtime.
“But I still have six hours to go.” You tried to argue, but bit down your lower lip when she shook her head.
“If someone should ask for you, I will tell them you didn’t feel well and that I sent you home. There are certain benefits as head nurse.” She winked at you, pushed your belongings into your hands, and shooed you in the direction of the exit.
“I promise I will feel better tomorrow.” You called over your shoulder and waved at her, giving her one last smile before you shrugged on your coat and left.
Thirty-two minutes later, you got off the bus and turned around the corner into your street, your purse dangling back and forth on your wrist. With your extra five hours, maybe you could finally start that book on your bedside table if your dad wouldn’t find any reason to turn your attention to him.
Feeling slightly more cheerful, you walked a little faster, already searching for the key. Like always, you checked the mailbox — nothing again — before you hopped up the one flight of stairs to your apartment, the sound of your heels on the wood filling the otherwise silent staircase.
The noise seemed to attract the woman living across from you because you barely reached the top of the stairs when she ripped her door open and stared at you with wide eyes.
You paused and looked at her in concern. “Mrs. Walter? Is everything okay?” You asked and carefully inched closer to her.
For several moments, you didn’t get an answer. Only when you opened your mouth to ask her again, she slowly lifted her trembling arm and pointed past you at something you could not see.
Strange. The only thing back there was your apartment door, so…
The slamming of Mrs. Walter's door barely reached your ears when you turned around. All you could hear was eerie silence, not Mrs. Walter quickly putting her distance between her and the door, not the dog barking from above you that got awakened by the slamming door, not the traffic noises outside.
The door that you diligently locked every morning before you got to work and unlocked every evening when you returned home hung on its hinges. In quick strides, you reached it and ripped off the note that was nailed into the wood under the peephole. Your eyes scanned over the words as you pushed the door open and entered the apartment.
A search was carried out here due to a tip-off of a conspiracy against the country and its people. All residents are requested to report immediately...
Tears clouded your view and made it impossible to make out the rest of the words. But there was no need to. You already knew what you needed to know. Your father was dead, no questions asked, no evidence to prove that he was innocent or guilty, no interference by the judiciary. He had dug his own grave since he started to badmouth and criticize the current sins committed by the government.
You slowly navigated your way through your destroyed home, your hands supporting yourself against the wall, careful to not get caught in something with your pumps. You had to duck under the big shelf close to the entrance of the living room. It was tilted to the side so that the upper part was now leaning against the other side of the wall. Everything that had ever been placed onto it — pictures, plants, certificates, and other little knick-knacks — was now scattered on the floor.
It got even worse in the living room. Everything had been turned upside down. Your father’s chair was thrown to the side just like the couch and the coffee table. The books from the huge bookshelf that covered the length of the smallest wall in here were pulled out and tossed on the floor, pages ripped out and strewn on the floor. Pictures were taken from the walls and the glass crunched as you stepped over them. Dirt was covering the floor as if someone had been digging in the soil of the potted plants. The carpet was overturned, partly thrown onto the couch, and revealed the wooden floor it usually covered.
Your living room had been thoroughly searched and you doubted the rest of your home looked any different.
In a daze, you carelessly let your purse drop to the floor and shuffled to your bedroom. Opening the door, you were greeted with a view you had expected — your bed was tilted to the side, clothes from your closet were now scattered on the floor, and your mirror was lying face down on the floor.
When you saw the pictures of you and your family carelessly thrown into the corner, you couldn’t hold the sob in any longer. You sank to your knees, curled into a ball, and cried to your heart’s content with your eyes squeezed shut.
You lost your mother at a young age, lost your father for the first time after his accident, lost your brother to the country, and now lost your father for the second and final time. Now you were wholly and utterly alone. Not for long, though. If you didn’t come forward and turned yourself in to a possible fair trial in the next sixteen hours, you would be taken just like your father and die the same way he did.
Your breakdown had been apparently so nerve-wracking and tiring that when you opened your eyes, it was dark inside your room and outside your window. Groggily, you propped yourself up and looked around, disappointedly ascertain that you hadn’t been dreaming at all. Your eyes scanned your room, still a little out of it, until you spotted your clock on the wall, surprisingly intact. 9:24 PM. Now you had less than ten hours left.
How would you spend your last ten hours in freedom? You didn’t know, but you for sure wouldn’t do it in here. You needed to leave.
As quick as you could you switched your nurse uniform to a skirt and your favorite blouse, fixed your make-up and your hair to look less like a mess and more like the respectable woman you usually were, and left the apartment after putting on your shoes, coat and grabbed your purse. At first, you strolled around with no real destination in mind, but the darker it got the higher the risk of being stopped by a patrolling soldier.
You had enough money with you to occupy yourself with a few drinks, so why not enjoy yourself, let a little loose. You never really got the chance to try it out. Your job unironically prevented you from unnecessarily damaging your liver and you had the responsibility to take care of your family. Your girlfriends always invited you on girl’s night, but sadly you had to decline almost every time, be it your father or another night shift forced upon you. They had another planned on the weekend in a few days, the first one in a very long time you would have had time for. Not anymore. When they would sit around a table and share the newest gossip, you had already started to rot away in a mass grave.
You entered the first, non-shady-looking bar and plopped down on one of the bar stools on the right. When the bartender finally took notice of you, all he needed to do was to take in your gloomy figure pitifully slumped in your seat to grab a glass and fill it with a brown liquid. No words were spoken — you didn’t feel like it and he noticed that — as you grabbed the glass, tossed the liquor back, and placed the now empty glass back down. The alcohol, whatever it was, burned like hell and you couldn’t help but cough, tears forming in the corner of your eyes. The bartender meanwhile had wordlessly filled your glass again and without any hesitation, you emptied that one too.
You spend almost four hours like that. Losing count after your sixth shot, your head started to feel funny, like the world around you was spinning too fast. You mused what your life would have been like if your mother hadn’t died when you were just nine years old, if your father hadn’t lost his legs when you were seventeen, if your brother had chosen a normal job at your current age. You could have grown up like any normal girl, could have joined your friends more often to hang out, could have started going on dates again after your last boyfriend dumped you for neglecting him.
And what about your future? What about the man you wanted to marry in a few years? Every day you daydreamed of someone who would just sweep you away in his arms and take you far, far away from here. There had to be a place somewhere where you could live your life in peace without a brewing war and the constant fear of death. You waited for someone who would make your life easier than it currently was, who would take the weight from your shoulders and not add some more on them every single day. Someone who loved you passionately and would spoil you after nine years of labor where you worked yourself to the bone. Someone who would take charge and let you rest when you needed it. Someone who was the other half of your soul that hopelessly awaited to be rejoined with its counterpart.
When you reached out to your glass for the nth time, a hand softly clasped your wrist. Looking up, you saw the bartender giving you the same pitiful look you had received for God knows how often today, from your colleague at the hospital to some of the other patrons who entered and left the bar during the last few hours.
“I think you should get home.” He said firmly and pulled his hand away.
No longer being hindered, you lifted the glass up to your lips and emptied it in one go. “I no longer have a home.” You dully answered, your speech a little slurred.
“We close in a few minutes.” He tried another route, anything to get you to stop drinking.
He may not be interested in what personal business you have to drink yourself under the table, but even he wouldn’t let a young woman like you do that to herself.
“Fine.” You mumbled, grabbed your purse, and searched for the money that was stored somewhere in there. You hummed when you finally found it and without looking at it, you dropped it down on the counter. “Here.”
You held onto the sleek surface of the bar to lift yourself up and from your seat, supporting your whole weight with one hand while you needed several attempts to grab your coat. Not bothering to put it on, you turned to leave and even you were surprised that you could still walk in a (more or less) straight line.
“Hey, you paid too much!” The bartender called from behind you.
Not bothering to stop or turn around, you simply proclaimed, “Keep it. Where I go I won't need it.” and pushed the entrance door open.
Outside, you tilted your head up, closed your eyes, and took a deep breath of the cool night air. It instantly freshened you up and cleared your mind a little. Looking left and right along the sidewalk, you decided to take the left and began strolling wherever it was taking you, once again with no actual destination in mind. You had no idea what time it was, but you guessed you had around five or six hours left. If you’re lucky and didn’t get held up by some patrols, you could visit the park one last time where your parents, Emil and you would hold a picnic every summer when you were younger. It would only take you ten minutes on foot. It wouldn’t hurt to visit the place that held so many good childhood memories and bask in them in your final hours.
You were walking for mere two minutes when you heard a whistle from your right. Halting your steps, you turned your head to the side and looked over to the source. There, on the other side of the street, were two men sitting on a bench and two standing around them. One was holding a beer bottle while the others were smoking their cigarettes.
“Hey, pretty lady.” The one with the beer bottle called over to you and lifted it to toast to you.
You quickly snapped your head back forward and continued on your way, your strides bigger and faster to create as much distance between you and them as possible.
When you thought you were safe, you felt a hand clasping your wrist whose owner pulled you back and against his strong chest.
“Hey, hey, hey.” The voice of the man with the beer bottle breathed against your ear, sending an uncomfortable shiver down your spine. “Don’t be shy. We were just celebrating my friend’s promotion.” To your horror, he put his hands on your hips and turned you both to his three companions who had seemingly followed him, all of them wearing leering grins. “Why don’t you join us, hm? We could need a little entertainment.” He murmured against your neck, his breath reeking of alcohol.
Before he could place his lips anywhere close to your skin, you struggled out of his grip and stumbled a few steps away from him. “I-I’m sorry, but I need to go home. I’m already late.”
The man who seemed to be the leader of the bunch stepped closer to you, smirking when you accidentally walked right into one of his friends. The guy immediately held you against him, keeping you in place.
“I think you could spare a couple of minutes.” The leader said firmly and reached for your blouse.
Fear seemed to be a great way to quickly sober one up because the next thing you did was stomp down on the foot of the man that was holding you, your heel hitting his toe perfectly, causing him to let you go with a cry in pain and a curse. Next, you rammed your knee into the crotch of the man in front of you and when his body doubled over, you pushed him to the side and bolted down the sidewalk.
Not daring to look back, you sprinted as fast as you could, but the alcohol made it hard to keep balance, not to mention the nausea that bubbled up in your stomach. But you ignored it and tried to keep it down when you heard their calls from behind you, coming closer and closer.
This was not how you wanted to spend your last night, this was not how you imagined it. Tears clouded your view and you narrowly escaped the grabby hand of whatever guy that was closest to you when you ducked down and sharply took a left turn into an alley.
Unbeknownst to you, you were being watched.
The next thing you felt was hard concrete as you fell forward when a heavy weight collided with your back. You cried out in pain when you hit your head, then hysterically screamed in panic when you felt hands on your skirt and you started kicking around, not caring if you hit something or not. You heard a grunt when your heel finally made contact with the shoulder of one of them, but you had barely time to bask in your little victory when a punch to your face almost knocked you out cold. Your body went instantly slack, a long-winded groan leaving your mouth.
“Move your ass and hold her down.” The voice of the leader sounded from somewhere above you. “And turn her around. I like to watch their face when they give up.”
Hands turned you on your back as your screams and cries accompanied your attempts to fight their hands off.
“No… please no.” You begged as your wrists were pinned above your head by a pair of rough hands. “No!” You screamed louder, in a high-pitched, panicking voice when your blouse was ripped open, your brassiere following suit, and your chest got groped by a calloused hand.
You squeezed your eyes shut when you felt an eager mouth around your nipple, harshly sucking on it, while your breasts were still in a painfully hard grasp. You tried to gather your last strength, the drinks earlier and then the hit to your head from the fall tempted you to just fall unconscious, but you bucked your body up in hopes you could throw whoever was above you off of you.
Only you couldn’t move. Someone was straddling your thighs, hindering you from moving.
You finally forced yourself to open your eyes and the blurry image of the leader pushing up your skirt presented itself in front of you.
“Stop, please! Help!” You started screaming again, causing the leader to sigh in annoyance.
“Could you please shut her up, for fuck’s sake? I’m trying to enjoy myself here.” He growled at the guy who was holding your hands down, his patience growing thinner with every passing moment he wasn’t able to force himself inside you. “When I’m done with her, you get what’s left of her.”
“No, no, no, no...” You wailed when you heard the clinking of his belt and a zipper being opened, but you soon got silenced when a palm pressed down on your mouth.
Rather than keep watching him, you closed your eyes in defeat, now only feeling how he moved closer to your crotch, his fingers pushing your underwear aside, and positioned himself against your entrance.
A dull thud behind your attackers stilled them for a moment, but a raging roar got them to whip around. You kept your eyes squeezed shut, not wanting to see whatever feral animal was going to maul you and those men.
A scream, something wet splashing on you and something, someone, heavy landing on top of you got you to finally open your eyes again. You stared right into a gaping hole where the head of a person normally should be. Maybe it was the shock of almost ending up left on the ground in this alley, covered in bruises, blood and bodily fluids after they were done with you, that kept you from screaming.
In a daze, you pushed the corpse off of you, and looked down at your body. It was covered in blood, parts of a splattered brain, and white fragments that had been the skull of the leader of the group. His head had bursted into pieces. No animal could have done that and no human either. There was no weapon on earth with that much destructive power, so what…
With slow eyes, you looked up from your soiled legs. The guy now lying dead next to you had been obscuring the view of a large creature standing no more than three meters across from you.
Whatever it was, it seemed livid. Its body was heaving with wrathful breaths and its long fingers were twitching, clenching into fists before relaxing them again. The massive form of it was hidden by darkness and you could barely make out its silhouette.
It felt like an eternity with you just staring at the creature and it (probably) staring right back. The other assaulters, two of whom had fallen to the ground in shock with the sudden attack on their leader, hadn’t dared to move a muscle. Maybe they were in a trance just as you were, not for the same reason of course.
“H-Hey!” The fourth guy squeaked, breaking the tension that seemed to suffocate the whole alley. “Wha-“
In a practiced, seemingly effortless movement, the creature whipped out its arm, and something silvery shot out of the darkness. It wrapped around the throat of the man, choking him and sending him to his knees. He was clawing his neck and tried to remove what seemed to be a whip made out of sleek silver and grey material. 
You watched him as he desperately tried to free himself and blood started to flow from where the whip was wrapped around his neck down to his shirt, turning the light blue fabric deep red. Your eyes then traveled along the bladed chain, you now noticed, to the other end of it, and found the large creature moving towards you.
If you would have been able to make a sound, you would have, but you were still too out of it that no noise escaped your bloody lips when you were finally able to distinguish your savior. 
It was indeed huge, a massive body that was dwarfing any human being you could think of. Its appearance was bizarre. Its feet and calves up to its knees were in unusual boots, made out of metal instead of leather and an interesting design. You wondered if it was the skin of the creature, or if it was wearing a net-like cloth that was visible on every body part that wasn’t hidden beneath armor like the chest plate that bleed over into a full sleeve of its arm. It was covering the left side of its chest, but not enough to conceal a rather fit upper body. You found yourself staring a lot longer at the well-defined, almost sculpted abs of it. It was no doubt a male.
As you were eyeing the creature up, he yanked on the whip. You were only aware of a dull thud when the bladed chain cut off the head of the man who had been in its hold. 
You didn’t register when more blood sprinkled on you as you were too busy trying to imagine a face underneath that strange mask. With his green, brownish, and beige reptilian skin, the long black tendrils sprouting from the head, the long claws, and the animalistic posture, he was without a doubt not human. 
An arm wrapping around your throat from behind, preventing you from breathing evenly, brought you back to reality. You immediately put up a fight, scratching it and pulling on the arm in hopes he would let go.
It was one of the attackers that had fallen to the ground when the creature had appeared. He must have scrambled over to you when his last companion was foolishly enough to run up to the murderous beast, trying to do something quite laughable, only to be impaled by a spear and was now hanging on the wall to the right like he was a portrait above a chimney, the spear rammed through the brick of the apartment building.
The idiot behind you thought the creature would let him go if he was holding you hostage as if he wasn’t going to kill the both of you just like his buddies. So foolish, you internally sighed.
“S-S-Stop! I‘m warning you!” He screamed at the towering figure which was closing in on you. “I will… I will kill her!”
The creature stopped a few steps away from you and reached behind his back. Quicker than your eyes could keep up, his hand shot forward and he threw something of the size of an orange at the man.
Yelling, the man loosened his grip, his instincts kicking in to fight against whatever was sticking to his forehead. In his struggle, he fell on his back and started rolling around on the floor when the little device made a strange wiring noise. His body went stock still when he was engulfed in a net, restraining him. Then the man screamed bloody murder when the wiring noise grew louder and the device pulled the net tighter around him.
You turned to him, only to see the strings cutting into his skin, drawing blood, until only pieces of his body were left of him, leaving him unidentifiable to whoever would find him and his friends.
Now it was only you in that alley. You, the beast that saved you and the bloody massacre turning the place into an image of horror.
You were going to get sick if you stared at what had been a living and breathing human once any longer. Rather than wanting to face the creature when it was going to kill you, you turned back around and then startled back. Said beast was crouching in front of you, the head cocked to the side.
He reached out a clawed hand and you closed your eyes, preparing yourself for whatever gruesome death he had planned for you. You thought back to everything you had achieved in your life, every person that was still dear to you, said goodbye to every place you loved to visit, to the movie you had wanted to watch in a week with a friend, to the unread book on your bedside table and every dream you had wanted fulfill — you had actually planned to do that in a few hours. At least he was going to give you a quick death and not whatever the authorities had done to your father.
Something poked your cheek.
Your eyes snapped open and you were met with a closer view of the strange mask covering the creature‘s face. His hand was outstretched and a finger was prodding your skin. A strange noise was coming from behind the mask, something you could only describe as a rumbling purr. 
You stayed still, afraid if you would only move a muscle it would set the creature off, and let him drag his clawed finger up to your temple where a trail of blood had started to run from the wound you got from the fall. You hissed in pain when the pad of his thumb stroked — probably unintentionally hard — over your lower lip, the rough skin touching where it was busted. He pulled its thumb away only to replace it with the back of his pointer and middle finger to caress your jaw and down to your throat. The touch caused you to swallow which he most likely could feel. Only when you felt the scaly sensation on your skin dip too deep, too far beneath the ripped remains of your blouse, you gripped his wrist.
The creature’s head snapped up where it had followed his exploration. You flinched back at the sudden movement and quickly loosened your hold on his wrist, pulling it away like you had burnt yourself.
“I’m sorry.” You whispered, your voice hoarse.
What if you had just signed your death? What if you touching him like that had triggered him? What if he thought you were a threat now? What if he thought of it as highly offensive? What if he was going to kill you now? What if-
A low thump caused you to flinch when he hit the left side of his chest with his right fist. With parted lips, you looked from his fist up to his masked face and then back again, confused, both at the gesture and the lack of aggression towards you. Almost as if he could understand the look on your face, he repeated the action with a little more determination after he inched closer to you. You were more focused on his sudden closeness, daring not to move back, but you hastily turned your gaze down to his fist. It was a little hard to concentrate on what he was trying to tell you after the vast change of demeanor — from murdering in cold blood to trying to… communicate with you?
“You?” You tried hesitantly.
It really was your best guess on what he could mean.
A soft growl reached your ears from underneath his mask, making you tense up but relaxed in relief the second his attention turned to his forearm. You watched in curiosity as his clawed pointer finger ghosted over the armor-like wristband that started flashing in a bright red and made strange beeping noises like when a caller on the other line hung up before you could. Your mouth opened without you even noticing. You had never seen something like it, probably no one ever had. How was it functioning without cables like your telephone and radio did?
“Are you telling me you are married?”
You jumped back a little when a male voice chimed from his wristband.
“To a cup of tea, I will never say no.”
“I can’t believe you put the jar in the oven!”
You looked at him in astonishment as more voices sounded from his forearm. Human voices.
He kept repeating the same three sentences, but they seemed to get shorter with every replay.
“-telling me you are… telling me… me.”
“-a cup of tea… tea.”
“-you put the jar in the… you put the jar… the jar… jar.”
He seemed to be satisfied as he let out a deep, low-pitched chirp before he played the cut and put together word snippets to you, his head facing you now.
“Me-tea-jar.” He hit his chest once again before playing the word again. “Me-tea-jar.”
“Meetja?” You tried the word, tried how it felt on your tongue.
He let out a deep grumble before he played the same word again and leaned even closer to you.
“Me-tea-jar.”
“M-Meetiar. Mi’ytiar.”
With his head slightly cocked to the side, he tilted it forward in a one-movement nod as if to say, “Now you got it.” and his fist hit his chest one last time.
“You. Mi’ytiar. T-That’s your name?” You asked and hoped you put the puzzle pieces together correctly.
Another nod before he pointed at you.
“Oh.” You softly said, shifted slightly your hips, and nervously placed a hand on your own chest. “(Y/N). I’m (Y/N).”
“(Y/N).” Your voice sounded from his forearm when he touched his wristband. “(Y/N).”
You couldn’t help the small smile and you nodded. “Yes. (Y/N).”
The creature — Mi’ytiar — lowly grumbled in appreciation and you breathed out the air you had been holding in your lungs in a laugh. You couldn’t believe you talked, more or less, to something that undoubtedly didn’t belong on earth while you were surrounded by death after being spared from something that would have scarred you for life just because you had been out drinking to have one last night in freedom until you would follow your father in an early grave. Your life really had taken a strange turn in just a few hours.
“What are you?” You asked him and tilted your head to the side.
“Hunter.” He communicated with the help of his wristband.
“Where do you come from?”
“Sky.”
“Sky.” You repeated the child’s voice and looked up.
So he came from the sky. You wondered if he meant the clouds, or maybe the moon. It could be the stars for all you knew. Was he the only one living there, or were there more? Maybe one like him lived on each star the night sky had to offer.
As you were looking up in thought, Mi’ytiar took his time to admire you. You were, what you humans would use, adorable. He didn’t hunt humans very often as they weren’t much of a challenge, but sometimes he would visit earth out of curiosity. Your kind was interesting and his ancestors had been quite fond of them when they used them to breed their prey centuries ago. Humans have made a continuous development from then to now, so it was fascinating to watch.
Like he watched you now. He admired your wide eyes, the curve of your nose, and your rosy cheeks that displayed the dried tear streaks of panic and fear. He admired the shape of your lips and the cut that had caused you pain when he touched it. He admired your shiny hair that had once been pulled up in a neat bun but was now hanging loosely and messily around your face, framing it like it was a piece of art. He admired your small, shaking hands that were desperately holding the ripped-open blouse together, protecting your modesty, and the naked skin of your trembling shoulders when the fabric had slipped down to your biceps. You had been so incredibly warm and soft when he had touched what you were hiding now.
A quiet hiss got you to look back at him and you watched with uncertainty as his fingers first pulled on the one tube that was connected to his mask and then the other before he removed it anxiously slow. You mentally prepared yourself for the most horrific sight of your life, but when the top half of his face was laid bare, you sucked in a breath. It wasn’t the foreign shape of his head, the texture of his skin, or the spiky triangle-shaped bumps that circled the sides and the back of his head like a crown, clearly dividing where the roots of his hair ended and his face started. It was his eyes, though an abnormal orange, that were salient and captivating you. They didn’t look like what your wildest fantasies had to offer, but somewhat seemed almost human — a black pupil surrounded by an orange iris. And not just any orange. It was the kind of orange that stretched across the sky at every sunrise and sunset. The only difference you spotted from your own eyes was that he had a black sclera instead of a white one.
You would have gotten lost in them if he hadn’t removed the mask fully so his lower face was showing too. You wouldn’t exactly describe it as terrifying, but the sight of his mouth was, to say it simply, unnerving. It was hidden behind four tusks that represented his mandibles. You were fascinated when he suddenly made a clicking noise but were taken aback when he extended the fleshy texture to reveal two rows of teeth. It was like he had two jaws, one when the mandibles were retracted to his face and one when they were extended and showed his actual mouth. His upper jaw held three teeth with two larger fangs on each side, his lower jaw held the same amount only were they a little thinner, so his fangs wouldn’t hinder his mouth from closing.
Even after the initial shock subsided, you wouldn’t exactly use the word pretty, but there was something about him. Thrilling and particular, astounding and intriguing, but also alluring.
The longer you looked at him, at Mi’ytiar, the more accustomed you got to his appearance.
Another clicking sound reached your ears and you stopped mapping his features with your eyes, only now realizing how he looked down at you with his head tilted to the side. When you mumbled his name, almost as if it took all your courage, he straightened up and his eyes snapped to your hand that had loosened its grip on your blouse. He followed the movement of it getting closer to his face and when you turned your hand so your palm was facing him, his own hand reacted fast and grabbed your delicate wrist.
Bad idea, real bad idea, you thought. He wasn’t exactly hurting you, but his grip wasn’t exactly soft.
Instead of tugging against his hold in an attempt to free yourself that would obliviously fail, you let your arm go slack. Instead of panicking, you remained calm. Instead of screaming at him to let you go, you kept your mouth shut and waited for his next move. If you triggered him in any way, he would surely kill you.
Mi’ytiar, on the other hand, was amazed with you, in awe. He wouldn’t be the first Yautja to be enthralled with a human in this kind of way, sure, but he hadn’t expected to be one of them one day. You were extraordinary in the way you looked at him, didn’t mind the proximity he had put you in, and apparently seemed to seek for it.
Contrary to what you believed, he pulled your hand closer to his face by the wrist, causing you to move from your side-sit on the floor to get on your knees. Your lips parted in surprise when he pulled his mandibles in and he himself brought your hand up to his cheek.
The sensation underneath your touch was unusual and new. His cheek wasn’t like that of a human when you would press the fat until you could feel the jaw bone. It was springy, considering it was only a fleshy layer that covered his mouth. You moved your hand down to his outer jaw which consisted of his mandible and followed the length of it with your palm. You could feel the firm muscle and bone and gave it a gentle, experimental squeeze. Almost automatically he made a soft purring noise like that one of a cat and you blushed at the possibility that he was enjoying the caress.
You, of course, had no idea that you were touching a highly sensitive part of his anatomy and would be alive to tell the tale afterward.
Just as you were curious about him, he was eager to explore you as well. Carefully, he reached out and through the ripped-open front of your blouse. Seconds later his palm made contact with your stomach and he could feel how you tensed up. He looked up into your eyes, but when he found nothing that indicated that you despised his touch, his hand ran along to your waist and down to your hip, his thumb absentmindedly stroking your belly. It was strange how you could feel his thumb near your navel and at the same time his other fingers on your lower back, taking the width of your hip like it was nothing.
The both of you were too busy in your explorations that you had grown ignorant to your surroundings, so when a scream filled the previously quiet alley, you grabbed his extended arm, not to push it away but to hold onto it in panic, while Mi’ytiar whirled his head around to the two outlines standing near the street at the end of the alley. Your body was hidden by his massive one, so it looked like a monster was kneeling among his freshly killed victims, basking in the glory of his crime.
Mi’ytiar’s mandibles flared and the guttural roar that left his lungs made you cling to him in fear. Not of him, but the consequences that you would have to face if those who had stumbled upon this scene without context would call for the patrolling soldiers. You heard more screams and hastily retreating footsteps as the couple ran as if their lives depended on it.
Large hands grabbed you by the waist and hoisted you up on his shoulder, causing you to squeal in surprise, and you had barely time to hold onto him before he started climbing up the metal scaffolding of the balconies of the apartment building, jumping up and landing on the roof. With an arm secure around your waist, he jumped and ran further and further away.
And you let him.
2024, Yautja Prime
“What you smiling for?”
And all of a sudden, those purred words were taking you from your past life to your current one. You hadn’t even noticed you had stopped drawing random figures and forms on Mi’tyiar’s naked chest. At some point, you had started daydreaming with that far-away look in your eyes and a smile slowly making its way on your lips as you were lying on him, between his legs.
“Just thought of the night we met.” You drawled lazily and rubbed your cheek against his reptilian-like skin. “My hero in shining alien amour.”
“My amour does not shine.”
Now you had to laugh. Sometimes you couldn’t help yourself when he was so bluntly clueless. Humans and their analogies were oh so confusing.
“It’s a human saying, my love.” You explained as you crossed your arms on his wide chest and rested your chin on them. “A male who saves a female from danger. A male who would sacrifice himself so the female can get away without harm.”
Mi’ytiar reached towards your face and cupped your cheek, his thumb stroking your cheek before he dragged it over your lower lip. You were dreamingly looking up at him, basking in his loving touch. You were placing your hand on his and turned your head to the side so you could pepper his palm with light kisses.
He couldn’t help his body’s reaction, he just couldn’t. He was starved of your touch.
You suddenly stopped your sweet kisses when you felt something big poking your stomach. You looked down, although you could only see how your breasts were pressed against him before you looked back up at him with a raised eyebrow.
“You are insatiable.” You smirked and hoisted yourself up after placing one last kiss between his pecs.
You straddled his midriff but left enough space between you and him so you could reach underneath your body and grab his semi-hard cock. Even at this size, you had a little trouble to fully embrace it and getting your fingertips to touch.
You hissed when you felt the familiar sting of his sharp mandibles and teeth digging into your skin. You tilted your head to the side and offered him more access. Mi’ytiar let out a feral growl when your blood finally hit his tongue. He relished in it, tasting so sweet, just like the rest of you.
Grasping your hips with both of his hands, his claws scratching your delicate skin, he pushed them down to his crotch.
He needed you again, needed to be so deep inside you, so he could see the bulge of his cock forming in your tummy. Just the thought of it made his hips snap up, barely missing your entrance, and dragging his cock through your sopping wet folds that were covered with your combined releases from your last mating moments ago. It elicited a whiny moan and a wiggle of your hips.
“Stop teasing, tanhì. Put it in.” You groaned and started rubbing yourself up and down his rock-hard cock, coating it with your mixed cum that was still leaking from your hole.
Mi’ytiar wrapped a large arm around you and started to get up, his other arm supporting himself, to manhandle you on your back to be on top. The second your hazy mind registered what he was doing, you placed both of your hands on his chest and pushed him back down. You preened when his body immediately went slack, allowing you to do as you pleased with him.
He was staring up at you with flashing eyes. You didn’t take the lead very often, preferring it to be dominated by your mate, but when you did, he was gladly giving you the power you wanted.
The first time you had tried to be on top, it had gone from steamy to ugly pretty quickly. You had been on your back when you tried to push him and switch your position, but since he had been unmovable like a rock, you had untangled yourself from him and told him to lie back. You were straddling his hips, humping his hardening cock for exactly thirty seconds before he flipped you over and on your back again. You had then mewled and tried to push him back once more, causing him to growl. For your attitude he bit roughly into your throat, hoping it would keep you submissive. You let out a cry and hit his chest with both of your fists. This time Mi’ytiar had shown you his displeasure more vocal when he slammed his flat hands next to both sides of your head and roared right into your face. Safe to say, it scared the living daylights out of you and caused you to escape his caging arms. He, of course, followed you quickly and tried to amend his outburst rather with purrs and snuggles than words.
The next time you were on top, he vehemently focused on staying seated on the edge of your nest with you on his lap as you rode him with his helping hands on your hips. His eyes strayed from the spot where his cock was disappearing inside of you, to the bulge in your stomach that grew and shrunk with every movement, to your bouncing breasts, to your pleasure-contorted face.
After that, he couldn’t get enough of you being on top.
The same was the case now as you slowly inserted his throbbing cock into your-
A wail broke the sensual atmosphere, causing the both of you to jerk your heads to the doorway connecting the room to the rest of your home. With your maternal instincts kicking in, you practically jumped up from your mate, his half-inside cock slipping from your tight heat, and run to the room where the sound was coming from.
Mi’ytiar slumped back with a displeased grunt. He loved his pup dearly, truly he did, but he hadn’t been able to mate with you for an eternity — five months, double the time the healer had advised you to keep from being intimate with each other after the pregnancy because a certain someone had been overly cautious with you — and his cock throbbed painfully at that sorrowful thought.
He got up from the nest and followed the direction you had run off to. Your five-month-old pup was sleeping alone in his room for only a short part of his life. Before that, his crib had been standing next to the nest in your room, quickly accessible and in reach should he need any sort of attention. Now he was sleeping in his big brother’s former nursery you had lovingly prepared when you had been pregnant with Akail, your first pup.
Mi’ytiar watched you standing in front of the crib in the middle of the room, your back to him, as you rocked the whiny pup in your arms. The wholesome thoughts of his beautiful mate taking such good care of his youngling quickly turned into an animalistic need to breed you once more when his eyes trailed over your curves that had gotten bigger after bearing his second son. They fixed on your legs where trails of semen were running down your skin from between your inner thighs.
He was faster by your side than you would expect from a being of his size. He pressed his bare body against your own, hands on your hips pulling you closer, his cock digging into your back. Mi’ytiar bent down to snuggle his face into the crook of your neck, purring lowly.
“He was just hungry.” You whispered as you watched your pup falling back to sleep.
Bending over, you placed your little one back into his crib, careful not to disturb him. You had to bite your lip when you felt Mi’ytiar pull you back against his crotch to rub himself against your ass. All you needed to do was push your ass back into him for him to grab you, throw you over his shoulder and turn to leave your son’s nursery.
Giggling, you looked back to the pup’s crib and whispered, “Dream of the stars, my little Toyah.” before you got carried back to your nest.
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Masterlist: here
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Tag List
@rorrika, @lialiwasneverseen, @lil-lilacwitch, @purplekitten30, @eternalmoonshineofahopelessfan,
@ladygrimmx, @blurpleuni-squid
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roosterforme · 1 year
Text
Batting Practice Part 28 | Rooster x Reader
Summary: You finally have a wedding dress and a hopeful plan for the future. But when Molly caves and tells you what's been bothering her, you desperately wish she would take your advice.
Warnings: Angst, fluff, swearing, pregnancy, mentions of abortion
Length: 4600 words
Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female single!mom Reader
Check my masterlist for more Top Gun fun! Batting Practice masterlist.
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Work was insanely busy, and the month of August really started to get away from you. It was getting precariously close to September, and you really needed to buy a wedding dress. There wouldn't even be time to get anything altered at this point, and you winced as you thought about what that might mean.
Your weekends and evenings had been consumed with activities. Bradley's baseball games, visits to the park, rainy days scouring the flea market for baseball cards. Honestly, you couldn't remember ever being happier, and you made sure you told Bradley that all the time. 
"We don't need to have an actual wedding," you whispered when you couldn't stop yawning, curled up in bed with Bradley. "We can just visit the justice of the peace."
He pushed you onto your back and smothered your entire face in kisses. "No way, Kitten. I'm not doing what Danny did. Besides, I want to have a wedding."
You wrapped your arms and legs around him as he kissed your paw print charm. "I guess I better buy a dress then."
"I don't care if you get married in this," he rasped, tugging on the old shirt you were wearing. "But we're having the wedding."
You rolled your eyes hard. "Since I'm absolutely not wearing this, I guess I'll keep my plans to go dress shopping with Molly in the morning."
"You do that, Kitten. And I'll take Ev and Bob out for breakfast at that place you hate that everyone else likes."
"The place with the sticky floor?" you asked, grimacing.
"I'm pretty sure it's just sticky from maple syrup."
"Keep telling yourself that, Coach. That place is gross."
He snorted and rolled back onto his side with you. "Let's get some sleep. I'm fucking beat. I love you."
You were asleep within minutes. And then as things usually went on the weekends, Everett was in your room, waking both of you up, complaining he was hungry first thing in the morning.
Bradley groaned and pulled him up into bed. "If you go back to sleep for another hour, I'll take you out for chocolate chip waffles, okay?"
"Yay! I love that place!" Everett cheered before quieting down and snuggling into the pillows next to Bradley. You kissed his forehead and then Bradley's and then slipped out of bed to take a shower. They could do their own thing for breakfast, but you and Molly would be having a mimosa lunch after you bought some dresses. And nobody was going to tell you no.
You ended up leaving for the dress boutique the same time Bradley and Ev left for breakfast, but when you got to the shop, Molly wasn't there yet. "Typical," you muttered, texting her to let her know you'd meet her inside. 
After fifteen minutes, you felt completely overwhelmed. There were so many options, and you just wanted something simple. All of the fabric was starting to feel the same under your fingertips, and nothing looked quite right. Honestly, Molly was so much better at this stuff than you were. Maybe she forgot about the plan? You started to panic without her here. Perhaps you could see if Nat was free. 
Just as you turned, ready to dash back out to your car, Molly walked in. "There you are," you sighed in relief, but then you gasped. "What's wrong? You look terrible."
"Nothing," she muttered. But her skin looked dull, and she was wearing an outfit you would have never imagined she'd leave the house in. Was she wearing one of Bob's undershirts? She was barely meeting your eyes now. "Did you pick one out yet?" Even her voice sounded lifeless. She was usually so expressive.
"No," you said carefully. "I was waiting for you. I can't do this kind of thing without your help."
"Okay," she replied as she started to grab a few dresses off the racks and handed them to you. 
You took them all in your arms and said, "Molly, just tell me what's wrong."
"Nothing's wrong," she snapped. "Try those on. I'll be in one of the chairs."
Unsure about what to do, you just did as you were told. But something was wrong, and you thought about texting Bradley or Bob from inside the dressing room. But you didn't want to upset her further. So you pulled on the first dress she had given you, and you were shocked. It was beautiful, it fit you well, and it wasn't too fancy for the wedding location.  
"Molly, you're a genius," you said as you opened the door. 
She just nodded at you from her seat with a small smile. "You look very pretty. Try on another one."
"Okay," you told her, watching as she rubbed her hands over her face. She looked like she was about to cry. You quickly changed into a second dress which was also pretty great, and you walked out a second time to find that she actually was crying now. 
"Molly, please," you begged, bending down to try to wipe her tears away, but she just shook her head and quickly stood up, avoiding your reach. "Talk to me." You followed her across the store, down a row of dresses, and you could hear her sobbing as she rushed away from you.
Once she reached the back corner, she had nowhere else to go. When she turned to face you, she looked like she was in agony. Tears were dripping down her face and she shook her head. "I fucked up," she sobbed miserably. "I fucked up so bad."
"Molly," you gasped, reaching for her. This time she tripped forward into your arms, and you held her against the fabric of the wedding dress you were wearing. "It's okay to talk to me about it." You rubbed her back as thought after horrible thought popped up in your mind. Was it something to do with Bob? With work? You'd never, ever seen her this upset before. 
But now she couldn't even talk. She was just crying and shaking in your arms. You kissed the top of her head and held her, glaring at anyone who tried to come back this far in the aisle until they turned back. And eventually, she pulled away from you a few inches, and she let you wipe some of her tears away.
You didn't push her to say anything. You knew better than that. You just held her face in your hands and waited.
She took a deep, ragged breath and let it out slowly. Her voice was a soft, trembling whisper as she said, "I'm pregnant."
Your lips parted wordlessly before you closed them again. She was obviously very upset about this fact, so you weren't sure what to say. But you eventually settled on, "What did Bob say when you told him? He's upset?" You couldn't actually imagine Bob being upset with Molly about anything, but you supposed it was possible.
She shook her head in a jerky motion. She sounded so small as she said, "I haven't told him."
"Molly," you sighed, pulling her in for another tight hug. "How long have you known?"
"About a week," she gasped, pressing her tear streaked face to your neck. She'd kept this inside for a week. You were honestly shocked. "I suspected it for a little while at least. I didn't think it was actually possible at first." She was hiccupping between words. "I just thought my cycle was off. But then I took a test the other day. And then I took a lot more tests."
There were so many questions you wanted to ask. How far along was she? When was she going to tell Bob? "Molly, were you using birth control?"
"Of course!" she keened. "I'm not stupid! I work in healthcare!"
"I know, I know," you soothed, rubbing her back. "I was just checking." After you got pregnant with Everett, you'd made her promise to be safe.
"But I switched from one pill to a different one," she whispered. "I did everything I was supposed to fucking do! How could I have let this happen?"
"Shh," you whispered. She was sobbing again. "Does Bob not want to have kids with you?"
She pulled away from you and threw her hands up in the air. "How the hell am I supposed to even know that?!" she asked, loud and sarcastic. "I've only known him for like four months! We have never, not even once, never talked about having kids together! I know he likes them. He loves Ev and Piper, but that's different."
You nodded, reaching for her hands and stroking her knuckles with your thumbs. "Molly, you have to tell him."
"No," she said vehemently. "No way. I'm so mad at myself. I don't want him to look at me differently now. I told him I was on birth control. I promised him there was nothing to worry about." Silent tears were streaming down her cheeks, almost like they were never going to stop. "I can't tell him. But he knows something's wrong. He thinks I'm going to leave him, and honestly, maybe I should."
"Don't say that," you whispered. "Don't say that about Bob."
"Exactly!" she said, pointing at you in anger. "That's exactly it! You don't even worry about me anymore, because I'm with Bob! I finally got my shit together. I'm finally dating a good guy. A stable one who actually loves me! He loves me! Or he did. I can't believe I fucked this up. It was perfect!"
She sank to the floor at your feet and cried, burying her face in what you were now certain was Bob's undershirt. You tried to sit down next to her, but you had to fold the dress a little awkwardly. And then a sales clerk came over. 
"Excuse me, but you can't just crawl around the floor in one of our dresses. And you shouldn't be crying near them either."
You took a deep breath to reply, but Molly was already saying, "Fuck off, lady. Your goddamn dress will be just fine, okay?" 
As the woman bustled away, looking completely scandalized, you turned back to your sister. Her gaze looked steely now as she licked her lips. Her voice was calmer as she said, "I'm not going to tell him. I'm going to pretend to go away for a couple days, get an abortion, and then never mention any of this again."
"Molly." You were shaking your head. "You can't. That's not fair to Bob. You need to tell him about this."
"So I can end up like you?" she said, and her words struck you mute. "No, I know, and I'm sorry, but there's not always going to be a Bradley waiting at the end of the tunnel, okay? You got lucky. Everett is the perfect kid. And somehow you upgraded from Danny to something much better. But I'll never get this lucky again. I'll never, ever find something better than Bob. And I don't even know if I can be a mom. Because I've seen you do it, and it's actually fucking impossible, okay?" She was crying and laying on the floor, inhaling the scent of the undershirt. "It's either leave Bob or get an abortion and never tell him. And I know I can't bring myself to leave him."
----------------------
Bradley was sopping up a plate full of syrup with a pancake when Bob finally caved. "Molly's seems unhappy."
"What makes you say that?" Bradley asked cautiously, glancing at Everett playing a game on his phone. He thought back to that night at the Hard Deck a few weeks ago when everyone had been in a great mood. Molly and Bob had sex in the bathroom. He'd heard Molly tell Bob she loved him. 
"She's been acting strange for the past few weeks. I can't get her to talk to me." Bob's face looked helpless as he said, "I just want to make her happy, but I don't think I actually know how. She's gotta be planning to move out."
"No," Bradley said. Truly, this didn't make sense to him. "It has to be something else? Work?"
Bob just shrugged. "I wish I knew." He looked like he was in pain as he reached for his wallet, but Bradley handed his credit card to the waiter.
"It's my turn," he insisted. "I think you should head home and talk to Molly now. I bet they're done shopping and getting margaritas or whatever they're doing."
"Mimosas," Bob whispered. "Molly likes mimosas."
"Right," Bradley agreed. "Let's just skip the batting cages, and you can get home and talk to her since I'm sure they must be done with mimosas."
Bob just nodded and barely managed to say goodbye as he walked back to his truck.
"What's wrong with Uncle Bob?" Everett asked on the way home. Bradley winced.
"Not sure, kiddo. But I bet he'll sort it out soon."
Bradley was actually a little surprised that you were home when he and Everett got there. "Did you pick a dress?" he asked, wrapping you up in a hug. 
"Yeah," you mumbled, frowning up at him, and Bradley wondered if this had to do with Molly.
He kissed your forehead and said, "Hey, Ev. Remember our plans for the Phillies room upstairs?"
"Yeah!" 
"Why don't you get the measuring tape out of the closet and start measuring the room. I'll be up in a minute."
Bradley watched him dash up the stairs with a smile on his face, and then he turned back to you. "What's wrong with Molly?"
You pressed your lips together and whispered, "She's pregnant."
"Oh," he grunted. "Bob seems to be under the impression that she's going to leave him."
"I mean..." you said with a shrug. 
"She wouldn't leave him. He's perfect for her. Oh fuck... she didn't tell him yet!"
You shook your head and looked like you were going to cry. "She's so upset, Bradley. It was unplanned. She thinks she destroyed her relationship, and she doesn't intend to tell him at all."
"She has to," he said, shaking his head. "They'll be fine. Bob loves kids." He paused before asking, "Were they using birth control? Yours seems pretty sturdy, maybe she should have been on that one."
"Bradley," you said, rolling your eyes as he rubbed your tummy. "I told her to tell Bob, but I don't know that she will."
"Fuck," he whispered. "What do we do?"
"Just wait," you responded softly. "She said she'd never get as lucky as me. She said she'd never find someone else as good as Bob later. She said she doesn't think she can be a mom. And I think I fucked that up for her, because she saw me do it all by myself for so long." Now you were crying, and Everett was shouting for him. "Just go up with Ev. I'll be on the deck."
You pushed him away and went to sit outside while you cried, and Bradley didn't know what else to do, so he just went upstairs. 
----------------------
You ended up buying the wedding dress that you were wearing when you sat on the floor of the bridal shop. The sales team was so obnoxious, and you were honestly afraid Molly was going to scream at them, so you just bought it and left. Good thing you liked it, because it was yours now. You were looking in the mirror in your bedroom, trying to zip it up when Molly called.
"You okay?" you asked when you answered the phone. 
"Yeah," she replied. It had been a few days since the dress shopping fiasco, and you'd been checking on her constantly. She hadn't told you much. You weren't even sure if she'd had a conversation with Bob. Frankly, you weren't sure about the status of her pregnancy.
"You wanna come over?" you asked her. "I have ice cream hidden in the freezer."
She laughed. "You always have ice cream hidden in the freezer. But I can't. Bob and I are going out for dinner, and I have to work at six tomorrow morning."
A dinner date with her boyfriend? That sounded promising. You kept your voice upbeat. "Where are you going for dinner?"
"I wanted sushi, of course, but we're going out for Italian instead."
"And Bob's okay?" you asked. You kind of missed the days of tee ball practices and games when you'd see him more often. Of course you could just call him, but you wanted to hear it from Molly.
Her response was soft, and she still didn't quite sound like her usual self, but it was a far cry better than seeing her on the floor in the bridal shop. "Yeah. I actually just wanted to ask you if it's okay if I wear a plain navy blue dress for your wedding. I can text you a picture of it."
Your heart started beating faster. Your wedding was close, and your sister seemed at least marginally interested in it. "Molly, you can wear anything you want. You don't need to send me a picture."
But the message already came through. It was a cute, form fitting dress with little cap sleeves. "It's perfect! Get it! You'll look adorable."
"It's just that it's stretchy, and I'm already feeling bloated, so I want to get something that I know will be okay."
Your eyes went wide as you looked in the mirror. "That's great, Molly. You'll look perfect no matter what. And Bob can wear anything."
She chuckled. "I think he's planning on matching Bradley and Ev, but I'm not supposed to tell you that."
You felt a little better as you ended the call. 
"Kitten?" Bradley shouted as he walked up the stairs. 
"Shit," you muttered, trying to unzip your dress. "Don't come in here!" you yelled.
"What's wrong?" he asked as you practically slammed the bedroom door in his face. 
"I'm wearing my wedding dress!" You tried to jiggle the zipper, but it wasn't budging. You took a deep breath and held it, holding it in, but that didn't help either. "The zipper is stuck!"
"Open the door. I'll keep my eyes closed."
You let him in, and he stumbled toward you until you took his hand and placed it on the zipper at the side of your dress. He eased it down slowly and without issue, never even cracking an eye open. "This is not how I imagined you taking this dress off of me," you whispered before kissing his cheek.
He smiled softly, but he said, "Once I'm able to look at you, we need to talk."
"About what?" you asked slowly, realizing he looked a little frustrated in spite of his closed eyes. "The Phillies room? I said you two can do whatever you want in there."
You could actually hear Everett sorting through Bradley's tubs of baseball cards right now. "No, not about the Phillies room. Meet me downstairs."
Then he was gone, and your dress was hanging awkwardly off your body. You changed and headed downstairs to find Bradley sitting on the couch with his legs splayed wide and his hands on his thighs. 
"What's up?" you asked him, slowly making your way through the living room. His face was nearly expressionless, but you could still tell he was upset. 
Bradley cocked his head to the side. "Is Danny giving you a hard time?"
You just shrugged. "What makes you ask that?"
"I saw that huge packet of information from your lawyer on the kitchen counter. You need to talk to me about this." His voice was harsh, like you'd never heard it before. "Be honest with me, Kitten. If we're getting married, if Ev is going to be my stepson," he said, gesturing upstairs with his hand, "then you need to let me know what's going on here!"
"I'm sorry," you whispered. "He's not... giving me a hard time. Well, I guess he kind of is." You sighed and sank down onto the couch. "He's been served with papers. He has a few months to comply, so I just know he's going to take as much time as he can before paying me a cent of child support. And the worst part is, I'll have to wait until Ev is a legal adult before I can have his birth certificate amended." 
Bradley looked pensive, scratching the corner of his mustache with narrowed eyes. "I'm sorry, Kitten. I wish there was something more I can do. You already asked your lawyer if there's anything I can do after we get married?"
You didn't want to keep the truth from him any longer, but you just simply said, "I'll let you know, Coach. We'll figure it out." Really, you weren't sure if you would better benefit from having Danny out of your lives completely or getting child support from him. 
When Bradley tugged on your arm and stretched out on the couch, you started to smile. "Come here," he whispered, gently pulling you on top of him. "You know you don't deserve all the runaround, right?" He kissed you and wrapped his hands around around your waist, letting his palms rest on your lower back. "And Ev doesn't deserve anything Danny does."
"I know," you replied, pushing your hands up through his hair. "But we're making out pretty well these days. Got ourselves an upgrade." Your lips met his neck in a soft kiss that had him tightening his grip on you. 
He glanced toward the stairs. "Kitten," he whispered, his tone a warning that made you feel warm all over. When he met your eyes he was shaking his head. "I wanna take you to bed, but I need to get to practice."
"Mmm," you hummed, letting your eyes drift closed as he kissed you. "Later then. When you're all sweaty and hot."
"You're killing me," he grunted, standing with you in his arms, pressed against his body. He kissed your forehead and said, "I'll go see what Ev is up to before I head to practice. Bob told me he's skipping it tonight. Not sure what that's all about."
"He's taking Molly out to dinner."
"That's.... good?" he said, but it sounded more like a question.
"I hope so," you whispered. It felt strange to know that your sister wasn't going to be coming to you immediately with all of her problems now. Because it sounded like a decision had been made. You just hoped that Bob could handle her and all of her glorious personality. 
"I'll check on Ev and then get going. I told him he can organize my baseball cards however he wants. But between you and me, I hid most of the really valuable ones under our bed."
"Good call," you told him with a laugh. 
Once he had gone to practice, you went upstairs to work on the boys' Phillies room with your son. While you had nixed painting the entire room red for fear of it looking like a bloody crime scene, you did let them hang up some baseball decals. Everett had apparently hung up some more Phillies posters without help, because they were very crooked, but the room was actually coming together. 
"Mom! Look!" he said, holding up a red and white pennant that said BRADLEY and looked like it was from the '80s. "Can you help me hang this up? I don't think Dad even knew it was in here with his baseball cards!"
Your breath caught like it always did when he called Bradley his dad, and it took you a minute to pull yourself together. "Yeah," you replied with a nod. "I'll help you. Let's put it up next to the door."
"And maybe I can make one with both our names out of poster board. I'm getting pretty good at making signs and stuff."
"You really are, Ev," you told him as he taped the pennant into place. 
"Do you think we can all dress as baseball players for Halloween this year? Are you getting married before or after Halloween? I keep forgetting. Do you think Aunt Molly would dress as the Phanatic? I think she'd probably be better at it than you. No offense. But we could go trick or treating with them, because then there would be more people to help hold all the candy I get. Dad will dress as a baseball player and hold my candy if I ask him to. I'm pretty sure."
"Oh, Ev," you said, hugging him as tears filled your eyes. "We can do whatever you want, okay?"
He let you hug him for a few seconds before he wiggled his way free and asked, "Why are you crying? You haven't been crying as much."
It was because you didn't want to have to think about Danny. You didn't want him to try to pull some stunt in a few years or withhold child support and make you chase him down. He was the type who would make you waste a bunch of time and money just because he could. He would make your life miserable now because he always blamed you for ruining his life with Everett. 
"I'm sorry," you gasped. "I'm sorry I'm crying." You pulled him in closer again. You knew. You were sure. You would better benefit from having Danny out of your lives completely. And Bradley was the easiest way to get this weight off your chest, because whenever you thought about Danny, it made your body ache. You wanted to be able to stop thinking about him. About the way he had hurt Everett. About the way the law had been designed in such a way that guaranteed he'd be able to continue to hurt Everett in the future.
"Did I make you sad?" Everett asked softly. "We can be magicians or pirates for Halloween instead if you want."
"Oh my god, Ev," you gasped. "No, you didn't make me sad. I love you." You knelt down on the floor in front of him and kissed his cheeks. "I was just thinking about your biological dad, Danny."
Everett's expression turned to one of fear as he said, "I don't want to see him."
"You won't," you promised, pushing his hair back and kissing his forehead. All the child support in the world wouldn't matter. You didn't need it. Your son was absolutely terrified of Danny, and some money wasn't going to make up for that.
Everett seemed to accept your answer as he nodded, but he still looked concerned. "We don't even need him now."
"We never did," you agreed with a small smile. You had overheard Bradley tell Bob back in June that he would like to adopt Everett. Maybe you should just go ahead and ask him to. Maybe you should just tell him the truth: he could help remove Danny from your lives one hundred percent. "Ev, do you know what it would mean if Bradley adopted you?"
He nodded, his brow creased in slight confusion. "I think so."
"Let's talk about it, so we know it makes sense. And you can tell me if it sounds like something you might want. And then we can talk to Bradley about it. But it'll be our little secret for now."
-----------------------------
I hope Molly and Bob have come to a decision they are both comfortable with. More of that will be posted in The Curveball. Next up for Coach and Kitten....the wedding! Thanks to @beyondthesefourwalls and @mak-32
PART 29
Don't forget to check out Bob and Molly in The Curveball!
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hannie-dul-set · 5 months
Text
STAR STUDDED BAGGAGE [3].
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SYNOPSIS. the saying “never meet your idols” exists for a reason. you just didn’t expect the reason to be because said idols would end up declaring that you’re their alleged lover from a past life (past lives, rather). now you have three big celebrities vying for your attention, and it’s not as dreamlike as you imagined it to be.
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PAIRINGS. choi yeonjun, choi soobin, choi beomgyu x female! reader. GENRES. reincarnation! au, celebrity! au (soloist! yeonjun, actor! soobin, rock band member! beomgyu), slight college! au, slight historical! au, rom-com, angst, reverse harem woohoo. WARNINGS. swearing, talks about stalking, talks about death, data privacy violations, so much emotional whiplash yummy, a very long conversation, google dependent historical information. WORD COUNT. 6.3k.
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NOTE. this chapter finally made its way out hell 😭😭😭 per usual, please let me know your thoughts on the chapter! a single comment on ao3 inspired me to finish this, so ur feedback really means a lot! enjoy<3
MASTERLIST | NEXT >
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CHAPTER 3 — can we go back to being parasocial?
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IF SOMEONE HEARS YOUR SUMMARY OF THE EVENTS THAT UNFOLDED WITHIN THE PAST FEW DAYS, they may accuse you of lying. Delusional, even. You’d think the same had you not been the center of it all— yet the proof is in your pockets. Your phone. In the album Choi Yeonjun failed to sign, stuffed inside your bag at the last minute before you left your apartment earlier.
The summary. Right. Yes.
“Can they stop sharing that video of Yeonjun excessively flirting with a fan?! I’m going to kill myself if I see it one more time.”
You were lucky enough to nab a fansign slot. But instead of getting Choi Yeonjun’s signature, you ended up getting a kiss of a hand instead, along with a scrawl of numbers on your album that you’re far too terrified to try to dial.
“Hey, send me our photo with Soobin the other day,” nudges Huening from beside you. “I’m gonna print it out and put it in a locket and use it as a family heirloom.”
You bumped into one of your favorite actors, Choi Soobin, in the middle of a late night convenience store run with your friends to fuel your group all nighter, stained his shirt with your ice cream, and got a photo with him in the process.
“By the way, have you called the business card yet? What are you gonna do with your broken phone screen?”
And Choi Beomgyu may or may not have professed his undying love for you, asked for your hand in marriage, and started crying in front of you in less than ten fucking minutes.
“She’s zoned out.”
The problem is, you can’t even bask in the delightful absurdity of it all because one common thread from all those three separate instances has been keeping you up for nights. It’s clawing at your brain, lingering in the back of your mind like an incessant stalker— which, mind you, is not a pleasant feeling when the very causes of such disturbance were once the bringers of joy and all things good in your otherwise meaningless life as a cog in the capitalist machinery that is society.
“Hello? Are you awake?”
Said problem being the fact that you’re pretty sure they all called you by your name at one point.
How the fuck do they know your name?
“I deleted Twitter. I Airdropped it to you. No, I have not called it yet. Now please let me think in peace.”
Crazy. This is all too crazy. In the first place, what are the odds that you bump into three celebrities within one week’s time? Is this some sort of prank, or something? Are those three filming a hidden camera show together? No, no. That couldn’t be because there’s no fucking way a company is sane enough to stage a risky hidden camera prank during a fansign knowing full well how obsessive and insane fans can get. You’re lucky your face wasn’t caught in any of the videos circulating online— video of you and Choi Yeonjun, mostly him, acting out a fucking sageuk. You’re lucky you haven’t been doxxed yet.
“Finish your sandwich,” Taehyun clicks his tongue, nudging your food closer to you, and you sigh heavily. Maybe you’re just wrong, you think, taking a bite from the bread. Maybe this is just a misunderstanding. Maybe you’re just overthinking.
You eat your lunch and steal some wet wipes from Gaeul in between. Right. It’s not like you’re ever gonna bump into them again. You live in, as cliche as it sounds, two different worlds after all. You’re just gonna watch their dramas, listen to their music, enjoy their performances, and that’s it that’s it that’s it.
“Prof Jang sent a message. Class is canceled.”
But still—
“Woohoo! Let’s go to the new dessert shop that opened downtown.”
Choi Beomgyu’s voice saying I love you, Choi Soobin’s cologne wafting in the air you were breathing in, and Choi Yeonjun’s lips pressed against your skin.
How can a sane person just forget about all of that?!
“Why do you look like you’re fantasizing about perverted shit?” Woohyun slaps you in the face with a reality check. This is fucking stupid.
“I’m not fantasizing,” you grunt, because they were events that actually fucking happened— they weren’t birthed from your brain’s insanity. “Anyway, dessert? Where is it?” You ignore your burning face, hoping that your friends decide to ignore it too, but Gaeul has her eyes narrowed at you. Crap. She didn’t recognize that it’s you in the videos right? Holy fucking hell, you’d rather die.
“Aren’t you gonna answer that?”
Oh. Well. That’s— that’s something. A good something because she hasn’t suspected you yet, moitioning instead to your cracked phone that has been buzzing under your notice because you’ve been thinking way too fucking much.
You check the caller ID, but it’s an unknown number, and it doesn’t match the business card you got from your run in with the alleged Choi Beomgyu. “Hello?” you answer, and a voice you don’t recognize says your name and asks if it’s you. “Yes, this is her. Who’s this?”
Another item added to the weird as fuck things that happened to your this week. You excuse yourself from your friends, and with knitted brows, you listen to the stranger at the other end of the line. “You met Choi Soobin the other day at a 7-Eleven in Gangnam, right?” The fuck? Did someone see you that day? Is this a stalker? “This is his manager. Lee Byeongho. I would like to speak with you regarding a certain matter.”
Now, hold the fucking phone.
“Is everything alright?”
You respond to Huening’s concern with a stiff smile before turning away from them. “Did I do something wrong?” you fuss into the call. “I didn’t post any of the photos from that day. I never talked about it online either, and I’m pretty sure my friends haven’t either. Wait. Wait a minute. How did you get my number?”
“Yes, it was difficult to obtain knowing only your first name and university.” That doesn’t answer your question. That just gave you more questions. “But, no. You aren’t in trouble. Actually...I called because you’re the only one who can help us— help Soobin— get out of trouble.”
Your face scrunches up.
“I’m at your campus right now. Parking lot. Do you mind meeting me for a moment?”
Just what did you get yourself into?
“You haven’t finished your food. Where are you going?”
“Somewhere,” you reply, quickly snatching your half-eaten sandwich from the table as your friends follow your swift movements with matching looks of confusion. “I’ll be right back. It’s nothing, don’t worry.” However, you are quite worried. You’re pretty sure Lee Manager, or whatever, is committing some data privacy crimes against you, but the one thing you want at the moment is answers. Your brain is about to explode from all the fucking questions and confusion. There’s a sliver of hope that meeting up with this sketchy guy can answer a few of them. You’d take that chance to air out your head.
There’s a black van in the parking lot. It’s the first thing you noticed because one of its doors are open, and there’s a familiar looking guy waiting just in front of the exposed seats. 
He notices you approaching. “It’s nice to finally meet you,” he says. What’s with men you’re meeting for the first time treating you with familiarity? You’re going to rip your hair out and throw yourself into moving traffic.
“Sure, but can you get to the point?” you stiffly say. “I’m a little busy. I still have classes in a bit.”
“Of course, I’m sorry. This whole situation must’ve come off as a shock to you.” Great, now you’re feeling bad. Soobin’s manager (allegedly) looks like he’s been through a whole lot as well. “Anyway. You are a fan of Choi Soobin, correct?”
“Well,” you blink. “Yes.”
“How about the dramas Kang Jaehee has written and directed?” he follows up. “Are you a fan of those as well?”
Your brows furrow. “I guess?” Peach Tree. That Summer. Mogi. Those are the titles that come right at the top of your head. “What does that have to do anything with me?” Manager Lee spares you a look of pity. You feel like this meet-up is just set out to making you even more fucking confused.
“I sincerely apologize. I didn’t want to drag you into this either, but I’m afraid you’re the only option I have,” says Manager Lee despondently. “Since...since you are a fan of Soobin, and I assume that means you also care about his career, so—”
He pauses. Like he’s practicing the next set of words he’s about to say inside his head.
“—do you mind meeting up with him to convince him to take the lead role for Kang Jaehee’s upcoming drama?”
But nothing could’ve prepared you for that.
What.
What the fuck?
“Mr Manager. Sir,” you start, appalled beyond comprehension. “I’d appreciate it if you start making a bit more sense.” 
“Trust me, I can’t believe I’m doing this either.”
You’re speechless. Your mouth is hanging open with no words coming out because, again, what the fuck? Manager Lee looks just as defeated as you, as if he weren’t the one who had just presented that ridiculous proposal. You are, quite frankly, at a discernible loss. 
Manager Lee lets out a sigh and digs a hand into his pocket. “I’m afraid this is all the time I have today. But please contact me once you’ve made a decision.” Another business card acquired. This is just dandy. “I am really hoping for your cooperation, miss. I’m sure you’re aware of Soobin’s inactivity lately, and my intention of approaching you today is simply in order to help my star’s career. Please consider the favor positively, and we will compensate you as much as my authority can allow.”
With that, you’re left with another laminated piece of paper in your hands. Gosh. This is a headache. When you get back to your friends, they notice the distress you’re in, further justifying a visit to the new dessert store, and seeing how your soul has completely left your body, you’re dragged along with them with ease.
“Hey, pick one. My treat,” says Woohyun. You let out a grunt and point at a random pastry on display. Next thing you know, you’re seated in between Huening and Gaeul at the store you don’t even know the name of. 
Huening is force feeding you an eclair. “Eat.” Your scowl disappears when you allow the eclair entry into your mouth. “Seriously, what’s going on with you? Who did you meet earlier?” 
Seeing as you show absolutely no intentions of telling them, they refuse to question you about it further. Good on them, because there’s no way in hell you’re spilling your predicament. Not until you find out exactly what kind of situation you’re in, at the very least. The two business cards feel like they’re weighing your pockets down, a constant reminder of their existence along with the scrawl Yeonjun left behind.  
“I know exactly how to make you feel better.”
The declaration comes from Gaeul, who slides her phone over to you, and when you look down to see what exactly her miracle medicine is to make you feel less manic, you hack out a cough upon seeing Choi Yeonjun’s face on her phone screen. “The hell is wrong with you?” asks Taehyun from across, giving you some water to push down the eclair lodged in your throat. “I know you like him, but even that is an overreaction.”
Jesus, you’re close to losing it. When you’ve avoided choking to death, Gaeul puts an airpod into your ear, and you hear Yeonjun reading out some comments. “Choi Yeonjun, you look really happy lately, did something good happen? someone asked,” he says while having snacks of his own. “First of all, why are you calling me Choi Yeonjun? It’s like you’re putting a wall between us. I don’t like it.”
Gaeul makes a noise of some sort and had you not been subjected to this week’s insanities, you might have reacted the same way too. Instead, you simply listen to his live in caution, feigning disinterest as you watch him nibble on some pretzels and churros through the screen, continuing to answer the slew of questions in the comments.
“Anyway, you’re right! Something good did happen.” Yeonjun hums while picking out a pretzel from the paper bag, rustling noise and a lively tune filling the audio for a moment— a short moment, right before he continues speaking. “That’s because I finally met the love of my life.”
Taehyun has to give you his water again.
“Oh? Oho, what’s with the exclamation points?” he laughs. “Did I meet them the other day? Hmm...that’s a secret. You’re curious? You think it might be you? Well, let’s see. Should I describe her?”
“God, he’s so fucking messy,” says Gaeul from beside you. “This is why I like him. How many calls is he getting for his manager and company this time?”
“What’s going on? Why is she so startled?”
“Yeonjun’s talking about his apparent soulmate, I don’t know. Wanna listen?”
“Didn’t he get in trouble for doing the same thing last time too?”
Now, you’re not one to give a shit about his love life, and you like to stay out of that side of celebrity gossip as much as you can, but Choi Yeonjun himself is droning on about the love of his life right now. You can’t not hear about it even if you want to. However, as much as you want to let things come into one ear and out through the other, you can’t. Because— wait. Wait. His description is eerily familiar. His description is making you double take and second guess what you’re fucking hearing.
“Sounds a lot like you,” Taehyun remarks without much thought, right after Choi Yeonjun says that the girl he likes has a bit of an attitude, but he likes that about her.
Huening lets out a snort. “Yeah, that’s definitely you. Why don’t you go in a wedding dress the next time you attend a fansign? Who knows, you might have a shot.”
You snap them a dirty look. Fuck. This is making your head spin. For the second time, Choi Yeonjun’s tendency of putting himself into headlines and the trending searches for doing something insane is giving you nothing but stress.
“I did give her my number, but she hasn’t messaged me yet, so I’m quite hurt.”
Number. Hold on a fucking second.
“The comments are going crazy.”
You grab your bag from underneath you, dropping it down to your lap.
“Hey, if you’re watching this, pl—eeeeease contact me. Kim Noona thinks I have a phone addiction now because I’ve been dying waiting for your call.”
You quickly get up from your seat.
“Yo, where are you going this time?”
“I need a minute,” you announce, eyes scanning the store for a quiet place alone while hugging your bag to your chest. There’s nowhere. Looks like you have to get out. 
“Damn, we were just joking. As if you have a chance with a celebrity like him.”
Huening’s joke is ignored and you quickly leave outside the doors, making a sharp turn around the corner, slipping through the passersby downtown until you find an empty alley. Your heart is racing. Your heart is racing like crazy and you may be reaching right now. You may be acting crazy, but what Choi Beomgyu said during the interview with Yeong-Il the other day is echoing in your mind, and— in conjunction with everything else that had happened— you’re starting to think that maybe he wasn’t joking.
Your cracked phone screen greets you when you take it out of your pocket. On your other hand is the first business card you got this week.
“Who’s this?”
“Hello. Good day.” You tell them your name, the events that led up to you receiving this number, with the hope that maybe you’re finally on to something. “I’d like to talk about the compensation for my broken phone.”
Whatever that something is, you’re gonna get to the bottom of it.
*
It’s already beyond closing time at Kwiyeomdongmoim Cafe (a mouthful, you know), yet your pink apron is still neatly tied around your waist as you pace back and forth, to and fro, in circles inside the breakroom. The time is half-past nine in the evening. You should’ve clocked out thirty minutes ago, but you’re still waiting. 
The knock on the door signified the end of your wait. You turn to see your boss’s head popping in through the half-open crack. 
“Three guys are waiting for you,” informs Seokmin. “They all seem handsome. Are they your suitors?”
When you ditched your friends at the still unnamed dessert store the other day, you did it to make a few calls. Three, to be exact. Today is the culmination of those calls, which is why you’ve been erratically nervous the entire freaking day. Choi Soobin, Choi Beomyu, and Choi Yeonjun’s managers all answered respectively when you called all the sketchy numbers you got and made some negotiations (apparently, the mess on your album is Yeonjun’s number, but he got his phone confiscated after that livestream). 
“As if,” you say, walking up to the door leading back into the cafe. Suitors, more like stalkers. Fans stalking their idols is common, but the other way around is a pretty fresh idea. “Anyway, thanks, Kyeom. Thank you for letting me use the store for a while.” Because this is the only private place you can think of outside of your own home— and there’s no way in hell you’re letting them in there when you don’t even know how they managed to get hold of your personal information.
“We’re closed anyway.” Seokmin smiles and makes way for you to pass by. “Go ahead and do your thing. Do you want me to stay inside or keep watch?” 
“You can stay inside, it’s alright.” 
He nods. “Call me when you’re done. Scream if you need backup. I can handle all of them.”
You laugh and thank him once more, a pat on his arm before you decide to peek out the door first as a precautionary measure. From your spot, you can see three thoroughly covered men in windbreakers, caps, and masks sitting on three separate tables in the store. The blinds have already been rolled down, so you can’t see anything outside, but there doesn’t appear to be any cameras around, so you take it as a safe sign to finally leave your hiding spot.
The moment you do, the break room door creaks, and all three pairs of eyes immediately fall on you. 
They stand up. They call out your name in unison.
Holy shit.
And when they do, they all look at each other with a sudden flash of hostility in the air.
Um. Well. How are you supposed to do this? “H—hello,” you manage to squeak out, prompting their attention once more. Soobin takes off his cap and removes his mask, the other two following suit, and oh my god. Oh my god. You suck in a deep breath. Today, you are not a fan. You are an interrogator. This is not a fansign. This is an interrogation. 
“I— uh, I asked your managers if I can meet you all to—today for a specific reason.” Wow. Good job. Your hands are shaking and you can’t look up from the floor or else you’d start losing your mind. “But—but, before that— would...would you like some drinks…?”
Interrogation paused. You need to get your shit together first.
“Please enjoy.”
With the help of your boss (because your hands wouldn’t stop shaking and you dropped the first one you made), you managed to whip up four iced teas and settle all three of them into one table at the very back of the store. You send a stiff smile at Seokmin after he placed all the drinks on the table.
God, you owe him so much— especially when he’s being unreasonably glared at by the three men sitting with you right now. Choi Beomgyu to your left, Choi Soobin to your right, Choi Yeonjun directly across from you and holy fuck, you have yet to look at them properly yet for your own safety. They haven’t been talking to each other either, simply sitting and waiting for you to speak. You’re pretty sure they know each other though, at least by name, being in the same industry and all. 
To say that the tension in the air is suffocation would be an understatement. How...how do you start this? The fuck should you say first?
“You know, I was really happy when Kim Noona told me you called.”
Apparently you don’t have to start it. Choi Yeonjun does it for you.
“But why are these two crashing our date?”
And that’s when things also start to get messy.
“Date?” Choi Soobin interjects. He sounds offended. Why does he sound offended. “What are you talking about?”
Choi Yeonjun doesn’t get a chance to make his case. Because Choi Beomgyu from your left suddenly snatches one of your hands from the table, prompting you to look at one of them for the first time tonight, and your eyes fly wide open. “I’d...like to apologize for the other day. I was just overtaken by my emotions. I hope you weren’t too freaked out.”
You are quite freaked out because holy shit, this is too much maybe. Not maybe. Yes. This is too much. Too. Much.“Hey, why are you holding her hand?!” you hear Choi Soobin exclaim from your other side. Choi Beomgyu’s soft expression suddenly disappears into a glare and a sneer the moment he shifts his gaze.
“You’re holding her hand too!”
“Why can’t I?!”
“Hey, this isn’t fair! One of you switch with me—”
Dizzy. You’re feeling dizzy. Your head is spinning and you’re suffocating from the heat emanating from your very face. Whatever they’re arguing about isn’t even reaching your ears anymore. You’re getting lightheaded and your sweaty hands start slipping out from the two’s weirdly tender hold on your hands because your body is physically breaking down.
“Shut up! Oh my god, my head—”
Your vision actually starts spinning for a second so you quickly bring the bottom of your palms to your temples, elbows on the table to balance yourself, only to be wobbled and shaken because the three suddenly jolted off their seats in panic.
“Are you okay?!”
“I’m fine, just please—for the love of god— sit down and shut up.”
They sit down and shut up. You massage your temples in silence. You remove your hands from your face and, after sucking in a deep breath and releasing it thereafter, feel your heartbeat settling into a normal rate. As normal as it can get in this situation.
“Whew. Okay. I think I’m ready. Let’s get down to business.” Finally, you’re the one steering the conversation. You give each of them a once over as quickly as possible because now you know that prolonged eye contact will only hurt you. You settle with looking at the gaps between each of them. That’s fine. You’re fine. “Choi Soobin, Choi Yeonjun, Choi Beomgyu.”
It’s like three bulbs just lit up in succession. Your brain is starting to hurt.
“A—as I was saying, you three are some of South Korea’s biggest celebrities and although I am, in fact, a big fan of all three of you—” Why is Choi Soobin growing pink. Why the fuck is he blushing. “—that— that does not make me fail to recognize the amount of weird shit that’s been happening lately, and I think I need answers.”
They are still sitting down and shutting up. They listen to instructions well, at the very least.
“First, how the fuck did all three of you know my name without any prior introduction. Second—”
The words get clamped in your throat. It’s lodged in there very tightly because you make the mistake of looking one of them in the eye, only to notice that all three of them are looking at you with the same expression. An expression you can only describe as longing.
And your face starts burning.
“Se— second, why…why do you all keep looking at me like I’m an ex you want to get back together with…?”
Maybe you asked the wrong question.
Because for some reason they all look sad now. Really sad. Really fucking sad and it’s making your stomach clench and nerves all numb and funky because making three big celebrities all sad simultaneously is a bragging right at one end of the spectrum, and a national crime at the other.
It’s Choi Soobin who cracks the silence. “I…I had a feeling when I saw you again for the first time at the store.” Again? “Do you not remember me?”
Your face furrows. “No…? Did we ever meet before you became an actor?”
Hurt. The look of sadness has now spiraled into hurt and one might think you just stabbed and twisted a knife into his fucking gut.  “How—how about me?” Your attention turns to Choi Yeonjun who isn’t looking any better. It’s like his entire world view was just proven to be wrong and why does it feel like you’re the one to blame. 
What else can you do but shake your head in denial? Now he looks like he’d just been told he’s adopted!
“You’re…you’re joking,” he tries to laugh it off, but it only comes off as strained and shaky, then, in one fell swoop— desperate. “R—right…?”
“Great!”
Before you start feeling even shittier, Choi Beomgyu finally decides to join in. 
“And here I thought her forgetting about me was the worst case scenario.” His tone is bitter. There’s a snap in his words. “I didn’t think there’d be other bastards in the same situation as me. God fucking damn it.”
There’s a moment of silence. You watch as realization hits the other while you’re still left in the dark. Choi Yeonjun juts his seat closer. Choi Soobin tries to reach a hesitant arm to your direction, but you’re  tugged to the other side by Choi Beomgyu, who’s suddenly a little too, too close.
“Hey.”
Your hands are clamped together. 
“I meant it when I said I love you. I do. I have loved you four hundred years ago and I still love you now, and if whatever god or deity decides to make you meet you for the third time, I’ll still love you then.”
Beomgyu’s holding both of them in between his in a firm grip.
“Second life is about you. Blue Spring is about you. You’re the person I’ve been waiting for from the beginning of this life until the last.”
Now, if this situation wasn’t crazy, your heart would be skipping a beat right now.
But it is crazy. This is fucking insane. And you look around to see that there’s a weird look of sympathy and understanding in the other Choi’s eyes, clearly not recognizing the visceral insanity of this situation, which fills you with a swallowing lump of existential dread. You pry your hands out of Beomgyu’s grasp (you swear you can hear glass breaking), and slowly turn to Choi Yeonjun and say, with a very hesitant, very cautious, “Y...you too…?”
The look on his face says it all. And then you swivel over to Choi Soobin.
“And you?” 
“I’ve lo—”
“No!” you snap. “Don’t finish that sentence. Please. Oh my god.”
You see Seokmin popping his head out from the corner, mouthing an are you okay? and you shakily bring up a weak thumbs up. “Well, isn’t this interesting,” you hear Choi Yeonjun say, which feels like a slap in the face because what exactly is interesting about this. “Here I thought I was special.”
“Get off your high horse,” retorts Choi Soobin, a sneer in his voice. You double take. Choi Soobin is supposed to be sweet and gentle and kind. Who is this man? “Whatever kind of past you had with her doesn’t mean anything. I met her first. I met her at the end of King Danjong’s rule.”
“Ha!” Choi Yeonjun starts. “We got married under King Taejong. I’ve loved her before any of you did.”
Now, what the fuck?
Choi Soobin’s face pales and he chokes over his words. “M—married?”
There’s a smug grin on Choi Yeonjun’s face. He leans back against the chair with his arms crossed in victory. “You heard that correctly. Married. Pack up your bags. Unless you want me to tell you everything we did on our we—”
“Shut up, shut up, I don’t want to hear it!”
Marriage. King Danjong. King Taejong. Second life. The gears are churning inside your head. You don’t like the direction where the gears are pointing.
“What about you?”
Choi Yeonjun raises the question and the attention is now on Choi Beomgyu. He’s been quiet. The other two wait for him to say his piece— a feigned air of disdain and arrogance but there’s an unconcealable undertone of nervousness underneath it all. Your iced teas have been left untouched. Choi Beomgyu simply scoffs and presses his crossed arms against his chest.
“I have no reason to tell you any of that. This is between me and her.”
And at your mention, you receive the undivided attention of three pairs of eyes once more. Your heart rattles. God fucking damn it. Listen, you’re an avid consumer of the entertainment industry. You’ve watched a good amount of dramas and have read a good amount of manhwas to surmise a conclusion with the bits and pieces of stray information being tossed back and forth between the three. And it’s all ridiculous. But you have nothing else to work with unless they come spilling their guts themselves.
“So,” you clear your throat. “Are you three, like…a couple…hundred years old…?”
They all look offended. 
“No!”
Well, maybe you’re wrong about that part. But after a very long, convoluted discussion, the “facts” (if you can even call it that), are finally laid down on your feet.
They say you’ve all met before. Separately, in three separate lifetimes, with this one allegedly being your fourth unless there were lives in between that they can’t remember. One thing for certain is that the three of them remember the life they had while loving you— and they loved you very much apparently because those feelings and memories got carried over even after they got reborn into the present day.
The problem is, you don’t have the same symptoms. You don’t remember anything about your past lives. Hell, you can’t even remember anything in this life before you hit two years old. 
You slump in your seat. The table rattles. They get up from their chairs and come circling around you in concern.
“Are— are you okay, do you need to lie down? You could rest in my van for a while and—”
You swat Choi Yeonjun’s hand away before it could land on your shoulder. You’ve now got your hands on your face in stress, and peeking through you see Choi Soobin on your right, crouching down and looking up at you with furrowed brows and big, sad eyes. On your left is Choi Beomgyu, half-seated on the chair. You let out a very long, very anguished and muffled groan. This is too much. “If— if what you guys are saying is true,” you say. “What does it matter?”
There’s a tense pause in the air. 
“What do you mean…?”
You spring up from your seat and turn around, Choi Yeonjun in front of you. 
“I mean what does it all matter? King Sejeong, Joseon era, or whatever— I don’t care about all of that. We’re in the twenty-first century right now. I’m neither your lover nor your wife. I’m just a fan of your dramas and music and performances and that's it.”
You squeeze your eyes shut. You don’t really want to see their faces right now. You let a huff of air slip past your lips, turning back around to collect the untouched glasses of drinks on the table.
“Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to meet me and explain. I hope it’s all settled. Thanks for clearing everything up today. You can now all leave.”
It’s Choi Yeonjun who races after you when you make your firm and quick strides to the counter. He cuts off your path. “I—I don’t understand,” he chokes out. You make the mistake of meeting his gaze and see the threat of tears glazing his eyes. “What—what do you mean?”
Admittedly, that hurled a giant pang against your ribcage, knocking the air out of your chest, but you move forward. You brush past him, setting the glasses back on the counter, and— after a moment’s pause— you turn around, a heavy weight on your shoulders. It’s like gravity is trying to suck you deep into the mantle. “What I’m trying to say is we should all just get over what happened all those hundreds of years ago and live our lives in the present. I mean, I don’t know any of you. Don’t you think it’s unhealthy to keep clinging onto the past, especially when you guys are nothing but strangers to me in this life?”
Dead silence. You don’t dare look at any of them in the face. You try and retreat to the break room as quickly as you can, hands fumbling to untie your apron along the way, but you stumble over your steps, screeching to a halt the moment you hear someone say—
“Do you think it’s that easy?”
You could hear your heart in your eardrums. 
It takes all the strength in your body for you to look back, to see the pained expression on Choi Beomgyu’s face standing the farthest away from you out of the three. “Do you think I put my name out there so that it’d be easier for you to find me, wrote all those songs about you in the hopes that I could see you again if you’re someone I can just easily forget?”
Your throat tightens. It’s like you’re swallowing a boulder.
“If you wanted me to forget about you, you shouldn’t have died right in front of me then. You shouldn’t have told me you loved me right before you went cold in my arms if you wanted me to fucking forget.”
Oh.
Oh, god.
Choi Yeonjun and Choi Soobin don’t look any better. It hits you that you might have been more than a little bit unfair.
“I’m sorry.”
You don’t know your history. You don’t know what the fuck happened between you and them throughout those years that made them feel so strongly about you. But it must be harder for those who remember than for those who forgot.
It’s not like they chose to live in the present with half of their souls stuck in the past, either. You’ve been acting awfully unfair.
“I was being insensitive. I’m so sorry,” you exhale. Your knees feel like they’re about to buckle. Your head is spinning in circles. “But to be honest, this is all still very overwhelming, and I’m having a hard time comprehending and making sense of everything. It doesn’t feel real.” You try to take a step closer, but your legs give in. Choi Yeonjun quickly rushes to balance you back on your feet.
“Don’t push yourself,” he says, softly. You can’t look at him. God, these guys really know how to bring your guilt all the way home.
“Thanks, um, anyway—” You breathe in. Shit, you can’t believe you’re considering this. “Again, I really can’t and won’t be able to understand the magnitude of your— well, uh— feelings, since I really don’t remember anything. But how about…I spend some time with each of you individually, and maybe…maybe it can help in jogging back my memories?”
The atmosphere shifts. Ah. This feels like a fucking trap.
“You— you mean it?”
To be honest, you’d much rather just not deal with any of this, just stay at home and continue living your life with these three men as persons you only know behind the screen. But those looks in their eyes— hopeful and melancholic— make you feel your organs are being rearranged every five seconds, and you’d feel bad leaving them with the pain of this conversation especially after they poured out their hearts to you.
You can’t deny the joy and escape they’ve given you for the past couple of years you’ve spent as their fan. Maybe entertaining this unreality is the least you can do.
“I mean, well,” you start, clearing your throat. “Choi Beomgyu, you still need to pay for my phone. Choi Soobin, your manager wanted me to talk to you about something, and Choi Yeonjun—”
You look at the guy who still has one arm pressed against your back, two hands in a firm grip on your shoulders. He’s looking at you and batting his eyes expectantly. You let out a sigh and set yourself loose.
“I need to discuss something with you soon, too.” As in, please stop vaguely mentioning me in your live streams because I fear I might find an angry mob in front of my house. “I think I have all your contact information anyway.”
There aren’t any more reactions coming from them. This seems like the best possible solution for all of you. You sigh again. This has been an emotionally draining evening. You can’t wait to get some fucking rest.
“I’ll be in touch with you or your managers soon. For now, let’s call it a day.”
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STAR STUDDED BAGGAGE. © hannie-dul-set, 2024.
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syoddeye · 7 months
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the warren
price x reader | 895 words
had the overwhelming urge to write creepy!price. this is the result. not closely edited, apologies.
CW: blood (mentioned), hunting (mentioned/implied), theft, stalking
Bare footprints, neat impressions set into the loam ringing the lake. They veered left to the woods, to the direction of the climb leading to meadows.
Where'd you run now?
The signs of her trail are near invisible in the night - disturbed foliage and snapped twigs - but not to him. Crouching at the edge where the prints disappear into the underbrush, he sees dark droplets of blood, wet, painting leaf and root. He wipes one off of a stone, brings it to his mouth, and runs the pad of his finger over his gums and tongue. Salt and metal, the very things she tried to use to keep him out, keep him away.
The very things he had developed a taste for.
John admires her spirit, even with his plan to snuff out that independence. Her frenzied escape only heightened his anticipation for when he'd catch her.
Run, rabbit, run.
~~ Three months earlier ~~
John knew the day he spied her trespassing at the hutch that her hands were clean. Soft and unsullied. Not a speck of dirt under her fingernails. Polite and easy with her apologies, lips parting to show a pink tongue and good teeth.
She saw the cat, followed it over the unmarked property line, and then spotted the colony in its enclosure.
"You like animals?" 
"Yes, who doesn't?"
"Come see the kittens, then."
She trailed after him, around the side of the shophouse and back to the business side. He held his tongue when she observed none of the lots on the road bracketing the bay were fenced.
Fences were unnecessary this far out. Everything, everyone, knew their place. Knew where they were not allowed to tread without invitation. Everyone except her, apparently.
A newcomer to this neck of the woods.
She crouched, peered into the plastic, straw-filled tub on the porch, and watched the week-old creatures half-blindly search for their mother. The heat lamp was a functional substitute while the queen was out filling her belly.
"So, this is your shop?" She brushed herself off when she stood, eyeing the store's interior through the front windows.
"Mhm."
"Are you closed?"
"For lunch, as of five minutes ago."
"Oh."
He sighed. "But I can delay my meal. C'mon."
"Thank you, I promise I won't take long."
~~
She takes ten minutes. John leans against the back counter, steel thermos down to the dregs of the morning's coffee. The basket in the crook of her arm carries a week's worth of canned and dry goods. She presents it with a small smile and digs into a pocket for her cardholder.
He rings her up, poking through the haul. In addition to the sundry of foodstuff, there are basic toiletries, insect repellent, a lighter, and a pack of twelve-hour candles. She adds a pair of cheap red sunglasses from the revolving display. They do not make it into the final total.
"Can I ask what brings an Englishman here?" She asks after handing over a wad of cash, setting her wallet down to take the tag off of the sunglasses.
Like clockwork. Always the same question with every new face.
"Retirement," He cards through the bills and makes change. "And you? Visiting?"
"I'm renting for the summer."
He smirks and closes the cash drawer. Holding out what she's owed over a manicured hand, he tilts his head slightly. "Would that be the old Warren place? Or the Lakeshore Arms?" He drops the money.
A few coins slip through the cracks of her fingers, clattering sharply against the formica, some ricocheting to the floor at her sandaled feet.
"Limited housing supply here, least longer term," John explains, making no move to assist other than lazily pushing a quarter back across the counter.
She scrambles to collect the scattered tender, resurfacing from the other side of the counter with a sheepish look beneath her brow, clearly flustered. "The Warren place."
"Hm. Need a bag?"
"No, thanks," She says, smiling tight when she pulls two canvas bags from the sling over her chest. She drops the items into each bag inelegantly. Cans settle atop the loaf of white bread, and the bug spray slots snugly next to the toothpaste.
Never bagged her own groceries before, I'll bet.
She grabs her wallet. "Are there…any other stores nearby?"
"Next place is two towns over. About an hour and a ten-minute drive, forty-five minutes if you speed," John leans back, arms crossing. I assure you, though, the store's got everything you need right here. And if it doesn't…All you need to do is ask."
It's heavy-handed. He knows. But it's better to plant the seed now and let it take root.
"I'll keep that in mind," She sets the sunglasses atop her head and turns to leave, only to spot the short stack of bagged deer corn near the door. One hand on the door, she takes a closer look. "Aw, I didn't know you could feed the deer like this."
His mouth slowly curls. "It's bait, sweetheart."
The instant drop in her expression sends a wicked thrill down his spine.
When she leaves, he watches her hurry down the road through the glass. He flips the sign on the door again: Out to lunch. 
John fishes her ID card out of his pocket, murmurs her name, and looks back at her retreating form.
You're a long way from home, rabbit.
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yoon-kooks · 2 years
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paw prints & presents | jjk
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⛓️pairing: hotnerd!jungkook x popular!reader
⛓️genre: smut, fluff, college!au
⛓️summary: You and Jungkook never discussed Valentine’s Day plans, but that doesn’t mean the night won’t include corny Valentine’s cards and you getting down on your hands and knees in pretty pink lingerie for him.
⛓️word count: 2.1k
⛓️warnings: catdilf!jk, dom!jk, sub!reader, daddy/kitten undertones, praise kink, dirty talk, oc is a horny lil brat, dry humping, sex on the couch, handjob, blowjob, face fucking, cumshot, she swallows, oc makes another ignorant comment about earl grey tea lol
⛓️p&p masterlist⛓️
a/n: here's a lil smutty drabble i wrote up for valentine's day! (you don't have to read the other p&p fics before reading this one)💖
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You’ve been acting a little weird lately. Ever since February came around, you’ve been asking Jungkook about random shit like his favorite flower (lavender), his favorite romcom (none), his favorite day of the year (nonexistent), and his go-to boba order (you called him grandaddy for saying earl grey again). The most recent question was about his taste in lingerie (doesn’t matter because you’re hot regardless). 
But whenever he asks why you need to know these things, you just shrug your shoulders and pretend like you’re too busy playing with the cat to answer him. The way you always shush the kitten as soon as he enters the room leads him to believe the two of you are up to no good. 
It’s driving him mad.
At one point, he thought you might be sweetening him up for when you go behind his back and adopt another cat because “Lucy needs a friend” and “there’s a cute cow cat at the local shelter.” But something tells him you’ll save the cow cat shenanigans for another time. 
The thing is, he’s not completely clueless here. As much as he doesn’t want to think about it, he’s well aware that Valentine’s Day is around the corner. It’s not a day he typically celebrates, but he also doesn’t know how you feel about it yet. If it’s a big deal to you, he’d want to do something thoughtful to live up to whatever the fuck you’re secretly plotting. At the same time, the two of you still haven’t made it official, so perhaps you aren’t scheming anything related to the most romantic day of the year. Perhaps he’s just overthinking it…
…Or not.
A few days before Valentine’s Day, Jungkook comes home from class early and sees something he shouldn’t have seen. Your laptop is out in the open on his bed, but you’re nowhere to be seen—probably in the bathroom or something. He’s always been the kind of guy to respectfully look away from what’s on other people’s computers or phone screens. But it’s kind of hard to ignore the pink lingerie set you apparently just ordered. The lingerie you normally wear is a sexy black or a sophisticated neutral. But this baby pink one, with the tiny red hearts and bows, is way cuter than what he’s used to seeing you in. It’s giving submissive vibes, for sure.
The thought of you wearing that tiny thing on Valentine’s Day would automatically make February 14th Jeon Jungkook’s new favorite day of the year. And that alone is something to celebrate.
But how exactly is he supposed to celebrate? It seems you have your mind made up on surprising him with pretty pink lingerie, but what can he provide in return without being too cheesy? He’s terrible at shit like this. In fact, one of his exes broke up with him specifically because he wasn’t romantic enough. She wasn’t wrong, but it’s not like he’s going to rewire his entire brain to be romantic enough for someone else’s liking. Maybe that’s fucked up of him. Maybe a good partner would make sacrifices and force themself to change for the sake of the relationship if they truly cared. 
You’re different, though. With you, nothing feels forced. Rather, he gets an urge to do something nice for you, even if it goes against his natural tendencies. And right now, he wants to also surprise you with a little something on Valentine’s Day.
On the big day, he waits for you to leave for your afternoon class. That’ll give him plenty of time to put together the surprise. All he needs is some pink cardstock, markers, paint, ribbon, and a kitten.
As much as he hates cheesy Valentine’s cards, Jungkook finds himself pondering over what to write on the cardstock. Knowing you, it’s safe to go with something silly and funny. Thankfully, you’re an easy one when it comes to humor.
“Have a paw-esome Valentine’s Day, Mommy,” he writes in bold marker. You’ve been hesitant to call yourself the kitten’s mother despite raising her right alongside Jungkook. But it’s clear that you’re doing a good job. “Love, Lucy.”
He picks up the sleepy kitten, dips her paw pads into safe non-toxic paint, and adds her paw print to the bottom of the card like a signature. As the paint dries, he gives the kitty her first bath, blowdries her fur, and ties a pink little ribbon to her collar.
When the sun goes down, Jungkook rolls up the note and attaches it to the kitty’s ribbon like she’s some messenger pigeon. And then the two of them wait on the couch together, kitten loafing in the boy’s lap, for the door to open.
Five long minutes later, your keys jingle around as you unlock the front door.
“Go hide,” he whispers to the kitten who runs off into his room with a frisky tail in the air. She probably thinks he’s playing hide and seek with her like they normally do. Poor thing.
Jungkook makes himself comfortable on the couch again and pulls out his phone to look natural. Totally normal.
“Hi?” you say as soon as you open the door and see him sitting in the dark living room, his floating face illuminated by his phone screen. You hit the light switch as you kick your shoes off and look around for possible booby traps or jumpscares. It seems you’re very aware that the potential for a surprise is at an all-time high today. Then your eyes fall back on him. “Why do you look like that?”
“Like what?” He scratches the back of his head.
“Like this.” You do the awkward pose thing people do when they’re very clearly failing to act natural. How do you manage to make even the most awkward poses look cute? Maybe your little black dress has something to do with it. You weren’t wearing that earlier when you left for class.
“What do you mean? I’m just here, sitting on the couch with my phone.” Damn, is it really that obvious?
“Ah, so you were here waiting for me to get back from class like a dog?” you tease as you climb into his lap and set his phone aside. Your new perfume is a sensual lavender (no wonder you asked him about his favorite flower). And your dress is so short all he can feel is skin when he grabs hold of your ass. “Don’t worry, I missed you too.”
You snake your hands around the back of his neck and devour his lips, his tongue, his taste. He’ll never get over the moans you make just from kissing him like he’s the finest dessert you’ve ever tasted. Or the way your tongue just laps him up like a kitten—
“Wait,” he says after forcing himself to pull back from your lips. The urge to put his lips right back where they belong is incredible.
“No, Jungkook, I don’t have any homework that needs to get done before we…” Your words trail off as you kiss him some more and roll your hips against his crotch. You’ll never let it go that he’s “the biggest nerd in the world” for always making you finish your homework before sex. Thank god you don’t have any tonight. Because his hard cock is already past the point of no return.
The secret Valentine’s card still needs to be delivered, though. And the poor kitten is still waiting for her daddy to come find her.
“No seriously, wait a sec,” he chuckles, lifting you off of him before walking into his room to scoop up the kitten hiding behind the clothes hanging in his closet. When he rejoins you on the couch, he passes the fluffball to you.
“Ooh, did daddy give you a bath? You look so cute,” You sniff her orange fur and find the rolled-up note tied to her pink ribbon.
Your face quickly goes from curious to smiley as you unroll the note and read the silly message. Jungkook reads it right alongside you as if he wasn’t the one who wrote it.
“Congratulations, it seems Lucy has accepted you as her mother figure,” he says in the straightest face ever.
“Paw-esome?? Mommy??” you giggle, turning to the boy whilst cupping his chin. “Is that what you think of me?”
“It wasn’t me, it was Lucy,” he shrugs. “Right, Lucy?” She meows in agreement.
Then he pins you down against the couch cushions and leans in to whisper, “You’re my baby girl, remember?”
Your face is flushed with color as you nod up at him. You grab a handful of his t-shirt and pull him in. He finds your neck and leaves a trail of little marks as your body heats up beneath him.
“I love the card, by the way,” you manage to get out between breaths. “Thank you, Jungkook.”
“Like I said, it wasn’t from me.” His gives you a few more kisses while running his hands along your dress. As hot as you are in that dress, he’d love to get his hands on everything hiding beneath it. “I didn’t even know today was Valentine’s Day.”
“Liar. You suck, you know that.” You pout for half a second before your horny eyes are showing again. “Guess you don’t want to see the surprise I have for you.”
“What is it?” he asks a little too quickly. He must sound like such a simp.
You sit up, leaning your tits against his chest, and say, “Undress me.”
Jungkook lifts the dress up and over your head to reveal the same lingerie set he saw on your computer screen the other day. Except now it’s on your body. And boy does it look good on you. It doesn’t matter that he already had a sneak peek at it and plenty of time to mentally prepare himself for this. He still can’t take his eyes off of his baby girl looking all pretty in pink. And he forgets to speak.
“What do you think?” You drop to your knees on the carpet and situate yourself between his legs.
“Hot,” is all he can say before you unzip him and get your hands on his hard cock.
“Good.” You wet your lips with a sly tongue. Your hands start stroking his length up and down as you eye his tip. “It was an impulse buy the other day when I was feeling so horny for your cock.”
“Do you need my cock that badly?” he asks, his breath getting rougher. 
You nod, licking your lips again. He’d normally make you wait a little longer before letting you give head, but fuck it. It’s Valentine’s Day, and his cock is his gift to you. You’re always begging to suck it anyway.
With a firm hand, he angles your chin up until his erection is staring you in the face. You wrap your lips around him and take him in until he hits the back of your throat. Your cute little gag doesn’t stop you from going right back in, bobbing your head back and forth, up and down his length. He decides to help by thrusting in and out of your throat.
When you stop to catch your breath, his glaze runs down your mouth. You make sure he’s watching when you lick it up and swallow before sucking him more. One of your hands grips his cock while the other travels down into your thong. He watches the way you rub between your legs and rock your body back and forth to pleasure yourself and him at the same time. 
You savor each and every drop of him as if it’s the last. Your lips glisten and swell with pleasure as you’re hard at work with his cock. There’s no way anyone else can look this good while doing what you do to him.
“Fuck,” Jungkook groans, fucking your face faster. You moan something that sounds like his name, although it’s kind of hard to understand with a fat cock in your mouth.
At his breaking point, he pulls out and strokes his length until (most of) his cum sprays right into your mouth. You swallow it up while shooting him an awfully innocent smile. After catching his breath, he wipes up the bit of lust on your cheek and lets you suck it off his fingers. You’re such a good girl for him.
“You were so good, baby,” he praises you. You definitely need to be rewarded. “Should we watch one of those romcoms?”
“I thought you said you didn’t like romcoms.” You tilt your head. “We can find something else that we can watch togeth—”
“Pick your favorite romcom.” He shakes your suggestion off and lays you down on the couch so that you’re facing the TV. He hooks a finger on the strap of your thong and tears it off. With his lips just a kiss away from your wet pussy, he says, “I won’t be watching anyway.”
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WIBTA for asking my SO to do something that they have trauma around?
I don't know when this will be posted but as of writing we are about 2 weeks post valentines day. Ages and genders irrelevant, we're in our 20s and queer.
So I have not been with Jordan long, but we knew each out for a few months as friends before we got together, and have been close pretty much all of the time we've known each other. This is to say, I know them pretty well despite us not actually having been dating that long.
Because we were already friends I knew going into the relationship, without Jordan specifically saying anything, that they had plans on Valentines day. They got tickets to a concert I wasn't interested in a decent amount of time before we got together.
Obviously, not an issue in the slightest, and neither of us brought up anything regarding Valentines day. It was a week day, so I was working all day, and then the time of the concert meant there was no possibility of meeting up after, just not meant to be this year. I thought we were in the same boat just silently agreeing that the timing wasn't right but that it wasn't a big enough deal to even be worth bringing up, especially in such a new relationship.
Some backstory on me: I'm a hopeless romantic and have a kind of cute aesthetic? I like dressing in bright colours, and some of my favourite outfits have prints of hearts, flowers, and cherries. Needless to say I really enjoy the aesthetic of Valentines day, and I've always kind of fantasised about being able to spend it with someone I have romantic feelings for. I've only had two romantic relationships before this and the first one only lasted 6 months and didn't make it to Valentines day, and in the second we both contracted the same bug and were horribly sick throughout February.
Obviously I don't think you should only do things for your SO on Valentines day, but I think it would be fun to have the chance to really get into it! In the past I've organised Valentines day events with my other single friends where we dress in pink and have heart shaped foods etc and those have been great, but haven't quite satisfied my desire to have a Romantic Valentines.
So, despite the fact that my SO was busy, I wanted to do a little something. I do digital art, so when I got home from work I drew a pun Valentines card featuring Jordan's favourite character. It took a few hours and I was pretty proud of how it came out. I knew they were at the concert still, but I texted it to them, so they could see it after.
They responded that night and their first message was just "oh." I've known Jordan long enough that i read the tone to be "oh, now I to have a conversation I didn't want to have." They went on to explain that they associate Valentines day with some past trauma. I won't give any details here, but the tone of the conversation was that they don't celebrate Valentines day because of their trauma, and this seemed like a very final stance.
Now. I don't think I'm TA for drawing the art and sending it, this had never been brought up before, so I didn't know I was crossing a boundary.
I do think Jordan is slightly TA for not saying anything about my art that I worked hard on, but only slightly bc I assume the trauma response just kind of took over.
But my question is, WIBTA if I asked my SO to celebrate Valentines day with me in future even though it's something they have trauma around?
I'm not planning to force them or anything and it doesn't even have to be in the next few years, but thinking long term it feels really gloomy to me to have to miss out on Valentines forever when my SO could be making new memories with me so that mentions of the holiday are less painful.
I don't expect them to just "get over" it magically or anything but I want to ask if it's something they'd possibly want to work up to? I swear I'm not trying to be dismissive their response is fully valid and I don't want to imply my silly fantasies are more important than their traumatic reality I just want to know if this would be an asshole move or not.
What are these acronyms?
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georgesmith00x2 · 2 years
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Same Day Delivery Business Cards | Flyer Printing Template
SameDayPrinting.com is Atlanta's leading online printing service offering the best printing quality, pricing and turn-around time in the industry. That's why Atlanta businesses turn to Same Day Printing for all of their direct marketing needs.
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opossum-rights · 8 months
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The Way Things Happen
After being caught in a villain attack, your life is intertwined with those of the aspiring heroes that saved you.
<< Prologue - Next Part >>
Word Count, 3.5k
“How are we feeling? Your medication should’ve started kicking in by now,” says a nurse as she goes about conducting your checkup.
“I feel fine.” You give her the thumbs up, not really looking for any conversation. You appreciate how nice the nurses assigned to you are, but you think that’s partly because your parents haven’t visited other than to do paperwork, so they feel bad for you. They were always pretty distant, so you don’t mind them not showing up.
“Alright then, you know what button to press if you need anything.” She scribbles something down on her clipboard and leaves you be.
Back to staring at the ceiling again.
It was about a week after the incident and you were still in the hospital. You’re not sure what’s worse, the dull ache that washes over your body if you so much as squirm, or the boredom you’re faced with everyday. For a while, you were too out of it to realize how stuffy it was being stuck in a hospital bed, but after being taken off the stronger painkillers they had you on, you found yourself staring at the wall more often than not.
A classmate of yours brought your laptop, books, and some other things from your dorm to keep you entertained during your stay. They didn’t help much.
Looking at any type of artificial light for too long makes your head hurt, thanks to your concussion, and everytime you pick up a book you find your attention drifting before finishing the page.
You think it’s the lack of scenery and social interaction that’s making you go stir-crazy the most. Apart from that one classmate, you had no other visitors. The day after you got here a basket arrived from Best Jeanist’s agency, filled with treats and flowers and a card signed by your coworkers.
It makes you sad to think that by the time you’re discharged from the hospital, work studies will be over and it’s back to school. Though it’s nice to know that someone’s thinking of you.
There’s a knock at the door. You tell the person it’s okay to come in as you glance at the clock on the wall. It isn't the time they usually bring you dinner.
“Delivery!” A nurse enthusiastically calls out. You sit up, curious.
In her hands is another ‘get well’ basket, only instead of the sweets in the one you received from your colleagues, this one seems to have some over-the-counter medicine along with some other basic medical supplies, and what looks like a bag of takeout. Taking a closer look at the bag you realize it’s from a restaurant near the U.A. campus; a popular hang-out spot for students, especially after the move into the dorms.
“Who’s that from?” You ask, reaching out to grab it. The nurse shrugged.
“I’m not sure, it was dropped off at the front desk. Receptionist said it was a couple of U.A. boys. Maybe some classmates?”
You try to think of who it might be, but a single name can’t come to mind. You aren’t close with any of your classmates, even considering the one who grabbed your stuff only an acquaintance. Not that you particularly dislike any of them. It’s just that most have that ‘business student attending a prestigious school’ vibe.
“Well, whoever put this together definitely put some thought into it. Maybe they’ll come back.” The nurse sees your bewildered expression. She reminds you how much time there is until your next dosage of medication, then walks out and gently shuts the door behind her.
Despite how confused you are, the takeout has you feeling more upbeat than you’ve been in days. If you’re honest, any other non-hospital food would’ve brought out the same reaction.
You look inside the bag to see a little card on top of the containers. It’s plain white, ‘Get Well Soon’ printed on the front. In your hand, it’s a little warm from the food. On the other side of it is a brief handwritten note.
‘Hi there! I’m not sure if you remember, but we’re the ones who found you after the building collapsed. We’re relieved to hear that you’re doing okay! Always glad to help fellow U.A. student!’
Under the message are three signatures: Midoriya Izuku, Bakugou Katsuki, and Todoroki Shouto. Going by handwriting, Midoriya was the one who wrote the message. You sort of remember them.
You smile to yourself as you place the card on the bedside table. No longer able to resist the smell, you dig into the takeout bag. What they got were safe choices, in other words kinda plain and not what you would’ve picked, but after days of hospital food, you’re about ready to cry from the flavor.
After you're finished, full and satisfied, you go to toss the bag away when you see a thin white sheet of paper. A receipt from the restaurant. Bakugou was apparently the one who bought it.
He must’ve ordered it from his phone, then gone to pick it up, going by a cell phone number listed. Would it be an invasion of privacy to call or text to thank him?
You decide to sit on it. Looking through the rest of the basket, you find over-the-counter pain relievers, an electric heating pad, some ointments, and some other minor things.
You’re flattered, to say the least.
This sways your decision to reach out, grabbing your phone and the receipt.
‘Hi, this is the student from the hospital. Thank you all so much for saving me and buying me stuff! Food was good.’
You’re not sure exactly what to type, so you decide on something short. Almost immediately after setting your phone in your lap, it pings to let you know you got a response.
‘You better be grateful.’
Huh, not what you were expecting.
‘I really am! The supplies are definitely going to make the next week I’m stuck here more bearable. Tell your friends I said thanks!’
‘Those two dumbasses aren’t my friends’
Ok, you’re getting a better idea of who this kid is. Now that you think about it, wasn’t he the one who had to be muzzled at the sports festival? You’re kinda surprised they let him into the hero course.
Not sure what to say to that, you set your phone down and go back to digging through the basket. All the while, a warm feeling in your chest.
It’s a couple of days later, and you’re still holding onto the feeling that popped up knowing those boys thought of you. Truthfully you expect nothing else. What they’ve done for you is more than enough. So it’s definitely a surprise when a nurse slides into your room saying that you have a visitor; a U.A. boy named Midoriya.
You tell her to send him in. Quickly, after she leaves the room, you sit up and brush your hair down. It’s the first time you’ve seen anyone but a nurse in a week, and you’ll admit you haven’t been putting as much thought into your appearance since you got here.
“Um, hello. Is this the right room?” The green-haired boy, who you now know is Midoriya Izuku, nervously steps into the room.
“Y-yeah, it is.” You mentally groan at your awkward response, but he doesn’t seem to mind it.
“It’s great to properly meet you! I’m Midoriya Izuku,” he says with a genuine smile on his face. He holds up another takeout bag in his hand.
“Kacchan, er-Bakugou said you liked the food he picked up last time, so I grabbed you some more.”
“You really didn’t have to, but thank you so much!” You properly introduce yourself, returning his enthusiasm, and gesture to a seat on the side of your bed.
“Since you’re here, let me pay you back at least.” You reach over the other side of your bed to grab your backpack on the floor.
“No, no you really don’t have to!” He shoots his hands up and rapidly shakes his head.
“If you’re sure…” you trail off. You sit back up quicker than you should’ve and feel a slight pain in your ribs. It must show on your face because Midoriya leans closer and looks you over.
“All you alright? Should I call a nurse?” You hurriedly tell him no, that you just moved too fast.
“Still not used to being so fragile,” you painfully chuckle and wave a hand at your leg.
He focuses on your leg, brows furrowing and seeming to be lost in thought. You feel your cheeks warm at the attention, and you ask the first thing that pops into your head to distract him.
“Do you wanna sign it?”
“Huh?” He turns to you with wide eyes.
“Well, you did save me after all. It’d be kinda cool having the autograph of a future pro hero. You can consider me one of your first fans.” Saying this makes him light up.
You grab a marker from your bedside table left by one of the nurses and hand it to him. He stutters out a ‘thank you’ and signs his hero name in neat characters in the space just over your knee.
“Deku, huh? I’ll be sure to remember it.”
After that conversation comes more easily. Both you and him seem more easygoing than when he first arrived. You chat about school, your respective courses, who you’re working under, and even more. Soon a nurse sticks her head in to announce that visiting hours are ending soon.
“Again, thank you for stopping by. Talking with you has been the most fun I’ve had in a while.” Your gratitude makes him blush as he bashfully scratches the back of his neck.
“Really, it’s no trouble at all. I’ve been thinking about you a lot since the incident. You seemed pretty frightened, so I wanted to check up on you.” Now it��s your turn for your face to warm up. You smile at each other.
“Would you mind if I came to visit you again?” He asks as he stands from his seat.
“Of course not, just no more buying me anything. Here,” you grab a napkin from the takeout bag, still sitting unopened, and scribble down your number. He takes it with a smile, and then soon enough he’s out the door.
Deku; you know for a fact that in ten years you’ll be hearing his name in the news all the time.
The next day rolls around and you’re in a way better mood than previously. Midoriya had texted wondering how you were, and you even made plans for him to visit later in the week. The uptick in your mood must’ve been obvious, as even the nurses were commenting on it. They were happy to see you so happy.
After your recent checkup, the doctor said that your concussion was healing nicely enough for you to watch some TV, but to turn it off the second your head starts to ache.
That’s where you are right now, getting caught up on the dramas you missed. In fact, you’re so into it that you don’t notice the loud footsteps stomping down the hallway.
You’re leaning in, anticipating the moment the lead confesses her love when your door blows open like an explosion took place in the hallway.
You jump away, watching as a spiky-haired blond boy walks in without saying anything. Again, in a U.A. uniform. It doesn’t take much thinking for you to piece together that this is Bakugou Katsuki.
“What?” He spits out when he sees you staring.
“Uh, what do you mean ‘what’? This is my room,” you point from yourself to the door. He looks at you like you’re an idiot.
“I know that, dumbass. I’m here to give you this.” He stomps up and thrusts a piece of paper at you.
You cautiously glance at him as you take it. You continue to look at him with it in your hand.
“Read it,” he grunts out, moving to the chair next to your bed.
You shrug at him then look at it. It’s a letter from Principal Nezu confirming that due to being injured from no fault of your own, you won’t need to make up for your missed time on your work study nor will you have any extra assignments. There’s even a note at the bottom from Best Jeanist, saying that what happened was tragic and that you’re welcome back to his agency the next time work studies roll around.
You’re touched, and it must show on your face as you hear a scoff from the boy next to you. You’ll be honest, you forgot he was there. Something else you forget was the harsh movements you made when he barged in. A dull pain sets in your leg, and you squirm around to try and get more comfortable.
“What happened?” He’s quieter now, though his words still have a bite to them.
“I just moved too harshly. I’m fine,” you say, and he gives a huff. Things taper off after that. You’re not exactly sure why he stayed past giving you the note.
“Thank you for the other day. You were one of the heroes that saved me from the rubble, right?”
“Damn right, I blew it away. Neither of the other two did jack,” he smirks, pride in his voice.
“Yeah? Well, thanks for the food too. I really like that place.”
“Hospital food tastes like shit. It’ll probably make ya even worse,” he looks away when he replies.
He takes a glance at your cast, more specifically the name on it.
“Deku…” He looks pissed off.
“You want to sign it too? You’re also one of my heroes,” you say as you grab the marker and hold it out to him.
Bakugou looks startled by your offer, but only for a moment. He roughly grabs that tool from you and gets to work. He signs his hero name in big, scratchy characters right above Midoriya’s. With an upward twitch of his lips, he caps the marker and throws it back onto the table.
“Great Explosion Murder God Dynamite…” You’re not sure if you were just pranked. Seeing the disbelief on your face as you look back at him, he scowls.
“Better remember it,” he’s serious. Not wanting to piss him off even more, you move on to flattery.
“Don’t think I could. Look forward to seeing it up on the charts!” This pleases him, you think. You’re sincere when you say it.
You make small talk for the rest of his time there. It’s mostly you egging him on. You talked about class, how he’s at the top of his both in academics and strength (you have no way of knowing if that’s true), and how he interned under Best Jeanist earlier in the year, that’s why he was the one to get the note.
Eventually, a text pops up on his phone and he glances at it, scowling once he sees who it is.
“Damn hag,” he mutters as he slings his bag over his shoulder and stands.
“Don’t die,” he’s blunt as he turns back at you in the doorway.
“Not planning on it,” you reply, giving him a little wave. He stomps back out the door, slamming it shut of course. It sounds like he pauses outside, then you can hear his footsteps move down the hall back to the elevators.
He sure has a strong presence, and you know how far that’ll take him in this industry.
Suddenly it’s a few days later, the day you planned for Midoriya to visit. You were excited, and a bit jumpy. Even with a preset time you found yourself hopping up everytime the door opened, only to be disappointed once it’s just a nurse.
You found yourself wanting to impress him, or at least not look like you’ve been stuck in the hospital for weeks. A nurse assisted you in taking a bath, and you put on a sweater over the top of your hospital gown. You’re afraid there’s no hiding how dead your skin looks with the lack of direct sunlight.
The time ticks on. You set your eyes to the clock set high in the corner of the room and watch as the hour and minute hands place themselves where they need to be, then past.
At first you can excuse it, his train probably got delayed or there was an emergency. You really didn’t want to blame him for it. He was a hero in training, after all, he probably didn’t have time to spend with a kid in the hospital.
There’s a lock at the door. You twist around, hope being brought back.
“Come in!” You try to play it cool and keep the excitement out of your voice.
There’s a pause on the other side. The door slowly opens to show not who you were expecting. It’s a boy with two-toned hair, and two different colored eyes. This is Todoroki Shouto if you remember correctly.
“Midoriya’s in the bathroom,” he stated as he stood in the doorway. You light up and smile at him, overjoyed to hear that he hasn’t ditched you.
“Thanks for letting me know. You can sit down, if you want,” you wave a hand to the chair at your bedside.
He nods, then moves to sit. As he does, he seems to realize something and briefly introduces himself. You do the same.
You had your fair share of awkward moments when Midoriya and Bakugou first came to visit, but they both did their part in providing small talk. This boy, on the other hand, is content with being quiet. You’re more intimidated by him than you were with Bakugou.
As you try and think of something to say, you hear a murmur.
“That’s what he picked?” You glance over to see he’s staring at your leg, where his teammates have written their hero names.
“Yeah, Bakugou’s sure is… something. It does fit him, though.” He agrees with that, not saying anything else. You decide to hurry things along and grab your trusty marker, pointing it at him between your fingers. He looks at you blankly.
“Go on, the other two did. You were also there to help me. Thank you for that, by the way,” you give him a smile as you shake your hand lightly.
“I’m a hero, it’s my job. You don’t have to thank me.” He takes the marker anyway. Under your knee, he writes his name in small, neat characters. When he’s finished he caps the pen and sets it back on the table.
“Shouto? Staying true to yourself, nice.” He gives you a barely there smile, and is about to say something when the door rushes open.
“I’m so sorry I’m late! Todoroki wanted to come with when I said I was visiting,” Midoriya slightly bows as he apologizes.
“It’s fine. I have nothing else to do other than wait.” You wave him off.
Looking around, you realize the only place to sit in the room is being taken up by Todoroki. You could call a nurse, but you’d feel bad making them leave their station just for a chair. Moving your good leg more towards you, you pat at the empty space. He looks unsure of it, but you pat it harder to get the point across that it’s fine. Hesitatingly he sits on the edge of the bed, being very conscious of your cast.
You all get to talking a bit more, mostly you and Midoriya, but sometimes Todoroki’s dragged in by one of you, but he doesn’t seem to mind it.
As they’re getting ready to leave you call out to them.
“I know I probably said it a thousand times, but really thank you guys. If it wasn’t for you I’d be in even worse shape, or maybe dead,” you blink away tears in your eyes as you tell them. They both freeze at your expression.
Todoroki doesn’t seem like he knows what to do, but Midoriya gently places a hand on your shoulder. You place a hand over his.
“You guys are already amazing heroes.” They both are happy to hear that.
“Thank you, that means a lot to hear,” Midoriya sounds genuine, the light in his eyes warms your chest.
“So, see you later?” You let go of his hand, and he backs up to where Todoroki is by the door.
“Of course, I’ll text you when I have a free day.”
“Is it alright if I visit again?” The quiet boy speaks up. You’re surprised, but glad he seemed to have a nice time.
“Definitely, you guys are the only people I see outside of the nurses. It keeps me from going crazy.” They have a strange look flash across their faces, but quickly go back to normal and make to leave when a nurse walks in with some of your medication.
You don’t know if you can consider them friends yet, but you have a feeling these boys will stick around.
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illuminatedquill · 2 months
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Short Story Summary: Hera Syndulla arrives at Sabine and Ezra's comm tower to drop off the first print editions of their personal trading cards.
*For @alphaofdarkness and @jedi-nurse who inspired this with their conversations on the Discord server. Hope you like it.
Lothal, Early Morning - Sabine and Ezra's Comm Tower
The characteristic soft chime that played whenever someone was waiting below in the comm tower's courtyard alerted Ezra to their guest's presence. Setting down the data-pad he had been browsing through for the Holo-Net's daily news, he stood and walked over to a nearby monitor at the security station that had been recently installed by Sabine as a precaution.
After all, the last time a guest had arrived she had ended up with a lightsaber stabbed through her abdomen. It was not an experience she wished to repeat again.
Shooing a curious Murley off the console, he pushed a button. The monitor's screen lit up, showing the crisp image of the tower's courtyard - and the familiar face of their guest.
Smiling, he spoke into the intercom. "Hello, Hera."
The green-skinned Twi'lek smiled back and waved at the camera. Seeing her face, practically the same since he had first seen it over a decade ago, always filled Ezra with a sense of warmth and comfort. Hera had been a steady friend, mentor, and surrogate mother to him during the hectic early days of the Rebellion. She was the eternal bedrock of the Spectres, the foundation from which all of them had built their new lives upon.
He noted the casual outfit she wore today: not her usual flight uniform, but a fashionable beige sport jacket, dark brown tunic, slim, high waisted pants, complete with comfortable walking boots. Grasped in her hands was a slim, non-descript wooden case.
"Retirement looks good on you, General," he remarked.
Hera snorted. "Semi-retirement. I was practically forced into it by Leia. She was very insistent."
"It's well-deserved," he replied. "And long overdue."
"And boring," she retorted. "I need structure, Ezra. A mission."
He laughed. "So, you're hiring yourself out as a delivery service now?"
She scowled at him. "Gotta do something. I'm still helping people, at least."
"And not getting shot at or participating in dog fights with pirates is presumably a benefit, as well," Ezra added.
"Eh," she said, waving a careless hand. "I kind of miss it, sometimes."
Hera peered up at the camera. "Are you going to let me up or we just going to chit-chat like this all day? I've got other places to be, you know."
Ezra grinned and let her in.
The slim wooden case lay open on the worktable, revealing the contents within. Ezra peered over it, taking in the sight of what Hera had brought.
She sipped at a caf, a special blend of Hera's favorite flavors. "Thanks for this," she said gratefully.
"Of course," Ezra responded. He picked up one of the items within the wooden case and observed it more closely: a trading card, thin and metallic. With a sense of bemusement, he inspected the image of himself on it, conforming to what he had perceived at the time of the photoshoot to be a "heroic" pose: his lightsaber activated and held in a basic guard position.
There was at least a dozen more of these contained within the wooden case.
"Where's Sabine?" Hera asked.
Ezra nodded towards the section of the comm tower's interior, where the master bedroom was located. "Sleeping in. She just returned from Mandalore late last night."
"Busy days for her, huh," Hera said.
Ezra shrugged, still eyeing the trading card in his hand. "Bo needs her to keep the clans in line."
He shook his head. "I can't believe these are actually real. A Jedi on a trading card."
"Hey, don't knock it," Hera said. "Skywalker's got a bunch, too."
Ezra's eyes widened. "Luke? How did the New Republic convince him to do this?"
"Same way we did with you. He had similar concerns: that Jedi shouldn't be involved in this sort of publicity, even with benevolent intentions," Hera explained. She paused to take a brief sip of her caf before continuing. "To counter this, the government pitched that it was for historical purposes. It was a good way to get the young ones across the galaxy up to date with knowledge of galactic affairs and the people who shaped them."
He blinked, remembering the exact same explanation being given to him. "It's a little scary that they found a way to trick Jedi into this."
Hera shrugged. "You're both history nerds. And there's no harm in giving the kids heroes to root for. I think you both appreciate that fact."
Ezra studied the cards some more, smiling a little. Living as an orphan on the streets of Imperial controlled Lothal, he would have given anything to have a fun side hobby like that.
"Leia, her husband Han, Skywalker, and Lando all have their own trading cards, too," Hera commented. She reached down and plucked a card from within the wooden case. "Everyone in the Ghost crew, also. Me, Zeb, Kanan - even Chopper."
Ezra snorted. He glanced over at the trading card Hera was holding, this one featuring Sabine. She was wearing one of her go-to civilian outfits, her head encased in a speeder-bike helmet. The characteristic Sabine Wren smirk was also in vivid display, along with one other feature that immediately caught his attention.
He frowned. "That can't be recent," he said. "When did she grow out her hair?"
Hera turned to him, surprised. "Right," she said. "You weren't here to see that."
She offered him the trading card. Ezra took it, gazing softly down at the image of his wife.
"She's beautiful," was all he could say. He had only ever seen Sabine with short hair, a necessity with her Mandalorian helmet. Even when she had come to rescue him on Peridea, Sabine had worn a short pixie-style cut. Ezra had assumed that had been her style the entire time he had been gone.
The deep purple he remembered from Peridea was present, but it blended beautifully with the longer locks of burning red. It reminded him of the gouts of flame bursting forth he had seen in paintings of dying stars; the effect of her dye colors presented the look of pure starfire flowing down her shoulders.
"Yeah, Sabine had these done a while ago," Hera confirmed.
"But they're just being released now?" Ezra asked. "Why?"
She sighed. "It took quite a bit of convincing for Sabine to acquiesce to this decision. You know how she is with public facing stuff like this."
Ezra winced, imagining the conversations between Sabine and the New Republic officials to be short and one-sided. Despite her brash exterior, he knew his wife to be an immensely private person, preferring to keep out of the public eye.
"I finally got her to agree, but Sabine would only do it on two conditions: first, that she would have a say in how the cards were designed. If her face was going to be on them, she wanted to ensure that the cards were artistically up to her standards."
Ezra smiled slightly. Sounds like her, he thought. Art was Sabine's first love, before she met him. She would want to make sure that the artwork showcased on the trading cards was befitting of the heroes they featured.
"What was the second condition?" he asked.
Hera cocked her head at him, her eyes suddenly wistful. "That her trading cards would only be sold as a set, not to be separated for any reason."
Ezra's brow furrowed. "She wanted her card to be permanently paired up with another?"
"Yes, Ezra," said Hera quietly. "Yours."
His eyes widened at the revelation.
"That's why hers are only being released now," continued Hera. "She was waiting for you."
Ezra was silent, looking over the cards: his and Sabine's, paired together.
Not to be separated for any reason.
He coughed, trying to clear the sudden lump in his throat. Hera clapped him on the shoulder.
"I think they look better together," she observed wryly. "Don't you?"
Ezra smiled; his eyes were moist with emotion. "Yeah," he agreed. "They do."
Sabine wandered out of the bedroom a little after mid-day. Her hair was sticking up on one end; eyes still bleary from the long sleep, she shuffled over to the couch and sat down next to Ezra.
"Had a good sleep?" he asked her.
She laid her head onto his shoulder. "Mmmmm. First soft bed in weeks. Heavenly isn't strong enough to describe it."
He kissed her head softly. "Is Mandalore still doing alright? No one's gunning for another civil war? "
"Yeah, clan meeting went nice and smoothly," she replied drowsily. "Boring."
Ezra chuckled, strongly reminded of Hera's same response earlier this morning.
"Sounds like progress," he mused.
She shifted her head on his shoulder, moving into a more comfortable position. "Heard you talking with someone. Was it Hera?"
He nodded. Sabine grimaced. "You should have woken me up, goober."
"You were tired. Hera didn't mind. Said she'll call later, to catch up with you."
Sabine didn't argue back, which was an indication of just how exhausted she still was. "What did she want?"
Ezra produced from his pocket the trading cards. "She was dropping these off."
His wife sneaked a glance at them and let out a surprised breath. "Karabast," she muttered. "I forgot these were a thing."
"Freshly minted, first edition," he bragged. "Super rare and valuable, I'm told."
She snorted. "Whatever. We should sell them and buy tickets to a star cruise."
Setting the cards down on the worktable, Ezra grinned and hugged his wife close. "I'm also told," he said gently, "that ours are not to be sold separately."
Sabine went quiet.
He reached over and laced his hand in hers. "It's very thoughtful of you," he whispered. "Thank you."
She squeezed his hand back. "We're a package deal, Ezra. I don't want anyone separating us ever again. Even in something as silly as trading cards."
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snickerdoodlles · 5 months
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headcanons behind fic: brother texting habits referenced in long & short
Chay holds up his phone sheepishly. “Also, your brother texted me. We’re invited to dinner.” Kim’s smile drops. He doesn’t need to ask which brother. “Did he type that out, or just send an emoji with a question mark?”
ngl, had i realized how much i'd expand this series, this is actually a scene i'd cut or at least heavily rework. it's the weakest scene of the story and its execution has only felt more clunky as time passes. hindsight! that said, i don't regret the scene either because the headcanons behind the premise of that scene are very near and dear to my heart, namely the texting rituals of Khun, Kinn, and Kim :D
the boys have a system to their texting. it's not anything as concrete as a code, that'd be far too dangerous and anxiety inducing. their system, naturally, revolves primarily around giving hints to Korn's mood without outright saying anything:
firstly, all brother invites to things go through Khun, because Khun's invites will only ever be invites and Kim's 'no's will only ever be 'no's.
anytime Korn demands Khun or Kinn (usually Kinn) drag Kim to a family thing for him go through Kinn, and 'Kinn's requests are always phrased as a question Kim can refuse. Kim once tells Kinn he'll show up if Kinn orders him to (because he doesn't actually want to get Kinn into trouble if Korn's being esp insistent), and Kinn smiles and tells him "thank you" and never ever once orders Kim join them, because Kim asked not to be involved in the family business and Kinn will take on any burden to keep Kim free of it.
Kinn passes along how insistent Korn's being through the overall tone and vibe of his messages, usually indicated by how much of it he types out. requests Kim join official functions sound like a formal invitation printed on a card, requests Kim indulge Korn playing family are much closer to Kinn's standard texting style;
because, and this is a silly headcanon i will have forever, Kinn fucking loves emojis. you know his whole "this could've been an email" vibe when he shoots that guy in the head ep1? same vibes except much cuter. Kinn thinks emojis are adorable and efficiency perfected. why send "thank you" when the 👍 emoji is right there? a picture's worth a thousand words and 🫂 is a thousand warm ones. he could send "wanna check out that new coffee shop by the studio next tuesday for brunch? their menu is 60% sprinkles so i'm sure you'll love it" but ☕🧋🎙️❔👑2️⃣🗓️🕦🍬👉💕💕‼️ is so much quicker. the only reason why Kinn's texts aren't 87% cute stickers is because he hasn't yet realized they come preprogrammed in his phone.
("do you think he speaks in hieroglyphics because he's secretly ancient?" Kim asks one day.
"how old does it make you to understand him then?" Khun snarks back.)
((Kim leaves Khun on read for a week.))
some bonus thoughts: Khun's a spam texter of the highest order. every one text is sent across 3.5 texts minimum. Kinn only ever sends one (1) text. if Kinn's replying to multiple messages in one go, he separates his responses in indv bullet points (if he's feeling petty towards Khun, he responds to every one of Khun's messages individually).
(Kinn's multiple messages to Chay in long & short are absolutely because he's watching Kim's live. for all Kim's snooping, he has somehow missed that Kinn has every alert and then some set for Wik news and while he can't make every live, he plans his breaks around them and even moved a meeting once.)
also, while Kinn pretends he's threatening/blackmailing with these baby Kim pics, this is 100% him taking advantage of the situation to gush about cute baby brother with a fellow Kim AppreciatorTM. Kinn has the cutest little brother, and he's gotta keep up with news of baby brother's current shenanigans somehow 😤👏 Khun is guilty of similar crimes ofc.
(Kim suffers older brothers so much.)
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