#Gonna be posting some rougher works I have been practicing on over the week

[artbysupercres]

[montrealmadison]

keep me in mind

for @omgcpanniversaryweek day 5: updates/extras/arcs 

i was thinking about how much money i would personally pay ngozi to release any more information about what happened in madison and it made me want to post something i’ve been playing around with since i first read the comic! a love letter to sunshine boys, my home state of georgia, and jack “knock knock who’s there oh shit it’s my feelings” zimmermann.

this is inspired by all the writers who have tackled summer in madison (one of my favorite zimbits eras to read about in fic; it’s about the yearning!!!) and especially by @parvuls, whose fic right as things grow i reread about once a week.

They’re doing a cool eighty-five miles an hour down Interstate 20, which is a pretty inconvenient time for Jack to realize that he is just insanely turned on by watching Bitty drive.

He can’t quite pin down what’s driving him crazy. Maybe it’s the way Bitty’s hair catches the midmorning light and turns to gold. Maybe it’s the deep tan, the freckles that are sprinkled over the tops of his shoulders and the bridge of his nose. Maybe it’s the warmth Jack can feel radiating off his sun-heated skin, the muscles standing out in his forearms, the way the corner of his mouth turns up gently at Jack every time they make eye contact in the rearview mirror.

Or maybe it’s the way he sings with joyful abandon, voice soaring out the windows of his beat-up blue Chevy truck. Bitty’s always had a pleasant voice, strong and high and clear, that’s familiar to anyone who’s ever stepped foot in the Haus. Here, though, it’s a little rougher, a lot more country. He’s clearly in his element, keeping steady time with the palms of his hands on the truck’s steering wheel.

Speaking of Bitty’s hands, Jack can’t stop looking at them. They seem to be everywhere: turning the radio up, making sure Jack’s comfortable with the A/C, changing gears in a way that speaks to years of practice driving stick shifts. Jack, who’s never driven anything but an automatic, resolves to ask Bitty for a lesson sometime… just in case.

(It’s definitely not because he’s a little too interested in the way Bitty’s long, sure fingers flex against the gear shift. Or the way his thighs tense and then relax when he pops the clutch. Nope, definitely not.)

Georgia suits Bitty, Jack thinks to himself. He’s beyond beautiful here, lit up from the inside, like he’s captured a little of the blazing sunshine overhead to keep all for himself. The heat of the day has settled over the two of them, smothering Jack’s racing thoughts about all the ways today could potentially go wrong. He suddenly finds he can’t bring himself to worry much about anything when he’s got the chance to just sit back and observe Bitty on his home turf.

They don’t talk much for the first few miles out past the airport—mostly just You doin’ okay? and Yeah, I’m good, Bittle, and then a largely companionable silence. There’s definitely a sense that what lies unsaid between them might currently be too big for the cab of this truck, roomy though it might be, and Jack spends probably too long working through ways to organically bring up the topic. But as they leave 285 and the Atlanta skyline behind for the long, straight stretch of I-20 ahead of them, Bitty reaches over and casually covers one of Jack’s hands with his own.

“I’m real glad you’re here, Jack,” he says, soft, a little tentative. Even though Bitty’s got his eyes fixed on the road, Jack can tell there’s light in them; he thrills at the thought of maybe having put it there. “It means a lot to me that you came.”

Jack curls his fingers around Bitty’s, hoping to God that his palms aren’t too sweaty. He’s gratified when Bitty glances over and smiles at him. “Wouldn’t have missed it. I really wanted to see you. And your parents were so nice to invite me.”

Bitty laughs brightly. Joy, simple and uncomplicated, begins unspooling itself in Jack’s chest, where he’s kept it close to his heart through a whole summer of texting and calling and wanting. He can’t believe he gets to do this, gets to have this. He just has to be brave enough to try.

He looks at Bitty, at home here in the summer sun, and thinks that maybe, just maybe, he can be.

“Oh, honey,” Bitty is saying, oblivious to Jack’s thoughts, “I don’t know if nice sums it up. I thought my mama was gonna kill me if I didn’t make good on my promise and get you down here somehow. She’s been dyin’ to see you—not to mention cook for you—for weeks. Coach, too, I think, but at least he’s a little less threatening about it. Also, I’m thinkin’ we gotta try to get you sayin’ y’all by the end of this weekend, it’s so much more efficient—”

Jack could listen to Bitty talk all day. He likes the way his accent compresses some words but elongates the vowels, turning his sentences into an easy drawl. The accent’s pretty strong at Samwell, but here it almost sounds like he’s speaking a different language entirely.

He wants to feel Bitty’s lips forming those sounds against his own, wonders if it’ll feel as soft and comforting as it is to listen to. He’s so caught up in how attracted he is to the sound of that voice, in fact, that he almost doesn’t realize Bitty is still talking to him.

“...and then I told my Aunt Judy that that poor boy’s cornbread just ain’t quite done in the middle, bless him, and that he should just put those silly fears aside so he can come on over and meet you while you’re here because I really don’t think you’re as scary as you pretend to be, anyway, and—oh, Jack, I’m so sorry, I’m prattlin’ on and you haven’t even met none of these folks yet! Am I boring you?”

“No!” Jack says immediately, and maybe it’s a little blunt but he doesn’t know how to soften his next words so he just plows ahead. “I just, um. Uh. Was thinking about how I’d really like to kiss you right now.”

Bitty pauses—blinks—presses one freckled hand over his mouth—and then smiles impossibly wide, and, well, that’s about it for Jack’s heart. He thinks it shouldn’t be possible for the human body to contain so much joy, but both of them are sitting there and Bitty’s eyes are sparkling when they meet Jack’s in the rearview mirror and the happiness fizzing up through Jack’s ribcage simply can’t be stopped.

“That can probably be arranged, Mr. Zimmermann, if you can control yourself long enough for me to get off this highway.”

Jack, adrenaline thrilling in his chest, nevertheless makes a show of clasping his hands firmly in his lap.

“I’m on my best behavior, promise,” he says solemnly.

“You are the limit, Jack Laurent,” Bitty says, but he reaches over again and takes one of Jack’s hands and squeezes, hard. An acknowledgment, a promise, a choice. This is something. We have something precious here.

Jack squeezes back, looking out the window, trying to spot the exit sign that will get them off this highway and on to whatever else this weekend has in store.

[ladyreapermc]

Fic: Surprise Party (Chibs Telford x Reader)

Summary: A  party thrown at the clubhouse has more than a few surprises for you.

Pairing: Filip “Chibs” Telford x F!Reader

Wordcount: 1,5k

Warnings: Really cheesy fluff and my bad attempt of writing in Scottish accent. Apologies in advance.

You weren’t really expecting the party waiting for you when you got to the clubhouse. Then again, wasn’t that the point of a surprise party after all?

You had started your day not really expecting to have to use the brand-new license to practice law you got just last week. And for the most part, it had been a pretty uneventful occasion until right around the time you were about to clock out and Jax called.

There was urgency in his voice as he begged you to head to the sheriff’s station because Tig got into a fight with the owner of a dog fight rink and both men had been taken downtown. You didn’t doubt his story even for a second. Picking up your keys and bag and heading straight to the precinct.  

When you got there, Jax was already waiting outside with a very well composed Tig. Maybe that should have been your first clue that something was off because if he was already gonna post bail, why did he even call in the first place?

You didn’t have time to really consider it because Jax just loaded Tig into the passenger seat of your car and asked you to head to TM. 

You planned to just drop Tig off and head home. You had been working crazy hours, plus studying hard for the test and you were in serious need of some sleep.

“Come on, honey. Let me buy a beer to say thank you,” Tig asked once you pulled up into the lot of the auto shop.

“I didn’t even do anything,” you replied, but for a grown man, Tig’s puppy dog eyes were quite effective.

“One beer,” you sighed in defeat, turning off the engine. You stepped out of the car and followed Tig inside, nearly jumping out of your skin as everyone yelled surprise once the two of you walked into the clubhouse.

Everyone seemed to be there: Gemma, Tara, and her boys. Lyla, Nero, and the rest of the Sons, Chucky, and even some of your friends that didn’t really have anything to do with the MC but made an exception for today and stood awkwardly among the bikers.

Over the wall of mugshots there was a huge congratulations banner and bellow it a table with enough food to feed an army.

“Surprised?” Tig asked, an arm thrown over your shoulders. 

You just chuckled and nodded, still speechless as he pressed a kiss to your cheek and let you greet everyone else properly.

“Congratulations, darlin’,” Jax said pulling you into a warm hug. “Now it’s your job to make sure these mug shots don’t get updated.”

You laughed along with him before letting someone else drag you to the side for a hug and a toast and by the time you managed to reach Gemma, you already had two beers and three whiskey shots that people keep shoving in your hands as you passed them by, along with some food.

“Thanks for all of this,” you said, letting the matriarch of the MC pull you into a hug.

“You’re welcome, baby. It was well deserved,” she kissed your cheek. “But I can’t take all the credit. It was Chibs’ idea.”

You gave her a confused look once she let you go, which she replied with a knowing smirk as she gestured to a point behind you where the Scot was drinking alone by the bar, watching the proceedings.

It was because of Chibs that you met the MC in the first place. He had been in a bar just outside town when your stupid little brother decided it was a good idea to pick a fight while drunk with a few guys double his size. 

Chibs didn’t even know him but had his back, during the altercation and they all got arrested that night. When your brother called you to post his bail, he told you about the other man and you got him out too. After that, you ended up staying close to SAMCRO. 

You had no family besides your younger brother and Gemma took a liking to both of you, taking you under her wing. And since your brother started prospecting, you decided to help out in smaller legal issues when needed. Making sure everyone stayed out of jail.

For a badass gang of dangerous bikers, the Sons were a lot of fun. They took care of their own and for the first time since your parents passed away, you felt like you belonged somewhere. 

And if you favored the attention of one particular VP, with his deep brown eyes, smokey accent, and Glasgow smile, people didn’t seem to notice.

Or maybe they did, if Gemma was any indication, but didn’t comment on it.

You moved towards Chibs, offering him a wide smile, which he returned with one of his own. The sight of it made your heart race and your palms sweat and you tried to dry them as discreetly as possible in your jeans before taking a seat on the stool next to him.

“Congratulations, lass.” He raised his glass to you.

“Thank you and thanks for the party. Gemma said it was your idea.”

“Nah. Just said it would be a good idea,” he waved off your words, looking away from you for a moment and you wished his presence didn’t make you so tongue-tied. “Bu’ I got ye somethin’,” he said, setting his glass down once it was empty and gestured for you to follow him.

You had never been back here before but you knew the some of the guys had small apartments here for whenever they were too tired to go home after a job or too drunk after a celebration. 

Chibs led you to his, and if your heart was already racing before, now it felt like it was about to burst from your chest. The room was nothing special, just a bed pushed against the wall, a writing desk and chair, and a dresser. Too many pictures of almost naked women posing on Harleys, and a small cabinet with a few other essentials.

You stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, fidgeting with the hem of your jacket while Chibs dug something out of a drawer. It seemed to take forever until he finally turned around to face you and you didn’t think you ever saw him looking nervous, but he looked as bad as you felt.

“‘t’s nothing fancy or anythin’” he started, taking a step closer. “But I saw it and thought of ye. The lass in the shop said you can exchange it if ye dinna like it…”

He offered you a small gift-wrapped box in hand and you took it with shaky fingers and a trembling smile as you undid the bow on top and opened the lid.

You let out a small gasp at the sight that greeted you: a delicate golden necklace rested inside, the pendant a golden justice scale, and a small pink stone. It was gorgeous and so thoughtful and when you glanced up at Chibs again, he seemed to be looking at anything but you.

“It’s beautiful, Filip,” your voice was barely above a whisper and it might be the first time you ever used his given name, but it felt so right. “Thank you.”

“Ye’re welcome, love,” he breathed out, relieved, his smile a little more certain.

“Help me put it on?” You asked, taking the delicate chain out of the box and offering to him before turning around and pushing your hair away from your neck.

His scent surrounded you as Chibs stepped closer, bringing the necklace around your throat, his hands rough and warm, but so very gentle against your nape and goosebumps raised in your arms.

“There ye go,” he spoke once the clasp was closed and you turned around to face him, the pendant resting just below the hollow of your throat and his warm brown eyes lingered there for a few seconds.

“I really love it,” you whispered, touching the scale for a second before your hand moved to his chest, holding yourself steady as you raised to your tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his scarred cheek.

“Good,” Chibs spoke, his voice rougher, lower and you could feel the thundering of his heart against your hand and the hitch of his breath as you moved your lips closer to the corner of his mouth.

He turned his head slightly and his mouth was against yours, brushing so softly. It was a barely-there touch but it was enough to send sparks of excitement through your body and you couldn’t wait for it to be more.

Before it could, the door busted open making you both jump apart and look over startled. It was one of your friends and by the looks of it, she was completely wasted.

“Ops! Thought it was the restroom,” she slurred, her lips shifting into a smirk as she glanced between your and Chibs. “Carry on.”

She slipped out as fast as she stumbled in and just as unsteadily. A second later, you heard a crash and sighed regretfully.

“I better get out there and make sure she doesn’t cause some serious damage,” you said. “But to be continued?”

“Whenever ye want, love,” Chibs smiled at you. “Ye know where I’ll be.”

xxx

If you enjoyed this work, please consider reblogging and/or commenting please. Feedback gives life to us writers! 

[syms-things-5]

For The Hell Of It

A One-shot

Warnings: Language, NSFW 18+, like…literally nothing but sex. 

Characters: Chris Evans x You 

Summary: It’s been a rough few months for many reasons and deciding to end a long-term relationship was only the half of it. On the advice of your friend, you give in to having a no-strings sexual relationship with him. You deserve a break and to have some fun at least. Just for the hell of it. 

**

It was hard to hide the massive grin covering your face as you silently rode the elevator to the 42nd floor. There were two other people in the same lift as you, quietly going about their daily business, who didn’t need to be bothered by your incessant gurning and yet you reached a point where you just didn’t care.

Finally standing outside the door to the hotel suite he had booked, overnight bag in hand, your smile only gets bigger when you’re greeted by his ridiculous smug grin as he swung the door open.

“Are you kidding with this?!” you ask, flashing your mobile in his face. The picture he had posted a few hours earlier of his dog lying across his naked chest had been a deliberate attempt at getting your attention when you had previously turned down the night he had planned. You were slowly getting back into your work after what had proven to be the toughest few months of your life, and while Chris had made a good argument for why you should skip out early this Friday, you felt bad for the emails that had gone unanswered.

“I had to get your attention somehow.” He smiled back, evidently proud of himself. He took the bag from your hands and dropped it to his side, not taking his eyes from you. Taking a step forward, he embraced you in his strong arms, planting a chaste kiss on your lips, before dragging his mouth down the side of your neck. That move always drove you crazy and he knew it. 

“I have so much work to do,” you breathed. You wrapped your hands around his neck, holding him in place as he grazed his soft lips up from your shoulder, up your neck, across your jaw to finally meet your lips once again. His breath was hot and wet and you could feel that last bit of your resolve drifting away. “You’re not helping.” 

“I’m so sorry, gorgeous.” 

He wasn’t sorry at all. You knew he wasn’t sorry from the way his hands were moving ever so slowly yet purposefully down your sides. You knew he wasn’t sorry when you felt him grip your ass and pull you into him. You could feel how hard he had become and gave up thinking. Thinking was far too overrated at a time like this. 

Looking back at the past few months, you had come to trust each other as a sounding board for whatever was taking up your effort the rest of the time. You had spent many days and nights giving each other attention and finding new ways to excite yourselves. It was how you had come to find yourself flat out on the bed with him kissing and licking and touching you in your most sensitive areas. He always had a way to show you what you had been missing. 

Your breathing had evened out as he got into the flow of your movements. Your hands began moving down your body as he pulled your clit into his mouth and you felt his finger finally enter you. Your fingertips scratched lightly across his head tugging ever so slightly on his short hair and causing him to growl once or twice, adding to the sensation now tingling over your skin. The third time you pulled on him only encouraged him to add a second finger, increasing his pace and his moans, steadily flexing his fingers inside you until he found your sweetest spot. 

“Tell me how good that feels.” He whispered, his words ghosting over your mound as he continued to rhythmically move his fingers in, out, in and out, over and over again. You felt like you had lost your ability to speak and could only manage a breathy moan, a sound he loved to hear from you. 

“Oh fuck, I missed you…” he gave you an out by answering for you. “I miss this.” 

His arms tightened around the top of your thighs and you felt his finger press on your clit before rubbing in gentle motions. His tongue parted your lips and switch between tender and rougher touches proved to be your undoing. 

“You gonna come for me?” 

It was all you could do not to scream at that exact moment as waves of pleasure coursed through your veins, your skin burning up. “Ohhh God, Chris you have to…” and you were gone. Seeing stars. 

Shaking from ecstasy when Chris moved over to rest on top of you, his hardness resting comfortably between your legs. His slightest movements caused tickled you and you flinched as he smoothed his hand over your face to move your hair away. You eventually found his lips again after managing to open your eyes. Kissing for minutes with your lips and tongue dancing with his was fast becoming one of your favourite things to do and continued as you moved your hand down his side to make a move for his erection. He felt so solid and strong in your hands and he smiled in your kiss as he relaxed on top you, enjoying the way you were stroking him. 

When he was at his most distracted, you managed to manoeuvre yourself so you were sat on top of him, his cock ready and waiting. He may have protested for a second but you knew he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

He moans in pleasure as you work him a little more, teasing him as he did the same to you before. His fingers weave themselves through yours, and you lower yourself down on to him. He holds you firmly in place for a second while you get used to the slight stretch. Not that you plan on going anywhere, anytime soon. 

You move up and down lovingly at first, slowly rocking back a little when you hit his base. You feel his cock twitch and thicken, and the blissed out look on his face belies the excitement he’s feeling inside at finally getting you where he wants you. You can practically feel his heart beat faster and you move a little faster as you await the prize. 

Lifting your arms up, you smooth your hair into a ponytail as you take him in all the way. It’s getting harder for him to look away and his hands smooth gently over the skin of your tummy and up towards your breasts. Using your fingertips to lightly graze down the length of your neck and further down to your collarbone to meet his hands, you let out a moan as you watch him through narrowed eyes, hazed over with desire. You see him swallow hard as your hands move down to your breasts, holding his hands in place. 

“Fuck me harder…” he managed to verbalise his feelings as he watches you.

Grabbing your hips, he pulls you down onto him and he meets you with harder, harsher thrusts. Your sounds of pleasure mix with his as he uses his grip on your hips to thrust into you, setting the pace he desires. You begin to rock your hips to the rhythm, sighing in satisfaction as your body tingles all over from the feel of his cock inside you, the pain of the past few weeks ebbing away if only for a few minutes. 

You ride him so hard, that the bed starts to move, the headboard slamming against the wall. He continues to egg you on and grunts with pleasure as you grind down on him. As he moves his hips, he grabs you and pulls you down, latching his lips onto yours for a wet, hot kiss. You whimper softly into his mouth, as he drives himself into you with long strokes. His hands grab your ass and keep you moving faster on top of him. He’s ready and you’re unable to control yourself any longer as you feel another orgasm coming up inside you. 

He breaks the kiss, leaving you breathless. He gazes at you, glazed over with passion and desire as he recognises your tell that you are approaching your peak. He continues to work it and you moan in appreciation, losing yourself in the moment. With each thrust, you gasp as you feel him hit your deep spots, climbing higher and higher, and your eyes flutter shut as you feel your body start to tense. A building feeling in your abdomen starts to escalate with each move, each stroke that he gives you. 

After a moment, you finally catch his gaze in time to see him close his eyes and silently come. He holds his breath for a moment until you see a smile cover his beautiful features. He pulls you down again and latches his mouth to yours to taste your sweetness before turning your body until you are lying on top of his chest trying to catch your breaths. 

“That’s gotta be better than working, right?” 

You giggle into his chest. “You certainly have your moments.” 

“So, you’re gonna stay tonight?” he asked, quietly this time, unsure of what your answer would be. 

“S’ppose it would be rude not to.” 

*

[laws-yellow-submarine]

Together With Fruit Ch. 9 (Snippet)

Omgomgomg I actually finished something omg

Obviously this is not the full chapter, but it’s a pretty major chunk of it, and because I’m just so proud of myself and happy that I actually got something I set out to write forever ago FINISHED, I am posting this snippet here as a one-shot (it’s...more than a snippet really, it’s like 4000+ words, and it’s mostly unedited so...ye’ve been warned lol)

Word Count: 4199 (yikes)

Enjoy! Hopefully I’ll have the rest of the chapter finished within the next week or so!

“We’re finally nearing the Grand Line…” Nami muttered, pointing at a spot on the map. “It looks like the only way into it is through Reverse Mountain here.”

“Reverse Mountain?” Hazel murmured, peering over the girl’s shoulder at the point where the seas intersect.

“What a pain. Can’t we just sail straight through it?” Zoro groaned, glaring from where he sat leaning against the rail. Sanji shook his head.

“Nope, from what the geezer told me, that’s the only way boats can enter.”

“How come?” Usopp asked.

“Cause it’s supposedly dangerous.”

“But how come?!”

“I don’t know any more than that!” Sanji yelled, glaring at the sniper. 

“Boys, please…” Hazel scolded, trying to stop any fights before they could occur.

“The reason for that is-”

“Alright! I got it!” Luffy interrupted Nami, pointing at the map. “Then let’s head straight into it!”

“Are you even paying attention?!”

“But it sounds fun!” Luffy insisted, grin never wavering. “Plus it’d feel way better going straight into it!”

“Fun or not, I’d like to actually make it to the Grand Line before we die,” Hazel told him, side-eyeing her brother’s enthusiasm. Nami shared the sentiment.

“Talking to you makes me feel like I’m gonna go crazy…” the navigator whined, palm to her forehead in exasperation. Luffy soldiered on, ignoring the women’s concerns.

“Anyways, let’s stop at an island first and get meat! Meat! Meat!” Nami reached a finger out to point at a spot on the map, and Luffy and Hazel both peered closer at the paper.

“There’s a famous city on this island...Loguetown.”

“Loguetown?” Luffy asked, puzzled look on his face as he tried to think. “What? Is it famous for its meat?”

“Also known as the city of the beginning and the end…” Zoro chimed in, thoughtful look on his face. “I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that before.”

“It’s where Gold Roger, the former Pirate King, was born,” Hazel supplied, appearing somber, “and where he was executed.”

“The town where the King of the Pirates died...” Even Luffy’s voice was tame, contemplation clear in his eyes. Nami swung her gaze to meet his, sly smile finding its way across her cheeks.

“Wanna go?”

“Yeah! I wanna see it!” As he spoke, his voice grew more excited, though it never lost its reverence. “I wanna see the town where the man who got the One Piece - everything this world has to offer - was born and then died!” Luffy stood up, grin fixed firmly back in place. “Nami! Set sail for Loguetown!”

As the crew scrambled to set their course, Hazel smiled at her brother’s excitement, though she didn’t share the enthusiasm. She didn’t really harbor any opinions on the former Pirate King, good or bad; there just wasn’t enough information available on who the man truly was. She had asked her grandfather once, considering what she knew about his connection to Ace, but after hours of pestering the only thing he’d told her was “don’t believe everything you hear”. Other than that cryptic statement, she knew about as much as anyone else: he was born in Loguetown, he circumnavigated the entire world, then turned himself in (to her grandfather, no less), and was executed in his hometown. For someone who was so famous, you’d think there’d be more to know about him.

Hazel looked down at the notebook in her hand, blank since Shells Town except for the notes she’d taken. She wasn’t going to let Luffy fall into that same level of anonymity. Sure, the boy couldn’t care less about the fame; his views on being the Pirate King weren’t shared by most other pirates, though she found his ideals to be more admirable. What she really didn’t want to happen, though, was for her baby brother’s name to be smeared by the media, with nothing to counteract it.

Which meant she had a lot of work to do.

“Well, before we get to Loguetown, I have to get to work. Which means I’m shutting myself in my room until I’ve finished writing about our adventure so far!” Hazel stated for all to hear. She ignored the odd looks sent her way. “So no one bug me, ok?” When she’d received satisfactory nods, Hazel made her way to the girls’ room, shut the door, and plopped herself down at the writing desk. She ripped out her pages of notes so she could refer to them easily as she wrote, then opened to a blank page, her pencil hovering above the paper.

An hour later and the page was still blank.

Hazel’s pencil had moved, at least. It’d been set on the desk, balanced on her nose (a failure on her part, but no one could see it so she wasn’t too pressed), twirled between her fingers, tucked behind her ear as she stretched in her chair (and changed position at least three times; currently she had her feet on the back of the chair with her head leaning on the desk). She’d doodled little pictures on her note pages; tiny flowers and crude renditions of her crewmates (note to self: hide these so Nami doesn’t see). There’s a reason she hadn’t decided to illustrate this book.

Another hour later and her legs hurt from how much she’d been bouncing them. The page remained blank, her mind void of ideas, and her eyes were fixed on the picture frame hanging on the far wall. Maybe some food would help? She didn’t think she ate much at breakfast…

As Hazel made her way on deck, she couldn’t help but smile at the sight that greeted her. Nami was lounging in the sun on the top deck, being served some fancy drink from their newest member. Zoro was, surprise, napping beneath the mast, his swords propped in his lap. Luffy sat on the other side of the ship, watching Usopp practice with his slingshot. Oh, that could be fun!

“Whatcha guys doin’?” Hazel asked, sneaking up behind the sniper, causing Luffy to laugh at the boy’s frightful shriek. “Oops! Sorry, Usopp!” He just glared at her in return.

“Usopp’s practicing his slingshot! See? We set up some targets against the other side of the deck, he’s really good!”

“Well, you see Luffy, I’ve been using a slingshot for at least 25 years,” Usopp boasted, ignoring the fact that he was only 17. “Which of course makes me an expert sniper!”

“25 years, huh?” Hazel snarked. “Well, mister “expert”, whaddaya say to a little contest? The closer to a bullseye gets you more points. Whoever gets the most points wins.”

“Uhh, ok, Hazel. But where are you gonna get a slingshot?” Hazel just pointed to Luffy. Specifically his arms. “Hey, now, wait a minute! You can’t use him!”

“Why not?” Hazel and Luffy asked, both with blank looks on their faces. The sniper spluttered.

“Because-! He’s not-! And you-!”

“Ok, look - we’re not going for power here, just accuracy, so it’ll still be a fair contest. And we’ll use the same ammo, ok?” She left no room for him to argue back, immediately grabbing one of the pellets from his hand and positioning her brother. Usopp rolled his eyes behind her, but sidled up next to the two, aiming his own slingshot at the first target.

“Ready...aim...fire!” Usopp let the pellet fly, smacking the target right in the center.

“Hey, nice job Usopp! But I’m gonna tie it up right here!” Hazel ribbed, tying Luffy’s fingers together to form a sling. She pulled them back, tongue poking out between her teeth as she aimed carefully. When she felt confident in her position she nodded, waiting for Usopp to give the signal, and then let go.

The target shattered to pieces.

“Oh fuck-!”

“WHAT ARE YOU THREE DOING?!” Nami’s shrill voice called, causing all three to wince.

“Luffy did it!” Hazel immediately yelled while Usopp checked the ship for damage.

“No I didn’t!”

“Now, Luffy, you know you shouldn’t lie.”

“I’m not-!”

“ENOUGH!” Nami yelled again, interrupting the siblings. “I don’t care who did it, you’re just lucky the ship didn’t get damaged! You and you-” she pointed to Usopp and Luffy “-clean this up! And you!” Nami pointed at Hazel, making the older woman feel suddenly small. “You’re supposed to be writing right now! Not breaking things!”

“Well...you see...the thing is…” Hazel trailed off as Nami continued to glare at her. Huh. She didn’t like being on the receiving end of this. “I was hungry…?”

“Then ask Sanji-kun for a snack and get back to work. You told us not to bother you and we’re listening, take advantage of that!” At Hazel’s huff Nami smiled. “If you’d like, you can sit in the tangerine grove. I find it very relaxing when I need to focus.”

“Hmm...a change of scenery may be helpful. Thanks, Nami,” Hazel smiled, rolling her neck. “I better go bug Sanji.” But Nami held up a hand to stop her.

“Nope! You go sit, I’ll get it. I don’t want you to get distracted again.” The orange-haired girl walked away without another word, and Hazel was forced at that point to just listen to her. She made her way to the upper deck, finding a nice spot under the trees to nestle in. She reopened her notebook to the still blank page, and tapped her pencil against her chin as she tried to focus. The breeze up here was nice, as well as the sounds of her crewmates (Luffy and Usopp had made a game out of cleaning up her mess). The smell of tangerines wafted over her, muddying her senses. One of her curls was tickling her forehead.

She’d made zero headway by the time Sanji appeared with a snack. 

“Hazel-chwan!~ I’ve brought you a plate of delicious sandwiches, and a fresh glass of cabernet sauvignon,” the man said, brandishing a platter on one hand and a glass of deep red liquid in the other. She looked to the glass curiously. Despite having practically lived in a bar half her life, she’d never actually tried wine. Her alcohol tended to be of a rougher variety.

“Oh, yeah, alcohol. That’ll help,” Hazel muttered, hoping Sanji didn’t think her rude. For all she knew, it would get the creative juices flowing, so to speak. “Thank you, Sanji.” She smiled at the cook, his feet practically floating off the ground in happiness. He turned to leave her, and Hazel tentatively took a sip of the wine...only to immediately cringe when the bitter liquid hit her tongue. She glanced around in panic, hoping the blond didn’t see, and snuck the glass behind her back, hidden under the trees. “Ooh! Sanji, wait up!” she called, wine forgotten as she grabbed her plate and ran after him.

“Yes, my love?” Sanji asked, twirling around to gaze at her through heart-shaped eyes.

“I just realized that I never asked about what happened at the Baratie! After we left?” The cook’s expression had switched to confusion at her question. “In fact,” she continued, following him into the galley, “I don’t actually know that much about you. Tell me, what’s your dream? Your motivation? Your tragic backstory? Spare me no detail!”

For the first time since they’d met, Sanji wasn’t looking at her with adoration. In fact, he almost looked a little scared. His eyes darted around for half a second while she pulled out her best pout, gray eyes shining like a puppy begging for table scraps. Later, she’d chide herself for being so mean. After all, she used to practically torture Ace with that expression. But for now, she needed answers.

“Well…” Sanji started, pulling himself together before all the blood rushed out of his nose. “I am merely a humble sea cook, mademoiselle. I fought valiantly for my former home, and for the chance to gaze upon your lovely visage once again.” He flourished into a low bow.

“Uh huh,” Hazel chuckled, an amused smile on her face as she raised a brow. “Definitely humble.” Sanji rose back to standing, an easy grin in place at their shared humor. “Come on, lover boy. Sit with me awhile and tell me a story.”

The two sat and talked for a time, Hazel’s pencil scratching across the pages of her notebook as Sanji divulged all the details he felt comfortable sharing: how Luffy had bartered with Zeff for his freedom, the way he’d swatted projectiles with a single kick. She had a feeling he may’ve been embellishing his actions a bit, but having seen the way he’d toppled part of a building at Arlong Park, she knew it wasn’t all bluster.

He told her of Pearl, the man who’d covered himself in armor, only to lose his mind (and catch fire, apparently) at the first drop of blood. How Gin, the man he’d helped, had taken the old man hostage, and how he’d been willing to die to save his mentor’s dream. Hazel filed away that note for later, planning to ask about the clear devotion Sanji had for the old man, even if the blond tried to hide it behind snark.

She tried not to laugh when Sanji told her Luffy destroyed part of the ship. From what he was telling her, it was actually a brilliant stroke on Luffy’s part, and definitely contributed to Sanji’s outlook on the situation; but the way the blond’s curly brow furrowed over his eyes at the memory was, in her opinion, hilarious. 

“So, wait,” Hazel started, pausing Sanji’s tale of his fight with Gin. “How did you come to the Baratie in the first place? Zeff isn’t your father, is he? Why so devoted to preserving his dream?”

Discomfort crossed the cook’s face, as it had earlier, but whether it was his dedication to please the woman in front of him, or because he’d already come this far, he gifted her with the reason. “He saved my life,” was the simple answer. The follow-up nearly brought tears to her eyes. 

Hazel reached across the table, covering his hand with her own, and she sent him a soft smile. A light blush dusted his cheeks, and she allowed him to turn away to light a cigarette; she even grabbed the ashtray off the back shelf for him.

Just as they were about to continue, the door to the galley swung open, a rubbery body bouncing its way inside. “Sanji!! Food!” Luffy yelled, head turning frantically before his eyes finally settled on the cook.

“You just ate, you damn animal!” The cook scolded, and the somber mood was broken as Hazel burst into laughter.

“But I’m hungry! Food!”

“I’m busy!” Hazel took that moment to step in.

“It’s alright, Sanji. I can get the rest from you later. If you don’t start dinner soon, we may not have a ship to sail on anymore,” she laughed, drawing Luffy’s attention. The boy leaped onto the bench in front of her, taking Sanji’s place, and glancing at the notebook for a second without reading.

“Whatcha talkin’ about? Whaddaya need Sanji for?”

“He was telling me about your fight with Don Krieg, since I missed it.”

“Oh! I can tell you! There was a boom! And a woosh! And then I went ‘Gum-Gum Bazooka’! And then there was poison gas, but we’re fine, and then everything went boom boom boom boom! And then I got poked a lot! And then-” Hazel tuned out as her brother continued telling her all about the fight with as little detail as possible. Sanji shot her a confounded look over their captain’s shoulder, and the girl replied with a nonchalant shrug. When Luffy finally finished, he looked to his sister expectantly, proud grin wide across his face.

“Thanks Luffy, I’ll make sure to write that down.” The boy nodded, then looked back at her notes from Sanji’s story.

“Looks like you’ve gotten a lot done!” Hazel flinched, grimacing into her palm.

“Yes and no…” Luffy just looked at her, confusion in his eyes, and Hazel gave a heavy sigh. “To be honest, Luff...I don’t really know where to start.”

“At the beginning. Duh.”

“Wow, I never thought about that,” Hazel deadpanned. “And get your finger out of your nose!” As Luffy stuck his tongue out at her, something struck her. Hazel’s eyes widened, an invisible energy urging her hand to move across the paper. “Actually, Luffy, you’re a genius! Thank you!”

She vaguely heard him say something in agreement, but her mind was too focused on the idea it had. Start at the beginning...she was surprised the thought hadn’t occurred to her earlier; after all, she’d only just told the story a week ago.

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

Foosha Village had always been a peaceful town. Even when pirates had settled their sails at its docks the year previous, the villagers had yet to deal with much past the occasional bandit or two. Our lives had been much the same, short as they were; filled with fun and laughter and play. Then one day, the stuff of legends became real, and peace would be known no more.

The sun had shown brightly that morning, though my brother and I had already been up for hours. We always had trouble sleeping the closer to Shanks’ departure. In only a short time, the red-headed man had wormed his way into our lives, and our hearts, and my brother especially was determined to join him this time.

So it was that we stood on the deck of the Red-Hair Pirate’s ship, the hustle and bustle of supplies and crates being loaded around us. A few of the men were singing songs - definitely inappropriate considering the children in their company - but we’d already spent the last seven years in a bar. There was nothing in those songs we hadn’t heard before.

I had been listening to Benn Beckman’s tale of their last voyage when Shanks’ voice had called our attention to the figurehead. Standing atop the dragon’s maw, my brother Luffy stood glaring down at our pirate friends. Unfortunately, none of us had taken his declaration of strength seriously. Not until he drove the knife beneath his eye.

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

The paragraphs flew quickly out of her hand, the day in question clear in her mind. Hazel took a moment to shake out her wrist, feeling stiff as she read over her work so far. She liked it, she really did. Now to keep up this momentum.

The door opened once again, and Usopp and Nami wandered in, talking about something she couldn’t hear. Hazel was still glaring at the page, chewing her cheek as she thought about how to word her next sentence. She heard Sanji mention dinner would be ready soon, Luffy’s excitement sounding through the room, then Usopp’s hiss for him to be quiet.

“Don’t distract her! She’s scary when she’s mad!” the boy whimpered out, much to Luffy’s amusement.

“No she’s not!” he laughed, drawing the sniper’s ire.

“You didn’t think that when she made you take a bath!” Hazel stifled a snort.

“Speaking of which,” Nami chimed in, holding a hand to her nose. “How long ago was that?”

“Actually, Luffy, you are due for one. Zoro too,” Hazel said, looking up at her surprised crewmates. What, did they think she couldn’t hear them at all? “Why don’t you go wash up before dinner. Please?” Luffy groaned, glaring at the navigator, but dutifully made his way to the bathroom. Despite what he said, he didn’t want to push his sister. Again.

Hazel took that moment to stand up, stretching her back with a loud pop, grabbed her notebook, and made her way outside to tell their grungy swordsman his bath was after dinner. She couldn’t see him at first when she stepped outside, but after glancing around for a moment, she finally spotted him. She blinked when she saw his bare back, mesmerized for a moment at the way the muscles rippled as he did push-up after push-up. A second later, she blinked the distraction away, and walked down the steps to the grass-haired man.

“Hey, your turn for a bath after dinner,” she told him, practically hearing him grit his teeth at the notion. “Dinner’s actually almost done, by the way, so you may wanna wrap it up here.”

“Not done,” he grunted, prompting her to raise a brow in his direction.

“Well find a way to be done. We’re hungry, and you’re sweaty.”

“If I’m gonna get stronger, I can’t cut training short. I need more weight.” His gray eyes swung up to hers, and Hazel got the distinct sense he was sizing her up.

“What do you want me to do about that?” She regretted asking the instant she said it. Zoro gestured to his back. His extremely sweaty back.

“Climb on.”

“Excuse me? What are you insinuating here?” She crossed her arms, trying to decide if she needed to hit him for calling her fat or not. She caught him rolling his eyes.

“You’re all muscle, it’s heavier. Climb on.” Hazel chewed her lip, weighing the pros and cons. Then, deciding she had nothing to lose except her hygiene (and really, she could do with a bath herself), she stepped closer to him, cautiously sitting down when he paused for her. He reached his arm around, causing a startled squeak as he adjusted her position, then he resumed his training, a new strain in his breath.

While he worked, Hazel puzzled once again over her notebook. Disappointment flowed through her as she stared at the four lone paragraphs, the struggle for where to take the story next staying her hand. She’d gotten nothing done today, and it was difficult not to take it to heart.

“What are you sighing about up there?” her cushion grunted below her. Hazel rolled her eyes, but decided to humor him by answering anyway.

“I’ve been working on this all day, and somehow I have nothing to show for it.” Zoro was silent except for his heavy breathing, but for some reason she pushed on. “What kind of record-keeper am I? What kind of storyteller can’t tell a damn story? I don’t even have to make it all up, it’s all stuff that happened…” A puff of air escaped her as her eyes began to sting. “Maybe I’m not cut out for this…”

She hadn’t meant to say it, at least not out loud, and was startled when her chair suddenly stood up. She cried out as she fell, but before she could hit the floor, Zoro’s arms came out to steady her. She looked up at him in shock, affronted at the small glare he sent her way. “Read it out loud,” he said, pointing to the little book in her hands.

“Eh?!” Hazel shrieked, appalled at the very notion of any living being actually hearing her work out loud.

“Read it out loud,” Zoro said again, shrugging his shirt back on. “Then I can tell you if it’s shitty.”

“No way! It’s not ready for human consumption yet!” she yelled, glaring as he sat below the mast. “Besides, who are you to tell me if it’s shit? You wouldn’t know good literature if it waved a sword at you and said ‘boy, speak your name’!” Zoro rolled his eyes at the reference, but leveled her with a steady gaze as it dawned on her the trick he was trying to pull. “Stop it, it’s mine. Why should I share it with you?”

“Because I like the way you tell stories.” He said it so simply, like it didn’t carry nearly the weight for him that it did for her. Hazel felt the blood rush to her cheeks, but she didn’t look away. Something held her gaze on his, something she couldn’t possibly name.

“So how does me reading it aloud help me write it?” Her voice was so quiet, she was surprised he could even hear it.

“Just write it how you’d say it,” he answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. And when he said it like that, it did seem obvious, and Hazel could kick herself for not thinking of it sooner. Before she knew it, she felt herself nodding, sitting beside him beneath the sail.

“Foosha Village had always been a peaceful town….” she began, reading from the beginning, and surprising herself when her voice continued past the last paragraph. He’d heard the story before, but still Zoro sat, listening with rapt attention. Her voice slowed as she wrote, not allowing herself to forget what she’d said, what phrases she used that flowed from her mouth like water.

At one point Hazel glanced beside her, surprised to see the swordsman’s eyes shut. She let out a sigh, finishing her sentence, but not continuing on. She found herself rolling her eyes at the sleeping swordsman, irked that he apparently found her so boring.

“You stuck again?”

Hazel turned to him again, meeting his gaze through half-lidded eyes. She let out a half chuckle, shaking her head in amusement, before diving into the next paragraph.

It was only Luffy’s call of “Dinner!!” that finally drew the two inside.

[shhh-no-ones-home]

rules of the game (2/3) chris motionless x reader

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part 1 part 2 part 3

i couldnt just leave ya hanging right? ;)

(usually I do a different part every day but I think this story deserves to be posted in the same day so here it is, enjoy)

Song: a little less sixteen candles a little more touch met by fall out boy

tag list: @alilpunkrock @cynic-spirit @theoneandonlykymberlee @svintsandghosts @thisplace-ishaunted @joeybarber @ryansitkowskiswifey @musicsexandpizza69

+++++++++

I watched Chris out of the corner of my eye as he drove me home. I kept picking at my pocket, thinking about if I really wanted to let him go through with the bracelet rules. Of course they were stupid, and putting them on you never really think about them actually breaking but here we were. It was an accident after all. I sighed heavily.

"Hey Chris?"

He tapped his hand on the steering wheel along with the song.

"Yeah?"

I looked out the window at the passing buildings.

"Could we go to the look out instead?"

When he stopped at the stop light i looked over at him.

"You wanna go to the look out?"

I cleared my throat and nodded.

"Not ready to go home yet."

I looked ahead as he kept driving.

"Okay, yeah we can go to the look out. If that's what you want."

I tapped my hand nervously on my thigh.

"Yeah."

i heard his blinker and watched as the trees came into view. the look out was way back in the woods, hidden away from the rest of the world. most of our classmates had notoriously made it the make out spot for a while but it was otherwise a nice get away. it was also supposedly haunted by teens that had been pushed off the cliff sometime in the late 80's but it was just rumors. often times chris and i had found our way to the look out to sit on the roof of his car and watch the sky or even just talk for hours on end. it had sort of become our spot after everyone else moved the make out spot to the park across town. guess they didnt like the idea of ghosts watching them get hot and heavy. his car drove wobbly as it went over the gravel entrance, making its way to the dirt trail. when the cliff came into view i let out the breath i didnt realize i was holding in. i was actually contemplating this. he parked and looked at me but i didnt look back, i just got out like i always did.

"so are we talking or chilling?"

he asked from his side of the car, watching as i climbed up onto the hood and sat in front of the window.

"not sure yet."

he laughed a little before coming to sit next to me. i inhaled deeply, the smell of the woods surrounding us filling my senses in the best way possible. the sun felt warm on my skin and i couldnt have asked for better weather. the breeze swung around us, pulling my hair off my shoulder as the trees rustled in the background.

"isnt it beautiful?"

i asked, noting the clouds rolling overhead.

"uh yeah i guess."

he said making me laugh a little bit and shake my head. i scooted over a bit and laid back against the windshield of his car, crossing my hands under my head.

"have you ever thought about kissing me?"

i asked, not moving my gaze from the clouds moving above me. one of them was in the shape of an elephant and made me smile.

"is this about the bracelet? i told you we didnt have to-"

"just answer the question chris."

i cut him off, turning my head to look at him. he was looking down at the space between us.

"yeah. yes. i have."

i nodded and looked back up at the blue sky.

"so have i."

he raised a brow.

"wait, really?"

i sat back up, scooting back up the hood a little bit.

"well yeah. ive always wondered what it would be like. like a lot of times i just shake it off cause i kind of think about what it would be like with a lot of people but for some reason youre the only person i consistently think about it."

"huh."

he said, looking ahead of us and thinking.

"like not in a weird way, of course, but like i guess youre just my best friend and i spend the most time with you so i guess you on my brain a lot."

"right."

he said nonchalantly. then he looked over at me.

"so does that mean you want the hickie?"

i shrugged.

"i dont know what i want anymore."

then he leaned towards me and kissed my cheek. my eyes were wide despite the conversation we had just had.

"i mean, id gladly oblige."

i looked over at him half smiling at me. damn i was really gonna do this huh? i pushed forward and kissed him quickly, barely a peck on the lips. he was quick to retaliate though, bringing his hand to hold my face and kissing me for real. it was soft and gentle as he moved his mouth against mine. i sighed out as he pulled away.

"is it shitty to say that was my first kiss?"

i said a bit bashfully. he smiled widely at me.

"no, not shitty. its cute."

he said endearingly. i remembered when he had told me he first kissed someone. he was so excited but it was just a peck, nothing more nothing less.

"how bout that hickie though?"

i asked, feeling the blush creep its way to my face, the cool breeze feeling better now on my heated features.

"we can work up to it."

he said with a wink, scooting his body closer to mine. i wasnt exactly sure what that meant but it made my stomach flip. i looked down as he laced our fingers together.

"lets start off slow."

he said quietly, like he would break some kind of untold rule if he spoke above a whisper. i nodded as he leaned forward and captured my lips in his again. it was slow and smooth, kissing him over and over again almost felt like the sensation of warm caramel melting as you ate it. it was much more different than i thought it would be but it was nice. we slowly made out, building up until he pushed me down against the windshield, resting his one arm above my head and continuing to kiss me. i wasnt sure if this would go further but i liked the idea that it might. i knew for a fact neither of us had been with anyone physically yet and that scared me. his movements got a little more needy as he began kissing me a little rougher, trailing his free hand across my throat. i moaned into him before he started kissing across my jaw. i tried to steady my nervous breathing as he made his was down my neck.

"chris."

i sighed out. he just hummed against my skin as he began sucking and biting it, holding me loosely in place. i could feel him getting closer to my body, not that it was necessarily possible, he was already practically laying on top of me. he moaned into me as i felt his hand start slowly moving further down. i grabbed his hand and he froze, looking up at me. i sat up immediately and swung my legs over the side of the car, breathing deeply and running my hands over my face. he placed his hand gently on my shoulder.

"im sorry y/n, i shouldve asked if you wanted more. you didnt exactly say to stop, i thought you were enjoying it. i just, im sorry."

i shook my head.

"no, its fine. i thought i did but maybe i was wrong."

i turned to look at him.

"well you at least got your hickie."

he laughed nervously, making me smile at him. i turned back around and kissed him reassuringly.

"thanks chris."

he looked down at my lips quickly before kissing me again.

"any time."

then something hit him in the back of the head, making his hat go flying. it scared the shit out of me, making me scream. he held me to him, looking around at what couldve done it but there was nothing there.

"i think the ghosts are mad."

he nodded quickly.

"i think youre right, lets go."

i nodded back before he let me go, both of us getting off the car. i picked up his hat and slid into the passenger side, buckling my seat belt as fast as i could as he turned the car on.

"okay no more making out at the look out."

i said a little shaken, reaching over and putting his hat back on him.

"yeah i think youre right. late night conversations yes, kissing absolutely not."

i laughed a little bit before leaning over and kissing his cheek.

"who knew a bunch of teens would be mad about other teens having a little fun."

he laughed at my comment, side eyeing me as he pulled back out onto the main street.

"maybe thats how they died."

he said, winking at me. my face went straight and i shivered at the thought.

"well, they do say go out with a bang."

he looked at me for a second before we both started laughing hysterically.

"whatever, if you wanna go out with a bang im sure we can arrange something."

i smiled in amusement at his comment.

"glad to know theres an offer there."

i watched him as he turned down the street to my house.

"we're officially adults now, i can offer whatever i want."

when he pulled into my driveway he just looked over at me, staring at me with a stupid grin plastered on his face.

"if youre waiting for a kiss goodbye youre not getting it."

he pouted a bit before leaning over the center consol and tickling me.

"what? no kissy wissy? not even a wittle one?"

he joked, as i squirmed, screaming and laughing as he attacked my sides with his finger tips.

"alright! alright! just one!"

i said, making him stop. we both laughed as he continued holding onto me. i leaned into him and kissed him deeply. when i pulled away i stroked his chin gently.

"goodbye nerd."

he smiled widely at me.

"goodbye loser."

he let me go and popped the door open for me. i pushed it and got out, looking back down into the car at him.

"ill catch ya on the flip side."

i pointed at him.

"and youd better be at graduation practice next week."

he crossed his heart with his finger before holding his hand up in the air.

"and miss out on making fun of the principle giving the end of year speech? unheard of."

i shook my head and moved to close the door.

"bye chris."

[ramblesanddragons]

When Someone Has Your Back

(I thought I posted this last night but apparently not.)

Here’s my entry for @forduary based on Week 2: Trust/Paranoia.

Summary: Life on the sea has done wonders for Stan and Ford Pines but a stop in New Orleans brings an unwanted, surprising, and dangerous guest.

Word Count: 4417

Warnings: There is fighting in this (this was good practice for me since I've never written a fight scene before) but no mentions of blood. I did not want this to be considered graphic. 

Ao3 Link for those who prefer!

“Ford for Pete’s sake I can handle myself. You want to do your nerd thing and I want to go hang out at a bar. It’s okay,” Stan said slightly exasperated.

Close to a year at sea had done wonders for the old Pines twins. Stan hadn’t felt so at peace for a long time. Sure, that fact that some of his rougher memories had been AWOL for most of the year helped but being with Ford at sea, doing what they always dreamed of doing? Well it was a dream. Even dreams have rough patches though.

Ever since Stan had been erased to defeat some sort of dream demon his brother had been perhaps a little too protective of him. It was an improvement from the sad sap that Ford had become after the erasing. That had really pissed Stan off as more memories of who his brother was came back. He wanted to sail with his brother not this sad, sullen nerd that was holding his tongue so much that Stan was sure it had bled a few times. Stan put his foot down before they sailed out.  

“Ford if you don’t stop being so down and start being yourself, I’m not going out with you. I’ll probably throw you overboard within a week.”

That had worked more or less. For the first time in years they talked their problems out. It was a good start and within a day Ford had been back to bantering with Stan like they had never been apart. Of course, that hadn’t stopped the other issue Stan was having. Ford had become incredibly protective of him. Sure, that had been a thing in a way when they were young. Stan handled the bullies and Ford covered for him with the one he couldn’t deal with, their dad. He would stick up for Stan and help him when homework got too hard. Once he had even stayed up all night to talk Stan through his whining when Carla McCorkle had broken up with him.

Now it was different. More...intense. Stan knew it was a strange mix of Ford’s caring for him, wanting to make up for his so-called sacrifice, and his paranoia. Boy howdy was Ford paranoid. Not that Stan blamed him. Whenever the subject of his time traveling the multiverse was brought up his brother would only speak of the good but there had been bad as well. Stan hadn’t told Ford but the memory of the quick change in the fearimaid had come back a few months ago. Stan remembered the scars that told a horrific story across his brother’s body.  

So, Ford had every right to be paranoid and Stan would let him have that. He could understand this at least. He let his brother be the odd boy guard he really didn’t need and went along with whatever protective measure his brother saw fit to take. He would deal with his brother being uptight in crowed places and seeing danger everywhere. He was there with his favorite tea when the nightmares would wake him in a fit of crying. Just like Ford was there for him when nightmares wrecked his own sleep.  

But Stan was also a grown 58-year-old man and had most of his memories back and he just wanted to go get a damn drink.  

“The tour is fascinating though. I thought it would be a good place to start for ghost hunting,” Ford reply looking like a slightly hurt puppy.

“We can go ghost hunting later. I promise but it’s hot as hell here and I don’t feel like going.”

“Then I’ll go get a drink with you.”

“Ford. I know you feel like you need to like watch over me or somethin’ but I promise you, I will be okay. Okay? Look if we don’t do some things apart, you’re gonna get sick of me.”

“Stan, I have told you over and over again I will never, ever, get sick of you.” Ford said standing to grip Stan on the shoulders.

“Yes, and I believe that now...mostly,” Stan ignored the frustrated look in his brother’s eyes, “But everyone needs space now and again. I’ve been to New Orleans before I know where I’m going. While we’re here I can show you all the good places to eat. Look how about I go get a drink, you go look at tombstones or whatever and we’ll meet back here to find a place to eat. We got these cell phones for a reason you know.”

The kids had insisted that they get phones if they were going travel like they were. McGucket had even decked them out so they would work wherever. Ford and Stan, with lots of help from the kids, had even figured out texting.  His twin sighed and let go of his shoulders.

“Very well. But keep that ringer of yours on okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

So, they parted ways. Ford seemed hesitant to keep walking down his street but eventually kept walking. Stan found the place he was looking for and took a seat. Jazz wasn’t his favorite thing in the world but nothing beat a good live band and a fruity drink that he wouldn’t be caught dead drinking any other time. The afternoon passed in piece and as the sun started to get lower in the sky Stan made his way back to the boat. It was a good afternoon and Stan had even scored a date for tomorrow, which meant some working around his brother but the boat had separate rooms for them for a reason. All and all a good time. He walked lazily back to where the boat was docked when the sound of a dinosaur roar made him jump. Mabel thought it was a good text tone for his brother and, while she wasn’t wrong, it still made him jump from time to time.  

I need to get her to tell me how to change it.  

Stanley. I will be back at the boat in 10 minutes time.

Ok Ford. ‘Bout to walk on.  

…

Please remember to turn off the alarm!

Stan rolled his eyes. Ford had installed some sort of proximity alarm and he had to turn it on and off as he came and went but it eased his brother’s mind so whatever.  

Stan had only managed to take a single step on the deck of the ship when a cold feeling went up his spine. Someone was watching him. Before he could react, there was the thundering footsteps behind him and the feeling of something blunt on the back of his head. He fell onto his knees and yelled out in pain. Looking through blurred vision he turned to face his attacker. Stan almost screamed again. A dark green creature was glowering down at him. It vaguely reminded him of a snake if a snake had grown arms and legs and had been on a steady steroid regiment. This had to be an alien of some sort, right? Despite what Ford thought Stan did pay attention to his nerdy rants. This didn’t match any of those cryptids he was looking for around here unless a snake man was an option, he wasn’t aware of. Well it was Louisiana.  

“Stanford Pines,” it hissed, “it had been too long.”

An alien that’s looking for my brother. Wonderful.  

He will be fine. Everything will be fine.  

What if he had a memory lapse?  

He hasn’t had one in 6 months. If he does, he keeps his facilities on him enough to ask for help. Your number is his emergency contact.  

What if he gets hurt?  

He’s right he’s an old man who can care for himself!  

This internal argument had been on repeat in Ford’s head for about two blocks now. He forced his feet forward anyway. He did it for Stan’s sake. He needed space and Ford needed space even if he would never voice that to his twin. Stan was right, not about Ford getting sick of him no. Ford was determined to use his last 30 years or so to make up for lost time. Traveling with his brother brought about a pure joy that he didn’t think was possible for him to feel again and he would never want it to end. But they were still very different people and being stuck on a small boat for months, even with separate rooms, had frayed a few nerves. Yes, this was healthy and needed.

But Ford’s damn brain would not shut up.  

By the time Ford reached the tour Stan had already been mentally kidnapped by swamp creatures 3 times. Maybe just texting his brother would help, or would that annoy Stan too much? Ford had been trying very hard to be considerate of Stan’s feeling since he had spent so much time frankly not doing just that. Part of his worry was that Stan would maybe get tired of him and want to stop, go back to Gravity Falls with the treasures they found and get Ford to leave him alone. The old scientist knew he was hard to deal with at times but Stan seemed to take most of it stride. What was worrying was his twin brother seemed to really understand what he was going through. Why would Stan know about the need to watch his back almost constantly? Why did he insist on having his own pistol under his bed and brass knuckles on him at all times? Both of them hadn’t been very forthcoming with bits and pieces of their past but at least Stan had an excuse up until now. He claimed he had most of his memories back so he was just choosing not to share at this point.

“Sir?” Ford jumped and his hand flew to his concealed weapon before he focused on the young man that looked wide eyed and concerned.  

“Sorry I didn’t mean to scare you it’s just the tour is about to start are you joining us?” In his thoughts Ford had paused to think and the tour group had started moving without him.

“Ah sorry just didn’t see you there. Yes, I’m coming.” Ford said awkwardly shoving his hands behind his back. The young man gave him a thumbs up and started the tour with an explanation of the above ground graves they were walking by. The guys’ voice reminded him of Fiddleford a bit but there was a difference in the drawl, it lacked that mountain twang. He found himself thinking that he should give his old friend a call tonight after dinner. Ford followed at the back, away from the crowd. It was an ideal position; he could watch the people in the front and look out for things behind him. The crowd was bothering him no matter how hard he tried to shake it.  

That was another reason he had wanted his brother along for this. Ford had gotten used to Stan’s presence in his life. Knowing he wasn’t alone all the time anymore had been a Godsend for his mental health if he was being honest. Paranoia is easier to deal with when you know someone has your back. Standford Pines could trust his twin brother and it made a world of difference.  

The tour was informative and it led to a good place to start for some ghost hunting. The watch Ford had modified had picked up on several ectoplasmic disturbances and he was pleased with the adventure he had planned out with Stan. Ford finally allowed himself to text his brother. He had managed to only text him two times before now in an attempt to show some restraint with his worries. Hopefully Stan would turn off the alarm as it made a very annoying buzzing noise come from his watch. The alarm annoyed Stan, especially when he had a guy or girl over and he had to fiddle with it before getting to whatever business they were doing for the night, but he never told Ford to get rid of it.  

There was a sigh as the alarm went off and Ford put it to snooze. A minute later it went off again and it sent a worried ringing up the old man’s arm. Ford texted Stan.

Please turn off the alarm.

Another minute passed. The alarm buzzed some more.

Stan?

A knot began to form in Ford’s stomach. He gave up texting and called.

“Hey uh this is Stan Pines. Leave some info unless you’re the IRS.” Straight to voicemail. Stan had promised to answer it and keep it on him. Something was wrong. Ford immediately began to run the remaining distance between himself and the boat. 5 minutes of straight running was making his lungs burn but he didn’t care, he had to find his brother. The docks were empty as he finally caught sight of the Stan of War.  

Not good no one around to see if he got dragged off dammit Stanley you had better be okay!  

The running stopped as his trained eye spotted something shine on the deck. It was Stan’s phone. He had made it to the deck of the ship at least.  

Focus. Look for clues and calm down. You’re no good like this. What’s your big brain good for if you can’t find and follow clues? Use your logic. Okay he made it to deck that’s for certain maybe...is that...my voice?  

Ford’s head snapped to the cabin. Muffled voices were coming from behind the door. With more stealth than an owl hunting in the moonlight Ford made his way to the door. Inside it was indeed his voice coming through the wall as well as another that sounded so familiar, his mind raced to place it. It had to be one of the bounty hunters that had been after him in the multiverse he knew that but which one? The unknown hunter and his brother were in the middle of a conversation.

Good Stan keep it talking I need to think of a plan!  

“And what about those extra digits?” The unknown voice questioned.

“Had them cut off. They were a very identifiable mark. You’re not the only person after me after all. Perhaps it would be best to not to deal with me so hastily. Don’t want to have any other bounty hunters jealous of you, do you?” Stan said imitating Ford’s voice.

“Your time here has made you forget. The multiverse fears me. No one would dare challenge me. Prepare yourself, your head is now mine.”

“Very well. If last wishes are something you care about just leave this dimension when you are done.” Stan again said in his impression of Ford.

The impression was flawless, just like it had been in the fearimaid. Ford finally put two and two together. A cold feeling enveloped his body as thoughts of a memory gun in his hand and his brother at his mercy swam to the top of his consciousness. This was worse.  

Oh, sweet Moses.  

He’s pretending to be me again.  

He’s about the take the fall for me again.  

Stan’s about to get his head chopped off by a blood thirsty inter-dimensional bounty hunter to protect me.  

No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO, NO!  

In a rare moment all logic left the mind of Stanford Pines.

“GET THE HELL AWAY FROM MY BROTHER!” Ford screamed bursting through the cabin door and tackling the killer into the other side of the cabin, causing it to drop the razor-sharp blade it was holding. Ford began to punch it in the face with all of his might.  

“Oh, hey Ford there you are.” Stan quipped in his normal voice. Ford could barely hear him over the roaring of blood in his ears.  

The hunter was thrown off by the sudden appearance of another Stanford Pines and Ford wasn’t going to waste the opening. He tugged at the hitman’s blaster, wresting it free from its holster. The hunter gave him a powerful kick to the chest that sent Ford halfway across the cabin.

“Hey Ford I know you’re a little busy but if you get something sharp my way, I can cut myself out!” Stan shouted.  

“Shut UP! I don’t know what sort of magic this is but I’ll kill you both for good measure!” The creature hissed and lunged for the gun. Ford’s chest was aching but he didn’t pay it any attention as he pulled his own gun.

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!” Ford roared and fired. The shot hit square in the chest but the monster’s hide was too thick. With a cold jolt in his being Ford now fully recognized the bounty hunter. They had clashed more than a few times over the years and every time Ford barely managed to escape with his life. The last time had been 6 years ago. That encounter ended with Ford jumping into a rushing river as a last stitch effort of escape.  Its species was tough and blaster fire barely did a thing to them. The scientist in him often wondered if more traditional firearms would work better but the pistol was under Stan’s cot, there was no way to get to it. Ford kept firing desperately.

A part of Ford was sure he wasn’t going to survive this encounter with the hunter and it didn’t matter to him if he did in the long run, as long as he brought the monster down with him. He would not let him hurt his brother. If he died and the hunter was still alive Stanley would have to face it alone. So, Ford couldn’t die just yet and if he did, he’d just have to get back up again until Stanley was safe. The hunter picked up its own blaster and aimed for Ford’s head when Stan crashed into the creature chair and all. The blaster went sliding again across the cabin.

“Hey dumb-ass you kind of suck at this if you can’t tell two targets apart!” Stan heckled the thing from his now prone position. The creature hissed again and lunged at Stan’s neck but Ford was faster. He took the thing by its neck and slammed it into the floor and struggled to put his own gun to the creature's head.

“Let’s see if you can shrug off point blank ARGGGGG!” Sharp claws ripped into Ford’s shoulder and peeled him off. The hunter sprung to its feet and gave Ford a kick, and then another. Somewhere in the chaos Ford’s gun flew from his hands and landed under a desk. There was a crack of something in his chest and face but Ford didn’t care. On the third kick he grabbed the boot of the killer and tossed it off balance enough to give Ford time to stand.

Get it away from Stan! Get it away! Repeated in his head.

Taking out his knife Ford slashed at it wildly. Each step towards it brought claws closer to his face but he didn’t care. Seeing an opening Ford got in close and with all of his might he shoved the hunter through the door of the cabin earning him a clawing to the chest in the process.  

Ford had exactly one idea but he needed to reach the stern of the ship. He managed to make it half way there when the killer caught up to him, using its claws to try and bring Ford down again. He stumbled but stayed uptight turning to face his attacker. It had managed to pull another blade and swung, missing Ford by a hair. He took the chance to kick it back away from him but it had less of an impact that he hoped. Sharp black claws ripped into his sweater and it held the blade at Ford’s throat.

“30 years of chasing you and this is how it ends? How pathetic!” It rose its arm to swing when another pair of arms appeared underneath the creature’s elbows. Stan had gotten free and with all his might pulled it away from Ford. Stan threw it into the wall of the cabin and started to go at it with his knuckles covered in brass.

“30 years huh? Well you’re never fucking with my brother EVER AGAIN!” Stan thundered.

Ford saw his chance. Pushing back the sickness in his stomach at the thought of pointing another gun at Stan he reached the harpoon at the stern. “STAN MOVE!”  

His brother didn’t even need to look back to tell what he was doing, with a leap the way was clear and Ford fired, hitting his mark. There was a loud crack as the harpoon broke the cabin wall. Then silence.  

Ford collapsed onto the deck of the boat.

“S-Stanley,” he croaked, “are you okay?”

Stanley stood and ran over to him wincing at the sight of the damage. To Ford’s relief his brother only seemed to have a minor injury or two.

“AM I OKAY!? Ford, we need to get you to a hospital!” Stanley began to try and lift Ford who responded with a hiss.

“No, no we can’t leave that here like that. What if someone comes by.”  

“Ford it’s 5:30 on a Friday night no one’s gonna see this.”  

Ford began to try and stand on his own. “Really Stan I’ve had worse. I’ll sail us out to open water, deal with him, and then maybe rest.” Try and he might his ribs wouldn’t let him stand.  

“FORD SIT THE FUCK DOWN!!!” Stanley screamed. Ford finally obeyed and gave his brother an owlish look in surprise.

“You’re worried that much about people finding it? Fine I’ll sail us out a bit, deal with it then I’m getting your ass to a hospital.” Stan stood and within a moment or two had the boat pulling out of the dock. Ford was quiet for a moment, observing his brother and making sure no underlying injuries were causing problems. Five full minutes of silence passed before Stan spoke again.

“He was looking for you. I guess I don’t blame ya for being so paranoid,” he muttered.

“Yes. Stan...Stan I’m so sorry.” With the adrenaline wearing off all Ford could feel was the pain and the fear. Fear that his brother almost died again.

“I-I should have warned you this could happen...I know I haven’t been very forthcoming about my time away but I’ll tell you now and, and...” Tears were building in Ford’s eyes. Stan turned from the wheel for a moment to look at him.

“Ford you don’t have to tell me anything okay? And stop apologizing.”

“YOU ALMOST DIED BECAUSE OF ME!” Ford’s voice cracked with the stress. Stan flipped on the auto pilot Ford had built and sat next to his now sobbing brother.  

“Ford...”

“Stan, I heard you. You were pretending to be me again. Why? You were going to let him kill you t-to protect me? Why?”

Stan opened his mouth.

“And don’t you dare say better you than me!”

Stan coughed to perhaps give himself a moment to course correct and spoke. “Meh I was okay...”

“Okay? How...how are you so calm with this...how did you know t-that?” Ford was sure he had taken too hard of a hit there was no way Stan was okay with this.

“If ya let me finish Ford. I was saying I knew I was going to be okay because I know you’ve got my back.”

Stan, to Ford’s utter shock, was smiling.  

“You know the more I remember about my past the happier I am to be here. I mean that in all senses of that statement too. Like to be alive. People have tried to kill me before too and I was all alone then. Just like you were. And it’s awful.” Ford wanted to hug his brother and simultaneously find whoever had dared to go after him. That’s why he understood so well.  

��But I think I’ve finally managed to hang on to the idea that you’ve got my back and I’ve got yours. Hell, even if you woke up hating me again tomorrow, I’d still have your back.”

“ I never hated you and I never will,” Ford whispered quietly.  

“Meh I think it might have been touch and go there a minute.”

“...I will always be there for you Stan and not because of what you did either, I know you think that’s the only reason I’m here sometimes no matter how hard you hide it. I will always be there for you because you are my brother.”

“Thanks. You know I should probably tell you the people who might have me on their kill list...I just need to remember their names first.” Stan rubbed his sore head.

“Don’t freak out things just get a little jumbled after crazy stuff like that.” He pointed to the hunter.

“I’m not,” he was, “but just so you know if anyone so much as touches you wrong, I’m going to kill them.”

“Yeah I got that point. Guess this isn’t going to exactly ease those nerves of yours huh?”

“I’m sorry I’m so...”

“Ford if you apologize one more damn time, I’m gonna...I don’t know...toss one of your nerd books overboard with that guy.”

Ford closed his mouth.  

“I can handle you dealing with whatever your time is space sideburns land did to you in your own way. I just hope I can get you to relax and enjoy life a little more ya know?”

“I am. With you around watching my back I have been able to relax a bit. Thank you, Stanley, for understanding.”  

20 minutes was all Stan was willing to spend on the job. Stan patched Ford up as much as he could in the meantime. He also started to do the math on the repairs then decided to say fuck it to that for the night. Before disposing of whatever this guy was, Stan pocketed some of his fancier looking stuff to Ford’s amusement.

“What Fiddlenerd might like to look this over.” Was Stan’s only argument.

Once docked he called an ambulance (“This crazy huge dog came out of nowhere and attacked us!”) and they were on the way.

“Once you’re healed up Ford, I’m going to show you the time of your life and some of the best damn food in the world.”

Ford smiled, “Looking forward to it.”

[gukyi]

ice prince | jjk

⇒ summary: when, due to inexplicable and total clumsiness, your reliable, talented ice dancing partner of five years breaks his leg right before the largest competition of your life, desperate times call for desperate measures. and for a brief, brief moment, you think that everything might actually end up not-that-shitty, until you find out that the aforementioned desperate measures go by the name of jeon jungkook.

⇒ figure skating!au, enemies to lovers!au

⇒ pairing: jungkook x female reader

⇒ word count: 22k (when will she (i) stop)

⇒ genre: fluff, very minor angst that probably shouldn’t even be listed

⇒ warnings: mentions of bruising + stuff from falling

⇒ a/n: i honestly don’t know what’s wrong with me. one day i’m finishing up a 28k jungkook enemies to lovers fic and suddenly two weeks later i have another 22k jungkook enemies to lovers fic on my hands. tagging @cinnaminsvga​ and @workofteaguk​ as a thanks for the support and my relentless screaming!

⇒ DISCLAIMER: i am not a professional figure skater and this does not accurately represent the lives of professional figure skaters. it’s a fic, for fuck’s sake. don’t take the logistics of it seriously.

check out the post-script drabble here!

It starts with a broken leg.

For someone so skilled at figure skating, so easily able to do leaps and twirls and lifts, Kim Taehyung is one hell of a klutz. He can’t walk without tripping over himself at least once on a good day, so imagine combining that with black ice on the roads from a terrible snowstorm the prior day. It’s the bad kind of snow, too, the kind that turns into slush when it hits the pavement, dirty slush that freezes over in the night to wreak all sorts of havoc.

Kim Taehyung texts you, two months before the biggest competition you’ve ever had in all of your years of ice dancing, and says:

[9:59 PM] rice dancer #1: remember how i was gonna go on that date after practice today?

[10:01 PM] you: o my god yes!!! how did it go!!!

[10:01 PM] rice dancer #1: it went pretty well rice dancer #1: he’s rlly cute and sweet n he wants me to teach him how 2 figure skate

[10:02 PM] you: dam bith look at she go!!! (she is you)

[10:03 PM] rice dancer #1: well,.,. on the way back.,. uh.. rice dancer #1: you know how it’s rly slippery rn

[10:04 PM] you: tae wtf did u do

[10:05 PM] rice dancer #1: i may or may not have slipped on the ice and broken my leg and currently be in the hospital getting a cast

[10:07 PM] you: TAE!!!!!!!!

And that’s the story of how all of your dreams shattered into a billion pieces right in front of your eyes, much like the bones in Taehyung’s leg.

The next day, you skip practice (much to Namjoon and Hoseok’s chagrin, you already know it) to go to the hospital during visitor hours. Taehyung told you he’d only need one day in the hospital before he’d be back on the one foot he’s allowed to use, so you’re making the most out of your visit. You pick up a bouquet of white roses from the local supermarket on your way. Once you register as a guest at the hospital, they bring you to his room, drab cinderblock walls lining the hallways on the way. When the nurse opens his door, you see him happily camped out in the hospital bed, bright orange cast elevated by fifteen pillows as he channel surfs through the hospital’s five different television stations. Taehyung sees you walk in with a murderous look on your face and quickly fumbles to turn off the TV.

“Y/N!” He cheers, though you can easily make out the fear in his eyes. “What… what brings you here?”

“I brought you something,” you say passive-aggressively as you waltz over to him, bouquet hidden behind your back. Taehyung’s face lights up at the notion of the gift, until you pull the flowers into view and hand them to him.

“White roses?” He asks, concerned as he looks down at them. “Don’t these symbolize death?”

“Yeah,” you say, nodding. “Because you’re fucking dead to me, Kim Taehyung!” Storming over, you start beating him with your fist, pounding his shoulders and forehead and chest as he curls into himself, shouting. You take all of your pent-up frustration out on him, not that he doesn’t deserve it.

“Stop! Stop! Y/N! I’m injured! How dare you!” He shouts in between your assaults, hands going up to protect his face from any more damage. You finally release him, standing up and exhaling heavily. You dust off your fingers before your arms cross in front of your chest.

“You deserved that,” you tell him honestly. “You little piece of shit.”

“I’m sorry, alright,” Taehyung says, wincing in pain as he adjusts himself so that he can sit up in his bed and face you properly. “Believe me, this hurts me just as much as it hurts you. And not just physically.”

“God, Taehyung,” you say, sighing deeply as your palms come up to your cheeks. You have no idea what the hell you’re supposed to do now that Taehyung’s incapacitated. Nationals is in two months and Taehyung, your ice dancing partner since you were fourteen, has a broken tibia. “What are we gonna do?” You ask him as you collapse onto his bed.

Taehyung leans over to rub your back. “We’ll be alright, Y/N. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

Everything is not okay. You walk into the ice rink, helping Taehyung hobble around on the crutches he claims are outrageously uncomfortable (even though when offered a wheelchair, he had declined and said he needs to keep being mobile), to some very concerned coaches. Taehyung’s still got a bright smile on his face, one to match his fluorescent orange cast, but it’s obvious that the both of you have had a rough twenty-four hours, and it’s about to get even rougher.

“Look at you guys,” Namjoon says as he walks over, baseball cap on his head and clipboard in his hand. “Such good sports.”

“Hey, Coach,” Taehyung says awkwardly as you walk him over to a nearby bench. “Sorry about the, uh, unexpected turn of events.”

“It’s okay, Taehyung,” Namjoon says, patting his back with the wood of the clipboard. “It’s not your fault.”

Taehyung turns to you with his eyebrows raised, petty look on his face as if to say, “see, at least someone knows that I’m not the one to blame.” You scoff, hitting him lightly in the shoulder. It’s definitely his fault. What a klutz.

“What do we do, Coach?” You ask desperately, turning to Namjoon.

His eyes scan from you, to the rink, to Taehyung’s cast, to his clipboard. “It’s up to you, really.”

“Can we still drop out of the competition?” You ask, eyes wide.

“Drop out?” Taehyung asks, brows knitted together. He shoots up, nearly toppling over on his shattered leg and grabbing your arm for support. You jump at the contact, hands darting out to steady his body so he doesn’t break anything else.

“Yeah, drop out,” you repeat, nodding as you hold onto him. “I don’t wanna do the competition when my partner’s in a cast.”

Taehyung gapes at you like you’ve just suggested you perform your ice dancing program in the Mars polar ice caps. “But you’re so close! Nationals is two months away!” He says, seemingly outraged at the fact that you want to leave the competition despite the fact that his leg is literally wrapped up in plaster.

“Nationals is two months away and you can’t even walk!” You exclaim in return, making a show of the crutches he’s hobbling around on. “I don’t wanna do the damn program without you. You’re my partner.”

“But you could win this year!” Taehyung insists, tugging on your arm in desperation.

You nod. You could win this year. The program that Namjoon and Hoseok have come up with is gold-medal-worthy. And the fact that Taehyung is standing in front of you with a cast on his leg and crutches under his arms makes tears well up in your eyes. It’s like running through a tunnel without the end ever appearing in your view. It’s like climbing a tree and never being able to reach the highest branch. It’s like seeing the finish line within your grasp but never getting there.

“I know, I know,” you say dejectedly, looking down to your feet. “But there’s always next year, when you’re better.”

Taehyung looks scandalized.

“Hoe, don’t do it,” Taehyung says, grasping onto your arm and looking hopelessly into your eyes. It’s easily the most romantic thing that the two of you have ever done together, and you’ve been ice dancing together for five years.

“Hoe, I’m gonna do it,” you say in response, placing your palm atop his. “I don’t want to perform without you.”

“You have been working really hard these past few months to perfect your routine,” Namjoon supplies unhelpfully, his reason getting the better of him. Can’t he just let you mope around about your lost gold medal in peace? “I would easily be able to recruit someone to be your partner in his place.”

“But—” You say, already knowing fully well that you’re eventually going to cave into their requests. The look on Taehyung’s face is too heartbreaking for you to have to keep staring at it, even if competing in Nationals means you won’t do it with him. What will he do without you? What will you do without him? You know each other’s bodies, motions, touches like the backs of your hands, you skate together so effortlessly, as if you were a single person. What will happen when that sense of security is removed? When you skate with someone foreign, a feeling you won’t recognize.

“Seriously, Y/N. You have a real shot at getting gold, and if not, at least being on the podium,” Namjoon continues. “You’ve never been more prepared for something like this.”

“But if I don’t compete, we’ll have more time to prepare for next year?” You suggest, grimacing as you hunch your shoulders. Taehyung, if possible, looks like he’s about to take his hand off of the crutch keeping him in place just to sock you in the side. It’s clear that you’re about to cave in and that any last-ditch efforts to drop out will ultimately fail, but there’s no harm in reaching for the unreachable anyway.

“Y/N,” Taehyung says, frowning. He’s staring at you with that disappointed look on your face, the one he always gives you whenever you make a terrible pun about ice skating or tease him about his love life. “Do it.”

“Why are you so adamant about this?” You ask him, a final attempt to see if you can sway him. “Your leg is broken and you can’t compete. What’s it to you if I do?”

“You’re my best friend, Y/N,” Taehyung says, as if he thinks you need some sort of reminder. You’re not gonna forget the fact that the two of you have been glued at the hip for years now, before you even became ice dancing partners. “You’ve been dreaming for years about getting gold, and it’s right in front of you. I’m not gonna stop you from achieving your goal.”

You look to him, shoulders sinking. You know you’ve lost, you know that Taehyung’s good-hearted nature, Namjoon’s sage words of advice, and your unrelenting desire to win are all keeping you in this competition, even without the one person you couldn’t replace if you tried.

“Fine,” you say, sighing as Taehyung and Namjoon high-five each other. “I’ll stay in the competition, but only because I know you’re gonna be whining about it for the next twelve decades if I don’t.”

Taehyung smiles. “Works for me!”

“I guess I need to go get geared up then, Coach?” You ask, your hand coming down to pat the duffel bag on your shoulder. You come prepared. “Who’s gonna be Tae’s replacement?”

“Go get changed,” Namjoon says, motioning to the locker room across the rink. “I’ll figure something out.”

“You’re gonna kick everyone’s asses, Y/N!” Taehyung calls as you trudge off, already regretting this decision. “Mine included!”

The pale blue door to the locker rooms opens ten minutes later as you walk out, skates and practice clothes on. On the other side of the rink, you see Taehyung and Namjoon talking with an indistinct third person, who you are assuming is going to be your partner for the next two months. You can’t quite make out who it is, but as you walk over, you quickly rack your brain for all of the other ice dancers that might be Namjoon’s choice, though you can’t come up with any that match the person in question.

Slowly, you approach the group, watching as Taehyung laughs to something that said indistinct third person has said. He must be an ice dancer, since regular figure skaters don’t know some of the tricks that ice dancers engage in and pairs skaters are too busy trying to throw themselves around on the ice to pay attention to ice dancing.

And then, he comes into view.

“Y/N!” Taehyung cries as he pulls you into his body, wrapping an arm around you as you’re pressed up against his crutch as it digs uncomfortably into your back. “Namjoon’s got your guy,” he says happily, motioning to him. “This is—”

“Jeon Jungkook?” You ask as your mouth drops open, eyes blinking wildly at the offending figure in front of you.

He’s standing there with his arms crossed in front of his chest, like him having to ice dance is such an inconvenience to the rest of his daily activities. You didn’t even know he could ice dance. For as long as you’ve known him, he’s always been the company’s top male figure skater, so skilled on the ice because his heart is practically made out of it. All of the awards he’s won have gone to his head at this point, and you make an effort every day you are at the rink to not have to interact with him in any way.

���Don’t look so disappointed to see me, Y/N,” Jungkook drawls, making you roll your eyes. This is why you try to avoid him at all costs, and here he is, as your future ice dancing partner. “I’m doing this for you.”

“You’re doing this because Coach is forcing you too, but alright, whatever helps you sleep at night,” you respond, avoiding his gaze.

“I’m willingly giving up my time as a figure skater to help you at Nationals and you don’t even care? Some partner you are,” Jungkook says, scoffing as he turns away from you. He’s tapping his guard-cladded skate on the floor in disinterest, each click slowly rapping away at each rational thought in your brain.

You exhale, turning to stare up at Jungkook with fire in your eyes and rage in your heart, and you storm out of the rink, marching off in anger since you know that any more time spent with him and you’ll probably explode. The biting cold of the winter air has no effect on you as you cool down outside, letting your breathing come to a steady beat as you close your eyes, taking in the breeze.

Of course, out of all of the people in the world, you had to be paired up with Jeon Jungkook. Your luck’s always been rotten. First, Taehyung breaks his leg, second, your replacement partner ends up being the one skater at the company you make conscientious efforts to avoid whenever possible. Sometimes, Life’s funny that way, how she teases you and makes you think that everything is going swimmingly before she dumps a whole bunch of oil into the water. That’s what this is, having to work with Jungkook or kissing your medal goodbye. Oil in the water.

You don’t hear the door open, too consumed in your own thoughts to care, until you feel a hand on your shoulder. Whipping around, you half-expect it to be Jungkook, coming out to give you some snooty remark about giving up before prancing back to his solo activities. But instead, it’s Taehyung.

“You okay?” He asks, a soft hand placed on your shoulder as the other clings onto his crutch for dear life. He’s still getting the hang of using them.

“I’m a little salted,” you say bitingly.

“A little?” Taehyung says skeptically, eyebrows raised as he takes in your vengeful expression. “Dude, you’re practically boiling over with N-A-C-L. You might want to tone that down a bit.”

“I just—ugh!” You cry, kicking the air with your skate and hoping that your guard hasn’t broken from the force. Nothing is going right, it seems, from Taehyung breaking his leg to you being coerced into staying in the competition to finding out that of all people on this godforsaken Earth, you’ve been re-paired up with Jeon Jungkook, Ice Prince. All you can do is resort to physical aggression as you punch and kick the world around you as a big “fuck you” to whatever higher being is up there, fucking with you. “This sucks ass. I wanna drop out again.”

“Y/N, come on,” Taehyung says, soft hand on the small of your back. “You don’t wanna do that.”

“I do,” you say, nodding. Maybe you’re being too impulsive, but right now you and Jungkook can’t even have a conversation without the biting ice breaking through his words, and you don’t necessarily think that’s the best way to build trust for a sport so reliant on teamwork. “I can’t fucking stand him, Tae. I didn’t even know he could ice dance! Since when would anybody want to work with him?”

“That’s it, Y/N,” Taehyung says in his best group therapist voice. He rubs your back to keep the rest of you grounded as your head flies off into outer space. “Get fucking pissed now so you won’t later.”

“Tae, I wanna pull a stereotypical pop-punk band member and drop out,” you whine, clutching onto his arm as you begin to sink down into a sad squat.

Taehyung tugs you up, his strength even with a broken leg as he balances two crutches much heftier than yours. “You don’t really wanna drop out though, do you?” He asks sincerely even though he already knows the answer. “There’s a reason Coach picked Jungkook. It’s because he’s a god on the ice, you know that. With him, you’re guaranteed a medal. Don’t you want that?”

“But is a medal worth all of the suffering he will inevitably put me through? Because if I skin him alive before we can go to Nationals, he’s gonna die and I’m gonna have to deal with the repercussions,” you remind Taehyung.

“Please don’t skin him alive, he’s got a hoard of fangirls swarming him and his social media on the daily,” Taehyung says, mildly alarmed especially considering your slightly sarcastic yet also totally serious nature. Sometimes, he can’t tell if you’re joking or not, and that’s kind of the best part. Like right now. “They’ll murder you in an alleyway and I’ll never be able to see your dumbass face again.”

“This is all your fault, you fucker,” you tell him sharply. “If you weren’t such a clumsy little—”

“It was slippery and he was cute, alright? He asked me for my number. That’s important,” Taehyung says in return, staring you down. “Are you saying that you would rather me die than get a love life?”

“I’m not not saying that.”

“He’s not that bad, Y/N,” Taehyung says, sighing. “You can get through the next two months with him no problem.”

“Don’t you dislike him just as much?” You ask, thinking back to a multitude of prior occurrences where Taehyung has voiced his disdain for the self-proclaimed Ice Prince, when you were walking out of practice, watching him on the rink, passing him by at regional competitions. This is why it’s so peculiar to see him encouraging you to follow through with this heinous plan, because it’s not like Taehyung likes Jungkook any more than you do.

Alright, maybe a little more. You don’t know what it is about Jungkook but his entire existence just rubs you the wrong way. Cold, aloof, entitled, and kind of a major asshole.

“He’s not as bad as I once thought he was,” Taehyung says warily, finally realizing that maybe he should be careful of what words he chooses to use in front of you when discussing whatever relationship you share with Jeon Jungkook, for the sake of his own safety if nothing else.

You smack his shoulder, mildly offended. Taehyung gasps, unable to rub his shoulder due to his inexperience with casts and the fact that he will definitely fall on his ass if he removes his hand from the aluminum. “You’re taking his side?”

Taehyung frowns. “I’m taking Coach’s side.”

If there was a way for your eyeballs to roll so far back in your head you would be able to hear them jingling around, loose in your skull, it would have already happened by now. “Don’t get all philosophical on me, Tae. It’s not that deep.”

“But Coach says that—and I agree with him—if you don’t do this, it’ll turn into a lost opportunity. You’re gonna regret this for the rest of your life if you don’t suck it up and do it,” Taehyung says softly, looking at you with delicate eyes.

You sigh, shoulders sinking as you slouch. “But he’s such a dickshit, Taehyung,” you whine, unable to come up with a better excuse for your desire to drop out once more.

“Damn, I don’t even think you’ve called me that,” Taehyung comments mindlessly. “Come on, Y/N,” he says, and he’s starting to get that antsy tone in his voice again, like a child begging their mother for a 25¢ gumball from the machine in the corner of the supermarket. “Please? I wanna see my best friend get a medal.”

He’s wearing you down and you know it, too, but you cross your arms and look away, refusing to give into his pleads.

“Pretty, pretty please? With a hazelnut Pirouette stick because I know how much you hate those candied cherries? For me?”

It’s always Taehyung that wears you down. He could, with enough whining, probably convince you to kill a man. Maybe this is a sign that you should stop being best friends with him, because you turn into putty in his hands every time he opens his mouth and he is a terrible person who abuses that knowledge and utilizes it to his advantage as much as possible.

“You’re a little piece of shit,” you say, but Taehyung knows you well enough to know that that’s code for “I give in, Taehyung you asshole,” and so he cheers.

“Yes!”

“I swear to the lord Jesus Christ and all of his dudebros that when you get out of that cast I’m beating you the fuck up,” you hiss, and Taehyung simply giggles. He knows you’re not serious, as menacing as you can be with glittery purple skate guards on your feet.

If Taehyung didn’t have crutches under his arms and a cast the color of a creamsicle on his leg, he’d probably be happily skipping into the skate rink. Reluctantly, you follow him inside after opening the door for him and spot Ice Prince and your coach chatting by the rink, Jungkook already geared up and ready to go.

“Got her!” Taehyung shouts loudly, causing several heads to turn to him as he meets Namjoon’s eyes with a crinkly grin. He motions to you, and you can tell that the contrast between his enthusiastic expression and your begrudging one must be amusing, if Jungkook trying to disguise his chuckles is anything to go by. “We got her, Coach! She’s in!”

“Shout it louder, would you? I don’t think enough of Antarctica has heard,” you say sarcastically, earning a teasing nose-scrunch from Taehyung in return as the two of you march up.

“Caved in?” Jungkook asks, sly smirk on his face as he looks you up and down, takes in your twitching features and glares back with as much force as you are him. “I suppose I’m not as repulsive as you thought I was.”

You scoff, brushing right by him as you tug off your skate guards and hop on the ice to warm up. If you’re gonna do this, might as well bite the bullet. “Oh, that’s sweet,” you call as you begin to skate figure-eights across the rink. “You think I’m doing this for you.”

Jungkook chuckles to himself, taking your arrival on the ice as something akin to a challenge. He removes his skate guards and joins you, gladly whizzing around on the ice alongside you as the two of you already find yourselves in a competition of sorts. This is precisely why you can’t work with him.

“Babe,” Jungkook says, catching your attention as you slow down ever so slightly—not enough for him to actually notice you paying attention to what words leave his lips—to listen to him. The pet name falls from his mouth with ease and sends shivers down your spine. “I don’t give a shit about whether or not you’re doing this for me, because either way I get another National medal to add to my collection. How many times can you say that about yourself?” Jungkook grins a shit-eating grin, and it makes you want to skate over and sock him in the jaw. “Oh, that’s right, none.”

You’re going to murder Taehyung once he gets out of that cast.

It’s obvious from the getgo that you and Jungkook cannot work together. Namjoon and Hoseok, your gracious and talented choreographer, had held out hope that you would be able to put aside your differences for three hours every day just so he could learn the routine and you could both move on with your lives, but it’s clear that’s not the case. Because the second time the two of you meet on the ice, you are forced to skate around holding hands to get a feel for the other’s touch, and you are stiff and cold the entire time.

Jungkook’s touch is too foreign for your taste. He is too foreign for your taste. He doesn’t feel like Taehyung, lacks his over-moisturized hands and the warmth that radiates from his body. He holds your hand with tension in his body, unnatural and distant. He doesn’t hold it like he’s supposed to, like how boys are supposed to hold girls’ hands, like how ice dancers are supposed to melt into each other’s touch. He holds it because he has to.

It doesn’t take a genius to note that the two of you are talented in your sport. You can both skate flawlessly, gliding around on the ice without clashing blades. It’s not difficult for the two of you to skate in time, in rhythm, but that means nothing if you cannot skate together.

And that is what Namjoon is thinking as he voices his concerns to Hoseok right next to him, as the two of them watch you and Jungkook skate gracefully yet emotionlessly around the rink.

“Should we be worried about them, Hoseok?” Namjoon asks, eyebrows knitted together as he watches the both of you. You’re talking, but it’s strikingly obvious that you’re not enjoying the conversation in front of you. In fact, you both look quite disgruntled in the presence of the other. This does not bode well.

Hoseok heaves, not taking his eyes of the two of you. He looks down at the way the two of you are holding hands, how unrealistic it seems, how contrived it appears, and he sighs. “We might need to be, Joon. There’s no chemistry whatsoever. In fact, it doesn’t look like they like each other very much at all.”

“Shit,” Namjoon says, a hand coming up to rub at his temple. He’s worked tirelessly with you and Jungkook for years to get you into your top spots, and he refuses to see you crumble now just because of an accident. “What are we going to do, Hoseok? We can’t have ice dancing partners that hate each other.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” Hoseok says, and Namjoon can practically see the light bulb illuminating above his fading red hair. “We can use that raw emotion.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to re-choreograph their entire routine,” Namjoon says, eyes pleading.

Hoseok grins, standing a little taller with his hands happily planted on his hips. “I am. But only a little. I need a new song…”

Namjoon watches as Hoseok begins to wander off, pointer finger tapping his chin as he contemplates how he’s going to edit the routine to make it fit the meshing personalities of you and Jungkook. He will admit, the fact that Hoseok has decided to change the program with so little time left before Nationals has him nearly on the floor, but when he looks up and sees you bickering away with Jungkook as you skate laps together, hands glued shut, he supposes it might not be such a bad idea after all.

“Oh my God, I can’t do this.” You sigh in anger, skating away from Jungkook so as to cool down. You reach your hands up to rub at your temples, eyes shut tight as you let your frustration subside. “God, do you even know how to ice dance?”

“Do you?” Jungkook counters, clearly just as exasperated as you.

The very fact that Jungkook is even insinuating that after nearly fourteen years of skating and ten years of ice dancing you still lack the necessary skills to, you know, ice dance, makes you want to remove your skate from your foot and chuck it at his head. You roll your eyes, throwing your hands up to the sky in anguish as you glide up to Namjoon, who looks like he’s having a mid-life crisis.

“Coach, I can’t work with him!” You exclaim. “I can’t! There’s no connection. It’s like working with a robot on ice skates.”

There’s the sound of ice being shredded, and when you whip your head around you see Jungkook coming to a quick halt across the way.

“She’s not much better, you know!” calls Jungkook mindlessly, earning a glare from you before you turn back to face your poor overworked, underpaid coach.

“Do you see what I have to work with?” You ask, motioning to Jungkook as he launches off into some quads and twists, only further proving your point that he is a self-absorbed, entitled dickhead who, if he’s so good at single skating, should just go back to the category he wins in rather than wasting his time with you.

“Calm down, Y/N. Don’t get so worked up about this,” Namjoon says patiently.

“It’s been two weeks since Hoseok showed us the ‘new and improved’ choreography—” You begin, making hand quotes around the words to show your budding distaste for change, “—and we can’t get a single one of the lifts down.”

“At least the two of you can do the twizzles,” Namjoon supplies unhelpfully, always like him to search for the silver lining in this trainwreck of a performance.

“Woohoo,” you deadpan.

“Listen, Y/N, I trust the both of you. I know that the two of you can do great things together. There’s a reason that I selected him to be your ice dancing partner. You’re capable of greatness,” Namjoon insists, only making you roll your eyes further.

“Am I being punished for Taehyung’s clumsiness, Coach? Is that it?” You groan, your head tilting back in vexation. You know Namjoon means well, he really does, but you fail to see where on Earth he thought pairing the two of you up for a national competition would be a good idea.

“You’re not being punished,” Namjoon tells you.

“If you want to win gold for Nationals, don’t you think that maybe you should spend more time practicing and less time shit-talking your partner?” Jungkook’s voice rings out in the echoey ice rink, and it makes you sigh. Turning around, you see him casually executing a catch-foot camel spin, and it makes you want to knock him right off his center of balance and watch him crash into the ice.

“He’s right, Y/N,” Namjoon says as you begrudgingly skate back over to Jungkook, willing yourself to just through the next few hours by his side before you can go home and take a much-needed bubble bath.

Hoseok joins you not much later, happily skating on the ice as he begins to coach you through the choreography. It’s much more technical than you’re used to, aimed at getting you the highest score possible, but it’s also filled with an overwhelming amount of raw emotion, something you tend to shy away from when dealing with programs. Hoseok’s always been known to step out of the box, though, so this really should come as no surprise.

With the feeling of Jungkook’s frozen hands on your waist, Hoseok guides the both of you around the rink.

“Five, six, seven, eight, one, two, up—!”

“Ow! Not there, you dumbass!” You cry when Jungkook pinches you a little too hard, causing you to stumble and fall on your knees. “Jesus H. Christ,” you say, frowning as you get up and dust yourself off.

“You okay, Y/N?” Hoseok asks, reaching out a hand as you skate to warm yourself up again.

“’M fine,” you say, albeit a little bitter.

“Alright, again, same spot,” Hoseok orders as you line up with him again.

Jungkook grips your waist too tightly at this part, the tension causing you to stumble on your next turn, but at least you can move onto the next major part of your routine without any more flubs or cries of indignation.

Almost the entire program does Jungkook touch you in some sort of way, whether it be a hand on your waist, hip, shoulder, fingers interlocked with yours, or holding onto you for a lift. You know that you’ll get used to it eventually, the feeling of his body heat radiating onto yours, but after five years of constant contact with Taehyung, it’s difficult to change course.

Still, he does not purposely attempt to make your routine any more unbearable or difficult out of spite. He can do that with his words, not his actions. At least he’s making a solid effort to get this routine down.

“Seven, eight, lift!” Hoseok says when the two of you are skating with such momentum as you approach the halfway-mark of your free-skate program.

Jungkook pulls you up, just as you had practiced before, and your skate finds purchase in the thick material of his clothing. You are both experienced enough in this skill to not cut right through his clothing (and perhaps his skin as well), a careful hand on your thigh as he holds you up, and you think you might actually be able to stick this landing…

Until, on the way down, his elbow accidentally knocks into your shin, and the two of you collapse in a puddle on the ice.

“Fuck!” He mutters to himself, swearing as he pulls at his limbs that are entangled in yours.

You sit up as well, rubbing your sore arms as you feel the bruises blossoming on your legs.

“Whoa, you guys alright?” Hoseok asks, brows furrowed in concern as he holds a hand out to lift you up. You gladly take it, pulling yourself back onto your feet as you begin to dust off the patches of ice that have gathered on your leggings. “That was some fall. And it wasn’t even the worst lift.”

“I’m fine,” you say bitingly, “we could probably get it, if it weren’t for Jungkook not knowing where to put his hands.”

“Oh yes, pile all of the blame on me, the nationally-ranked figure skater who made a simple mistake that he can fix in an instant,” Jungkook retorts bitterly, adjusting the sleeves of his fleece jacket as he skates off to cool down.

“Uh, if you guys are alright, wanna run that again?”

“I don’t know about his bruised ego, but I’m cool to do it again,” you comment, loud enough so that he hears you even from his position across the rink.

“Do you just have a thing for insulting me?” Jungkook asks. “Because that’s no way to treat the person who’s going to lead you to gold at Nationals,” he tells you pointedly, hands on his hips as the two of you prepare to rehearse the stunt all over again.

“Please,” you scoff, “I’m the reason you’re even going to Nationals for ice dancing.”

“Oh, yeah, your partner breaking his leg is a real achievement to boast about,” Jungkook retorts.

“Don’t fucking talk about Taehyung,” you spit.

“Okay, you guys, cut the chit-chat,” Hoseok says, probably more for his own sake than yours or Jungkook’s. “We’re doing this one more time, from the camel, and then practice is over for the day,” he says warily, skating over to the panel that controls the music and turning it on.

Everything goes much better the second time, the lift being not nearly as tragic as Jungkook carefully places you back down on the ice and you skate into your next trick. You actually don’t think it’s half bad, that is, until you hear the music abruptly stop and Hoseok skate up to you with a disappointed look on his face.

“Wasn’t that good, Hoseok?” You ask, maneuvering your way to the exit of the rink and grabbing your skate guards.

“It was okay,” Hoseok says, sharing a knowing look with Namjoon, who’s been observing the both of you this entire time.

“Just okay?” You ask, confused. “We landed the lift.”

“Just go get changed, Y/N and Jungkook,” Namjoon says, motioning for the two of you to head to the locker rooms. “We’ll talk to you guys about how you can improve your routines afterwards.”

You sigh, grabbing your coat from the bench as you make your way towards the locker rooms.

“This is all your fault, you know,” you say petulantly, eyeing Jungkook as you give his shoulder a rough shove.

“Excuse me? I wasn’t the one spewing out blame for a one mistake,” Jungkook challenges. “One!”

You sigh, deciding that continuing to bicker with Jungkook won’t change the outcome of the conversation you’re about to have with Namjoon and Hoseok anyway, and you head into the locker rooms to get out of your skates and calm yourself down. You can deal with Jungkook later. That is, if you have enough brainpower left to do so.

Namjoon and Hoseok have their Serious Faces on as you emerge from the locker rooms, Jungkook coming out of his at the same time, duffel bag slung over his bare shoulder. You wonder how Jungkook can be walking around in a muscle tee with his biceps on display for the world to ogle at (but not you, ugh!) in the middle of winter, but then again, he is the Ice Prince after all.

“What did you want to talk to us about, Coach?” Jungkook asks, tilting his head in interest as the two of you approach them.

“We were just discussing the trust factor in your program,” Hoseok says.

“What ‘trust factor’?” You say, wary of whatever criticism is to come.

“Y/N, do you trust Jungkook?” Namjoon says, getting straight to the point.

“No.” The answer is as easy as if someone were to ask if you supported cannibalism, or pineapple on pizza.

“Jungkook, do you trust Y/N?”

“Well, since trust is a two-way street, no,” Jungkook says. It’s the first time you think you’ve ever agreed on something.

Hoseok and Namjoon share a knowing look, one you couldn’t decipher even if you tried. Jungkook turns to face you and you shrug, happy to see that there are no hard feelings as related to the fact that neither of you trust each other despite literally being ice dancing partners. You don’t know what Namjoon and Hoseok were expecting when they asked you that question, especially given how openly you’ve voiced your opinions on Jungkook before. Were they hoping for a “yes”?

“That’s exactly the problem,” Hoseok says. “You guys don’t trust each other. What’s an ice dancing routine without trust? You have to rely on each other the entire time.”

“Well, we were able to do some of the routine today,” you point out, electing to ignore the part where the two of you just completely fell on top of each other. “Why would trust be necessary?”

“Your routine is… hmm, how do I say this nicely?” Hoseok begins.

“Emotionless,” Namjoon cuts in. “It’s emotionless. You might as well be animatronics,” he continues. “Trust builds not only the routine but it builds the emotion within it. You guys are very talented skaters but there is no way in hell that you will even get onto the podium without trust, passion, or emotion. The lack of chemistry is what will bring you down, and I know neither of you want to walk away from Nationals without even bronze.”

“How are we supposed to fix that?” You ask, hesitant. You dislike the path that this conversation is leading you on. “You can’t shove five years of experience and progressively-built trust into six weeks.”

“Exactly,” Hoseok says.

“Which is why we’re staging a Trust Intervention for the both of you. You hardly know each other as people, only as skaters, and we need to fix that,” Namjoon declares, blatantly proud of the plan he’s formulated. His confidence has your eyes wide in worry, and when you turn to Jungkook, it’s clear he’s not looking forward to whatever the two of your coaches have in store for you either.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You ask.

“You guys are going to get to know each other by going out on dates.”

Your jaw drops. Dates?

“And I don’t care how awkward it’s going to be, because you guys are going to do it anyway. You are going to go out on dates to coffee shops and restaurants and other places where you can actively talk with each other, and you are going to learn about each other,” Namjoon orders, and you know you don’t have a choice. Even if you faked it, Namjoon has the eye of a hawk and he’d easily be able to spot the lack of connection the next time you had practice together.

“You’re kidding,” Jungkook says, blinking profusely. He looks like he’s in shock. You can’t imagine you look much different.

Hoseok looks as equally pleased with the proposal as Namjoon. “You guys have more in common than you both might think, you know,” he says. “Before practice in two days, I want to see you out on one date. You could even drop by the coffee shop down the road before practice. I don’t care. But I need to see that you’ve been on one.”

“Wait, wait, Coach,” you say before Namjoon turns to change his focus towards his Little Skaters group that’s slowly filing in for their own practice. “A date? I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Jungkook adds.

“They don’t necessarily have to have some sort of romantic connotation, calm down,” Namjoon says. “They’re just outings together. You don’t have to hold hands or kiss or hug, or whatever. Just talk. That’s all I ask of you. You guys are dismissed.”

Before you can get in any more questions, Namjoon and Hoseok are turning away from you, greeting the Little Skaters with their voices light and bright and the total opposite of how they were just speaking to you.

You turn to Jungkook in partial shock and partial disgust, already repelled by the mere thought of having to spend more time with him. You couldn’t think of a worse way to spend your time than this.

“Coffee shop, two hours before practice?” Jungkook asks, expressionless.

You shrug. “Fine. See you there, Jeon,” you spit, marching out of practice with a frown on your face.

You don’t know what Namjoon or Hoseok’s game is, but what you do know, is that if they’re expecting for the two of you to form some sort of bond through these forced dates, then they couldn’t be more wrong.

What kind of bond could be forged between you and Jeon Jungkook? Not even in your nightmares could you imagine putting your trust in his hands.

Two days later, you catch Jungkook in the coffeeshop as he’s waiting at the end of the line to order, staring up the menu above his head and tapping his foot to the beat of the soft pop that plays through the speakers that decorate each corner of the room.

“Ordering without me?” You ask, joining him, with an eyebrow raised. “So gentleman-y.”

“You were taking too long,” Jungkook responds curtly. “I don’t drink coffee anyway, so I wanted to see what this place has.”

“You don’t drink coffee…” you begin, “and we’re in a coffee shop?”

“They have things other than coffee.” Jungkook frowns.

“Alright, whatever you say,” you say distantly, rolling your eyes as the woman in front of you moves to the side to wait for her drink. “Hi, can I get a medium latte, whole milk? And light foam, please.”

The barista nods tapping away at the computer in front of her before motioning to Jungkook.

“Small hot chocolate,” Jungkook says quickly, grabbing his wallet from the back of his pocket.

“I can pay for mine,” you insist, fumbling with the loose bills shoved into your jeans, but Jungkook shakes his head, handing over his card without even giving you so much as a glance. You stand there, at a loss for words as Jungkook casually pays for your obnoxious drink without a second thought.

“This is stupid,” you say mindlessly as you wait for your drinks at the pick-up station. “I don’t know how Coach thinks anything is going to improve if we spend more time together.”

“If Coach really wanted us to loosen up around each other, he should have given us a bottle of vodka and ten minutes,” Jungkook jokes, making you laugh.

“Please,” you scoff, “I bet you have the alcohol tolerance level of a baby goose.”

“Is that supposed to be an insult?”

You roll your eyes, already finding yourselves falling into the distinct rhythm of bicker, bicker, bicker. This is precisely why you knew that whatever plan Namjoon had brewing in his brain wouldn’t work, because if you can’t get past petty insults and snarky comments, how are you supposed to connect with each other?

When you’ve got your drinks, you take refuge in a table by the window of the shop, giving you a glorious view of the angry pedestrians and angrier cars, hooting their way around town. What a sight.

Jungkook sips his drink slowly, savoring each sip. When he’s not drinking, he’s leaning back in his chair, tapping his fingers on the wooden table between you and avoiding your gaze, red scarf wrapped up neatly around his neck and complimenting the red buttons on his peacoat with ease. Without him opening his mouth and ruining the entire vibe of the scenery, he actually looks quite nice. But don’t tell him that.

Meanwhile, you are ungracefully downing your entire medium latte without another shot, craving each gram of caffeine that enters your body. Maybe it is two o’clock in the afternoon, but you are regularly awake until midnight and you also will need all of the energy you can get if you have to deal with a skating Jungkook for the next five hours.

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Excuse me?” You ask, coughing slightly as your coffee goes down the wrong pipe in surprise.

“What’s your favorite color?” Jungkook repeats, dead serious. “Coach said we have to get to know each other. Answer the question.”

You’ve never heard someone sound so stern when asking what your favorite color is.

“Yellow. Yours?” You ask, wiping the foam away from the corner of your lips with your sleeve.

“Red.”

“I probably could have figured that out,” you comment mindlessly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jungkook asks, quirking an eyebrow in offense as he looks at you.

“Look at you, Jeon. You’re covered in red from head to toe. It doesn’t take a genius to guess,” you say, motioning from his scarf down his torso. Even his cheeks are read, burning from the mixture of the heat from the coffee shop and the winter from outside.

“Well,” Jungkook begins, shuffling himself around with his hot chocolate cup held tightly in his hand. “I look good in it.”

“Is that your reasoning?” You ask, appalled.

“Do you deny it?” Jungkook retorts, smirk on his face as he watches your expression change from shocked to accosted. You’d never admit to Jungkook that he actually looks good, sitting in front of you with the bright red wrapped around him complimenting his skin tone, the shade of his eyes. You’d rather keel over and die in this very coffee shop.

“I—” You say, speechless.

“So you don’t?”

“Why do you care what I think about you? I thought you were just in this for the medal,” you counter, reminding Jungkook of his own words with a pointed expression.

“I never said I cared about if you think I’m hot, though it is nice to know that you do,” Jungkook responds.

“I never said that,” you say.

“You didn’t need to,” Jungkook says with a shrug, taking an extended sip of his hot chocolate while you sit there, racking your brain for an equally good, if not better, riposte to his obnoxiously self-centered comments. How have they left your mind empty? You had always thought it impossible for a man to leave you speechless, but clearly, you just hadn’t spoken to Jeon Jungkook yet. “What, no response?” He asks, teasing lilt decorating his words.

“Sorry, too busy thinking of all of the ways I can skin you alive after Nationals,” you say, fist up at at the ready. You reach over to punch him in the shoulder, but Jungkook’s reflexes are much too quick for your liking and he grabs a hold of your wrist before your hand can collide with his coat.

“Don’t get too excited, Y/N,” Jungkook warns, keeping his grip on you tight. “Maybe we’ll do so well at Nationals that you won’t want to kill me anymore. You might even want to keep being my partner, how about that?”

You scoff. “In your dreams, Jeon. You and I both know we wouldn’t be able to stand each other for more than a season at a time, if that.”

“Who knows,” Jungkook says, leaning across the table. The sheer proximity intimidates you, how his face is hovering hardly a finger’s length away from yours. This close, you can make out the golden specks decorating his irises, and the lines on his lips—

Shut up! What are you doing thinking about Jeon Jungkook’s lips?

“Things can change,” Jungkook hums, grinning smugly before getting up from his seat and taking his empty cup with him.

You’re left there, sitting in the dust as the conversation settles around you, unable to process even a single thing that just happened. Jeon Jungkook. Jeon Jungkook’s eyes. Jeon Jungkook’s lips.

Jeon Jungkook’s ego that is roughly the size of Madagascar.

You sigh, exhaling heavily as you gather your belongings and make to leave as well, tossing your empty cup in the bin on the way out.

Things can change, but how much are you willing to let them?

“There’s the happy couple!”

Your tired eyes light up at the sound of a familiar voice, and you turn to see Taehyung happily crutch-ing his way over to you. By now, he’s mastered the art of not falling while requiring the use of crutches, so you don’t have to baby him anymore.

“Tae!” You exclaim, happy to see the one person who is most definitely keeping you grounded during this time of torture.

“How’s it going?” He asks happily, not having been at the rink since the day you found out you’d have to be partnered up with Jeon Jungkook.

You turn to Jungkook, who’s already begun walking off in the direction of the locker with little demonstrated interest in the conversation you are about to have with Taehyung, for whatever reason. Taehyung shrugs at the two of you watch Jungkook trudge off, neither happy nor sad.

“What’s his deal?” Taehyung asks, pointing his crutch in Jungkook’s direction.

“He constantly has a gigantic stick up his ass,” you remark, making Taehyung giggle. “No, I don’t know. I guess he just wants to get to practice.”

“Wow, so dedicated,” Taehyung says, shaking his head. “How are you?”

“I’m okay.”

“How much do you hate Jeon Jungkook?” Taehyung rephrases his question.

“Very much,” you inform him. “Actually, only a lot much, now. It’s getting better,” you tell him regretfully, knowing how much he’s going to rub in your face the fact that he was the one who told you that it wouldn’t actually be that bad.

“See, I told you!” Taehyung exclaims, a “you should have believed me when I said so!” expression on his face. “I knew it wouldn’t actually be that bad. You’re just so fucking overdramatic, always have been,” Taehyung reminds you.

“Want me to give you another broken leg, Taehyung?” You threaten weakly, fist balled up with a teasing smile on your face. Taehyung pretends to wince before laughing alongside you. “God, I can’t wait for you to be able to get on the ice again.”

“Me neither,” Taehyung admits wistfully, watching as some of the other skaters practice gracefully on the rink, less advanced but just as devoted as you, Jungkook, or Taehyung. “I’m getting that itch under my skin. Or maybe it’s just because I can’t scratch this one part of my leg because of this motherfucking cast, and it makes me want to die.”

You chuckle at his comment. Taehyung always has a way of taking devastating situations and laughing about them, making them seem like they’re not really real.

“Have you at least gotten to talk to that guy again?” You ask him, interlocking your fingers with his. It doesn’t feel like Jungkook, with whom you’ve been holding hands with (for totally professional purposes) for the past two-and-a-half weeks. It feels warmer, softer. Like you could die in these hands and he would promise that everything would be alright.

“Oh my God, yes!” Taehyung exclaims happily. “Jimin brought me flowers when I got out of the hospital. And they weren’t death-symbolizing white roses. I think I want to marry him, Y/N. You don’t understand.”

“Way to rub in the fact that I don’t have a love life,” you say, grimacing. “But I’m happy for you! You deserve all of the love and appreciation in the world.”

“Y/N,” Namjoon’s soothing voice interrupts your conversation as he places the cool wood of his clipboard on your back. “Go get changed. Hoseok wants to run through the second half of the program with you and Jungkook today.”

“Alright, Coach,” you say mindlessly, waving Namjoon off as you bid goodbye to Taehyung. “You’re gonna watch us practice, right?”

“Totally! Knock ’em dead, tiger,” Taehyung says, already making his way towards the up-ramp onto the bleachers that give him a view of the entire rink. Hoseok’s beginning to clear out the leftmost rink for you and Jungkook to practice, and you wave to Taehyung as you jog towards the locker room, already wary of what Jungkook’s going to say when you are inevitably late to practice on the ice.

The second half of the program for the free-skate is much more comprehensive than the first. Sure, the first part has the first set of twizzles and the layback curve lift (that Jungkook dropped you during the first time you had rehearsed the stunt), but the second features an overwhelming amount of stationary twirls and two more lifts, both of which are significantly more difficult than the curve.

It’s a good thing Jungkook’s as dedicated as you. If, at gunpoint, you were forced to pick one quality you admire about Jungkook, it’s how devoted he is to the sport, and how he’s willing to do anything to secure the top spot. At least you have one thing in common.

“Five, six, seven, eight, camel!” Hoseok shouts as he skates away from the two of you as you begin the camel spin. Jungkook wraps his heavy hands around you, one on your waist and another on your outstretched leg, and you do the same with him, palm glossing over his stomach as you hold on tight. You’re careful not to press to firmly, mostly out of fear for yourself, because you know fully well that he’s got a decent pack of abs under that fleece jacket he’s wearing. You twirl together, your two bodies slowly becoming one, but it’s such a short period of time that you split almost as quickly as you come together before launching off into the next trick.

Jungkook keeps his hands on your waist for almost the entire second part, wrapped around your waist as you skate around the rink, making all sort of elegant gestures with your hands to the beat of the music.

“Dip!” Hoseok’s voice rings out in the rink as Jungkook, with your hands tightly interlocked, dips you down down to the ice, pulling you in a semicircle before lifting you back up with ease. You spin around to face him, gliding across the ice, attempting to be civil and smile his way, but he offers nothing in return. Asshole.

The first lift comes easily, a combination with you going from Biellmann position on his thigh to a reverse-rotational. You’ve been practicing this for a few days now, not enough for it to be flawless but enough for it to get the job done and for Hoseok to fine tune over the next few weeks as the competition approaches. Jungkook keeps a tight grip on you throughout the entire thing, pressing you tightly to his body as he spins with you in the splits position before gracefully dropping you to the ice. Hoseok claps happily once you’ve landed it, watching with glee as you skate into the next series of twizzles.

It appears that everything’s going swimmingly, and when you are midway through the second half of the routine, the thought flashes across your mind that you might actually be able to work with him on this routine, rather than against him like you have been for so long. It’s a foreign feeling, that thought, and a fleeting one at that.

The final lift before the finale approaches, and you feel Jungkook press his palm firmly on your waist before hoisting you up as you wrap your arm around his neck to hold yourself up. Jungkook spins with ease, watching your body carefully as you dance around him, going from the splits to a horizontal position, the only thing keeping you glued to him his hand around your waist. It’s almost perfect, but when he sets you down you both stumble, skates colliding as you trip over each other and fall to a heap on the rink.

Hoseok cuts the music, skating over to see what went wrong.

“You guys alright?” He asks, concerned look on his face.

Sighing, you stand up shakily, holding onto Hoseok’s arm for support. “Fine.”

“Jungkook?”

“I’m good,” Jungkook says, voice as cold as always.

“What happened there, guys?” Hoseok asks.

“We were just positioned incorrectly, ‘s all,” Jungkook spits quickly, skating around in a quick figure-eight before re-positioning himself so that you can work on the lift again. You dust yourself off and join him, hoping that maybe this time you can get it so you can move onto tweaks.

You don’t.

For the next four times that you attempt the final lift, you end up collapsing in a puddle together, your skates colliding, or Jungkook’s grip on you slipping, or your limbs being connected for a moment too long, something that happens not during the lift but on your way down that causes the fall. You and Jungkook are getting equally infuriated with yourselves and with each other, much to Hoseok’s chagrin.

“Your foot is always too close to mine when you put me down,” you accuse, after Hoseok’s dismissed the both of you from practice. “Move it into more of a 180 position so I have room to move.”

“You aren’t landing in the right spot,” Jungkook counters bitterly. “You need to constantly be aware of my position on the ice so that way you don’t crash into me.”

“Your hand is slipping as you put me down, it throws me off.”

“You’re putting way too much faith in me to do everything correctly, when you aren’t even in the correct form during the last part of the lift.”

You both exhale, exasperated from arguing and from practicing and from the bruises blossoming all over your lower body. Bickering will get you absolutely nowhere but it’s all you have.

Before the two of you leave, Namjoon stops the both of you.

“Dinner together before the end of next week. A decent restaurant too, not a McDonald’s. You guys need to build trust, and you won’t be able to do that by arguing,” he orders, much to Taehyung’s confusion as he exits alongside of you, rambling on about Jimin and his flowers.

You and Jungkook meet eyes for a brief second before turning back to Namjoon and nodding.

Winning gold isn’t all sunshine and daisies. Sometimes, it’s bruises and self-torture as well.

Jungkook meets you for dinner at a mildly posh restaurant in the center of town, where the food isn’t necessarily dirt cheap, but it’s also not outrageously overpriced. It’s a quaint place, The Yellow Dandelion, that serves exclusively appetizers that are meant to be shared rather than eaten separately. The aura is soft, like the ending to a fairytale, decorated with Christmas lights and candles lining the shelves on the walls.

Jungkook’s already sitting there when you arrive, face windblown from the biting winter breeze. It’s a thin restaurant, booths extending all the wall along the wall on the right and a little bar to your left, the kitchen hiding in the back. You spot him instantly, see him waiting patiently for you, and ignore the hostess entirely as you rush over to him.

“You look cold,” Jungkook deadpans when he sees you. He’s dressed in a pale blue button-down, tucked into some khakis with his bangs brushed neatly to cover his forehead, dancing along his eyelashes. He looks so much different than when you saw him in the coffeeshop, bundled up in a scarf and jacket with his hair brushed up, or in practice, sweaty and cozy and angry.

“You look warm,” you comment in return, noting the pink decorating his cheeks. Or maybe that’s just the hazy light of the restaurant.

“I already ordered us Cokes, if that’s alright with you,” Jungkook says as you sit down across from him, thankful for the table in between the two of you that allows the both of you to keep your distance. Though, knowing Jungkook, you don’t doubt him possibly leaning over the table to make some snarky and mildly sexual remark to you. You nod, taking a look at the menu. It’s a single list of a bunch of fancy, hipster foods that sound both appealing and revolting at the same time.

“What are you going to order?” You ask him mindlessly, eyeing the bowl of pasta with olives and grapefruit. Namjoon always did say you needed to eat more “healthy” carbs, whatever the fuck that means.

“The spinach and artichoke dip, and the garlic bread. I can’t go to a restaurant and not get garlic bread. It’s sacreligious,” Jungkook says, making you laugh slightly. “What about you?”

“I don’t know, will you let me steal some of your garlic bread?” You ask cheekily, not minding the thought of garlic bread very much at all.

“You’re going to steal some regardless of if I say yes or no, so, no, I don’t mind. Have whatever,” he offers.

“I’m not going to let you fucking pay for me this time, you asshole,” you warn him holding up your wallet as a reminder. “This place isn’t cheap.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Let me pay for what I eat, Jeon. I’m not taking no for an answer,” you declare, leaning back firmly in your seat.

“You’re so stubborn,” Jungkook comments to himself, sighing.

“Do you not like stubborn girls? Oh, what a shame! What will I do if the great Jeon Jungkook doesn’t like stubborn girls? Will I have to change my entire personality just so he’ll like me a bit more?” You plead dramatically, looking up to the sky with your hands clasped together. Jungkook frowns in response to your melodrama, an eyebrow quirked in disapproval. You smile pettily at him.

The waitress comes with your Cokes, and you’re happy to have something to occupy your mouth so you don’t launch off into another series of personal attacks on Jeon Jungkook. She takes your orders before disappearing off into the kitchen, leaving you and Jungkook alone with your thoughts once again.

“What’s your favorite time of day?” Jungkook asks, yet another stiff icebreaker (pun intended).

“Like, morning, afternoon, night? That kind of stuff?” You ask. Jungkook nods. “Midnight. Early morning. When the whole world is quiet and you can finally breathe. You?”

“The sunrise,” Jungkook responds, his answer catching you by surprise. He had always seemed like an afternoon kind of guy, when the sun is high and beams down on him with all its might, when its rays filter in through the windows at the top of the rink and illuminates the path on which he skates. Not the sunrise, the calm before the storm as the sky turns orange, purple, and pink.

“Really?” You ask, intrigued. “What for?”

“The only people who are awake to see it are the people who see as much beauty in it as I do,” Jungkook says softly. “I know you think I’m some cold, self-absorbed asshole who only cares about his medals, but I actually have a heart, you know.”

“Huh,” you say. “Who’d have thought.”

Once the food arrives, you and Jungkook spend the rest of the evening offering up the food on your plates to the other until there’s nothing left but crumbs and butter lining them. It’s a little infuriating, really, constantly being offered the other’s food, but when your stomachs are full and there is no room left for dessert, you find yourself pleased with the variety of dishes you’ve had. The bill has already been paid, and perhaps the two of you could just up and leave without another thought to this not-a-date date, but then—

“Why did you start skating, Jungkook?” You ask, playing with your fork as it taps the plate arrythmically. Jungkook’s been staring down at his food or his lap the entire night, but he finally looks up when you mention his name.

“I was four,” Jungkook begins. “And I was at the rink because my older brother had been invited to a birthday party there, and I had to come with. And I had wandered off while my mother was dealing with my older brother, gone to the senior level rinks. And I saw Kim Seokjin.”

“Kim Seokjin? Seriously?” You ask in shock. Kim Seokjin is only a legend to you and everyone else who attends your skating rink, a man who skates with so much elegance yet so much pizzazz, his talent alone earning him a silver medal at the Olympics.

“Seriously. He was practicing there, and it took my breath away. I had craned my neck and was standing on my tiptoes just to catch a glimpse of him as he leaped across the ice like a fucking swan, and I realized that I wanted to do that too. When he finished, he saw me watching him, and he gave me the brightest wave my four-year-old eyes had ever seen. I’ll never forget,” Jungkook says, shaking his head at the nostalgic memory. “I wanted to be just like him.”

The answer seems so unlike the Jungkook you know now (or at least, the Jungkook you think you know). You had always heard, always assumed that Jungkook began figure skating because someone had dared him to when he was little, and he had taken up the challenge with all of his might. You had always assumed that he skated not just because he enjoyed it, but because he was good at it, and because he knew he would always win.

“What about you?” Jungkook asks. “Why did you start skating?”

“When I was in kindergarten, all of my friends were good at something, be it sports, or school, whatever. They were all good at this one thing and I was just, kinda average. Not great and not terrible, either. But I was five, and I wanted something to be good at, something to be proud of,” you begin to explain. “And so my mom, the lovely person she is, signed me up for all of these different things to see if any of them stuck.”

“And then you found the rink,” Jungkook finishes, a knowing grin on his face.

You nod, repeating his words. “And then I found the rink.”

“Isn’t it weird?” Jungkook asks, twirling his fork between his fingers. You hum to show him that you’re paying attention, despite keeping your eyes trained on your twiddling thumbs. “How even though we hate each other, we have so much in common?”

“Like what?” You ask, not because you’re doubtful, or you’re unsure. You ask because you already know, already know that in more ways than one Jungkook is more than meets the eye, so much more than a first impression, but you refuse to let yourself believe it.

“Like how we both started out because we wanted to be something bigger than ourselves,” Jungkook says. “We don’t like the day. You like late nights, and I like the early mornings, because all we want is a little peace and quiet, a time of reflection and thought.”

His words make you wince, not because they are wrong, but because they are true. Because for as long as it has been, you and Jungkook have always been quite similar. You just wouldn’t allow yourself to admit it.

Jungkook continues. “We like bold colors. They’re statement colors, show off the parts of our personality we wouldn’t otherwise broadcast. We are passionate. And devoted. And determined to succeed.” He’s beginning to stand up, gather his belongings as his words make you shiver.

Jeon Jungkook had always been a beautiful horror story to you. Talented in every way one can be talented at skating, but rude. Aloof. Uptight. Not a heartbreaker, because he didn’t date, but a heartbreaker nonetheless, because he didn’t date. You had never imagined getting so close to him, let alone him becoming your ice dancing partner. They were two separate things, Jeon Jungkook and ice dancing, but now, they are one.

The thought straight terrifies you.

You mimic his actions, picking up your coat and your wallet and standing up across from him as you get ready to leave. Jungkook looks just as soft and hazy as he did at the beginning, fairy lights and candles illuminating his features. He smiles awkwardly at you, and you send him an equally tense grin in return.

He walks you to the door, and you leave the restaurant together only to be greeted with the brisk winter breeze, Jack Frost nipping at your nose and turning his ears a cherry red. It’s clear that he’s going one way and you’re going another, and so he smiles at you.

Maybe Namjoon was right. Maybe a couple hours to get to know each other was really all you needed.

You suddenly feel a lot safer, thinking about tomorrow’s practice, where you and Jungkook will spend the entire time working on the lift. You still have yet to land it perfectly, but you are getting closer. He’s only dropped you about a dozen times at this point. But now—though perhaps it’s just the food talking, the winter weather making your brain go hazy—you think you might actually be able to do it. You might actually begin to feel safe in his arms.

That night, Jeon Jungkook stays up for as long as he possibly can, staring lazily out of his bedroom window to the stars above, catching a glimpse of the moon between the branches of the trees. It is the very early morning when he falls asleep on his windowsill, dreaming of you.

That night, you set fifteen alarms to wake up before the sunrise, managing to get up five minutes ahead of time. You pull on your warmest jacket and rush outside in nothing but slippers, and watch the sky turn from a deep navy to a lilac, to cotton candy pink, to tangerine as the sun slowly creeps over the horizon, thinking of him.

Despite the strangely enjoyable dinner you shared, you and Jungkook cannot land the final lift. It takes all of your willpower to try, yet it is still not enough, and you collapse on the ice in a heap for what is probably the fifteenth time so far, spent only on this one stunt. Hoseok skates over each time and he has no idea what you are doing wrong, no idea how to the fix the mistakes he cannot figure out you’re making.

At least you’ve stopped blaming each other, though you can’t help the side-eyes you send his way each time you pull yourselves up from the ice to try again.

“That’s it!” Namjoon calls from where he stands outside the rink, “I’m staging another Trust Intervention.” He walks up, as close as he can get to the rink without actually stepping foot on it, and motions for you, Jungkook, and Hoseok to skate over to him. When you’re in front of him, he exhales. “We’re gonna do a trust exercise, and it’s going to be a lot of fun and you guys are going to learn how to depend wholeheartedly on the other person.”

“Are we doing trust falls on the ice?” Jungkook asks excitedly, much to your horror. A trust fall on ice skates sounds like nothing short of disaster.

“Not quite,” Namjoon says hesitantly. You and Jungkook share a wary look.

And that’s how you find yourself blindfolded with Jungkook’s bright red scarf and taking tentative steps onto the rink.

The whole premise of whatever fucked-up trust exercise Namjoon has spontaneously made up is that Jungkook, through voice and voice alone, has to guide you through this path that Hoseok has made on the ice, and you’re not allowed to see where you’re going. You’re just supposed to hope for the best and pray that Jungkook does his job the way he’s supposed to you.

“This is such an awful idea, Coach,” you say, worry lacing your words as you slowly stand your ground on the ice. Jungkook is with you in the rink, but he is not allowed to touch you or guide you with any part of his body other than his words.

“I don’t care, you’re doing it anyway!” Namjoon shouts.

“Okay, skate left,” Jungkook begins, and you take a stride left. “Nope! No, not that far left. A little to the right.”

A small step right.”

“Good. Okay, skate forward for two medium-sized glides,” he instructs. With nowhere to look and nowhere to feel, you follow his words carefully, though you aren’t so sure if the term “medium-sized glide” is as universal as Jungkook thinks it it. Regardless, you do as he tells you, and you don’t hear any objections.

It goes on like this for another ten minutes as you make a movement, hear Jungkook shouting at you that you’ve gone too far, or out of bounds, or you’re about to crash into something, and then carefully follow his next direction. You even feel yourself on the verge of falling a few times, even though your hands are outstretched for balance you don’t technically need since you should know how to ice skate with your eyes closed at this point. This is by far the strangest type of trust exercise that you’ve ever had to engage in, but you will admit that it is a lot of fun.

The scarf on your face smells just like him. It’s a strange thing to think, but when you see nothing but a shadowed red and you are relying entirely on Jungkook’s instructions to complete this nonsensical challenge, your mind’s stuck on him.

(It’s been stuck on him since the dinner.)

The scent wafts through the air that surrounds your clouded mind, and you take in his aroma. He smells like the rink, more than anything else, but he also smells like fresh honey, the kind that’s way too expensive for what it’s worth since honey never goes bad anyway. And he smells like movie theater popcorn, the over-buttered kind that reeks of preservatives and calories but you’ll happily binge on anyway. You wonder if Jungkook’s the type to save his popcorn until the actual movie starts, or eat half of the tub during the commercials and advertisements at the beginning.

And when his voice is the only thing that your ears register, smooth like silk, it begins to sound like music to you. When he’s not offending you or sending you a biting remark, it sounds gentle. It sounds like a literal song, voice light and airy and filled with laughter.

Perhaps it’s just because so many of your senses have been stripped from you, that the rest of them are heightened. Perhaps this is the only reason why Jungkook’s scent is so prevalent to your nose, why his voice makes your heart dance along to the rhythm of his words.

There could be no other explanation, right?

You finish the course successfully, and then it’s Jungkook’s turn. Hoseok rearranges the path  as you skate over to Jungkook with a grin on your face, the scarf balled up in your hand. He turns around so that you can blindfold him.

“This is kinky,” Jungkook says jokingly, nearly making you keel over with laughter.

“Don’t get too excited, Jeon,” you tease him, warning tone to your voice. “The rink’s locker rooms are terrible places to jack off.”

“You think I don’t know that already?” Jungkook asks pointedly, making you glad he can’t see the wide-eyed expression written all over your face. With his hand holding tight onto yours, you guide him to the beginning of the course.

“Forward for one big glide,” you instruct, again, unsure of the universality of the phrase “one big glide.” Jungkook follows your guide, and is one bad step from falling out of bounds.

“How’s that?” He calls out.

“Good! Turn right a little bit,” you instruct, even though the path leads left. What Jungkook doesn’t know won’t kill him.

He listens to your words like a fool because he is no better than one, happily turning to face the wall. You have to try absurdly hard not to burst into laughter.

“Okay, good, good,” you say, choking down your giggles. “Straight, keep going, keep going, stop!” Jungkook comes to a halt less than a foot away from the edge of the rink, teetering on crashing into the plastic. You don’t know if you want to be kind or evil.

“Am I on the right path?” Jungkook asks?

“Yeah, yeah,” you insist, muffling your laughter. “Straight a little more—!”

Crash!

Jungkook steps back wildly, falling on his ass as the scarf dislodges itself from above his ears, falling into his lap. You’re keeling over, slapping your thigh obscenely as you cackle, the sight of a poor, innocent, blindfolded Jungkook colliding with the wall under your instruction too good to resist. Jungkook stands up in indignation, pouting.

With the scarf in his hand, he points an accusatory finger your way. “This is why we can’t get the landing, Y/N! This is why!”

You’re still giggling, unable to wipe the smirk off your face even as Jungkook comes closer and closer, menacing and peeved yet on the verge of laughter as well. Once he’s close enough, he chucks his scarf your way out of anger, and you catch it before the two of you both burst into hysterics. Even the cold-hearted, self-proclaimed Ice Prince can’t resist a good practical joke here and there.

“You got me good,” Jungkook admits, shaking his head. “I was gonna do that to you, you know. But I didn’t, because I thought it was too mean,” he says, making you muffle down your giggles once more. “Clearly, I was wrong.”

“You snooze you lose, Jeon,” you say wisely.

Namjoon, with his skates on for the first time in a while, joins the two of you on the ice.

“Alright,” he says, clapping his hands together as Hoseok cleans up the path. “Obviously, that didn’t go as planned. But that’s alright, because it’s nice to see the two of you smiling together. It’s a good kind of change,” he declares, disappointed that his trust exercise failed but happy to see that he’s gotten something out of it anyway. “You guys might actually have a shot at gold if you land that ending, you know? You could do it.”

“Let’s get to it, then?” Jungkook says, taking your hand as you skate towards the middle of the rink.

Despite all efforts to improve, you and Jungkook still can’t get the ending.

Maybe another time.

Taehyung comes and visits another one of your practices a week or so later. He’s got four weeks left until his cast comes off and he can get back onto the ice (with discretion, of course), which means three weeks until Nationals, which in turn means three weeks to get this fucking ending down.

He watches happily as the two of you rehearse over and over, each attempt closer than the last to stick the ending and finish with a bang but not close enough, and you almost always end up falling or stumbling or tripping or all three. But each time you turn to look at him, he’s got this gleeful grin on his face, not the least bit discouraged by the fact that you can’t seem to land this damn trick. At least somebody is out here supporting you, even if you don’t know if you can support yourself.

“Ugh, God,” you say, pulling yourself up after having fallen for the nth time so far over these past five weeks.

“Again?” Jungkook supplies, dusting himself off and ignoring the pain that each fall causes to the bruises decorating his legs and arms.

“Again,” you say, nodding tiredly as you join up with him again.

“Wait, wait, before you guys start,” Namjoon’s voice interrupts the two of you as he skates over, handy dandy clipboard under his arm. “Do you guys still want to do this move?”

“What?” You ask, a single eyebrow quirked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, can you guys still stick with it?” Namjoon asks, genuinely concerned. “Because it’s been five weeks and you haven’t landed it once. I don’t know, I was thinking maybe you guys could come up with an easier lift, one you’ll have less trouble landing. We can’t risk a mistake at Championships.”

“We can do it,” you immediately say, refusing to accept the loser’s way out. This move is your golden ticket to first place. Even if you can’t get it now, you know you’ll be able to later. You swear you will. “I know we can.”

“But you haven’t done it once yet,” Namjoon points out, as if you don’t already know that you’ve never stuck the landing for it. “And Nationals is in three weeks. And I don’t know how much more training you guys will be able to get in before then. If you can’t get it now, who’s to say you’ll be able to get it by then?”

“We can,” you insist. “I swear we can. We’re not going to change up the routine just because we haven’t gotten it yet.” This is your one chance at glory, and you refuse to pass it up.

“Y/N, maybe we should listen to Coach,” Jungkook says hesitantly, following you as you skate back to the ending position, where the lift begins. “If we still haven’t gotten it, maybe we should try a different move—”

“No! We can do it, Coach, I swear. Have some faith in us.” You are persistent, relentless, stubborn. You know Namjoon’s just thinking about what’s best for you and Jungkook and the routine, but you won’t change your mind now. You’ve spent so long trying to do this, and you won’t give up. Hasn’t he noticed? You’re getting closer and closer each time. “Hoseok, hit play.”

Hoseok presses the stereo and the music begins to echo throughout the rink. You and Jungkook skate into the trick, slowly gaining enough speed and momentum so that he can continue to spin while holding you. Step by step, he pulls you into his arms, allows you to stand proudly on his thigh before looping your leg around him to morph into the splits, then hang loosely next to his body as he holds you by nothing but the waist, and then—!

Thud!

Jungkook loses his grip on your waist and the two of you come toppling down once more, his hand behind your head to cushion it from the hard ice. You sigh once more, sitting up together with dejected expressions.

“We can do it,” you insist as Namjoon skates over, saving him the trouble. “I swear, we can.”

“How was practice today?” Taehyung asks, as if he didn’t watch the entire thing, specifically you falling over. And over. And over.

“Fine,” you say gruffly, adjusting your duffel bag so the padding rests on your shoulder. Jungkook had told you that he’d stay back to get in a bit of solo practice, so he’s not walking out at the same time as you.

“You’re really working that reverse-rotational,” Taehyung comments mindlessly, referencing the final lift. “You almost got it.”

“But almost isn’t good enough,” you groan, exhaling heavily. The move will get you down, rest heavily on your already dampened spirits until you can finally execute it perfectly.

“How’s Jungkook?” Taehyung asks, changing the topic.

“I still hate him…” you tell Taehyung tentatively, “but at least he works hard. I think our routine is amazing, save for the part where we mess up at the end and fall into a puddle on the floor.”

“You should do that at Nationals, as part of the routine. People will think you’re mad. It’ll be great,” Taehyung suggests, though you know he’s kidding.

You scoff. “As if.”

“But you and Jungkook, you guys are okay, right?” Taehyung asks hopefully, looking at you with innocent wide eyes.

You turn around before you can exit the skate center, catch a glimpse of Jungkook skating to the beat of the rap music playing lightly through the shitty speakers of the arena. He’s not doing much, just a couple spins here and there, but he is so easily able to move his body in perfect time, capture the essence of the song with his movements. It’s mesmerizing, watching him. You think you might be able to do it forever.

“Yeah,” you say, letting your eyes linger on his figure. “I guess we’re alright.”

Two days before Nationals is the first time that you actually do it without falling, without tripping and flubbing up the rest of your routine and missing the ending pose. Twos days before Nationals, and Namjoon and Hoseok are on the verge of a quarter-life crisis because for weeks on end they’ve watched you try to get the final lift over and over and over, to no avail. They’re almost about to cut it from the routine entirely. But stubbornness has always been one of your most unbearable qualities, and you continue to insist that you can do it.

At this point, Hoseok is just trying to fine-tune any last minute things. Nationals is in two days and if you haven’t fixed it already, there’s no way you’ll be able to fix it before the big day. Now, it’s just him skating around the two of you, telling you to lift your leg higher or don’t forget to dig your toe firmly into the ice or grab onto her waist tighter.

What Hoseok, and Namjoon, and Jungkook, and you, are really worried about? The final lift.

If you haven’t gotten it by now the chances of you getting it at Championships are slim to none, so it’s now or never.

You run the program with ease, the music flowing from the speakers to the ice, up your body and through your bloodstream. You live, sleep, and eat the beat of the song, your heart thumps in time to the rhythm. Thank God you picked a song that you’ll never find yourself getting sick of, or you probably would have pulled a double Vincent Van Gogh by now.

The skills come easily to you now, muscle memory propelling you through the routine without so much as a second thought. Jungkook’s touch is not as foreign as it once was, your hands slowly but surely beginning to feel like they belong interlocked with his, the feeling of his palms finding a constant purchase on your waist no longer unnatural, uncomfortable. He is no Taehyung but he doesn’t need to be, not when this routine wasn’t choreographed for you and Taehyung.

It was made for you and him.

Jeon Jungkook is finally starting to feel less like a replacement and more like a partner. You have spent so much time with him these past eight weeks, more time than with Taehyung (and that’s saying a lot, especially considering the fact that the two of you are best friends), and it’s beginning to feel like he’s been your partner this entire time. That this performance you are about to give in front of thousands of people, professional judges, and live cameras, is one that you’ve been planning for for years instead of weeks. That you have been with Jungkook for years instead of weeks.

You don’t know why, but the feeling that Jungkook is slowly starting to melt into the position you once thought Taehyung had secured forevermore is frightening. It’s telling, too, telling you that you’re getting used to being with Jungkook, that your body no longer finds itself immediately repulsed at his touch. It toys with the thought that maybe, one day, you’ll be working him with permanently. It threatens you with the thought that you won’t want to let him go back to single skating, where he truly outshines every single one of his competitors. That you’ll pray he’ll stay with you, instead.

You easily clear the series of twizzles, spinning around on the ice in perfect synchronization not only with the beat of the music, but with each other. The twizzles are some of the hardest skills to master, especially considering that the placement of your skates has to be perfectly balanced so as to continue propelling yourself forward, and you can do them without batting an eye.

You come together right before the big finale, Jungkook reaching out to grab a hold of your outstretched hand and pulling you close to him. He holds your interlocked hands up high and spins you around as you glide across the ice, gaining momentum for the big lift. He places a hand on your waist and meets your eyes, and his hopeful brown ones mix beautifully with your own right before you jump into the lift.

It’s the curve lift first. Jungkook tugs you up and holds you by the thigh as you stand atop his, careful not to pierce his skin as you balance on him, arms outstretched for show. Then, you loop your legs over his shoulder, around his neck, as he begins to rotate in the opposite direction, beginning the reverse-rotational dismount. Your legs form the splits as he begins to pick up speed, and you swear that even over the heavy thump of the rhythm you can hear his heartbeat racing, hear every pound of the beat.

Or perhaps, that’s your own.

Finally, you loop both legs around him so that he is the only thing holding you close to him, back facing the ice as he holds you by the waist as he continues to rapidly rotate.

It all happens so quickly. The entire lift shouldn’t take more than ten, fifteen seconds maximum. Jungkook spins and he spins and he spins and he does not let go of you, keeps his grip as tight as he can as the two of you meet eyes in the midst of it all, staring at each other with such determination, such fierceness, such intensity. Your faces hover so closely to each other, hardly an inch or two apart, the heat of your exhales fanning out over each other’s skin. You hold your breath as you prepare for the dismount. Jungkook spins you around once more, holding onto your waist as your legs come out to rest underneath you, and you hit the ice with a little skip but nothing more, your toepick catching in the ice just barely as the two of you come to a screeching halt.

You’ve done it. You’ve done it and you haven’t stopped staring into Jungkook’s eyes and he hasn’t let go of your waist and you are both panting, panting, panting.

“I got you,” he promises, breathes into your skin as your foreheads rest against each other’s. It’s not even the ending pose, it’s not even the end of the fucking song, but you’ve landed it and you’ve landed it together and that’s all that matters. That’s what will win you the gold. “I got you, I got you.”

It is intimate. Too intimate for your liking, really. You have never been so close, never felt so much, with Jeon Jungkook. You wonder if he can hear how your heartbeat rings through your ears. You wonder if he can tell that with each touch of his fingertips on your skin, goosebumps pop up and a fire ignites.

You wonder if it’s the same for him, though you doubt it is.

You don’t know how long you stay like that, how long you stare into his eyes until you’re drowning in the chocolate of his irises, the caramel that decorates it. Death by sweetness is not the worst way to go, you decide, when you glance you at his lips, so close to yours. They are so tempting, the way they curve into a smile, but you resist for the sake of professionalism, for the sake of winning.

This is a strictly professional relationship. You are figure skaters, nothing more, nothing less. You are one-time ice dancing partners, nothing more, nothing less.

So then why do you feel like you’re missing something?

Namjoon and Hoseok rush over to you, pulling the four of you into a huge group hug as you celebrate sticking the landing, doing it perfectly.

“I told you!” You cry out, smacking Namjoon in the back. “I told you Coach, I knew we could do it!”

Namjoon nods, conceding. “I should have known that the two of you would have been able to pull it off.”

“You guy did awesome today,” Hoseok says as the four of you skate towards the exist. “Practice dismissed. Nationals in two days!” He says giddily, shooting you a thumbs up as you and Jungkook exit the rink, pulling your skate guards on before heading towards the locker rooms.

“Congrats, you guys,” Namjoon says, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen him so elated. “I can’t believe that you’re so close to national fame. You’re gonna kick ass at Nationals, you know that? You’re gonna knock everyone’s socks off, blow their houses down.”

You smile, nothing more than wholly and completely relieved. Even though this is only the first time you’ve landed it, it feels like a weight has been lifted off of your shoulders, like you can finally breathe again.

“Light practice tomorrow, alright? I just wanna see that ending again, just in case I had been imagining it,” Namjoon asks of the two of you, and you nod happily in return. You never thought you’d be so excited to run through the final lift.

On the way back, you try to keep your distance from Jungkook, the mere thought of being any closer to him sending nerves shooting through your brain, sending shivers down your spine. All that you see every time you blink are his wide eyes, staring back at you, searching for something behind the haze.

“You did a good job today,” Jungkook says mindlessly, and oh God, the conversation has resorted back to ice breakers and small talk.

“Thanks,” you say softly. “You too.”

“What did you think of the lift?” He asks, clearly making a desperate attempt for you to just make eye contact with him, but you will yourself to avoid his piercing gaze. You stay silent for a while, the only sound near you the padding of your skate guards against the arena floor.

“It was good,” you comment quickly, gently, nodding your head slightly.

“It was our best one yet,” Jungkook says, continuing. It’s obvious that all he wants is for you to look at him, and you cannot even offer him that. “I’m telling you—” he says, and even though you are listening to him you wonder if he thinks that you aren’t.

You highly doubt that. Jungkook knows you too well to know when you’re not paying attention to him.

“—if we do it like that at Nationals, we’re guaranteed gold, don’t you think?”

You shrug unhelpfully.

He stops, causing you to do the same on instinct. Before you can turn away from him, he grabs onto your wrist, keeps your feet planted firmly on the ground and forces you to look him in the eyes. He looks so desperate like this.

“You just need to trust me, Y/N,” Jungkook says, gazing into your eyes and hopelessly searching for a response that is deeper than words alone. “Do you trust me?”

You’re scared that if you spend too much time looking into his eyes, you’ll drown in them. Without another word, you pull away from him, running into the locker rooms and not coming out until you’re sure he’s gone.

When you were little, just starting out as a junior skater, you would watch the televised championships broadcasted on your little box cable television in your living room, always turning around to tell your mother than one day, you’d be there.

Oh, how the times have changed.

You walk into the rink for practice before the big day, duffel bag resting carefully on your shoulder, and you feel the breath leave your lungs. You had only ever dreamed about being here, about standing on that rink and skating out in a national competition, but now you are here, and you will skate in a national competition, and it feels so surreal and overwhelming and you can feel your heart pounding and your mind racing.

Maybe it’s just the feeling of being here, of being so close to living out your dream, only a few more steps away. Or maybe it’s the feeling of being here with Jungkook, being on the verge of victory with him by your side. Both thoughts terrify you equally, though you find that when you think of Jungkook, instead of your heart racing, it stops.

Outside of practice, the two of you have not spoken since the day you conquered the lift, executed it nearly flawlessly with his hands on your waist and your lips hovering above his. During practice, the two of you hardly speak at all, only a few words exchanged here or there discussing the routine.

It’s strange. Two months ago you were hoping and praying that for rest of your time spent together, you would verbally interact with Jungkook as little as possible, and yet here you are, wishing you could do more than just avoid each other. It’s easy to see that something’s changed but it’s difficult to discern why, to sift through the practices and the programs and fake dates and look for something deeper. Maybe Jungkook really has always been like this, cold, aloof, distant, but after getting to know him so closely, so intimately over the past several weeks, you find that hard to believe anymore.

What should be more concerning to you than whatever peculiar relationship you currently share with Jungkook, you realize, is the fact that ever since your last practice back at your home rink, the scent familiar and warm and the scenery comforting, you have not landed the final lift.

In fact, it’s as if you’ve gone right back to square one, with you and Jungkook inevitably doing something wrong on that last turn, the final rotation before he puts you down and you skate into the finale. There’s something that’s changed, a reason why suddenly you’re not getting a lift you thought you had finally mastered, and not only is it stressing you and Jungkook out, it’s sending major panic waves to your coaches, who look like they are in a constant state of absolute crisis.

“Again,” Hoseok orders from where he leans against the edge of the rink, watching the two of you rehearse the move over and over.

You groan, stretching and cracking the bones at the bottom of your back, the muscles tight from so many contorted positions. You’ve lost track of how many times you’ve repeated it, attempting to land the lift to no avail. Turning your head, you look towards Jungkook, who is already skating back to the starting position with a solemn expression on his face, one of serious concentration and nothing else. He looks so different like this, empty and hollow. The life in his blood has drained out, leaving nothing but dust in its place.

You skate over to him, lining your feet up exactly so you can gain momentum with a couple of loops and diagonals before he is able to maintain the speed throughout the trick. With his hands placed gently on your waist, they no longer feel the way they used to. There’s something missing, something you cannot quite pinpoint, not even as Jungkook pulls you up onto his thigh and the stunt begins.

As per usual, everything goes swimmingly up until the last part, with your back facing the ice, your arms stretched out like an acrobat as he holds onto your waist and nothing else. When he pulls you back up for you to land safely, there is always a stumble, a trip, and then a fall, and the two of you come tumbling down within another second.

Ignoring the looks from the other skaters, the two of you get up and make your way back to Hoseok, who has been rubbing at his temples in worry the entire time. You don’t even want to think about what Namjoon is doing, who told the three of you that he would be going to the bathroom fifteen minutes ago. The poor guy might actually lose his mind.

“Want us to run it again?” Jungkook asks, an eyebrow raised in inquiry. He’s already beginning to turn around to go back to the designated spot.

“No, no,” Hoseok says, shaking his head. “You guys have run it enough. No point in trying any longer.”

“Coach,” you say, expression falling. Is he just giving up on you? Is that what this has come to?

“Really, I know you guys can do it. It’s too late to cut it out of the routine, anyway, so we shouldn’t even bother,” Hoseok insists, hand coming down from his forehead to grip the railing that surrounds the rink. “You’re probably really tired, too. You should get some rest before the competition tomorrow, since you’re gonna be putting all of your effort into it.”

“Coach, what’s wrong?” You ask, scurrying over to the exit to the ice rink, tugging on your skate guards and walking over. You’re only aware that Jungkook is following you because you can hear the distinct click of his guards being attached to his blades.

Hoseok takes a deep breath, exhaling the same way. He sits down on the bench nearby, closing his eyes and tilting his head back. You sit down next to him, concerned. What if you being able to do the trick the entire time was just a fluke? Dumb luck? What if you really cannot do it, and you fall in front of thousands of people and professional judges and live cameras tomorrow, kissing your gold goodbye?

Is it your fault? Are you doing something wrong?

Or is it Jungkook?

You cannot believe you are resorting to pointing fingers and placing blame, just like you had a month ago. You thought you had moved on from that, but the stress is getting to your brain and nerves jitter throughout your body and you don’t know how to stop them. You’ve been shaking for three days straight.

“Nothing,” Hoseok tells you, but you both know he’s lying. “I’m just… understandably worried about tomorrow. You know, because.”

“Is there anything we can do?” You ask.

Hoseok chuckles. “Yeah, land the lift tomorrow.”

You force a smile, looking up to Jungkook as he stands beside the bench, gazing out towards the rink with his arms crossed over his chest. You don’t know if you can muster up the courage to talk to him.

It’s like day one, all over again.

“We’re gonna try our hardest, right Jungkook?” You say, the sound of his name as it leaves your lips snapping him out of his trance. He turns to you with wide eyes, brown and big and beautiful, before shifting his view to Hoseok and nodding.

“We got this, Coach,” he says, that signature cocky lilt peeking in through each syllable. “We’re gonna fucking nail it tomorrow, nobody out there is gonna know what hit them.”

Though Hoseok looks hardly convinced, he cracks a grin nonetheless, getting up with a heave and bidding the two of you good luck, dismissing you from your final practice together.

It feels weird. The thought of this being your final practice before competition, your first and last one together. And then, Taehyung’s leg will have healed and he will be free to skate again, with some caution, of course. And Jungkook will go back to ruling the men’s single skate, collecting medals by the dozen, and he will forget all about the time he got dragged into ice dancing with a girl he barely knew.

You almost don’t want to leave, want to savor the moment for as long as you can before it disintegrates in your hands. Over the past two months, dare you say, Jeon Jungkook has become something of a friend. He has become someone you find yourself blindly trusting, someone you’ll put all of your faith into even if in the end he will steer you wrong. He has become someone you don’t want to forget, but someone you know you should. After all, this is a one time thing. When you return home from competition, with potential gold medals hanging proudly from your necks, you will part ways.

The next day, you will walk in with Taehyung by your side and begin to prep for next season, learning the new skills Namjoon will teach you and mastering the choreography Hoseok will create. And you will spot Jungkook at another rink, skating alone to music playing from his wireless headphones. He will come to a stop at the same time as you, and you will meet eyes and wonder what might have happened if he stayed.

And everything will go back to normal.

You begin to walk from the arena, making your way to the hotel across the street to settle in for the night and prepare for tomorrow. There’s a sheet mask with your name written all over it waiting in the bathroom in your room, and you want nothing more than to sink into a hot bath and cover your face in skincare products.

“See you tomorrow?” Jungkook asks casually once you’ve gotten to the door to your room. His room is just across from yours. His tone is nonchalant, distant. His words feel like an obligation, rather than a choice.

Just like the ice dancing.

You nod, hand on the doorknob as you begin to turn your back to him to head inside. “See you tomorrow.”

You make your way inside, shutting the door behind you quickly and peering through the peephole. Jungkook waits outside his door for a little bit, staring straight at yours for a moment too long before shaking his head slightly and retreating to his room himself. You wonder what he’s thinking, what’s going on in his mind.

Before long, all thoughts of Jungkook are forgotten as you collapse in your bathtub, letting the water wash over you like waves pulling you away from the shore.

Your entire life thus far has been preparing you for this one day, you decide as you stand in the sidelines, watching the other skaters glide gracefully across the ice as warm-ups. You and Jungkook are the last ones to go on for the free skate (having acquired the highest short dance score, thank God), meaning you will in turn be the last ones to warm up for it.

As Jungkook is adjusting the tights wrapped around his legs, Taehyung pulls you aside. He had accompanied your little herd to Nationals, quoting “moral support” as his reasoning for being there. Namjoon and Hoseok are too soft for him to reject him, so here he is.

“Y/N,” Taehyung says, and the serious tone tells you that he’s not about to tell you some lame joke about one of the other figure skaters.

“What?” You ask, glancing up at the digital clock floating along the rim of the seats.

“You haven’t been getting the lift with Jungkook,” Taehyung points out, and you are suddenly reminded that throughout all of the practices you have had so far at Nationals, he’s been watching every single one. Taehyung knows you better than anyone else, like the back of his hand, and he can typically tell when something is going wrong. “Coach Namjoon said you had been getting it a ton back home… what’s happened?”

“Not you,” you say with a groan, tilting your head back in exasperation. It seems that everyone around you is concerned with the lift and nothing else, each word placing another pound of pressure atop your shoulders. “Yes, we haven’t been getting it recently. Why?”

“Because you’ve gotten it before,” Taehyung says, “and I don’t understand what’s changed.”

Neither do you. “Nothing’s changed,” you spit quickly, already regretting how bitter the words sound as they leave your mouth.

“Why are you so stiff?” Taehyung asks, getting progressively more concerned. “You’re never like this before comps.”

You scoff. “I’m not stiff.”

Taehyung tuts. “You’re so stubborn sometimes. Look at you,” he says, motioning down to you. You’re tapping your guarded skate incessantly on the arena floor, your eyebrows are on a constant state of knitted together, and your arms are crossed tightly over your chest, wrists itchy from all of the glitter on your costume. “You’re all tense. Want me to massage you?”

Only Taehyung would offer a massage to you while in a cast, balancing on crutches. “I don’t need a massage, Taehyung.”

“Is it Jungkook?”

His name catches you off guard, as it so often does these days. “What?”

Taehyung leans in closer. “Is he making you feel this way?”

You’re rendered speechless. “I…”

Taehyung looks at you gently, searching in your eyes for an answer he knows you won’t give him outright. “If he’s giving you a hard time, just say something, Y/N.”

“That’s the thing,” you find yourself whispering, so quiet you can barely hear yourself over the thumping of your heart.

“What?” Taehyung asks, thoroughly confused with where you’re going with this.

“I don’t…” You begin hesitantly, hoping and praying that he isn’t listening in. “I don’t know how I feel about him, alright?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I can’t figure it out,” you say, and this might be the most honest you’ve been with yourself in a long while. “I just…”

“Do you like him?” Taehyung asks, finally beginning to connect the dots together in his mind. He’s got a little smile on his face, a knowing one that already tells you everything.

“I don’t know!” You respond, raising your voice out of pure stress. All of these questions are slowly driving you mad. All you want are answers, concrete things to feel and see and touch, but the thought of Jungkook is none of those things, and you find yourself left with nothing but more questions.

“Y/N,” Taehyung says softly. “Seriously, you don’t need to be so scared if you do like him.” He says, reaching out a soothing hand to rest on your upper arm. The touch makes you shiver, but maybe you’ve just been so deprived of human touch recently that everything feels foreign.

“I’m not scared,” you say sharply.

Taehyung frowns. “You look terrified.”

You make absolutely no attempt to mask what is definitely a frightened expression on your face. All you say is, “I’m not scared! I’m just…” you trail off, at a loss for words. “I don’t know what I am, Tae.”

Taehyung beams, seemingly having an answer to every single one of your questions. Maybe this is what he’s been doing these past few weeks he’s spent not skating, falling in love with that guy named Jimin and suddenly becoming the Local Love Expert, guiding you with a hand on your back. “You’re a talented ice dancer who may or may not be in love with her partner but it doesn’t matter because you’re gonna kick ass either way,” he promises proudly.

You crack a smile, perhaps out of desperation, perhaps out of relief.

“Taehyung,” you say, voice pleading. “What do I do…”

Taehyung holds both of your hands in his, looking intently into your eyes with the determination of a man about to go off to war. “You go out there and put all of your trust in Jungkook and give the best damn show of your life, that’s what.”

“Taehyung…”

“If you’re worried about Jungkook, Y/N, don’t be,” he promises softly, and you finally turn your head to Jungkook as he begins to walk towards the ice rink to warm up for your performance. He’s covered in sparkles from head to toe but his eyes glitter the brightest. “Have you even seen him? He treats you like a snowflake. Like one wrong move, and he’ll lose you forever.”

When the time comes for you and Jungkook to close out the show with your program, you find that the nerves in your body have been replaced by an overwhelming sense of dread, instead.

You dread the way he will put his hands on your waist or your cheek or your neck and the way you will melt into his touch, caving into the feeling. You dread the final lift, the one that not only the gold medal, but any medal is riding on. You dread the conclusion to your performance, when the crowd will cheer for a couple that is nothing more than a farce, a one-time deal, and you will pretend that it will be like this forever. You dread the feeling of nervous anticipation at the end, where you will be anxiously waiting for your score. You dread the arrival of tomorrow, when Jungkook will slip between your fingertips before you even get a chance to say goodbye.

Jeon Jungkook can promise you nothing more than what will happen in the next four minutes, whether it be good or bad, and while that sinking feeling in your chest tells you that it isn’t enough, your heart is willing to take it.

You meet up with Jungkook right at the entrance to the rink. He looks at you with a determination in his eyes and spunk in his wild smile, and you think that out of all of the Jungkooks you know, this one is your favorite. He takes your hand in his, holds it securely in his grip with a refusal to let you go, and the two of you skate onto the ice to cheers.

After doing a half a lap each, the two of you join in the center of the rink. You line up in the post Hoseok had instructed you so carefully to do, take in a deep breath, and the music begins.

Muscle memory, at this point, is what keeps your racing heart from thumping right out of your chest. You have rehearsed this routine so many times that it is practically engraved on the inside of your eyelids, embedded in your bloodstream.

Muscle memory is also what keeps you from thinking about Jungkook for too long, from thinking about the way he holds onto you like you’ll fly away if he lets go, the way he refuses to stop staring into your eyes as you glide across the ice like swans. Hoseok had choreographed your new routine with the intention of taking the anger you once felt towards him and turning it into passion. But now, instead of anger is something softer, something more delicate. But Jungkook refuses to give in, the fire igniting in his eyes with every turn he makes, and you realize that passion is what will give you the score. Love is what will give you the medal.

You skate along with ease, feeling the way you melt under his hot touch but doing nothing to stop it, not as he leads you through the first lift to a chorus of applause and hoots from the crowd. When you separate for the first series of twizzles, though you no longer feel his touch, the ghost of his fingertips dance along your skin, sending a lightning bolt to your heart as you spin in synchronization.

You wonder what you must look like to an outsider, right now. What the people watching see. Do they see a pair of ice dancers, shredding up the rink as they attempt to get the gold? Or do they see something more? Do they see the devotion in your eyes, the dedication you have for the sport? Or do they see the way your eyes never leave Jungkook’s, not unless they absolutely must. The way you lean into his touch despite it ruining your perfectly straight form. Can they see that, as well?

With the second lift successfully cleared, you begin to gain a little more confidence. There’s less than a minute left in your routine and you still have the last lift to go, the most comprehensive of them all. But even as the seconds tick down it feels like time stretches out, like you’ve been skating with Jungkook for years and this is just a measly four minutes, but it is so much more than that.

As you approach the final lift, your speed the only thing propelling you into his arms, time stops. It freezes entirely, leaves the two of you zooming forwards as it comes to a halt. Your surroundings seem to blur when he puts his hands on you, pulls you up onto his thigh for the first part of the lift. They turn to white in the second part, and suddenly Jungkook is the only thing you can focus on, the only thing you can think of. All that flashes through your mind as you loop yourself into the final hold is his name, Jungkook, Jungkook, Jungkook. He is the only thing on your mind. He is the only person who has your heart.

And you land, blades falling firmly onto the ice as you spin outwards, not a single stumble in sight.

The crowd suddenly reappears, and around you the setting becomes clear as day. The cheers are deafening but you can hardly hear them, not as you make eye contact with him and he smiles, grins, beams. Just in time with the music, the program ends with the two of you holding each other close, his arms wrapped around your waist and your palms holding his cheeks, foreheads resting against each other.

Perhaps you can make out Namjoon and Hoseok shouting from the sidelines, Taehyung yelling from his spot on the benches nearby, but all you can feel is Jungkook’s hot breath fanning out over your skin, and the warmth of his body as he tugs you in tightly.

Finally, after what feels like a million years too short, you part, nothing but the biggest and brightest smiles breaking out onto your faces. Customary to the tradition, you both bow to the audience, holding each other’s hands as you thank them, turning in each direction so as not to miss a single person.

He lets go of your hand so that you may begin to skate around yourselves, waving to the cheering audience. You skate around each other, getting every part of the arena. You look down into the sidelines and see Namjoon and Hoseok shouting for you, pumping their firsts up in the air. Your vision’s never been the greatest, but is that Namjoon crying?

When you turn back, you see Jungkook skating around as the audience showers the rink in roses and other celebratory flowers. He beams with the light of a thousand suns, and you wonder if you stare at him for too long, if you’ll go blind. And then you decide that even so, falling in love with him isn’t so bad.

After the applause dies down, you and Jungkook skate back to the exit, where Namjoon is happily holding your skate guards as he waits for you. As you step onto the pavement, he pulls you both in for a bone-crushing hug, words muffled from how excited he is.

“You did it!” Hoseok says as he comes bounding over, giving you a high-five that’s definitely going to sting for a while. “I’m so proud of you guys! I knew you wouldn’t let me down!”

You and Jungkook are both equally terrible at responding to compliments, and the feeling of them coming in by the dozen overwhelms you slightly. But, before you can walk over to the platform to receive your scores, you feel someone wrapping their arms around your torso.

“You just fucking murdered everyone!” Taehyung shouts, loud enough for the other couples to hear as they pass by you. “We’re all deceased! All of us!”

You laugh, pulling in Taehyung for the biggest one-legged hug you’ve ever received. When you part, he grins.

“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m so fucking glad I broke my leg,” Taehyung tells you, and the comment both horrifies you and flatters you.

Not a moment after, Namjoon is patting your back and motioning for you to join him and Jungkook on the bench at the platform where you will receive your scores, find out if you’ve won gold. You scurry over, taking a soft seat next to Jungkook as his hands instinctively come to grab onto yours, holding them tight as you look up at the scoreboard.

What happens next is mostly a blur.

You can only catch a quick glimpse of your names, being moved up to first place, before you hear Namjoon shout as he pumps his fist in the air. Suddenly, you feel Jungkook wrapping himself around you, pulling you in for the tightest hug of your life as tears suddenly begin to well up in your eyes. It all feels like it’s happening in slow-motion, like your life is a movie and this is the part where all of the music and dialogue cut out and there is nothing left but slow-motion film.

And then, Jungkook’s palms are on your cheeks and he meets your eyes with his crescent ones, and he kisses you.

In front of thousands of people, on national television, he kisses you. And you’ll be damned if you don’t kiss back. The audience erupts into cheers yet again, but you drown them out with the feeling of his lips on yours. He is warm and bright and wonderful, and his lips are as soft and as sweet as you had hoped. Jungkook kisses you on national television, in front of skaters, judges, audience members, and you feel like the world has stopped but you keep going. You feel like you’re floating off into space, and the stars are beautiful but so is Jungkook.

You part, heavy breaths and heaving chests, before Jungkook tugs you up from where you were seated on the bench so that you can wave once more. Not only are you gold-medalists in a national competition, but you are also lovers.

Though perhaps, you always have been.

(Later, at the medal ceremony, you and Jungkook are standing high on the top of the podium, unable to hold back your smiles. With bouquets in your hands and medals around your necks, you turn to Jungkook and he squeezes your hand tightly in response, and you feel like you can conquer the world.)

On the way back to the hotel room, the adrenaline rush slowly filtering out of your system with each passing second, you glance down to your interlocked hands and wonder aloud: “When did you realize you loved me?”

Jungkook seems caught off guard, pausing in the lobby of your posh hotel as he begins to think. You turn to face him, looking at him with curiosity lacing your features.

“I know,” he says, as if he’s just had a mental contemplation with himself to discern the moment in its entirety. “When we were doing that trust exercise, and you crashed me into the wall.”

“That was when you fell in love with me?” You ask in shock, mouth dropped open.

“Well, no, not really,” Jungkook reasons carefully. “I think I had fallen in love with you a while before then. But then, when I pulled off the scarf and saw you keeling over with laughter, I realized it.”

You hum, nodding at his response as you begin to slowly but surely make your way to the elevators. Ever since the win, it seems that time has just gotten progressively slower, like it’s beginning to cater to all of the lost time you and Jungkook share.

“What about you, hmm? When did you fall in love with me?” He asks cheekily, nudging your arm gently as he pushes the up button on the wall.

“Did I fall in love with you?” You jokingly say, furrowing your brows as you pretend to debate the topic. Jungkook pouts, and his face is just too cute to resist. “I fell in love with you the first time we had gotten on the ice together. Namjoon made us skate laps while holding each other’s hands, and while my mind didn’t initially register it, my heart realized that you were the person I had been waiting for.”

Jungkook grins at your answer, leaning down to nuzzle your nose gently with his own. The elevator door opens beside you, the familiar ding echoing throughout the end of the hallway.  Jungkook smiles, pulling you into compact space and pressing you against the wall as you gasp in surprise. Right as the doors close, he leans in close, his lips dancing over yours.

You lose track of time when you’re with Jungkook. The last thing you can remember is him tugging you out of the elevator once it reached your floor, your collarbones and neck already beginning to blossom with bruises—and not from falling on the ice—and pulling you into his hotel room, shutting the door behind you.

All that’s on your mind, all that is ever on your mind, is Jungkook. The softness of his hair as your fingers entangle themselves in it, tugging on the strands to pull him impossibly closer. The crinkles by his eyes when he smiles as he leans into you, soft pink lips grazing your own, teasing you. The curve of his body, the way you fit so snugly next to it, like two pieces of a puzzle meant to complete each other. He is the final piece of your missing puzzle, the piece you had always thought you’d lost, the one you almost give up on. That is Jungkook in every sense of the word, every electrifying feeling he leaves in a path of fire down your skin.

You kiss. For hours on end, you kiss, unable to get enough of the taste of each other, the feel of your bodies pressed together not in a lustful way, but in a loving way. You sit on his bed for hours and you just kiss, pressing your lips together and refusing to part. He is the air that you breathe.

It’s 2AM when something is finally done.

Namjoon, key card in hand, roughly and abruptly opens the door to his room, knowing fully well what the two of you are doing in there. You part like deer caught in the headlights, jumping back from each other even though it’s only Namjoon, but he’s seen you kiss enough today.

“Alright, out, Y/N,” he orders, much to you and Jungkook’s dismay. He pouts as you stand up, reaching an arm out to touch you a final time. “Stop canoodling.”

“Don’t leave me,” Jungkook begs.

Namjoon rolls his eyes. “You’re gonna see her in like, five hours. Calm down, Jeon,” he says, sighing as you make your way to your own room, still hazy from the high, drunk off of his touch. “You can canoodle whenever. You’re together now, aren’t you?”

Taehyung gets his cast off and by the next day, he’s back on the ice despite all warnings from his doctor to Not Do That. You tell him to listen to his physician and lay off the intense physical exercise for a while, considering the bone just healed, but Taehyung insists otherwise.

He’s not your partner anymore, for ice dancing. Obviously, he is not your partner, not when every day you walk in five minutes late to practice with Jungkook on your arm and a coffee mug in your hand. Your noses are always frostbitten from the cold, and you’re always smiling. Namjoon’s learned to accept it, especially since you’re his best ice dancing duo anyway. Taehyung had walked in the day after Nationals, took one look at the two of you, and happily gave up his position as your partner.

His reasoning? “You finally have a refutable love life, Y/N. I’m not gonna fuck that up.”

He’s a single skater now, and Hoseok says he is doing remarkably well for someone who has spent his entire ice skating career thus far relying on another person to do half of the work.

By now, everyone in the country knows who you are. Besides being the reigning national champions, apparently your relationship is just super adorable to a majority of the population, everyone obsessing over how #relationshipgoals you constantly are as you make too many posts about each other on your Instagrams and spend fifteen minutes during interviews talking about what you love about the other person. It seems, to the public at least, that the two of you simply cannot get enough of each other, and while that’s not necessarily true, it’s pretty obvious how infatuated you are with each other.

But hey, nobody’s complaining.

One question you find yourselves getting a lot, with each TV interview and radio show you do, is how you ended up meeting, especially since Jungkook had previously been a solo skater and you had been working with Taehyung. And each time, Jungkook shares a knowing smile with you, one that makes your heart burst into song, and he says, “Well, it all started with a broken leg…”

⇒ hmu with feedback or just talk to me here!

⇒ check out the post-script drabble here!

[irisbleufic]

Hey so I've started working on my first writing project in ages and I really like how it's shaping up but I'm running into some problems because the plot revolves around the main character's best friend dying and going into that headspace isn't doing me much good so I wondered if you had any advice

Hi there, @mkaiww!  Any kind of high emotion can be very difficult to write, but mourning is one of the hardest of all.  Some people are very good at separating fictional grief from real grief, but some of us…aren’t.  Once upon a time, I wrote a project similar to the one you’re describing (if my long-term readers in the audience are thinking of Book of Hours, you’d be right), and it took a higher toll on me than was wise at that point in my life.

Since then, I’d like to think I’ve formed better coping strategies for when writing projects veer into upsetting and/or destabilizing subject matter.  I’ve managed to get through a handful of projects as brutal as BoH, if not worse, but without the same consequences.  

At least for me, the key has been adhering to these guidelines:

Try to pace yourself.  Whether you decide you’re going to post (or, if not posting, sit down to write) three times a week, three times a month, or three times a year, keep yourself to a schedule so that you can be prepared for the times you’ll be in rougher shape, which leads me to…

Practice self-care.  Do whatever it takes before, during, and after writing to make sure you can counteract what your project’s doing to you.  The worst thing I ever did was, for nine months straight, inhabit the POV of a young man whose partner had not only died violently right in front of him, but was also suicidal and dealing with an actual haunting at the same time.  If I’d known then what I know now about how keenly I experience my POV characters’ emotions, I would’ve made sure I hadn’t largely isolated myself during the writing process.  I would have also made sure that I was consuming happy media alongside the hard-to-bear source material, and I would have eaten better.  One impulse I’ve trained out of myself over the years is neglecting food; I have the occasional bad week on that front, but I’m better at stopping myself to do regular human things.  TL;DR figure out what your self-care routine has to be.  If you’re rested, fed, and otherwise filling the gaps in yourself that need to be filled, you can better weather the emotional fallout.

Aside from those two rules, there’s also time and practice.  I’m not as unsteady as I was two years ago, or six years ago, or even thirteen years ago (tail end of undergrad, which is when I foolishly decided to wrap the project I used as a case-study above).  Even if I’m still hypersensitive to my characters’ struggles, long practice alone has made me a little more able to say, okay, this is gonna be hell, but it’s gonna be worth it.

Your project sounds compelling, and I’m so happy to hear you’re writing again!  Just be mindful, my friend.  You’re right to take care in a case like this.

[hypotheticalother]

it's gonna be okay, baby

Hey, you.

I think the last time I wrote anything to you, about you, I was 19, and I thought your name was S. I didn't know yet how right I was, at least for a while - I can't figure out how to access a version of that post that shows the datestamp (oh, tumblr) but it was clearly in February, and we didn't admit we were in love and start dating until March 5th. But we managed it, somehow. For the first time ever, it worked out. That's probably why I quit posting on this blog around then.

For two years, she was you, and I was so happy. I was posting on main today how I think the best time in my life so far, mental health-wise, was when I was with her. For the time when it was working, anyway, cause of course eventually it stopped working so well, our lives went in different direction, so we went our separate ways. I don't really miss her - there's no need to. We're still friends, though we've continued to diverge and definitely wouldn't work now the way we did then. Still, it was good. I learned so much, grew so much, gained so many of those experiences I spent all that time writing to you lamenting not having had. Having sex. Being loved. Feeling at home and okay in my body, at least for a while.

It's funny reading back my old letters to you - journal entries, basically - and seeing how much I feel like I've come full circle since then. A lot of things have changed. Half the people in those letters are getting misgendered when I read them now, including sort of me. I've spent a lot of time with my therapist talking about how mad I was at that version of myself, for a long time, for not realizing she was queer sooner - if the affection and compassion I feel for my younger self, reading back, is any indication, I think we were successful at moving me past that - so it's interesting to look back and remember it wasn't as much of a snap realization as it feels like in hindsight. It feels so obvious now, and it's honestly kind of funny to read some passages that could be straight (ha) out of an encyclopedia entry on compulsory heterosexuality.

but back then, I had thought I was straight and was slowly but surely figuring out I wasn't, even as I was lonely and longing to be loved but unable to find it or feel it yet. now I'm lonely and longing to be loved and unable to find it or feel it lately, and back at the questioning drawing board a little as I work out gender and whether I might actually like men after all, after years of firmly believing I don't, just in a gay way that it feels completely impossible to practically achieve in the body I live in. but I still love women in a gay way, in the body I have, and maybe that's enough, cause it's not like there's anything I can do to change that. not in the exact way I want. which is how I felt about everyone, when I was 19 and hadn't experienced being loved and desired while fat at all yet! maybe it's all obvious egg behavior from the outside looking in. maybe I'll read this back in another 6 years and say oh honey, how wrong you were. let's manifest that, maybe. I don't know.

there've been a lot of people in between who weren't you. no more sexual experience, frustratingly - that 20 years of pent-up sexual frustration I mentioned in one of those letters is now 25 years, minus, like, maybe 2 weeks' worth of total days (I can't remember how many times S and I had sex, I didn't keep track past that wonderful week in Michigan when I was 21 and got eaten out daily), of sexual frustration, so I look forward to figuring that out with you - but at least thanks to a different S (definitely not you, but very hot) I know there would have been if not for the pandemic. let's not talk about the pandemic. I don't want to talk about the pandemic. I kind of think I won't be able to find you, or the next version of you, anyway, until after it's over, and I also kind of think it will never end, because that's how it feels right now, so here I am again writing to you crying alone in my room instead of doing homework. at least it's a room to myself with a queen-size bed now. if I do find you, we'll have enough space.

there was K (who shared my pre-high school name, if not the formal one). we went on three dates, she was the second person I ever kissed, I was maybe going to go hang out at her apartment one night but she panicked and cancelled and at the time I didn't fully understand what was going on but now I think she assumed hanging out at someone's apartment definitely meant sex and she just wasn't ready for that commitment and you know, that's fine. she was cool. veering a little close to queer twin dating, not to mention the name thing, but she was great. she moved to New York, and as far as I know, didn't experiment with communism - but almost certainly went down on a girl, since she got into a relationship with one within months of moving there. I don't know if they're still together, but I'm happy for her. the timing just wasn't right.

there was C. I can't talk about C right now, or maybe ever. I'm so happy for her that she's so happy with the nice transmasc guy she's living with and their cats. timing is such a motherfucker. alexa play the one that got away by katy perry. I could have said anything, ever, but I didn't, because I was moving away. god I just don't know. they're moving here right as I'm leaving. that's probably for the best. fuck timing. I miss her so much.

there was N. we only made it two dates before we both bailed on each other and blamed it on being too busy, though I'll never know if that really was it. it's fine. never kissed her. she kissed my cheek. didn't really think she was probably you, but she was cool, and maybe if I hadn't been an overwhelmed mess adjusting to law school she could have been.

there was S, the second. I was never going to fall in love with her, we weren't enough alike, not on the same wavelength - I haven't found anyone since the first (well, second) S who felt like we were on the same wavelength at all, and maybe the fallout is now I know that's the problem, and it's what I'm looking for, and I'll know it when I feel it, I just can't find you. the next you. I don't know that I believe in there only being one you anymore, but I want to find the version of you that I'll be willing to put in the work to keep that way, and you'll be willing to love me like that back. point is, S was not you. but we were on the same wavelength when it came to sex for once - I wanted it, I think she wanted it too (she said she did), we just couldn't make it work out. because of the pandemic, which we're not talking about. the 20s and my 20s had better be even more roaring than the last, is all I'm saying. we're all pretty much fucked, no matter what S (the very first, one of those people getting misgendered in the old entries, sorry S, we didn't know then) says; I'm open to being pleasantly surprised, of course, but I feel like I know enough to know the broad outline of what's coming and I just want to get fucked really good by someone other than me before it all gets too fucked up. I don't know if that'll be you. wish it could've been S. we did make out in my car for like 2 hours, so at least there was that, and talked through the logistics of meeting up to spend just one night together, maybe, until we ran into too many roadblocks. again with the timing.

most recently, there was E. I'm still mad at her - she's clearly not you, because I'm old enough and tired enough now not to give someone with that many hardline opinions about mundane things that differ that deeply from mine 2 years of my life, let alone more than a month. I adore cats even though I'm allergic and someone aggressively hating them is a huge red flag to me, and my favorite food revolves around onions, and I don't actually think it's cute to joke that by the fourth date, someone should be willing to change their name for you because it reminds them of their ex. but I'm mad because I did like her, even if we aren't compatible, and I got to know her over that month - we texted almost every day, which is maybe why I let it carry on for a while, cause it was like that with S too; wonderful fun over text, then always rougher around the edges face to face - and then when I said I wasn't interested in dating but would like to be friends, she never replied. ghosted me. she's older than me, even though I guess in dating years she's kind of younger - since she didn't start dating until 22 or 23, as I recall. but for fuck's sake, if you were American you wouldn't be on your parents' health insurance anymore. you could at least have the maturity, the decency to respond to a very polite breakup text, at a stage of the relationship where it's reasonable to break up that way (especially in, again, the pandemic), from someone who goes to grad school on the same campus as you, even if we're thankfully at opposite corners. I hate her and also I keep wanting to text her Twilight memes now that she's finally watched them all and there's nothing I can do about it because she made this choice, not me, and I can take a fucking hint.

I just wish I'd found you by now. maybe picking this up again is me trying to manifest that a little, since the last time I wrote angstily in my online sadness diary here, one autumn, I had found a version of you by spring. but now I think my problem is I feel like I don't understand how. people talk about knowing right away, and I guess maybe I did too, with S, I just didn't know that was what it was yet - I remember thinking, that winter, that it was strange and confusing to have met this person and have bonded so fast but to not know how to fit her into the scheme of my life, because all my real friends were people I'd spent at least a year and mostly many bonding with before we all moved to different places, but here she was. and there you were, for a while. so maybe when I know, I will know. but I don't think I'm going to know any time soon, cause now I'm in a stage of education where most people who aren't fucking unbearable are already happily partnered.

and you know, I'd say I hope I find you again soon, but - there's that bitch timing again, because this time, by summer, the plan is I'm moving away. so I think I just need to be patient, and plan to work harder at finding you where I land. but - *little women saoirse ronan voice* I am so lonely.

I can't really relate to almost any of Katie Gavin's songs, and I think that's healthy for me, in the big picture. but I sure do read back those things I wrote to you when I was - not a kid, but definitely not as much of an adult as I am now - and the one thing I think is,

it's gonna be okay, baby. it's gonna be okay.

Love,

Me.

[unashamed-shipper]

Living With You

Thank you so much for waiting for this! I would like to announce that I am no longer updating this story because I am so busy. 

April Fools! I would never stop updating this, even if I had three jobs and worked 70 hours a week. You all are the best reviewers and most amazing people in this entire world. I could never give up on this. Thank you so much for all that you’ve done for me. 

Onward and Upward! <3

read on ff.net and ao3

one / two / three / four / five / six / seven / eight / nine / ten / eleven / twelve / thirteen / fourteen / fifteen

rating: t+ for sexual joking, swear words, and violence

pairings: nalu, gruvia, gajevy

characters: natsu, lucy, juvia, gray, gajeel, levy

reblogs are appreciated <3

Juvia’s shop opened up the next morning at 8 AM. It didn’t usually open that early, but since the customers had been so irritated at not being able to get their crystals for a week, Juvia had made an exception.

Unfortunately for Lucy, that exception was not communicated to her.

“Good morning, Lucy,” Juvia answered when Lucy let out a groggy greeting.

“Why are you calling me so early, Juvia? It’s my day off, isn’t it?” Lucy yawned and looked at the clock. 8:30. What had gotten into her boss today? Had the alcohol they had drank last night as a celebration for Natsu coming home impaired her judgement?

“Juvia is sorry, but the store is open now,” the woman said, her tone worried. “Is Lucy going to make it in?”

“Of course, Juvia, but I wish you would have told me that we were opening this early.”

“The customers were getting impatient so Juvia was forced to open up the store early. It is not her fault.” The inflection in Juvia’s voice sounded like she was concerned, but firm.

“I understand. I’ll be there in half an hour.” Lucy pulled herself out of bed, pushing a hand through her hair. “Will you be able to hold down the fort until then?”

“Juvia will do her best. Cana is with her, so Cana will help. Juvia will see Lucy soon,” Juvia said before saying goodbye and hanging up.

Lucy slowly made her way into the kitchen to pop some tarts into the toaster quickly, turning around to make herself some coffee. She would need it after last night. Why, oh, why had they decided to drink so late?

Hurrying into the shower and pulling on some clothes, she combed through her hair rougher than she usually would. To her chagrin, her locks hadn’t taken to her conditioner like she wanted. Sighing, she grabbed her mascara and lipstick and shoved them in her bag before stepping into her shoes and rushing out the door with her coffee and breakfast in hand.

Zooming into the parking lot ten minutes later, Lucy found that the store was filled with people. One was arguing with another about a book on magic, and one was flirting with Cana and telling her he could drink her under the table. Juvia was struggling with a man with his hand in her face inquiring about the prices of some crystals. Lucy jumped right in and asked what the problem was, and the man had no problem telling her.

“This woman marks up her prices too high! I can get this at another shop for much cheaper!”

“Well, she has to pay her employees. She wouldn’t be able to if she didn’t mark up the prices a little more. And it’s only fifty cents more than the price you could get anywhere else,” Lucy said, attempting to reason with the man.

“What do I care about the employees? They aren’t needed!” The man got closer to Lucy with a smirk on his face, and Lucy pulled back with a smirk of her own on her lips.

“If you think that, sir, then you can leave. We don’t need hurtful customers like you invading this calm environment,” Lucy said, holding out a palm toward the door. The man scoffed and walked off without his precious crystals. Juvia held out her palm and Lucy slapped it soundly. The two giggled for a moment before helping the next, thankfully kind, customer.

The workday passed by quickly, and Levy stopped by for lunch. She had gotten off work and strutted in wearing her work pants and a blue tie blouse. She grinned as she handed Lucy and Juvia their lunch they had called to order, and the three sat down to eat together in the back while it was slow.

“Do you have to wear stuffy suits like that all day, Lev? That must get tiring. I like wearing my apron all day,” Lucy said with a wink at Juvia.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Levy said with a sigh, “and sadly it takes up most of my wardrobe too.”

“Would Levy want Juvia and Lucy to come with her shopping?” Juvia said, eyeing Lucy with a knowing smile. Lucy perked up at the word ‘shopping’ and nodded her head with hopeful eyes.

“Oh, can we? I’ve always wanted to see what you looked like in a cocktail dress! You need to show off those legs for your date, Lev!” Lucy said excitedly, and Levy sighed and shook her head.

“Well I guess I don’t have any choice, do I?” Levy replied with her lips upturned, and Lucy whooped softly.

After the women finished their lunch, Lucy and Juvia headed back to work in order to make more customers happy. The life of a retail worker never stopped, and the customers would always be there arguing about prices or sales like the man had just a few hours before.

“See you in a few hours!” Levy called, waving to her friends. Lucy gave her best friend a grin and a thumbs-up and Juvia opted for a soft wave.

The rest of the day went on without a hitch, and sooner rather than later they found themselves at Heart Kreuz trying on a bunch of things they’d never buy themselves. Juvia grabbed a velvet red dress that she would never have picked herself at the urging of Lucy and Levy. Surprised that she actually liked how it looked, Juvia sent a photo to Gray with a smile.

“Okay, now that we’ve found something for me and something for Juvia,” Lucy said, grasping the fall boots that had been marked down almost half off, “We have to find something for you, Lev.”

With a sigh, Levy shook her head. “I don’t think they have anything for petite girls. All they have is maxi dresses for spring.”

“I’m not even tall enough for one of those. Sometimes I think they’d have to be worn by an Amazon,” Lucy said with a grin, knowing that Cana sometimes wore those same dresses she saw on the rack. At 5’10, the woman nearly towered over most of her friends other than a select few.

“Blue would look pretty on Levy,” Juvia commented, twirling her hair and staring at her phone.

“I think you should try something in a burgundy,” Lucy said, pointing toward the same kind of dress she had told Levy about earlier: a little cocktail number that would show off her legs.  

“Are you sure? This seems pretty short for a fancy restaurant like Emillio’s…” Levy said, and Lucy tsked while practically shoving her friend into the fitting rooms.

“Just try it on! I think you’ll like it.” Lucy pulled the curtain shut and grabbed some water from the complimentary water and coffee station Heart Kreuz had set up. It was a pretty expensive shop, but Lucy loved the style of clothes and the deals she could scrounge for.

Moments later, Levy emerged with a flush and her fingers gripping the hem of the dress. “I-I don’t know about this--it seems too risque.”

“Juvia thinks Levy looks very pretty!” Juvia said, snapping a picture of her friend and posting it on several social media sites, blocking Gajeel from seeing the posts. They wanted to make sure that he would be surprised with how Levy looked that night.

“I think you look beautiful, Levy. It fits you perfectly!” Lucy reached out and grabbed her friend’s arm to pull her toward the three-way mirrors.

“Jeez, I’m gonna need a lot of makeup. Pulling all these all-nighters hasn’t been good for my skin,” Levy critiqued, poking at her face and decolletage with a frown.

“I’m sure Evergreen can help you with that. And your hair can be done by her too. Don’t worry, we’ve got everything under control.” Lucy patted her friend’s arm with a smile, and Levy pouted as she continued to squish her face to find each individual flaw.

Levy bought the dress without hesitation, but was still surprised at the price.

“I’m paying that much?” she balked, but Lucy and Juvia’s encouragement coaxed her to fork over the cash.

With that, the three girls drove separately to Lucy’s house where Lucy would show Levy an array of basic makeup tips that she could use when she wasn’t going out on such a fancy date. Singing along to a band they remembered from their childhood, Lucy’s thoughts wandered toward Natsu. It had been a few days since she’d last saw him, and the most recent time they had talked was when they were on the bus together. Lucy’s heart fluttered with excitement as she imagined what he looked like that day.

Lucy pulled into her apartment’s parking lot and smiled when she went inside and saw her three roommates in a fight like normal. Natsu had Gray in a headlock and his shirt had pulled up just a tiny bit to reveal his abs as he grasped Gray’s head and gave him a noogie. It was all Lucy could do not to gasp as she saw what he partially looked like without a shirt on. If she went to the beach with the three, she would be doomed.

“Hey, Luce! The mail guy left a letter on the table for you,” Natsu said with a grin before getting the wind knocked out of him as Gray threw him to the floor.

“For me?” Lucy asked, picking the letter gingerly and examining it. There was no one who knew her address other than Levy and Juvia, and there was no way that Dan had gotten her address from anywhere. She kept her social media accounts pretty private, and she would never post any information that she wouldn’t want everyone knowing on there.

Her anxiety started to push at her belly, and she sunk to the floor as she opened the letter. With shaking hands, she unfolded the crisp paper and began to read.

It was from her father.

‘Lucy,’ it read, ‘How unfortunate I have not heard from you for the past few years. It is quite sad for a father not to hear from his daughter. Nonetheless, I have a proposition for you. One of our business partners has a son and would like to unite the Heartflilia and Eucliffe businesses. I expect you to send me back a missive with your agreement. Warmest Regards, Jude Heartfilia, Heartfilia Estate.’

Lucy’s stomach began to to tremble with fear. Her--her father was alive?

Her mind began to flash with images of Dan telling her that her father died in a car accident. On his handsome face was writ faux concern, and Lucy remembered shouldering past him to go cry in her room. Her father wasn’t the closest person to her, but he was still family.

She realized that her ex hadn’t talked about how exactly he was killed. Dan had said something vague, telling lies like he always did. And Lucy believed him, smiling and listening naively. She was so stupid with her love. She gave it away freely to him, and he charmed her with his words.

Falling on the floor, she ran to her room to cry like she had when Dan had told her that her father had died.

Only this time, it was because he was alive.

***

“What do you mean, that bastard is alive?” Natsu asked after reading the letter, shaking the letter in the air in his fist.

“Simple. Her ex lied to her,” Gray said snidely, kicking one of Natsu’s spare shirts that was on the floor.

“What the hell’s goin’ on here? Her old man was dead but now is up and kickin’?” Gajeel asked, throwing his hands up in the air.

“I dunno, but if he ever shows up here I’m gonna kick his ass,” Natsu said, growling.

“You want to kick everyone’s ass,” Gray smirked at Natsu, and Natsu responded by socking his frenemy in the arm.

After a moment of fighting, Natsu stopped punching Gray and went to Lucy’s room to comfort her. He had to do something to aid her anxiety.

“Luce?” he asked after opening the door. Only hearing soft snores from her side of the room, he smiled softly and made his way to the couch by the end of her bed.

His smile was only made larger when he saw her messy ponytail unravel and her locks tumble over her shoulders. Her hair was gorgeous and made her look a little more ethereal as she snored through her nose.

His heart thumped in his chest as his eyes traveled down her form. She was stunning to say the least, but it was nice seeing her in comfortable clothes instead of those stiff blouses and skirts she wore everyday. It wasn’t to say that she didn’t look nice; she did! She looked professional and pretty always, but Natsu wanted to jump at his chance to see Lucy in her quietest state.

Natsu was startled by Lucy’s loud snore as she turned over to face him.

Well, he thought with the corners of his mouth upturned, maybe not as quiet as he thought.

Suddenly curious, he got up from his spot on the couch and went to the side of her bed cautiously. Reaching out a hand, he stroked her hair with a gentle smile. It was soft and healthy, and it’s color shined in the moonlight that streamed from her window. Natsu felt his eyes widen as he played with her hair and Lucy smiled in her sleep. She looked so peaceful, and he loved that about her.

Removing his hand, he went to go leave so he could go to sleep. It had been a long day, and he had to get ready for tomorrow.

Then he was jerked back, and he felt himself fall onto something soft and pillowy. Testing it’s firmness with a finger, he found that he had fallen on Lucy’s bed. Confused, he turned around and found her snuggling up next to him. Her body was pressed up against his, and he gasped when she forced her body flush to Natsu’s.

Breathing lightly and trying not to exhale too much, his heartbeat sped up when he found that she had wrapped her arms around his chest.

“Lucy?” he asked quietly, but she did not answer. She was asleep.

Silently, he fell asleep next to her, his last thought echoing in his mind.

‘I...I think I love her.’

Thank you so much for your sweet comments and your appreciation. I love you all so much <3 

I will try to update once a week, but since my work cut my hours and I’m looking for a new job, the updates might be different throughout the week. Thank you for keeping up with me through my crazy schedule! :) 

>>>Chapter 16>>>