#I always write the whole thing before I post

[wheeboo]

you've got boba eyes, dude | lee chan

SYNOPSIS. You’ve carried nothing but bad luck bouncing between jobs. However, after managing to land a spot as a lifeguard at Carat Bay for the summer, your curiosities start to drift towards the waterpark’s prideful boba shop owner, Lee Chan, who somehow always ends up in your lane—both literally and figuratively. You came for a summer job, not to dive headfirst into a bantering game of cat and mouse. PAIRING. boba shop owner!lee chan x mat racer attendant!fem!reader (ft. soonyoung, seungkwan, vernon, a mention of joshua, & nayeon from twice) GENRE. fluff, crack/humour, slightly suggestive, enemies (more like annoyances?) to lovers WARNINGS. cursing, so much banter, bickering, and flirting between them, chan flirts like a competitive sport and yn is tired of his shit but loves it anyway, mention of weed and alcohol drinking, shirtless chan moment, kissing WORD COUNT. 11.5k

notes: this is definitely not my proudest fic, sadly not proofread and rushed and the plot was not plotting, but i hope u all enjoy nonetheless! also sorry for having not posted any fic in a while, but i promise new exciting things are coming!! this is for the @camandemstudios carat bay collab !! pls check out the other fics by the other wonderfully talented authors in the collab as well <3 i'm so happy i was able to write for dino again hehe 🥺

You certainly did not expect for your resume to land you a job at the Carat Bay Waterpark. But you would probably take anything at this point𑁋the awful luck you’ve been having with going through over a dozen dead-end gigs is enough to make even a lifeguard position of watching people belly flop off slides seem like divine intervention.

At least the uniform you have on is cute. Kind of. 

You find yourself staring down the six-lane, neon-striped monstrosity of a slide, watching as kids, teenagers, and adults race down atop of foam mats at death-defying speeds. Your job? Blow your little whistle, make sure the guests adhere to the requirements, give a thumbs-up, and pray to the heavens above that no one faceplants on the way down. 

The only thing worse than getting sunburnt in the literal summer heat is doing it while babysitting overly enthusiastic kids and pretending you know what you’re doing when you definitely do not. But alas, faking customer service seems to be one of your quirkiest perks when you’ve had experience juggling between three jobs back in your early college days just to pay rent. 

You sigh as you rest against the post of the mat racer startling line, feeling your shirt stick to your back from sweat like industrial glue. It’s only the first day, and you have no idea how you’ll be able to get through the rest of summer without evaporating. 

Then, a rag is suddenly thrown in your face, snapping you back out of your thoughts. 

“Break time, girl,” Nayeon coos with a smirk as the rag falls uselessly in your lap. “Go hydrate before you traumatise some eight-year-old.”

You immediately stand up at that. “God, you’re a saint.”

Normally, it’s hard for people to make friends on the first day of the job. However, Nayeon was quick to breeze her way into your shift as if she owned the damn place. She’s already dubbed herself as your “waterpark big sister” and seems very determined to make sure you don’t die from dehydration or despair before the week is done𑁋apparently it’s common with new employees, and you’re just one of the stubborn ones who hasn’t dipped on the first day.

“Thirty minutes is kinda a lot,” You say, dabbing at the sweat on your forehead with the rag under your hat. “Got any good places to go to?”

Nayeon lets out a contemplative hum, before her face breaks into a grin as if she’s been waiting her whole life for someone to ask her this. “Do I ever!” Then she crosses her arms mischievously. “You like boba?’

“Who doesn’t like boba?”

“Well, you’re in for a treat, babe,” Nayeon replies cheekily. “Go past the Lazy River. There’s a little boba shop near the churro cart. Called Chan’s Bubble Bar.”

You snort a little. “That’s seriously what it’s called?”

“Yep, unfortunately.” Nayeon clicks her tongue. “Owner is the most insufferable boba genius and flirts like a competitive sport. So, take that as you will.”

With that cryptic warning, she excitedly shoos you off like a mom sending her kid off to kindergarten on the first day of school. You navigate past crowds of sunburnt tourists and overly sunscreened children wielding ice cream cones light lightsabers, heading past the Lazy River.

You spot the shop in question. It isn’t that hard to miss.

The sign overhead is clearly hand-painted, the letters uneven but bold. There’s a small chalkboard menu sitting right at the entrance, and your eyebrows knit together as some of the absurdly ridiculous names for drinks listed on there. Seriously, what the hell is a Don’t be Chai, Better Than My Ex, and a Trust Me, Bro drink? 

Rolling your eyes, you push the door open and head inside, immediately met by the smell of sweet tapioca syrup and fresh fruits. The cool air from the air conditioning is an absolute godsend compared to the boiling sun outside. It’s a tiny space, somewhat cozy in some odd way you can’t exactly explain. 

On one wall, there’s a column of colourful surfboards, and there’s a section where you spot a bunch of polaroids and neon post-it notes containing handwritten reviews from customers.

There isn’t anyone at the counter, but you hear the faint sounds of music playing from somewhere in the back𑁋the door to the back is just a bunch of hanging beads of what seem to be seashells. 

You’re about to call out when a head pops up from under the counter𑁋followed by a startled yelp.

“Jesus!” You both blurt out in surprise at the same time.

You stumble back a step, and the guy straightens up. He looks around your age, his dark hair is tousled, wearing a sleeveless black top that conveniently shows off his large ass arms, a chain necklace dangling around his neck, with an apron exclaiming YES, I’M THE OWNER LEE CHAN. God, he’s built like the exact epitome of a summer fling in an awful summer YA novel. And he looks way too pleased with himself for someone who nearly gave you a heart attack.

When his eyes lock on yours, it lingers. Just a little.

“Do you live under there or something?” You ask breathlessly, clutching at your chest. 

Chan grins, shaking his head. “The universe likes to break the register sometimes. Little discrimination for small business owners, I guess.” He wipes off a matcha stain on his apron. “Anyway, you don’t look like one of my regular customers. Too tense, awful posture, and lifeguard-y. First day?”

You blink at that. “That obvious, huh?”

“You radiate the whole I-just-signed-my-life-off-for-minimum-wage deal,” Chan says matter-of-factly, dramatically motioning over your figure.

You roll your eyes. “Jeez, do you always psychoanalyse your customers? Read out their horoscope descriptions or something?”

“Only the cute ones.”

You nearly choke on air at his words. Chan doesn’t even flinch, just flashes you a smug, lopsided smile like he knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s cute𑁋you curse at yourself for mentally thinking that. You hate that he’s cute. And hate that you know he’s probably going to be an absolute pain in the ass for your summer. 

Chan leans on the counter, clasping his hands together expectantly. “Alright, rookie, what will it be?” 

You pretend to think, trailing your eyes over to another menu displayed on a little stand right next to him. All the drinks listed on there seem like they were created by an entire frat house, and you aren’t sure if it’s helping with your appetite or not. Either way, Nayeon did say he’s an insufferable boba genius. 

The insufferable part is right on point.

“Surprise me,” You tell him with your arms crossed, already feeling like you’ll regret saying that. 

Chan’s obnoxious grin only widens at that. 

“Dangerous game,” he quips, tapping his fingers on the counter rhythmically. “Give me a few minutes to work my magic.” Then he turns to the back to yell out, “Soonyoung! Get me the watermelon popping pearls!”

There’s a sudden loud crash from the back, followed by the unmistakable sound of someone tripping. Then a few seconds later, a new guy emerges out from the curtain of seashells. His hair is half-dyed red and black, and there’s a slap of flour on his cheek that he rubs away. You watch him𑁋Soonyoung𑁋shoot a glare towards Chan, clearly showing this isn’t the first time he’s been summoned. 

“Do I look like your kitchen elf, dude?” Soonyoung remarks annoyingly, grumbling under his breath. 

“Hey, I pay you with unlimited access to the lychee slushies. Emotional damage is part of that too,” Chan retorts back while already preparing your mystery drink like he’s on some sort of culinary show.

Soonyoung just scoffs, teasing over the jar of tapioca pearls to Chan with the perfect underhand. He shoots a brief glance to you, then to Chan, before disappearing to the back, the beads clinging behind him. 

Your eyes shift back to Chan, watching as he breezes through the process with an annoying kind of confidence. As if he’s done this a thousand times before. As if he knows this is going to impress you, which dammit, it kind of is. He shakes the cup, mixing all the mystery ingredients with a dramatic flair, his brows furrowed in concentration that should not be as attractive as it is. 

When he finishes, he slides the cup over to you on the counter. It’s a swirl of pale green with watermelon tapioca pearls. You eye the drink curiously, taking it in your hands, the cold surface of the plastic cup and melting into your hand. 

“Honeydew base, watermelon pearls, splash of coconut milk, and a dash of lime zest,” Chan announces like he’s showing off a Michelin-star dish. “Coined the Existential Crisis.”

He watches as you take a tentative sip of the drink.

You swear your soul nearly leaves your body. Because of course it’s good. Really damn good.

You take another sip, more confident this time, trying to not let your face betray the fact that Chan just changed your entire trajectory of your entire breaktime snack expectations. But Chan seems to see right through it, already wearing that smirk to his face.

“Holy shit.”

Chan’s face practically beams. “You’re welcome.”

“I didn’t say it was good.”

“I believe holy shit translates to amazing.”

You feel your face flush at that. As you take another generous sip, you reach for your wallet to pull out some cash, but Chan stops you with a hand.

“It’s on the house,” he says.

You blink at him. “What? Why?”

Chan shrugs, resting his elbows atop the counter. “Consider it a welcome gift to the Carat Bay ecosystem, rookie.”

You narrow your eyes suspiciously at him.. “Let me guess. Next time it’s twelve bucks and emotional manipulation?”

“Right on target!” Chan exclaims enthusiastically. 

You shake your head, trying to hide the smile tugging at your lips as you start backpedaling towards the door. “You’re going to be a pain in my ass, aren’t you?”

“Get used to it.” Chan shoots you a wink while wiping down the counter. “See you later, rookie!”

When the door shuts behind you, you find yourself taking sips on the drink while heading your way back to your post. The thought of Chan keeps flitting back in your mind with every step that you nearly bump into a child wearing a life-sized otter floatie. 

Suddenly, summer is going to get a lot more interesting. 

Back in the shop, Soonyoung reappears from the back like an aunt getting ready for gossip. He leans on the counter with his arms crossed, observing Chan whistle to himself as if he didn’t just flirt his entire soul with the new employee. 

“Wow, Casanova,” Soonyoung starts amusedly. “Should I start planning wedding invites?”

Chan shoots him a side-eye. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I haven’t seen you this smitten ever since that influencer chick two summers ago,” Soonyoung continues. “where you wrote her a haiku on a napkin. A fucking haiku!”

Chan groans, running a hand down his face. “First of all, that haiku came from the bottom of my heart. And second𑁋” He points towards the door where you just left a minute ago. “𑁋I was not smitten. That was polite customer service, thank you very much.”

Soonyoung snorts. “Oh, my God! You’re down bad for the rookie and you don’t even know her name! This summer is going to be lit.”

“Get back to work, hyung.”

“I am at work.”

Chan chugs a rag at the older boy before flipping him off. “I hate you.”

“The feeling’s mutual, Romeo.” Soonyoung grins as he catches the rag with ease. “Just remember that I will be playing sad Taylor Swift songs during closing if you get heartbroken again.”

“We already play sad Taylor Swift songs during closing.”

“Exactly! I’ll just turn up the volume even more,” Soonyoung declares eagerly. He waits for a moment for Chan to retort back, but as he catches the slightly pensive look on his face, he adds reassuringly, “She’ll come back, dude.”

Chan sighs, glancing between the door and from your cup stood on the counter. 

“...yeah, I hope so.”

There’s a child crying in front of you. A little girl.

You and Nayeon are staring at her like she’s the spawn of Satan. 

Not because she’s done anything wrong𑁋she hasn’t, exactly. In fact, she’s probably the most tragically adorable thing you’ve seen the entire day, with her two pigtails and frilly Frozen swimsuit, her apple cheeks and eyes red from crying. She’s probably around six years old. 

But you’re both attendants and clearly not trained in early-childhood emotional breakdowns. And this one is clearly at maximum level.

Nayeon leans over to you and whispers, “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything!” You hiss back to her. “I was just drinking my water and then bam𑁋she appeared like a ghost.” 

“What is she, a Pokémon?” Nayeon rolls her eyes, before crouching down to be eye-level with the little girl. “Hi, honey, what’s your name?”

The little girl sniffles, wiping away the snot at her nose. “Jiyu.”

“Okay, Jiyu, can you tell me where your parents are?” Nayeon asks softly, but Jiyu’s lip wobbles in response, as if she’s trying to hold in another round of tears. 

You glance frantically from where you’re high up on the Mat Racer post, but it’s obviously the most useless thing to do when the entire waterpark is just one big chaotic mess. You can barely spot the nearby bathrooms, so spotting a lost child’s parents is quite literally like finding a needle in a haystack. And if her parents were really trying to find her, then they clearly aren’t making themselves known. 

“Mommy said… that she went to get boba,” Jiyu croaks out in a series of hiccups. “But she didn’t, um… she didn’t come back.”

“The boba shop?” Nayeon questions, trying to keep her tone light and soothing.

“The one with the big loud man,” Jiyu sniffles again, motioning in a direction that could probably mean at least fifteen different shops, but there’s really only one singular boba shop in the entire waterpark and one with a ‘big loud man’. 

You swear your head almost falls off your neck.

“Chan,” You utter his name out like the universe bestowed a curse on you.

Nayeon rises up from the floor, turning toward you. “Here, I’ll radio security to see if any report has come in. You can take her to the boba shop and see if anyone recognises her, yeah?”

You groan dramatically, wanting to protest. “God, you want me to face the tier A level himbo?”

But Nayeon is already fiddling with her radio pack, her back turned towards you. And before you can say any last minute attempt to escape, Jiyu is already latched onto your leg like a barnacle, her tiny hand pulling at your finger which seems to ultimately mean that you’re officially her unofficial legal guardian for the next hour, or however long it will take for her mother to come back. 

The walk is awkward, because how the hell do you talk to a six-year-old who just sobbed her eyes out at the top of Mat Racer? At one point, she quietly asks what your name is like any curious child and you respond in kind. Then you try to lighten the mood by pointing out a duck floatie that was casually floating down the stream of the Lazy River, but all Jiyu does is give a small nod and an indecipherable mumble.

Well, you tried.

You have to mentally prepare yourself with a deep breath before walking into the boba shop. You push through the door with one hand, the other clutched around Jiyu’s. You saunter past a few customers heading back outside with their illegally delicious-looking cups of boba and come to a stop right at the counter.

Unsurprisingly, Chan is whipping up another drink like he’s got a PhD in Mixology, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to reveal his annoyingly attractive forearms. His hair appears almost damp from sweat𑁋clearly from heat, you remind yourself, not because he looks good like that. Definitely not.

When Chan turns around, his eyes lock with yours, and his face lights up in a way that’s completely unfair. Then his gaze drifts downward, catching sight of Jiyu tied to your leg like a clingy koala. 

“Wow, rookie,” he starts. “Two weeks in and I find out you have a child?”

You give him a flat look. “Yes, and I was pregnant for exactly zero days.”

“Well, you’re glowing,” Chan remarks playfully. “Must be that post-pregnancy aura.”

You roll your eyes, immediately regretting every life decision you made to come here𑁋it’s clear that Chan has less of an emotional maturity than Jiyu (or so you believe). You step closer to the counter and motion helplessly to Jiyu down at your side, who is still clutching at your hand as if she’s trying to merge her existence with yours. 

“She said her mom went to get boba and never showed back up, so congratulations,” You remark sarcastically. “you’re part of the mystery too.”

Chan’s eyes furrow at that, and he leans on the counter, expression softening towards Jiyu. 

“Hey, kiddo, what’s your name?” he asks, and the way his voice is all of a sudden soft is enough to make your head spin in a rather… an uncomfortably comfortable way. 

Jiyu shyly peeks out from behind your leg and whispers, “Jiyu.”

“What a pretty name. My name is Chan,” Chan coos, and the smile he wears isn’t that familiar shit-eating one, but gentler, slightly lopsided. “Jiyu, do you remember what your mom was wearing?”

“Um…” Jiyu begins warily, glancing up at the ceiling as if it held all the answers. “Flower… A flower hat!”

You let out a useless groan. “That’s, like, seventy-percent of the moms in this entire waterpark.”

“Yikes. Fortunately I did have a lady come in here wearing that exact description,” Chan says with confidence. “But she came in as fast as she left𑁋said she had to take a phone call and then ran out after I finished making her drink.”

Your feet threaten to sink into the floor. “Great.”

Chan only chuckles, turning his attention back toward Jiyu. “Well, Jiyu, since rookie here𑁋” He gestures toward you. “𑁋is clearly incompetent, what do you say you help me make a drink, yeah? Your mom will be coming back soon, I promise.”

You watch𑁋half-amused and half-terrified𑁋as Jiyu slowly lets go of your hand to toddle her way into the employee’s side of the counter, seemingly accepting the boy’s trust way more than what you’ve given her in the past fifteen minutes. Chan helps Jiyu climb up a small step stool that for some reason he already had, as well as helping her put on some kid-sized apron that’s about three times her size, like this isn’t the first time a kid had seized control of his shop. 

“Jesus, are you Mary Poppins or something?” You taunt snarkily, crossing your arms together.

“Unlike you, I seem to actually care about a child’s well-being more than anything else,” Chan retorts, before turning back to Jiyu. “Alright, Jiyu, what’s your favourite color?”

Jiyu motions towards a particular syrup in front of her. “Pink!”

“Isn’t this equivalent to child labour?” You ask mindlessly.

“Only if you report it,” Chan replies, and you can already see his smirk without him having to turn around. He hands Jiyu a spoon, and she grasps it with her tiny hands in pure wonder. “But I’d say it’s morally justifiable if she walks out with a smile.”

You shake your head at that, but can’t draw your eyes away from how Jiyu and Chan are interacting𑁋the two of them going back in forth about the drink, Chan letting her pick whatever toppings she wants, and Jiyu giggling every time Chan exaggerates about how much talent she has for a little girl. At one point, Jiyu asks for your input on the drink, and you suddenly find yourself being a boba shop worker for three minutes. 

It’s infuriating and adorable all at once. Infuriatingly adorable. 

About twenty minutes later, Nayeon texts you that they found the mother in question, and that she was on her way to pick up Jiyu. And right now, Jiyu is sitting beside you on a bench outside the boba shop, sipping on her drink that she and Chan firmly called The Pink Princess Special, which was now a new addition to the menu.

You’re about five minutes into zoning out when a drink is suddenly shoved in front of your face. 

“For the babysitter,” Chan says smoothly.

You blink up at him, before taking the cold cup in your hands. Then he sits down right next to you for God knows why, his kneecap briefly brushing against yours. 

“So, rookie,” he begins, and you already know you aren’t going to like this. “Do I finally get to know your name?”

You take a sip of the drink, and the refreshing flavour of mango strikes at your tongue, immediately cooling off your body. “No.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Chan whines. “Don’t I deserve to know the girl I co-parented a child with for the past hour?”

You shoot him a glare. “If you ever said that in a courtroom, you’re getting your ass beat.”

“That’s not very co-parental of you.”

“Oh, my God, stop calling us co-parents𑁋”

“Are you two married?” Jiyu’s small, curious voice suddenly cuts in.

You’ve never whipped your head around so fast in your life. You nearly choke on your mango drink.

Chan lets out an amused laugh. “What do you think, Jiyu? Do we look like we’re married?”

You swear your one word away from kicking Chan’s shin into the Lazy River, because you absolutely do not look like a couple. Not even close, not even in a way that would be cute in a cheesy coming-of-age movie. But of course, the oblivious, honest, and unfiltered six-year-old beats you to the punch.

Yes, it’s sort of true you’ve been avoiding telling him your name like it’s the plague. It really isn’t for a particular reason𑁋okay, maybe there is kind of a reason, but that’s none of his business. Besides, giving your name to him feels like an ego boost that he doesn’t deserve to have. It’ll definitely be a weapon for him to wield against you.

A really annoying, charming, effective weapon.

“You two argue like my mommy and daddy,” Jiyu chirps, sipping on her drink while her little legs swing back and forth on the bench. “And then they kiss right after.”

You’re about to fling your drink into the burning sun. Getting sweeped up by a tsunami doesn’t seem to be the worst thing to happen right now, or perhaps time travelling back to the moment you chose to enter the boba shop and instead hurl yourself into the wave pool.

Chan is practically vibrating right next to you, wheezing his lungs out in a fit of laughter. Gosh, does his laugh have to be the most insufferable sound you’ve ever heard? Why does it have to be so infectious, loud, and make your stomach do a flip one too many times?

“Jiyu, that’s…” Your voice trails off, because you honestly don’t know what to say to that.

Chan wipes away a fake tear rolling down his eye. “Man, I love this kid.”

“Of course you do,” You shoot back with narrowed eyes. “Probably bribed her or something.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Chan quips. “With the low price of tapioca pearls and a spot on being Employee of the Month.”

You scoff. “Don’t you literally have only, like, two people working there?” 

“Exactly. It makes the competition fiercer.” Chan offers you a wink in return.

Right next to you, Jiyu glances curiously between the two of you, innocently sipping on her drink as she wears a deceptively sweet smile. And just as you and Chan are continuing to bicker, there is an almost-near bombshell that drops right at your feet.

“Mr. Big Loud Guy, I know her name!” she exclaims excitedly. “She told me her name when we were walking!”

Chan raises a brow and leans in, and he’s close enough for you to smell the faint scent of brown sugar and fruit syrup. His knee brushes against yours again. It should be illegal for him to be blessed with looking like that all while being able to easily entertain a child right under his fingertips. 

“Oh, the betrayal,” he gasps, clutching at his chest theatrically. “Hey, Jiyu, if you tell me her name I’ll make sure you can make another drink on my menu.”

You barge in immediately, clenching your teeth together as you nudge him with your shoulder. “Jiyu! Want to see me spill my drink in his pants? Then I can𑁋”

“Her name is Y/N!”

That’s it. You’re going to die right here, right now. But your death isn’t caused by a heatstroke or dehydration𑁋no, it’s from complete and utter embarrassment, caused by a six-year-old Cupid in disguise and a boy with large forearms and an unnecessarily attractive laugh.

Chan shifts his eyes back to you, and you catch the mischievous glint that shines in his pupil that’s definitely not from the sun. As he’s about to open his mouth, you quickly shut him up with an aggressive shhh, which promptly translates to shut the fuck up.

“One word out of your mouth and I’m filing a restraining order.”

But Chan obviously doesn’t play by the rules. 

“Y/N,” he drawls, and you don’t know if you want to slap him or kiss him just to shut him up. “Y/N, Y/N, Y/N…”

“Isn’t it a pretty name?” Jiyu beams from the side, not fully realising the hole she just shoved you in.

You groan audibly, burying your face in the palm of your sweaty hand, because of course the child you emotionally stabilised and trudged through an entire waterpark with has betrayed you in the most lethal way possible. Throwing yourself into the Lazy River doesn’t seem enough𑁋you’d rather willingly fall into the koi pond so all the fish can nibble away at your pride and sanity. 

“It is pretty,” Chan responds smugly, though you swear there’s that pinch of softness too, as if he actually means it. You feel your face burn hotter, unsure if it’s completely from embarrassment or something else. “Y/N. Kinda rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?”

“I liked you better when you didn’t know it.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“You’re right. I didn’t like you at all.”

“Okay, but you do look like a Y/N.”

“What does that even mean?” You counter back with a scowl. “Are you saying I look like a noun?”

Chan tilts his head, pretending to think. “A… pretty noun.”

You turn your head sharply to hide the way your lips threaten to twitch upward at that. You’re not smiling𑁋you’re actually frowning so hard your face might as well crumble apart in pieces. And that warm, fluttery feeling that blooms in your chest? Oh, it’s just good old classic indigestion from how impossibly delicious this mango boba is. 

A frantic voice suddenly cuts through your thoughts. Thank the heavens. 

“Jiyu!” There’s a panicked woman running up in your direction, her flower hat nearly falling off her hand from how rushed she is. 

Jiyu immediately springs up from the bench and hops onto the ground, dashing into her mother’s arms. “Mommy!” 

The woman catches Jiyu in her arms with a relieved gasp, sinking down to her knees. “Oh, sweetheart, I was so worried𑁋are you okay?”

“Yes! I made two new friends!” Jiyu motions over to you and Chan. “And we made a drink together!” 

At that moment, you and Chan exchange a look with each other. It’s clear that the two of you obviously didn’t mean to, but it still happens. It lingers for a moment too long to be brushed off as pure coincidence. 

The mother lets out a barrel of apologies before smiling to the both of you. “Thank you both so much. I was so worried!”

“She was in good hands,” Chan says gratefully, standing up casually and pretending that he wasn’t just blackmailing a child for your name two minutes ago. “Made a killer drink for the menu, probably the next bestseller.” 

Jiyu’s mom chuckles, standing up and reaching down to hold the little girl’s hand, mimicking a waving action. “Say thank you, sweetheart.” 

“Thank you, Y/N! Thank you Mr. Big Loud Guy!” She gives the two of you a precious, delightful wave before walking in the opposite direction, still clutching the drink in her hands as if it’s a memory she knows she’ll cherish. 

Gosh, no matter how nightmarish kids are these days, your heart still feels full knowing you made at least one’s day better. 

But then you remember that Chan is still next to you. Yet, your heart doesn’t seem to want to deflate from the thought of that. 

“I say we make a great team,” he inputs with a cheesy grin.

You roll your eyes. “No, you were better with her than me.”

“Is… is that a compliment I smell?” Chan eyes you up and down with suspicion. 

“I’m sure a straw through your head would compliment you dearly.”

“Romantic.”

You flip him off over your shoulder as you’re walking away to return back to your post. You cannot wait to explain all the shit that’s happened in the past thirty minutes and explain to your supervisor why the hell you were gone for so long. 

“See you later, Y/N!” You hear Chan call you from behind.

You’re not smiling.

You’re definitely not smiling.

God, you’re so screwed.

So, you can probably say the past month of working at the waterpark has been… chaos. Just pure, unrelenting chaos.

On one side of the deep end, you have to deal with screaming toddlers afraid to go down the giant Mat Racer slide; and on the other side of the deep end, you have to suffer through hearing a particular boy’s annoyingly perfect laugh. 

You’ve really tried to not think about Chan and all your interactions thus far. Either way, he probably does this with nearly every other worker he comes across𑁋flirts a lot, teases a lot, gets under their skin a lot. Maybe you’re not that special. Maybe you’re just another Wednesday at Carat Bay for him. 

But why does the thought make your heart ache? 

Chan may have the ego and confidence the size of a fucking mountain, but the worst part is that he knows what he’s doing. He knows the effect he has on people, on you. And somehow, he’s become a permanent fixture in your shifts𑁋whether it’s by bickering with you until the end of time, or by secretly sending you over free drinks to your stand (where you have to joy to watch Nayeon get jealous). 

“Is he always like this?” You ask Soonyoung as you’re sipping on a drink on Chan’s menu called the Don’t Be Chai. “Like, is he always a pain in the ass?” 

Soonyoung raises a brow at you from the other side of the counter. Chan was currently out in the back during inventory or whatever with his sleeves rolled up like the menace to society he is. You finally clocked out of your shift and decided to hopelessly confide in the boy’s henchman, which may or may not be the best idea at all. 

“I’ve dealt with his ass for the past ten years,” Soonyoung says while wiping down the counter. “Trust me, it gets better.”

Your posture straightens. “Does it?”

“No, it gets worse.” 

You slump back in the seat. 

Soonyoung lets out a small laugh as he slowly drags the rag from one end of the counter to the other. 

“But you know, you get used to it,” he adds. “Teasing is like his love language or whatever.” 

You blink up at him. “His what?” 

“His love language.” Soonyoung repeats, giving a casual shrug. “That little shit would rather piss his pants than say ‘I like you’, so instead he’ll annoy you into oblivion. Behind those dumbass eyes? He cries to strangers’ wedding proposals on TikTok.” 

You almost choke on your drink at that. “No way in hell.”

“Oh yeah! I wish I was kidding.” Soonyoung’s practically beaming at this point. “Man tries to keep his little hopeless romantic heart lowkey though. But the second you say anything genuine to him? His brain absolutely short-fucking-circuits.”

You blink. Once. Twice. Trying to process everything. 

“He’s probably like this with everyone, you know,” You mutter quietly, trying to hide behind the rim of your drink as if it’ll save you. 

This earns you a loud scoff from Soonyoung. “Trust me, dude, I know him like the lines on the back of my hand.” And then he stares at you, trying to decipher the contemplative look to your face. “Do you like him?”

You blink again, then look away. It’s safer, probably𑁋less revealing.

“I think I’d rather swallow pool water,” You counter back, but it’s useless. 

“So… that’s a yes.”

“That is not a yes.”

“It sounds like a yes in my vocabulary.”

You groan defeatedly, because of course this boba shop is run by idiots. 

“If you say a word of this to Chan, I will throw my drink in your face the next time I see you,” You threaten, holding a tight grip around the cup like a weapon. 

Soonyoung holds his hands up in mock surrender. “I swear on his fourth grade spelling bee participation award.”

You scrunch your face up at that. “He has one?”

“Yeah. It was pure trauma. He refuses to spell the word onomatopoeia to this day.”

The image of a young Chan shaking in front of a large crowd while probably trying not to break down swearing vengeance on the spelling deities makes you laugh𑁋an unguarded, stupidly fond laugh. 

Unfortunately, it’s the exact moment when Chan walks back inside too.

He emerges from the curtain of beads, wiping his hands on a towel and raising an eyebrow between the two of you. His hair is a fluffed up mess, his sleeves rolled out as usual, and there’s a faint smudge of something sugary on his cheek. His dumb, pretty cheek.

“What’s so funny?” he asks, throwing the towel over his shoulder. 

You can feel his annoyance radiating onto you, but all you do is lean in slightly on the counter, still giggling. “Hey, Chan, can you spell ‘onomatopoeia’?”

Chan gasps as if you’ve offended every cell in his body, and he turns to Soonyoung with a glare. “You told rookie about the bee, didn’t you?”

“It’s a core memory, how could I not?” Soonyoung retorts back. “You stuttered so hard up there the judges thought you spelled it with three m’s and eliminated you.”

“Oh, my God,” Chan groans, dragging his hand up and down his sweaty face. “I’m going to fucking sue you both for emotional damages.”

This only makes you laugh even harder, barely noticing the way Chan is practically staring at you while you do so. He’s wearing that dumb grin on his face, and you swear that if you look close enough, there’s a flush creeping up his neck as well. But you’re too busy relishing the fact that for once, you aren’t on the small end of the stick this time.

As your laughter resides, you finally meet Chan’s eyes again. He’s just standing there, and you find yourself considering your next move.

This is probably a very stupid idea. 

“You got a little thing up there,” You say, motioning to the spot on your cheek.

Chan blinks a few times, before swiping up at his face on the wrong side.

“Nope,” You say amusedly, the tone of your voice a little more sweeter. “Other side.”

He tries again, but misses the spot by about three millimetres. 

You roll your eyes, straightening your posture and taking a few giant steps around the counter before you’re quite literally standing in front of him. And before he can try a third time, you lean in and swiftly swipe your finger over his cheek to wipe it off yourself. 

Everything stills the second your skin touches his. His breath audibly hitches as if something got lodged in his throat. His entire body tenses up and freezes. His eyes lock with yours like a deer caught in headlights. 

“There,” You mutter, thumb lingering for a second too long before pulling away. “Much better, you helpless idiot.”

Chan simply stands there like someone cut through his neural pathways enough to paralyse him on the spot. His mouth is practically hanging open, and his ears are reddening. Reddening. You’ve never seen him like this𑁋and you’ve never felt so damn proud for putting him in his place for once. 

He watches as you grab your bag and your drink before starting in the direction of the door as if you didn’t just completely knock the wind out of his lungs. 

“Good luck on closing tonight, boys.” You give both Chan and Soonyoung a wave while pushing the door open, eyes lingering a little longer on Chan before stepping outside into the evening night. 

Soonyoung waits exactly five seconds after the door closes to burst into a fit of laughter. 

“You have fucking boba eyes, dude,” he cackles, slapping a hand down on the counter. “Your brain just went 404, holy shit!”

Chan’s system is still buffering. He picks up his head slowly, still staring at the door half-expected for you to come back, but you don’t. “Did that just happen?”

“Oh, it happened, loverboy. It so happened.”

As you’re heading back to your car, innocently sipping on your drink, you can’t help but smile to yourself.

Because you learned two things today:

Teasing may be Chan’s love language, but flirting back to him?

That might be his kryptonite. 

The next time you come into the boba shop, it’s on your off day.

You didn’t really mean to come here, honestly. But one of your college friends seemed way too adamant to get a sugar overload than you. 

You were lucky to not be one of the chosen few attendants to be scheduled in the middle of a heatwave on a Saturday, which apparently meant that more than half the town collectively decided to seek refuge from the sun in the same ten-square-metre bubble tea shop. 

Seungkwan drags you by the arm like he’s absolutely possessed. When he pushes through the door, the shop is quite… chaotic. The buzz of blenders fill the room, the scent of sugar and syrup more dizzying than ever. You find yourself having the urge to turn around, but Seungkwan just tightens his grip around your wrist.

“Come on, Y/N!” he whines, and you nearly trip as he pulls you back inside.

Seungkwan pulls you into the line of impatient customers. Okay, maybe you do feel a little bit bad that this place is run by only two idiots and it’s the peak of rush hour, but there’s no going back, and Seungkwan is actively scanning over the strange, questionable names listed on the menu.

“Trust me, Bro? Delulu Is The Solulu? Better Than My Ex?” Seungkwan reads off the names with a snort. “Rizz Me Up? What kind of deranged romantic named these drinks?” 

You let out a sigh. “Chan.”

“Your Chan?”

“I𑁋He’s not my Chan,” You correct far too quickly. 

Seungkwan gives you the most suspicious, skeptical, that-was-a-damn-lie-and-you-know-it look with his eyes. You could only face away from him for your sake and sanity, praying that this would just be a quick get-your-drinks and leave experience.

But the moment it becomes you and Seungkwan’s turn to order, you know that you’re going to be staying far longer than intended. 

Chan doesn’t realise it’s you at first. His entire brain might have already turned to mush with the amount of customers he’s had to make drinks for in the past three hours. So when he approaches the counter like a customer service zombie on autopilot, he gives his scripted greeting without looking up.

“Welcome to Chan’s Bubble Bar, what can I get for𑁋”

And then he sees you.

His brain malfunctions again.

Because you’re standing there, clearly not in your uniform, clearly not in shift, and clearly looking way too good to be accompanied by some random guy he doesn’t recognise, whose arm is clearly wrapped snugly around yours. 

The smile on his face fades before it could even fully form.

“Oh, hey, Y/N,” he murmurs. “Off-day?”

You give a shrug. “Yeah, off-day. Heard the weather was going to melt us all alive, so naturally, I got dragged here for a cold treat.” 

Chan’s eyes flicker down to where Seungkwan’s hand is still comfortably looped around your arm. And maybe it’s the heat, or maybe it’s the fact he’s made at least fifty drinks in the past hour, but something prickles sharply underneath his skin. 

It’s subtle, but enough for you to notice anyway𑁋the slight twitch at his lips, the tic of his jaw, the very unsubtle glance he shoots between you and Seungkwan. For some reason, it’s kind of… adorable. In some tragic, jealous-boy way. 

“What can I get for you both?” Chan asks, trying to keep his tone neutral.

“Hmm…” Seungkwan presses his lips together. “You know, I really have questions about your unhinged drink names. But I’ll take the Delulu Is The Solulu. Put extra tapioca because I do not fear death.” 

“One Delulu Is The Solulu…” Chan punches in the order on the register with a bit too much force under his fingertips. Then he looks at you. “And for you, rookie?”

You think for a moment, before smiling at him. “Surprise me.”

He stares at you for a few seconds as if you’ve just said something in a foreign language. Then he repeats what you’ve both ordered under his breath, punching a few buttons on the register, before giving the two of you a flat nod. 

“Order number forty-nine. It’ll be out in a few minutes. Next in line!” he exclaims, flicking the receipt from the printer and tossing it in you and Seungkwan’s faces𑁋you barely manage to catch it before Seungkwan pulls you to the side. 

You and Seungkwan both find yourself standing at the corner of the shop. From where you stand, you watch as Chan swiftly makes his drinks in his usual decorum, but it’s quite obvious to see how he’s a bit… on edge, turning his little bubble tea shop into his personal Hell’s Kitchen. You see how he pours the syrup and shakes the cups a bit too aggressively as if they’ve personally offended his ancestors. 

“Goodness, did you see how he glared at me?” Seungkwan nudges you while whispering. “He looked like he wanted to throw a blender in my face. His cortisol levels must be through the roof.”

You try not to smile. You really do. “That’s just his customer service face.”

“Right, Sherlock. And I’m fucking Beyoncé, babe,” Seungkwan rolls his eyes. “I swear, if he bursts a blood vessel and it gets in my drink I will be suing.” 

“Trust me, Boo. His drinks are amazing.” You assure to your heart’s content, because you’re not wrong𑁋his drinks have changed your entire world and standards on boba, honestly. 

It takes about five minutes for your drinks to be made. A bell dings across the shop.

“Order forty-nine!” Chan’s voice loudly bounces off the walls of the shop.

You and Seungkwan head over to the counter where Chan places two drinks on top. The first one he sets down a bit too roughly the contents inside the cup of shake, but for the second one, he places it down more softly, sliding it over to you directly.

Seungkwan’s drink looks aggressively pink and filled with an abundance of tapioca pearls, nearly resembling some sort of rogue science experiment gone wrong. On the other hand, yours appears carefully crafted. The base colour is clearly your favourite fruit, topped with rainbow pearls, lychee popping boba, and a perfect drizzle of cream foam𑁋with the addition of a tiny heart drawn in the foam.

Cute.

Seungkwan takes an experimental sip of the drink, face wrinkling from the sweetness, before his eyes widen. 

“Holy shit, this is good,” he huffs out with a laugh. “I’m definitely waking up with a sugar high the next morning, but damn, it hits the spot! But seriously, fourteen bucks?”

Chan shrugs from behind the counter. “Sorry, charged a little extra for yours with a flirting tax.”

You nearly spit out your drink on the first sip, and not because it’s bad𑁋it’s far from bad actually, practically perfection, but the absolute deadpan of a delivery from Chan was not what you expected at all. 

Seungkwan chokes on his boba beside you. “I’m sorry, buddy, a flirting tax? What kind of emotionally repressed, capitalism-driven nonsensical softboy shit𑁋”

Chan just shrugs again, busying himself with wiping down the counter, but you can clearly tell he’s enjoying this. “Just doing my job, man.” 

You’re trying very, very hard not to laugh, biting down on your lip to stifle the grin threatening its way across your features. Seungkwan looks like he’s about to jump over the counter Mission Impossible style to throw hands, while Chan just wears his familiar and annoyingly smug expression, clearly satisfied in the most petty way possible. 

“Jeez, dude, trust me I am not trying not to steal your girl,” Seungkwan adds defensively, choosing violence as always. “And yes, for the record, she talks about you so much I’m going to need some earplugs.” 

At that, Chan finally looks up, fingers halting mid-swipe. A flicker of surprise, then triumph, flashing past his eyes. 

“She talks about me?” he asks slowly, carefully.

“The hell she does,” Seungkwan continues, seemingly completely unfazed by the way you feel like you’re boiling from the side, the coldness from your drink not helping at all. “At this point, I’ve memorised your entire birth chart because of her, and there’s clearly some sexual ten𑁋”

“Alright, Boo, I get it! You need love and attention!” You interject quickly, elbowing him in the ribs hard enough to make him shut up and wince. “Go to the timeout corner right now.”

Seungkwan merely chuckles proudly, skipping off to the corner with his overly sugary drink in hand. Of course your best friend just had to nearly ruin everything. You watch as Seungkwan stands at the side, beaming at the two of you with popcorn-level interest, before you turn back to Chan with a sigh. 

He’s still staring at you, a small smile playing on his lips. It’s still laced with his annoying pride, yet there’s also something undeniable soft about it too. He opens his mouth to speak, but you swiftly put a hand up.

“Don’t let it get to your head,” You tell him. 

Chan just smirks. “Too late.” Then he leans in on the counter. “You talk about me?”

You glance away for a second, the smile on your face refusing to fade. “Are you going to be more insufferable if I said yes?”

“Absofuckinglutely.”

You snort at that. Briefly, you glance down at the curated heart in the foam, then back up at Chan. Warmth bubbles between the crevices of your ribs. 

“You’re cute when you’re jealous,” You admit quietly, masking away the confession with a sip of your drink.

Chan blinks, caught off-guard. “What?”

But you’re already turning on your heel to give him a proper response, instead only leaving him hanging with a, “Have a good rest of your day, Chan.”

He’s left standing there limply as you and Seungkwan slip your way through the door and back outside. 

But then, a wide victorious smile crosses his face. It’s enough to fully recharge his energy and his heart. 

The faint scent of weed and alcohol mixes in with the overwhelming smell of chlorine. 

There’s this little staff-only after gathering at the waterpark. So far, it’s been nothing but gloriously chaotic𑁋a completely unregulated event where you and your fellow attendants, lifeguards, and store owners can cannonball off slides and utilise the waterpark attractions with zero supervision. 

You expect Chan and Soonyoung to be here somewhere, but you haven’t seen either one of them at all this entire time. But to be fair, you have been sticking with Nayeon and a few other attendants in the lazy river for the past hour, floating down the stream on floaties with about three different brands of canned beers in your hands.

And honestly? You’re content. A little tipsy, damp, and relaxed in a way you haven’t felt in a long time.

Fifteen minutes later, you𑁋and about fifteen other people𑁋are gathered in a circle in a wide picnic area near the cabanas. Beach towels, lounge chairs, and even floaties are all being used as makeshift seating. All of you are being obnoxiously loud, sharing various horror stories about the now closed waterpark with one another, and clearly very buzzed. 

You’re currently sitting on your own beach towel, water dripping off your hair and body and onto the ground below. As you take another sip from your can, a sudden shadow looms above you. 

“Hey, rookie.” The voice is immediately recognisable, and you look up to see him𑁋Chan, very much topless and sporting a pair of swimming trunks, a towel over his shoulder, and water glistening off his skin like he’s the epitome of a TikTok thirst trap that came to life. You take in the view for a second too long. 

Your brain short-circuits for a moment. “Hey yourself.”

Chan drops down beside you on the towel, clicking open a can of beer for himself that he takes a long sip of before sitting it back down on the ground. 

“You having fun?” he asks.

You chuckle lightly, nodding your head. “Yeah. Is this, like, a yearly thing or?”

“Sort of this team-bonding tradition that we have every year,” he affirms. “Helps us veterans get to know the newbies𑁋you know, like you𑁋a bit more. And a way to destress from this absolute shitstorm of a summer so far.” 

Your fingers tap rhythmically against your can. “Hm, I don’t know. I’m starting to like this shitstorm of a summer.”

Chan turns to you, eyes beaming. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You meet his eyes momentarily, before shooting your gaze back down to your diamond-patterned towel and taking in a deep breath. “I’ve never enjoyed any of my other past jobs until this, you know. Thought I’d hate having to order kids around, but I guess seeing them scream their asses down a slide for eight hours straight is more appealing than you think.”

A laugh leaves Chan𑁋a full-on, unfiltered sound𑁋and it makes something inside you feel warm and fuzzy, and it’s definitely not entirely from the alcohol. 

“Well, I’d say you’re quite a natural,” he says, playfully nudging you with his shoulder. “You ever think about… coming back next year?”

You have thought about it. After all, you did only apply for the summer position temporarily, because the pay is average and you’re getting closer to graduating with a degree that could hopefully land you in a full-time job. But you aren’t lying that the thought of leaving when the summer ends is a bit, well… disappointing. 

Before you can answer his question, Soonyoung’s voice booms out from somewhere.

“Spin the bottle, truth or dare edition, losers! Everyone’s playing!” 

A collection of groans and cheers leap into the air. You and Chan stand up to bring the towel closer to the circle, settling in between Nayeon and this other lifeguard named Vernon from the Wave Pool. 

The bottle𑁋an empty, hastily-rinsed Sprite glass bottle𑁋sits in the very centre. 

“Everyone should know the rules by now: spin the bottle, ask the person it lands on truth or dare, and if they don’t answer or do the dare then they take a shot,” Soonyoung explains enthusiastically, clasping his hands together like some sort of cartoon villain. 

Soonyoung is the first to spin the bottle. He spins fast enough to have it roll off-centre. You watch as it slows to wobble, and you purse your lips together in anticipation at the odds of it landing on you, but it doesn’t.

It lands on Vernon.

“Alright, Wave Pool Prince.” Soonyoung turns towards Vernon with a mischievous grin. “Truth or dare?”

Vernon thinks for a moment, before casually answering, “Dare.”

“I dare you to call your ex and ask them on a date,” Soonyoung insists with confidence.

Vernon sighs, and you, Chan, and everyone else watches as he pulls out his phone, scrolls a few times, before bringing it up to his ear. You hear your other coworkers let out shouts and laughter of disbelief. 

“Hey,” Vernon says into the phone, clearing his throat. “I was just calling to ask𑁋hypothetically𑁋if you wanted to go on a date with me?”

There’s a pause.

Then he nods. “Oh, cool. Yeah, uh… are you free this Monday?”

A collective gasp ripples through the air. Vernon puts down his phone and shrugs.

“She said sure.”

Soonyoung’s jaw drops to the floor. “What the hell? I wish my ex was as receptive as yours.”

It’s Vernon’s turn to spin the bottle, but he doesn’t spin it with much force. It only spins one entire lap around the circle before stopping right at Nayeon, literally just a hardly an inch from it landing on you. 

“Shit,” she mutters, adjusting her bikini top like she was preparing to fight war. 

Vernon chuckles lightly. “Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” Nayeon answers. 

Vernon leans back on his palms, trying to think of a proper truth to ask. A curious, yet devilish look runs across his face.

“Is it true I saw you hooking up with that one dude who works at the bar in the breakroom last week?”

Nayeon’s eyes nearly bulge out of her skull, and you nearly choke on your drink. You see the way she attempts to keep a straight face, but the guilt at her lips is far too obvious𑁋even a little kid could see she was hiding something.

“Okay, fine. He was cute, okay?!” she declares in embarrassment. “And I was hella stressed!”

Vernon just raises his can of beer toward her. “Honestly, respect, dude.”

Nayeon grumbles something under her breath before defeatedly clinking her own glass against his. 

A few more rounds pass by, the truths and dares getting more absurd by the second. Another lifeguard named Joshua was dared to go skinny dipping in the Lazy River, but lamely declined it with a shot. Soonyoung, ever the partygoer, chose dare on pretty much every single time the bottle landed on him, even accepting one to do a cannonball in the shallow bit of the pool𑁋which thankfully, he didn’t break anything. 

It’s Soonyoung’s turn again to spin the bottle. He gives it one wild spin, and everyone watches as it whirls around the centre, sending leftover droplets of water flying off its sides. It clinks against the concrete underneath, twirling a few times around the group.

It slows, wobbles a few times, and finally…

…lands on Chan.

“Fucking finally!” Soonyoung whoops excitedly, using his entire body to turn to Chan. “Channie boy, truth or dare?”

Chan pauses. There’s two ways out of this: choose truth and take the easy way out by letting Soonyoung ask him something stupid, or take the dare and do something stupid. Neither option seems exactly appealing at all. It’s Soonyoung, after all. 

For a second, he glances at you, sitting there and waiting patiently for him to answer, while the chant of the word dare floats tauntingly around him. He throws his head back with a groan, giving Soonyoung a challenging look. 

“You already know what I’m going to pick.”

“Dare it is,” Soonyoung quips gleefully. “I dare you to kiss the prettiest person in the circle right now. On the lips.”

There’s an eruption of absurd laughter at the dare. Chan feels a lump that he struggles to swallow down his throat, his expression frozen with a mixture of you’ve got to be fucking with me right now and I’m going to kill you, Kwon Soonyoung. 

He lets his instinctively gaze sweep around the circle, taking in everyone else’s expectant faces. But obviously, he doesn’t even need to consider anyone else in the circle𑁋there’s only one person, and one person only that he has in mind. 

His eyes linger on you beside him a little longer. 

You, sitting there with strands of wet hair stuck to your cheek. You, who came into Carat Bay with the grumpiness of an owl and wormed your way into his heart from the very first day that you met. You, who always left his boba shop flipping him yet still seemed to be the highlight of his day. You, who makes him feel like the dumbass protagonist in a summer flick. 

You, who is also looking at him right at this damn moment, as if you already know what he’s thinking. 

Chan leans in just a tiny bit, gaze flickering down to your lips and then back up to your eyes again. Your breath hitches at the imperceptible movement, as if maybe, just maybe, he was going to do it. 

Perhaps it’s the alcohol buzzing through his veins, or the look you’re giving that’s encouraging him to shove down all his nerves and just do it. But instead, he leans back, letting out a short, awkward, breathless laugh. He reaches for the bottle of soju next to Vernon’s feet and swallows down a long swig. 

It burns down his throat, and he allows the taste to distract him from the way your eyes are still on him. 

“Ugh, lame!” Soonyoung wails disappointingly. “That could’ve been your moment, dude!” 

Right next to him, you’re quiet. You don’t say anything. You can’t tell if what you’re feeling is relief, or disappointment. You give him a tiny nudge on the knees with your own, and he doesn’t look back up at you, though you can clearly see the tight-lipped smile on his face. 

From then, the game continues. The bottle spins. The dares become more scandalous. But Chan feels like he’s watching it from somewhere far away.

“Get home safe, girl!” You hear Nayeon call back to you from where you’re packing up your belongings.

“See you tomorrow!” You holler back, watching as the girl’s figure retreats in the direction of the parking lot.

Everyone else has left at this point. The waterpark has grown completely quiet, except for the sounds of crickets chirping and the gentle gurgle of water in the nearby pools. Chan has also left, though you didn’t specifically see him leave. Disappointment crawls up your skin as you swing your bag over your shoulder and grab an extra can of beer for the hell of it before starting your way out of the waterpark. 

You pass by the closed shops, stands, and attractions, knowing that you’re most likely leaving by the time summer ends, which is approaching way quicker than you needed it to be. 

You pause in front of Chan’s shop, the sign stating Chan’s Bubble Bar looming above you. All the lights are off inside, and you hardly ever thought how peaceful this place must be at night. Or chaotic, rather𑁋it’s easy to imagine Chan and Soonyoung being the dumbasses they are closing the shop late and creating new experimental drinks for the menu.

You smile at the thought.

You’re halfway across the bridge that overlooks the Lazy River when at the corner of your eye, you spot some movement. Your footsteps come to a halt, and you squint down to see something𑁋specifically, someone𑁋floating atop the water.

There, drifting down the slow current of the Lazy River, is Chan. His arms are spread out like wings over the water, head tilted to stare up towards the night sky. Compared to all your interactions and countless moments of bickering, it’s oddly serene to see him there just… living. 

You snort a little under your breath, amused, and wholeheartedly decide to screw it.

You dash your way down to the Lazy River, stopping at a point where he was slowly floating towards. He hasn’t noticed you yet.

“I can’t tell if you’re dead or just lost in thought.”

The sound of his voice quickly catches his attention, and he picks his head up to notice you standing there with your arms crossed, watching him with a small smile. Chan swiftly adjusts his position, his legs shooting under the water as he paddles himself to stay afloat. 

“Didn’t peg you for a midnight swim kind of guy,” You say, dropping your bag down on the floor.

“Yeah? Well, the more you know,” he quips back playfully. “I thought you were already gone.”

“I was leaving until I saw this dumbass floating here by himself,” You admit teasingly. “Mind if I joined you?”

Chan opens his mouth to answer, having this urge to say no, but quickly shuts himself up as he watches you peel your shirt off and throw it to the side, revealing the same swimsuit you’ve had on since earlier. He averts his eyes hastily, feeling the current pick up just slightly as you ease yourself into the pool. 

“Hey,” You greet him, making him spin his head back around just to freeze when he realises how close you’ve swam up to him.

He tenses, then relaxes. “Hey.”

The Lazy River continues carrying the two of you downstream. The silence is surprisingly comfortable𑁋just you, Chan, and the stars twinkling above. The water ripples softly around you, cool against your skin, but your chest is feeling otherwise. At one point, Chan picks his head up to gaze at you, seeing the way the moonlight reflects off the droplets on your skin, how peaceful you look just beside him. 

This is really the first ever moment of quiet between you two. 

“You know,” You start. “I really hated you at first.”

Chan chuckles at that. “I believe that’s everyone’s first impression of me.”

“Yeah. You and your annoyingly cocky ass.” A small laugh leaves you. “I thought you were so full of shit. I wanted to shove every word you said down your throat and probably smack you.”

“Ouch,” Chan mutters, cringing lightly. “Let me guess, you still want to smack me?”

You think long and hard for a few moments, before ultimately shaking your head, a smirk crossing your face.

“Honestly? You have the most smackable face on the planet,” You downright confess. “But, unfortunately… you’re too cute, so no. Well, maybe sometimes.”

The two of you exchange a fit of giggles at that. Chan feigns a scandalised look, pretending to be offended, but you don’t miss the way his ears flush pink. Even in moonlight, he still becomes shy when you flirt back to him. Underneath the water, your knees accidentally brush, but neither of you seem to mind. 

“I’m not always this confident,” Chan adds in, his voice coming off more sheepish. “Yeah, being an absolute prick is fun, but sometimes I wonder if I do it just to cover my ass when I don’t know what to say.”

You turn to him curiously, allowing the current to drift you closer to him.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” he rambles on, and you let him. “but yeah, I never once had a crush who liked me back in that way. I’ve always driven them away with how I act. It’s like… I don’t really know how to just be when I like someone.”

The raw honesty hits you hard. Because in what other universe does the annoying, prideful,  overly territorial, pain in the ass Lee Chan confess something like this to someone? In what universe has anyone seen this vulnerable side of him? Sure, you two can bicker like puppies and drive each other to the edge with playful threats, but this? 

This is the real him. 

“I like you,” You admit quietly.

Chan’s brows raise. “What?”

“I like you, Chan,” You echo back, more confident and louder this time. “And maybe I do want to drown your dumbass sometimes, I still like you.”

There’s that befuddled look on his face again𑁋a face you’ve grown to adore. You visibly see the way he struggles to process your words, his brain clearly malfunctioning yet again, or like it always does when you say something genuine to him. The river curves slightly, pushing the two of you even closer together to the point where your shoulders are almost brushing. 

“Oh,” is all that squeaks out of him. “That’s… cool. Great. Fantastic, even.”

You blink. “Is that seriously your response?”

“I𑁋no, I mean𑁋I like you too,” he stammers out, voice rising an octave as he waves his arms, causing a small splash. “Like, a lot. Probably since the day you called me a pain in the ass.”

It’s hard to suppress the way your mouth is twitching into a grin. “You’re so fucking lame, you know that?”

“Let a guy panic in front of his crush!” he exclaims shakily. “I’m in uncharted territory! I didn’t know you’d actually mean it.”

“Well, I did,” You say simply, tilting your head as you float next to him. “Even when you’re being a smug idiot. Even when you didn’t kiss me earlier. I still like you, Chan.”

Chan winces at the memory. “I just… I’m sorry.”

You find yourself floating directly in front of him, close enough he can feel your body heat radiating onto his. He stares at you𑁋really stares at you𑁋like he can’t believe what’s real and what’s not. The fact that you’re even here right now sends his heart into a complete overdrive. He swears he’s going to burst.

“Then fix it,” You insist lowly. 

Chan’s eyes widen. “What?”

“Kiss me, Chan.”

A small, disbelieving laugh leaves him. And then without another word, he starts to lean in. This time, there’s no hesitation, no second-guessing. 

You meet him halfway.

One of his hands drift down under the water to rest at your waist, the other coming to cup your face. Your own hands settle on top of his shoulders, holding onto him as your lips brush up against each other, allowing the current to drift you both. But you barely feel it. All you can feel is him. 

The kiss itself isn’t cinematic, grand, or an explosion of fireworks. It’s warm, clumsy, and sweet all at once. He tastes faintly of the soju earlier and from summer heat, like laughter exchanged in nights under the stars and something else that is undeniably him𑁋sweat, boba teas, and the endless teasing that follows him around. You melt shamelessly into it anyway, relishing how soft his lips are against yours and the jittery hands clutched onto you as if he still can’t believe that you’re real.

His nose accidentally bumps into yours, causing you to giggle into the kiss. The water continues to slosh around you as your hand comes up to cradle the nape of his neck, pulling him deeper into you. There’s a small hitch of his breath that leaves him at the touch, sending shivers up and down his spine. 

When you finally pull apart your arm, Chan is absolutely gawking at you. 

“Holy shit,” he says breathlessly. “Someone pinch me𑁋did that just happen?”

You roll your eyes, reaching down to pinch him lightly on his waist. 

“Ow!” He flinches, shooting you a small glare. “I meant it metaphorically!”

“God, you’re such a loser,” You say with an all-too-fond expression. 

His eyes flutter to a close as he feels the way your thumb is rubbing circles on the skin at the top of his shoulder. For a moment, the two of you just float there, with your foreheads pressed together and completely ignoring the way your limbs are basically turning into prunes for being in the water for God knows how long at this point.

Chan giggles sheepishly. “We’re going to be so royally screwed when we go back to tomorrow, you know that, right?”

You steal another quick kiss from his lips again, and he completely forgot what he just said two seconds before. 

“Yeah, well…” You allow your head to rest on top of his shoulder, his arms slipping properly around you under the water. “At least we’ll be screwed together.” 

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[katemoneymartinsgf]

hi hi this might be asking a lot, but I can’t seem to find any other ones can you write a pazzi fic where they’re just friends with benefits and one of them can’t communicate properly and they break up and they both get different partners, but they’re jealous

Friends With Benefits |pazzi|

a/n: hey so sorry i disappeared, im currently in the process of switching from swim polo and dive to basketball and i could kms. Sorry this is rushed . Writing more tonight. Thank you sm for all the love.

-

It wasn’t a plan.

No one sat down and said this is what we are — there were no rules, no boundaries, no timeline. Just two people who spent a lot of time together. Who laughed a little too hard at each other’s jokes. Who sometimes lingered after practice, eyes locked a little too long across the gym.

And eventually, a night where Azzi leaned against her doorframe in a hoodie and shorts, and Paige stepped into her apartment like she belonged there.

That was the first time.

No big moment. No strings.

And maybe that’s what made it easy.

At first.

—

They never talked about it. Not the first time, or the second, or the seventh. Azzi would text Paige after lift, a simple you up? or bring snacks. Paige would show up. Hoodie, slides, her usual crooked grin. They’d mess around, sometimes fall asleep tangled up, other times not.

It was light. Familiar. Comfortable in a way that made too much sense.

“We’re just chillin’,” Paige told KK once, when she caught the way she looked at them in the film room.

Azzi told Ice the same thing the next week.

No one really bought it.

But no one pushed, either.

—

They were careful, in their own way.

No kissing in public.
No holding hands.
No overnight texts unless they were already in the same bed.

And it worked.

Until it didn’t.

—

It wasn’t just about the physical part. That came easy. Too easy. Paige knew exactly how Azzi liked her coffee in the morning. Azzi always remembered to steal extra protein bars for Paige after away games. They had inside jokes. Routines. Favorites.

But they never let it be anything more.

Not out loud.

Not where it counted.

—

It started to shift in ways neither of them said anything about.

Paige noticed that Azzi never posted pictures of her. Not even a blurry background cameo on her story. She knew Azzi was private, but still. It stuck with her.

Azzi noticed someone comment “miss u” on Paige’s most recent Instagram post. She’d liked it without thinking. It made Azzi’s chest tight in a way she didn’t have words for.

But neither of them brought it up.

They kept pretending.

Kept moving.

—

It unraveled slowly.

That’s what made it worse — the fact that there wasn’t a single fight or blow-up, just a gradual slipping. A quiet growing apart. Like missing each other in their own shared space.

Paige noticed it first in the way Azzi didn’t reach for her hand anymore after. How she didn’t lean in to kiss her shoulder in the dark like she used to. How the silence started stretching longer between conversations.

Azzi felt it too. Paige stopped staying as long. She’d pull on her hoodie faster. Mumbling “gotta get up early tomorrow”even when they both knew she didn’t.

Still, they kept coming back. Kept showing up. Kept telling themselves it wasn’t serious, so it couldn’t really hurt.

But it did.

—

The last time it happens, Paige stays late at practice. Azzi’s already home when she shows up. There’s a movie playing, something Paige picked without asking.

Azzi’s quiet the whole night. Her laugh is soft, but her eyes don’t match it.

They hook up.

It’s slower than usual. Not out of passion, but something heavier — like they’re both holding on too tightly to something already slipping away.

After, Paige lies beside her, fingers brushing Azzi’s bare waist. Azzi doesn’t move closer. She just stares at the ceiling.

“You good?” Paige asks softly, her voice barely above the hum of the TV still playing in the background.

Azzi nods.

“Yeah,” she says.

But she doesn’t mean it.

And Paige knows it.

She leaves before sunrise.

Azzi wakes up alone.

She doesn’t text.

Paige doesn’t call.

And neither of them says goodbye.

—

Two weeks later, Paige sees her at a team hangout — sitting across the room, head tilted toward a girl Paige’s never seen before, someone new, someone with long braids and easy laughter and hands that rest a little too comfortably on Azzi’s knee.

Paige doesn’t say a word.

Just watches from across the room.

Later, when someone asks if she’s okay, she shrugs. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

—

A week after that, Paige brings someone to the team dinner.

She’s tall. Pretty. A bit too loud. Laughs at all of Paige’s dumb jokes.

Azzi watches from her spot at the end of the table. Doesn’t say much. Smiles when people talk to her. Pretends she’s fine.

KK clocks it immediately. Leans over to Ice and mutters, “They’re gonna explode.”

No one disagrees.

—

But for now, they keep pretending.

They’re not in love.
They’re not jealous.
They’re just chillin’.

Even if it’s killing them.

Paige sees them together for the first time in a real way at that charity event the team’s forced to attend.

Black outfits. Media passes. High ceilings and polite claps. Azzi shows up with the same girl from the team hangout — her name’s Jada, apparently. She works with the athletic department, helps with NIL deals. She's all smiles and polished charm and the kind of presence that makes you notice when she walks into a room.

She has her arm around Azzi’s waist the whole night.

Paige tries not to care.

She’s brought someone too. Tia — volleyball player, grad student, pretty and warm and not from this world. She says all the right things. Laughs at all the right moments.

But Paige can’t stop watching Azzi.

Even when she looks away.

Especially when she catches Azzi looking back.

—

“Y’all okay?” KK asks, bumping Paige’s hip as they wait in line for something unnecessarily overpriced.

Paige sips her drink and shrugs. “What do you mean?”

KK lifts a brow. “You haven’t blinked since we got here.”

Paige forces a laugh. “I’m chill.”

KK hums. “Sure.”

Paige doesn’t say anything else. Just stares down into her cup like it holds some kind of answer.

—

Later, Azzi walks by her in the hall near the photo booth setup.

They don’t say anything at first.

Just a glance. A breath.

Then Azzi, stopping: “You clean up nice.”

Paige lifts a shoulder. “Tried to match your energy.”

Azzi’s smile is tight. “You did.”

There’s a pause. Not awkward, just heavy.

Azzi’s voice drops slightly. “She’s pretty.”

Paige nods. “So is Jada.”

Another pause.

“You look happy,” Paige says.

Azzi’s gaze doesn’t move. “Do I?”

“You want me to say no?”

“I want you to tell the truth.”

Paige swallows.

Azzi’s the one to walk away this time.

—

That night, Paige gets in bed with Tia and feels everything too sharply. The way her sheets feel colder than usual. The way Tia kisses her like it’s easy. The way she doesn’t flinch when Paige rolls to the edge of the bed to avoid too much contact.

Tia doesn’t notice.

Or maybe she does.

And pretends she doesn’t.

Just like Paige.

—

Azzi doesn’t last much longer either.

Two weeks into “official” with Jada, they go out to a small team dinner. The music is loud, everyone’s talking over each other, and Azzi is smiling so hard her cheeks start to hurt.

She doesn’t see Paige come in until Jada’s hand finds her lower back and Paige’s voice cuts through it all with a quiet, “Hey.”

Azzi turns.

Paige’s hair is pulled back. She’s in a cropped hoodie and jeans. She looks… good.

Too good.

Azzi clears her throat. “Didn’t know you were coming.”

Paige shrugs. “Wasn’t going to. KK dragged me.”

They stand there too long, just looking.

Jada slides her hand back into Azzi’s. It feels wrong the second it happens.

Paige nods toward it. “You two seem good.”

Azzi answers too fast. “Yeah.”

Paige gives a tight smile. “Cool.”

Azzi doesn’t say anything.

Doesn’t correct herself.

Even though she kind of wants to.

—

That night, Jada asks if she’s okay. Says she feels Azzi slipping.

Azzi lies.

Says she’s just tired.

Then she spends the next hour staring at a picture Paige posted on her story — a blurry shot of a Gatorade bottle and her socks on the couch.

And the background.

The edge of her old hoodie on the coffee table.

The one Paige never gave back.

—

They don’t text.

But both of them are reading into everything.

One teammate’s like, “You and Paige cool?”

Azzi says yeah.

Another asks Paige what happened with Azzi.

Paige says, “Nothing.”

Nothing.

Like that word doesn’t mean everything.

Paige’s phone buzzes twice on her nightstand. Then a third time, harder. She doesn’t even look at it.

Her date — the one she’s been “sort of” seeing, the one with the playlists and the folded sweatshirt Paige never asked to keep — is sitting on the edge of her bed, arms crossed, eyes sharp.

“I’m not stupid,” she says.

Paige finally looks up.

“I didn’t say you were.”

“You think I don’t notice the way you freeze when she walks in? How your voice drops when you talk about her?”

Paige stays quiet.

“She’s still in here,” the girl says, pressing her palm to her own chest. “And you know it.”

Paige swallows hard.

“I can’t compete with someone you never got over,” she says, and this time it’s not angry — it’s just sad.

And that’s worse.

Paige doesn’t argue.

Because she’s right.

They don’t talk again after that.

—

Azzi’s comes undone just as quietly.

It’s after practice. Jada’s waiting outside, in her car like always, hair tied up, sunglasses on.

Azzi climbs in, tosses her bag into the back.

Jada doesn’t say hi.

“Where were you last night?”

Azzi doesn’t answer.

“You said you’d come over.”

Azzi shifts in her seat. “I forgot.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Azzi looks at her.

Jada’s jaw clenches. “It’s her, isn’t it?”

There’s no use denying it.

Azzi nods. Just once.

And the silence that follows is louder than anything she could’ve said.

—

Neither of them talks to the team about it. But the team knows.

Sarah watches Paige drop 26 in scrimmage, then walk out without talking to anyone.

KK catches Azzi staring at the bleachers like someone’s supposed to be there.

Even Ice, who usually keeps to her own lane, looks between them one day and mutters to herself, “Just kiss already or go cry in a parking lot.”

—

The breaking point doesn’t come big.

It happens at a team dinner. Nothing special. Someone brought cookies. Everyone’s loud and joking.

Paige is quiet.

Azzi walks in late. Eyes find Paige without even trying.

And it’s KK who finally breaks.

“I swear to God,” she says, standing up mid-story. “If I have to watch y’all look at each other from across the room one more time like this is some CW drama—”

Paige blinks.

Azzi blinks.

KK points between them. “Go outside. Figure it out. Lock yourselves in a room. I don’t care.”

Sarah claps once. “I’ve been WAITING.”

Even Ice nods. “Clocked it months ago.”

Azzi opens her mouth to argue.

Paige doesn’t.

She just stands up.

“Come on,” she says quietly.

And Azzi follows.

��

They end up outside on the porch. The night is cool. The air feels thick.

Neither of them speaks at first.

Then Paige turns around, arms folded over her chest.

“You said I was still yours.”

Azzi nods. “I meant it.”

“You don’t get to say that.”

“I know.”

They stare.

“I tried to move on,” Paige says. “Really tried.”

“So did I.”

“Why didn’t it work?”

Azzi’s voice is soft. “Because I still wanted you.”

Paige exhales hard.

“I didn’t know how to ask for more,” Azzi adds. “I thought if I did, I’d lose you completely.”

“You lost me anyway.”

“I know.”

“And I didn’t fight for you either,” Paige says, the words like gravel. “I just… let it happen.”

Azzi steps closer. “We both did.”

The porch is quiet.

Azzi’s voice cracks. “But I never stopped.”

Paige looks at her.

“Loving you,” Azzi clarifies, eyes shining. “Even when I wasn’t allowed to say it.”

Paige’s heart stumbles.

“You still love me?” she asks, barely audible.

Azzi nods.

Paige steps forward. Closer. Inches away now.

“I never stopped either,” she whispers.

And that’s it.

That’s everything.

The first kiss back is gentle. Not rushed. Not desperate. Just full of everything they’ve been too scared to say.

They stay there like that. Foreheads together. Hands clasped at the middle. Breathing like it’s the only way to hold steady.

When they walk back in, nobody says a word.

But everyone knows.

Because sometimes love doesn’t have to be clean.

It just has to come back.

[bewitched-hours]

Forsaken | 007n7 x MamaBear!Reader

Okay, this honestly makes me a little nervous to write because this is definitely gonna be ooc and probably at least half-inaccurate but of well, I'm for fun. This is based on an earlier post I made and I hope you all enjoy.

The Reader will be given She/They pronouns for this and you get two different scenarios for it! One pre-Forsaken and one during the events of Forsaken (´꒳`)♡

Now enjoy your dilf- /j

Pre-Forsaken:

You would've never thought you'd end up in this position...

At first it was just a happy coincidence that one of the parents at the daycare you work at was put onto you to deal with. Not because he was difficult to handle or anything but because his kid was a bit of a problem.

You honestly felt bad. C00lkidd seemed like he genuinely meant well and you always tried to be patient with him and dissuade him from causing trouble and for the most part, it seemed to work.

Sure, he was still being a child and causing a ruckus but at least with you around he started to tone it down a bit, which seemed to surprise 7n7.

He'd ask you how you got c00lkidd to settle at all and you could only answer with the fact you'd make deals with the kid.

Some candy of his choice the next day if he behaves, sometimes even bringing in a whole pizza for him if it meant he'd stop going too rough on the other children.

Not like you couldn't afford it. You were new to being a daycare worker after leaving a stressful office job but had enough money saved up so you wouldn't have to worry for at least the first few months. You originally wanted to use those savings to move but then the prices of apartments and houses rose and you decided to just stick to your plan of at least switching jobs for your own sanity.

You and 07 actually got along pretty well, you even exchanged numbers at one point to talk more privately.

But before you knew it, you two were out on dates and enjoying how awkward you both were. And in that same pace, you were suddenly a mom to C00lkidd and moved in with them both.

Now you take C00lkidd with you to daycare and still keeping up your deals but instead of buying him things, you moved on to promising him special dinners. You almost can't believe your sudden luck in life and are absolutely smitten with your husband and child.

But it seemed you became a bit of an outsider among your co-workers from it.

"Do you think she actually loves him?" You'd hear them mutter.

"Maybe his dad is secretly rich or something..." You tried to remain calm.

"Who could love such a thing anyhow?"

You snapped. You could tolerate it if they were only talking about you but talking about your husband or son like that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

"Sweetie, I'll be right back but remember your promise, okay?" You told C00lkidd and he happily nodded before going back to his drawings as you forcefully grabbed the co-workers of yours that thought they could talk shit about your family.

"Listen hear you stupid bitches..." You hissed at them. But you wanted to keep quiet so none of the children hear what you were about to say.

"I can take your bullshit about me because I already don't like you and could easily switch jobs with my own savings but talk about my husband or kid like that again and I'll make sure you'll never be hired at another daycare or school ever again. Got it?" You were honestly surprised by your own fury at this point but too focused on getting your point across as the co-workers silently nodded at you with pale faces.

Hopefully you could hide your anger from C00lkidd and 7n7 until it's properly gone. Until the flame inside you was put out.

It seemed to work for most of the day but C00lkidd didn't pay you too much attention anyways as he was trying to befriend the other children and make awesome drawings for you and 7 to put on the fridge when you get home.

But your husband was more perceptive...

Almost the moment he saw you that evening, he could tell something was bothering you but he waited until you were home to ask you in the privacy of your shared bedroom.

Of course, you told him all about your co-workers but left out how you felt like an outsider. Because you knew he'd feel guilty.

Surprisingly, he's glad to know that you love this life so much that you protect it even from the people you work with.

But your son obviously has to ruin the moment because he forgot to show 7n7 his drawings and when the day was over, you found yourself thanking whatever higher power there could be that you decided to switch your job when you did.

Because now you have the most perfect family you could've asked for...

Forsaken:

Let's say you and 07 had been dating before Forsaken happened.

You've been feeling pretty low lately. C00lkidd was gone and so was his dad... The same one you had a date with just last week.

Even worse, he isn't answering your texts or even receiving them. At first you feared he might've lost interest but when C00lkidd stopped showing up at your daycare you knew something was wrong.

It didn't take long for you to go insane with worry, trying to ignore your co-workers making up rumours about you again and trying to stop you from wanting to find them.

"Let the police just do it, why do you care so much about a kid and a guy you met less than a couple months ago?" Was what finally made you snap.

But instead of words, your sleep-deprived mind thought they deserved a little more. Something truly painful.

You didn't kill them- luckily...

In fact, you blacked out before you could even charge at them with one of those small arts and crafts scissors from one of the classrooms. You still don't remember why you initially took them...

When you woke up, you were not only surrounded by strangers, but everything was so eery.

You were quick to understand their explanations and what you had to do when a 'round' starts. You were quickly proven to be a 'Support' class as one of your abilities allowed you to "Channel your anger for improved speed" and another allowed you to heal others by pulling out candy out of thin air...

At that point you were sure you were dreaming but one of the survivors made sure to pinch you hard enough that you knew it was real.

But then you were suddenly pulled aside by Elliot, who you at least somewhat recognized from the pizza place you went to to get C00lkidd pizza in your early days of taking care of him.

"Listen, you should be aware of the guy in a blue shirt and burger hat." He muttered to you and something piqued your interest. A Burger Hat? Didn't 7n7 wear one of those? Maybe a coincidence?

"His name's 007n7-" Definitely not a coincidence and you felt your heart flutter upon learning he was here. You stopped Elliot mid-sentence as you had already tuned out his negativity and asked where you'd find him.

Elliot was shocked but didn't pry and simply brought you to his cabin.

"If he isn't in there then I have no clue." You could hear disappointment in his voice. You honestly wanted to punch him a little for it but oh well.

"And when you're looking for your own cabin, just pay attention to the doors, yours should already have your name on it but don't ask me how!" He yelled at you from a distance, still going back to the other survivors as you quickly but silently made your way up the porch and knocked on the door.

You could hear him groaning inside but you couldn't care less. You were just happy to see him again despite your ever-so-calm face.

And when he opened the door, you nearly jumped him with joy over the fact he was alive and well... At least until you notice he had some injuries. From those 'Rounds' no doubt...

But he was both surprised and happy to see you too! He was even more surprised when you told him how much effort you put into finding him and C00lkidd, although he began to sound off when you mentioned CK. You could immediately tell something was wrong and feared for the worst... That the poor kid wasn't here and maybe even...

No, he assured you CK was alive and you sighed in relief at those news. However, you'd soon grow horrified again when 7 began to explain that the kid was turned into a monster and placed with the killers.

You spent the rest of the time that you had talking and crying together, finding out more about each other than you'd have ever known. It was nice in a way. You obviously both had been locking up some emotions and ended up spooning on his bed with him listening intently to your heartbeat as you thought about what you'll do now.

One thing was for sure... You're not leaving without your future husband or child... If there even is a way out...

Thanks to @brain4stew for the idea of doing both ideas in one post ٩(ˊᗜˋ )و

And sorry for any wild inaccuracies I might've put in, I was honestly just looking to write fluff with possible hurt/comfort elements and wasn't sure how to add them in so I just wrote with the Forsaken OST playing in my ears lol (^▽^)👍

Anything you'd like to request/ask? Check out my pinned post first and I'll be happy to write up whatever you want!

[drunken-drk]

What a cute post to go around! Thank you so much for making this !

if it's okay, I'd like to do a small ramble of a special ship that @sand-seeks-sun and I write ...! all the art is by them (⸝⸝⸝´꒳`⸝⸝⸝) !!!

Shiun and Y'aromirr !!! These two were the first characters we'd shared together as well as the first we'd brought into the ffxiv rp world so.. These two are /very/ special.

they were originally friends and honestly there was never any like expectation of romance but it so naturally bloomed between these two despite them being so very opposite from one another; Shiun is so loud and has a BIG heart while Y'aromirr is anxious and reserved in trusting others. Shiun had certainly pushed the line at times but it was always with good intention and wanting to simply know and make Y'aromirr happy. I won't ramble too much but.. proof of this is seen just by looking at his eye..  🤭

this is one of my favorite posts... it's old but such a pivotal moment for them because the trust had truly been set and sealed between them with that night.

They've dealt with vengeful ghosts, loss, and memories and moments that haunt them from their life before meeting but even still they've fought through it !!!! And all the while, they've made a beautiful family together and given each other something neither had ever truly had before; someone to call home, a place of respite to return to.

They affectionally call each other Ahavah and Husbun.

Shiun is the cook of the house and knows how to burn things to a perfect char in Y'aromirr standards.

Y'aromirr knows how Shiun likes his drinks and often after a long day of working for his company, he will whip him up something that is far too sweet for the average person but perfect for Shiun.

Sometimes they call each other their sword and shield.

They like to take long walks around their neighborhood in the Beds and share light gossip. Sometimes, they may break for coffee.

Only Shiun can touch and see Y'aromirr's whole face. Only Y'aromirr can touch Shiun's hair.

thank you so much for this prompt !!! It's so fun to think back to these two... <3!! and so lovely to see others all around <3 love love !!!!

Show me your Ship Saturday!

Hey I did this before let's do it again, show me your latest or favorite screenshots with your ship! WoLships, OCxOC, NPCxNPC, selfships, whatever!

What's your favorite thing about them right now? Like a little detail, headcanon, or plot (however big or small) you've been recently microwaving in your head?

[bluebnny]

Scenario - they take an interest in your hobby

characters: law, ace, kid

contents: what the title says, just how i think they would engage with your hobby, G/N reader, fluff

warnings: none

a/n: ok i'm trying something new bc the longer fics are, well, longer and i want to also try more characters :) and this was sooo much fun to write! Let me know if you would like a part 2, because i already have ideas (i mean i'll post it anyway, but y'know, maybe there's some specific characters or hobbies you would like me to include). Sort of proofread. Dividers made by me, please enjoy!! <3

word count: 2.313 (700-900 each)

Law - Fandom

Law would love to have a partner who’s into fandom just as much as him. He excels at being a pirate, being amidst the most sought after in the world and known everywhere for his ruthlessness and cruelty. But the nerdy fanboy side of him is a little neglected at times. As it turns out, not a lot of pirates really care about Sora, Warrior of the Sea as much as he does, if they are interested in comics at all, that is.

I think he would immediately become even more head over heals upon finding out that his partner likes to read them too. He’d like it if you had the same taste as him, but would probably prefer it if you didn’t, because it means you two could give each other recommendations and even swap comics to read.

If you’re also a pirate with your own crew, you two would naturally spend long amounts of time away from each other. You usually go months at a time before meeting up again. So, as with any long-distance relationship, you have to get creative and make it a whole thing.

When you two see each other, you’re constantly talking about what comic you read, how far you are in the story, talking about your favourite characters, and sharing your own interpretations and theories. It quickly becomes the highlight of every encounter you have, both of you already looking forward to the next reunion the moment you part ways. This is also when you have the chance to swap back the books you had borrowed from one another, and to give each other the next volume in the series.

When you’re apart, however sad it makes you, at least you have each other’s books to cling on to, both of you having a special spot to keep them safe. Yours was on your nightstand, liking to read in the evening before bed, or even during the night if you can’t sleep. Since you miss Law, having the comics he lends you always in reach makes you feel a little less alone, and it just makes you look forward to your next reunion that much more. Law keeps yours in his desk in the top drawer, so he can quickly reach for it when he’s too distracted to work. He would rather die than tell you this, but he always pretends it’s your voice reading it aloud to him. You had done that one time when he had had his hands full, wanting to show him a funny passage. He loves imagining the intonation you would use for every line, and how you would chuckle at a specific joke, your laughter echoing in his head.

You basically have a two-person book club at this point and have started leaving little pieces of paper with notes and theories in the books after reading them, maybe even the occasional drawing. It’s always a comfort to read through your favourite volume again and stumble upon a little note from your partner.

Law loves reading your random thoughts on certain characters, everything from who you ship, to what food the characters would like (you make it a point to add “bread” for all the ones you think law would like most, and “onigiri” for those he would hate, just to tease him). It always puts a smile to his face. The notes you find in your books are less creative, but they make you burst out with laughter, because they’re just so Law. The most common thing you find are little post-it notes critiquing medical inaccuracies, like “Patient bleeding out from cut in abdomen! Chest compressions would NOT help with this !???” He even adds citations if it’s less obvious knowledge, as if he thinks you will fact check him or something. The rest are usually weirdly accurate predictions for how a specific aspect of the story will unfold. When you question him about it, he will assure you he hasn’t read ahead, always saying “Well, it’s obviously what’s going to happen!”

Whenever you dock at a new island, you always see if there’s a place that sells comics, trying to find new stuff to read, and keeping a list of titles to lend the other once you’re done.

Ace - Pottery/Clay

Ace, curious as ever, would instantly take an interest in any one of your hobbies, as it means also taking an interest in you. He’ll notice you moulding some clay one day and become super interested in hearing about it. From then on, every time he sees you working on something, he’ll rush over and ask what you’re making, genuine interest on his face. He loves that his partner is talented and will quickly start to brag about it to anyone who will listen.

He'll even go as far as to ask you to teach him, and his attention is immediately caught by the polymer clay with all its different colours, especially after you show him some simple things you’d made from them, like some charms in different colours.

Ace learns. Fast. But if you go over to him to watch him work, he’ll stubbornly hide it, telling you it isn’t ready yet. It wouldn’t take him very long to make stuff, though, generally focusing on smaller items. He also had the enormous advantage of his particular devil fruit; he could simply hold what he made in his hands and bake it just like that, wherever and whenever.

Contrary to Ace, you prefer working with natural clay, being far more durable and versatile, but also taking much longer, as it needs time to dry before being burned in a kiln for days. This isn’t a big issue if you’re not on the same crew, though. If you’re on different ships, you often go months without seeing each other, but since Ace has quite a bit of freedom as first commander of the 2nd division, he would sometimes visit you on a whim if you were within a day’s travel of each other.

Being the best, most affectionate boyfriend in the world, Ace always made a quick stop somewhere first to pick up a snack for you, even stopping to pick a handful of wildflowers or a pretty seashell to bring you if there was no town nearby. You had always insisted that it wasn’t necessary, but he would have none of it, preferring to act like some sort of bird performing a mating ritual than visit his partner empty-handed. Plus, despite you teasing him for his seashells and shiny rocks, he knows you keep them all in a little box under your bed, with the dates of his visits written on each one.

You had always liked knowing he took that tiny bit of extra time and effort to put a smile on your face, even if it was just from handing you a funny looking acorn. But after being introduced to your hobby, Ace’s casual presents have become more thoughtful, now almost always showing up with a little handmade something. The first time he showed up with a creation he deemed good enough, the gesture rendered you speechless. And he remembered that.

Ace’s first gift to you was a bracelet made of red beads that matched the ones on his necklace, just a little smaller. You were torn on how to react. On the one hand, you were about to cry from how sweet of a gesture it was, on the other, you couldn’t stop smiling over the fact that the beads were a little uneven in size and shape. It was so endearing to you, seeing how Ace was clearly still in the process of developing the precise fine motor skills required for making little beads.

His second handmade gift was a little flame-shaped charm made from red, orange, and yellow clay mixed together. It had a little hole at the top. “For putting on a necklace.” He explained. This time, you had a gift of your own ready, already expecting his. You had made him a personalized bright orange mug with a red handle shaped like the beads on his necklace. This time, he was the one to get emotional.  

His third present was far more impressive than the first two, not that you were comparing them. He had made a tiny replica of his hat, again with a little hole in the brim, so that you could use it as a lucky charm.

“Ace, this is amazing! I should teach you to cook next.” You joke, but he sees the emotion in your eyes as you hold it close to your chest.

Kid - Knitting

Kid is not the type of guy to avidly ask about your hobbies, and he won’t sit and watch you for hours while you do them (at least not openly). But he does love you, so he takes an interest, nonetheless. You had previously joked that he should take up knitting as a calming activity, since he’s an emotional guy who often gets angry, but he had just scoffed and ignored you, preferring to stick to metal.

It started on a slow afternoon, with you sitting on the deck and knitting while enjoying the afternoon sun. Kid was nearby, staring at the horizon, lost in thought, the only sounds around the rushing of the ocean and the soft clicking of your knitting needles.

“Shit!” It’s you who breaks the silence first, having stopped your movements. Your boyfriend only reacts with an absent-minded hum, eyes still locked on the ocean. “My stupid needle broke.” You continue, trying to minimize the damage to your work now that all the loops were falling off. “Kid, do you think you could make me another?” You ask him, finally pulling him out of his thoughts.

“Another? You already have a million, no? Just get one from your stash.” He answers, not annoyed, simply confused. You get up from your spot and walk over to him to explain the different sizes, and how all your other ones were either too big or too small. He seems mildly interested, examining the two broken halves you hand him.

“I can make this.” He simply states when you are done explaining.

“Really? You’re amazing!” You pull him into a tight embrace, partly to show your gratitude, partly because he’s just a really good hugger, so any excuse is welcome.

“Calm down, it’s just a stick. No big deal…” But his chest swells a bit at the prospect of being able to assist you, and so you follow him into his workshop, where he makes another in no time.

From then on, he became more interested. You even tried to teach him, but he simply couldn’t get the hang of it, quickly becoming enraged at every mistake and making the learning curve extremely steep with his regular outbursts. You give up on it after that, thinking it simply wasn’t his thing and at least glad he tried to take an interest in it.

So, you’re all the more surprised when he walks up to you the next time he finds you knitting, and confidently asks “How do you do that pattern?” as though it was the most normal question in the world. You start explaining, only getting more and more confused from the way he actually seems to be trying to understand.

After that, Kid spends the next days mostly in his workshop. It doesn’t strike you as odd, since he has a habit of disappearing every now and then. What you did not expect, however, was for him to request you in his workshop, to then hand you a hat that he had clearly made himself. It’s a little rough around the edges – kid doesn’t seem to have fully gotten the hang of how to properly do a decreasing stitch – but it still looks much better than his first attempt.

“I know you and your crew are planning to go to that winter island next, so I thought I’d make you this.” It’s evident how hard he’s trying to look tough while carefully putting the bright red hat on your head. “Y’know. So you don’t get cold.” He even attempts to remain stoic when you give him a tight squeeze but is clearly pleased that you like it.

“How? I thought you hated knitting.”

“I did.” He admits. “But then I remembered how easy it was to make you that needle. And I thought that I should just make some metal ones for myself and control them with my fruit. It’s not as much of a pain in the ass like that.” He explains, and you have to hold back a smirk at how cute he is talking about knitting of all things, despite being over 2 metres tall and generally a little scary looking.

Next time you see him; after returning from the winter island, there’s something off about the crew. You quickly realize that it’s due to them all wearing matching knitted hats.

You look at Kid questioningly, but he just grumbles and says “I don’t want to hear it. Killer and the others have already been giving me enough shit for it.”

But the crew’s teasing isn’t enough to stop his newfound hobby. More often than not, you find him somewhere on the ship with some knitting needles floating next to him, clicking away at lightning speed as he makes yet another hat, grumbling something about how knitting is “very in line with my political ideology” and that “going against over consumption by making my own clothes is extremely punk.”

One evening, while Kid is in his workshop – no doubt knitting another hat – Killer pulls you aside and whispers “Look, I really like the hats, he’s getting weirdly good at making them, but everyone on the crew already has at least two pairs. Could you maybe teach him socks next?”

Thank you so much for reading! (This is my fic, don't repost! Reblogs are always appreciated <3)

[yukkiji]

wrong place, right hands

it was just a writing exercise–something silly, something private. a pretend love letter for a class project that was never meant to be seen. but when it ends up in the hands of the very person it's about, everything changes. sometimes, love has a funny way of delivering itself.

starring. akaashi keiji x fem!reader ft. kotaro bokuto

genre: fluff, best friend!akaashi, bokuto is super supportive of the two, friends to lovers

wc: 1.5k

author's note: i love my boy keiji sm huhu and this is one my favorite drafts; good thing that i finally got the chance to post this

it was supposed to be harmless.

something private. something silly.

a writing exercise for literature—a pretend love letter, meant to test tone and form and emotional honesty without being real. the kind of thing you write while chewing your pen cap, giggling under your breath at the absurdity of pouring out fake feelings onto a blank page. the kind of thing you submit, laugh off, and forget about.

only you didn’t turn it in.

you kept it. folded it twice and tucked it into the back of your folder, marked not for submission. it felt… too honest. too specific. even if it was just a joke. even if it was meant for no one’s eyes but your own.

you didn’t even sign it.

but you described him. clearly. unmistakably.

you’d written about his voice—the one that lingers in your head long after he reads passages aloud in class. about the way he tips his head when he’s thinking, how he pinches the bridge of his nose when bokuto’s being dramatic, how his hands are “embarrassingly elegant” and distractingly expressive when he speaks.

and now?

now that folded page was sitting in the very capable, very real hands of akaashi keiji.

he read it in the gym.

in front of the team.

you didn’t even know it was missing until bokuto shouted something across the court about “keiji’s secret admirer,” and you looked up, heart seizing, just in time to see your best friend unfolding your handwriting in the middle of practice.

he didn’t laugh.

he didn’t share it.

he just read it—brows drawing together, quiet as the world moved around him—and folded it again like it was something precious.

you ran before he could see your face.

he found you afterward. of course he did.

you were leaning against the locker room wall, arms crossed tight over your chest like you could physically hold in the embarrassment threatening to swallow you whole. akaashi stepped out of the gym, hair still damp from a quick rinse, a folded paper in his hand.

the paper.

he looked at you.

“this isn’t for class,” he said softly. “is it?”

your mouth opened. closed. opened again.

you weren’t sure if your soul had already evacuated or if it was still making a run for it.

“what gave it away?” you asked weakly.

he glanced down at the page again. “well, the line ‘you look prettiest when you’re annoyed at bokuto’ felt… oddly specific.”

you groaned and buried your face in your hands.

“of course you recognized yourself. of course you read the one thing i didn’t mean for anyone to see.”

akaashi’s voice was gentler now. “bokuto found it under the bleachers. he thought it was part of someone’s homework and handed it to me. didn’t realize it was about me until…” he trailed off.

you peeked through your fingers. he was holding the page like it was fragile. like it mattered.

“you weren’t meant to see it,” you said, voice muffled through your palms. “it was… it was supposed to be a joke. a fake letter. i wasn’t even going to turn it in.”

“still,” he murmured. “you wrote it.”

there was a pause.

you nodded, slowly.

“i did.”

akaashi keiji has always been calm.

not just quiet—but calm. in that rare, grounding way that makes people lean toward him without realizing. like he carries gravity in his chest and people orbit it instinctively.

he’s been your best friend for years.

the constant. the person you text when your umbrella breaks, when your brain won’t shut up, when you need someone who won’t try to fix you but will listen. he’s been the voice of reason during bokuto meltdowns, your late-night study partner, the first person to notice when you were upset even when you smiled through it.

he was your lighthouse.

and you… you tried your best to stay afloat. to be steady. to look like you had it all under control.

but he was holding that letter now. holding it like it was something more.

his voice was quieter when he spoke again.

“can i be honest?”

you looked up, startled.

he’d stepped closer.

not close enough to touch—but enough that you could see the tiny droplets of water still clinging to the ends of his hair. enough to notice that his eyes weren’t sharp like they sometimes were on the court. they were soft. searching.

“i liked it,” he said.

you blinked. “the letter?”

he nodded. “i liked that you notice when i get annoyed. that you remember what i wore the day of our midterms. that you like how i read out loud, even when i think i sound like a textbook.”

there was a tiny smile tugging at his mouth now.

“i liked that it came from you.”

you stared, heart hammering.

“and if i’m being really honest…” he hesitated, then gently reached out, his fingers brushing your sleeve. “i’ve been wondering if you’d ever say something.”

“say what?” you asked, breath barely there.

he looked at you like you were the only thing in the hallway.

“that you like me,” he said simply.

the words cracked something open in you.

“i didn’t think you noticed.”

“i noticed everything,” he replied.

you were still processing—still somewhere between panic and floating—when an unmistakable voice echoed from inside the gym.

“whaaaaaaaaat?!”

bokuto slammed open the doors with the force of a gale, arms wide, socks squeaking against the polished floor as he launched into view.

“no. way.” he pointed, bouncing. “no. way this is happening. finally.”

you flinched. akaashi didn’t.

“how long was he—?” you began.

“the letter,” bokuto shouted, positively glowing. “the letter was real?! i knew it! i knew you two were in lo—”

“please,” you moaned, face in your hands again. “please let me evaporate.”

“i read it too,” bokuto beamed. “it was so good! so romantic! the part where you said he has ‘hands like he plays piano in another life’? art. masterpiece. i cried. internally.”

you looked at akaashi in horror. “you let him read it?!”

“i did not,” he said dryly. “he took it out of my bag when i was showering.”

bokuto did a twirl. “i had a feeling! my otp! blooming before my eyes!”

you groaned into the wall.

“i’m never writing anything again.”

“noooo,” bokuto said. “you must write more. you’re a poet. the youth needs your words.”

“she’s exaggerating,” akaashi said mildly, lips twitching.

“she’s not! that letter was amazing. i’ve been shipping you two since junior high!”

“you’ve been what?” you gasped.

“shipping!” bokuto declared. “like ‘relationship-ping’? keep up!”

you stared. “you cannot be real.”

“i’m the captain of love,” he said seriously. “and i demand a kiss. for proof.”

akaashi, impossibly, didn’t roll his eyes. he just looked at you again.

“ignore him,” he said gently. “unless…”

he trailed off.

you met his eyes.

unless.

unless you wanted it too.

and then—slowly, so slowly—you felt his hand reach for yours. fingers threading together like it was something you’d done a hundred times already.

he stepped closer.

and then, soft as a secret, he kissed your forehead.

your knees nearly gave out.

it wasn’t loud or showy. it wasn’t something made for bokuto’s theatrics.

it was quiet. intentional.

like he’d wanted to for a long, long time.

“i was right!” bokuto screamed from behind you. “love is real! i’m telling the whole team. i’m putting it in the group chat.”

“please don’t,” akaashi said, still remarkably calm, though his hand tightened slightly around yours.

you were still frozen, your forehead tingling, breath caught in your throat.

“are we… dating now?” you asked, stunned.

akaashi tilted his head. “we can take it slow. one step at a time. but yes. if you want to.”

you nodded.

“i want to.”

he smiled—a real one, warm and unguarded.

“unless you regret writing the letter,” he murmured.

you looked at him.

at the boy who’d been your constant.

at the boy who noticed everything.

and you said, with a quiet kind of certainty—

“no. i’m glad it ended up in the right hands.”

bonus scene

“hey,” bokuto said proudly, slinging an arm around both of your shoulders as you sat together on the bleachers, post-practice.

“i still think you should’ve made out.”

“bokuto,” akaashi said.

“just saying! that forehead kiss was like, pg. come on. spice it up for your number one fan!”

you reached over and lightly smacked his arm.

he grinned.

“you’re welcome, by the way,” he added, nudging you. “if i hadn’t picked up that letter—”

“i know,” you sighed.

“wait,” akaashi said slowly, turning to him. “why were you under the bleachers?”

bokuto paused.

then looked away. “…that’s not important.”

akaashi stared at him.

you leaned into akaashi’s side, watching bokuto whistle innocently as he swung his legs over the edge of the bench.

“god help whoever he ends up dating,” you muttered.

akaashi smiled again, softly, and brushed a knuckle over your temple.

“let’s just hope they’re patient.”

and maybe—just maybe—romantic enough to write something silly and private that turns out to be everything he was hoping to hear.

[flowersinurhaiir]

YOU CAME OUT OF THE BLUE LIKE THAT

MASTERLIST ➤

  Isack Hadjar headcanons

  reupload cus i had to move accs... warnings - none! requests - open! summery - headcanons on loverboy!Isack 525 words

notes - first time posting my work in a looong time + first time writing srsly in a while

  loverboy!Isack who Insists that needs a good luck kiss before every race or hell even every session that he goes out for - you didnt give him one in Australia and he's never let it go.

   loverboy!Isack who follows you around like a lost puppy half the time, just observing you; every crease of your eyes when you laugh, your dimples he thinks he could love forever. All of you really.

   loverboy!Isack who is insistent he's marrying you one day, he's very much known for getting drunk then babbling to all his friends till they bring him to you. Safe to say most of them now flat out refuse to go out clubbing with him unless you're there.

   loverboy!Isack who can't and doesn't complain when you crawl into bed wearing one of his shirts, it's like a confirmation for him that, yes you're there and yes you will be there forever with him.

   loverboy!Isack who could listen to you chat about your interests forever, even if he's clueless on them. Your favourite music artist just released an album? Of course he wants to hear about your favourite songs and listen with you, a new game you're enjoying? Tell him all the lore!

   loverboy!Isack who will remember things you casually remember wanting and will buy it for you later. Concert tickets, bags you liked, jewellery you stare in shop windows for, the whole shabang just for you.

   loverboy!Isack who will 100% run a special helmet for your home GP if you have one, if not just a GP that's special to you two. Whether you designed it yourself or it's just inspired by you he's including you anyway he can. Speaking of helmets maybe like he has physics equations for his mum and dad he has something on his permanent helmet for you.

   loverboy!Isack who cannot stop bringing you up in interviews, “oh my girlfriend would love this” , “well actually me and my girlfriend did that earlier this week”. It's gotten to a point where you're starting to think journalists might know more about you than him.

   loverboy!Isack who has a playlist that he listens to before every race filled with songs that remind him of you. So that even if you can't be there at the race, you're there in his mind.

  loverboy!Isack who includes you in all his photo dumps of race weekends, even if you aren't there he’ll include a screenshot from one of your many facetimes.

   loverboy!Isack who will most definitely wear matching jewellery, you know that gold chain he always wears? Best believe he’s already gotten a second one to wear that goes with one he's gotten for you as well. He claims he saw them in a shop and couldn't resist but he's not fooling anyone we all know he was searching the internet for the perfect necklaces.

   loverboy!Isack who quite literally only ever needs you to be happy. No matter how bad a race went or where he qualified he knows he’ll always have you to come back to, oddly enough that always settles him no matter what.

you do not have and i do not give consent for my work to be translated, uploaded somewhere else, remixed or plagiarised flowersinurhaiir ©2025

[ashthesalamipiece]

Hihi ♡ I love the way you write sm! Before I request just wanted to let you know I saw your post about the things you're getting and I'm so sorry about that, hun. You are doing great! If you ever need to talk, I can reveal myself and you can always dm me ♡

For the request.. was hoping you could do one with ph Kats and a pregnant reader who's pretty sensitive? Like emotionally sensitive, and it only got amplified with the hormones. Katsuki comes home after a rough day at work and lashes out on the reader without thinking and she starts to cry and gets very hurt. Afterward lots of spoiling and doting from an apologetic Katsuki. Thanks! ♡

“Come Out, Angel”

Pairing: Pro Hero!Katsuki Bakugou x Pregnant!Reader

Genre: Angst to fluff, hurt/comfort

CW: Emotional hurt, crying, slight yelling (not aggressive), pregnancy-related sensitivity, comfort

---

You had been so excited to see him.

All afternoon, you’d planned a quiet evening — lit some candles, cooked one of his favorite meals (as best you could with your current cravings and backaches), even wore that soft hoodie he always said made you look “fucking adorable.”

You just missed him. You always missed him when he was gone longer than a day.

So when the door opened and Katsuki walked in, your face lit up.

“Hi, baby! I missed you,” you said, waddling over to greet him, arms open wide.

He didn’t even look at you.

“Tch…damn place is a circus, I swear to god,” he muttered, yanking off his boots and throwing his jacket a little too hard toward the hook. “These damn rookies can’t follow a simple command, and I’m the one who has to clean up their mess every single time.”

You frowned a little, pausing your approach.

“I—I made dinner,” you offered, trying to keep the tone hopeful, steady. “And I thought maybe we could watch that show you like, just unwind togeth—”

“Can you not right now?” he snapped, turning toward you finally. “I just got home, and I don’t need you talking my ear off too!”

The words hit you like a slap. You blinked, heart lurching.

Your voice caught in your throat. You didn’t yell, didn’t push back — didn’t even say anything.

Instead, you slowly turned around, shoulders shaking, and walked silently toward the bedroom.

You didn’t slam the door.

You just… locked it.

Katsuki stood there for a beat, breathing hard. And then the silence hit him. The realization.

“…Fuck.”

He moved to the door a minute later, knocking once — then again, more gently.

“Baby. Open up.”

Silence.

He leaned his forehead against the wood. Guilt twisted sharp in his gut.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I was pissed about work and I took it out on you. I didn’t mean any of that. I just—fuck. You didn’t deserve that.”

Still nothing.

He crouched down, sitting just outside the door now, back against the frame like he couldn’t bear to leave it.

“I hate when you cry, angel,” he said, voice cracking slightly. “I know you’ve been feelin’ things harder lately. I know you’re tryin’ so hard to take care of everything even with the baby on the way, and I just… I acted like a damn jerk.”

He swallowed thickly. “I scared you, didn’t I?”

The softest sniff came through the door.

His heart shattered.

“I love you. And our baby. And I wanna be better. Just let me hold you, okay? Please.”

There was a long pause. Then—

The lock clicked.

He immediately stood, stepping in as you wiped your face with trembling hands. Your eyes were red and puffy, and Katsuki looked like he wanted to punch himself in the face.

“C’mere,” he whispered.

You didn’t even hesitate. You went straight into his arms, and he held you like you were breakable. Like you were sacred. Pressing kisses into your hair and murmuring, “I got you. I got you. I’m so sorry, angel.”

Later, he bundled you in blankets, fed you bites of dessert while rubbing your feet, let you cry into his chest and whispered sweet nothings to your belly.

“I’m gonna do better,” he promised against your skin. “You’re carrying our whole damn world in there. You deserve peace. And softness. And someone who never makes you feel like that again.”

You sniffled. “You’re still my favorite person, even when you’re a grump.”

He laughed a little, watery and rough. “Yeah? Well, I’m your favorite dumbass then. And I’m never letting you go to bed hurt again.”

[coffeegnomee]

Gnome... Do you have any devotions thoughts in these trying times? I would love to know your opinions about the stream™, especially in regards to Mapicc. Cause his reaction to the bacon hearts thing seems so extreme, it's such a small thing compared to everything else

I keep thinking about your post about how incompatible and in sync they are at the same time, and Zam's stream is such a good example of that

(no pressure to respond ofc, but if you have any thoughts about what's going on I would be glad to hear them)

heheheheheehheeheh

ok idk where I really want to go with this. There are so many thoughts and I just finished the stream.

I feel like I finally understand exactly what happened during the dupe war. Mapicc placing that first crit in Zam's face felt exactly the same as Mapicc coming down with his sword on Spoke over. and over. and over again. Until Spoke ran out of totems. If Zam didn't run, we'd have that clip again.

pound. pound. pound. Until he is dead. No words. Past emotion.

And isn't the reasoning exactly the same?

Loyal, loyal Mapicc. You hate when someone goes behind the team to work with the enemy.

But it's more than just helping the enemy.

MAPICC: "because bro. Why is it a big fucking problem when I put wardens at spawn, you have to *ugh* throw me away, side with derapchu, make a whole new country, but then, when fucking bacon does it, here’s 6 hearts buddy, stay alive”

It's always. Always. Been about Derap. How Zam left him for Derap. No. Replaced him with Derap.

But did you notice? The tiny reordering of events. Mapicc says he put wardens at spawn AND THEN Zam threw him away to side with Derap.

But do you remember? Zam said "I'm teammates with Derap" and Mapicc's heart dropped. He went silent, started mulling, started clicking his ax at the air. Started wanting to kill Bacon. Starting wanting to do something.. crazy.

Only then did he bring wardens to spawn.

Everything has hinged upon that one moment. The panic of loosing Zam. The realization that he was already gone. The belief that it was too late.

And Mawn started days later.

And a few days before (the day mapicc talked to Spoke 1:28:00), Hannah was asking Mapicc why he hated Derap so much, and Mapicc said cause Zam replaced him with Derap. She laughed and said, why aren't you mad at Zam then?

MAPICC: “i went to do one fucking project and bro replaced me with derapchu. And kicked me off his little groupy team thing.” HANNAH: “oh so you’re jealous! Okay” MAPICC: “no he deadass replaced me. It’s not even a jealousy thing. He deadass replaced the team with me with derapchu”  HANNAH: "doesn't that reflect more on zam? Did zam do that?” MAPICC: “I hate both of them. Wait shit youre right. Fuck. You are right”  MAPICC: ”no you're right about that! That makes Zam the dickhead. Why am I mad at derapchu?” MAPICC: ”what the hell”  HANNAH: "I'm mad at derapchu because he would always kill bacon and I'm mad at him cause he has a bunch of wemmbu hearts that he doesn't deserve” MAPICC: "that’s also why I hate him. That’s part of the reason. That’s what it is. It's like zam replaced, me, with a shittier version of me. A 20 heart player that didn't actually get all the kills.”

It's not really about the 6 (5) hearts. The thing about the hearts is that they were the straw that broke the camel's back.

And that's the thing about the straw. You don't realize it's the one until it's too late. And it's just a little straw. Such a tiny thing.

But the hearts symbolized something: Support. The one thing Mapicc has not had from Zam all season. How many confrontations have they had about Zam either stopping Mapicc from killing, or warning his prey he's coming, or Zam not wanting to fight someone.

And that's not even to begin to talk about Zam's point of view. How and why he did everything he did. How every interaction has lead them down the slow march that landed him here.

It's too long to write, and you know the tale. Every little step that has brought Zam to the realization that what is best for the server is content, and if he can keep the content going then he will do whatever is necessary.

To understand that, during Mawn, Zam would have had to be in a completely different frame of mind. It was too soon to teaming with Derap and Flame was too *weird* that day for him to ever be able to be on Mapicc's side.

And Derap provided him with an easy out.

A way away from his feelings. A way away from the confusion of spawn, the pain and emotions, the heartbreak of Mapicc.

And Zam gladly took it. A way to be with his teammate who seemed to care about him so much more than Mapicc suddenly did, and a way to not fight Mapicc. To excuse himself from the content because the one person he cannot fight is Mapicc.

If Mapicc was the one taking up Subz legacy.. all alone. Zam would have thrown himself at Mapicc. Without ever trying to fight him I think.

But as it was Mapicc always needs a duo, someone by his side. And in his anger he picked Flame, picked him knowing that all he wanted to do was torment Zam.

Mapicc was both not alone, and with someone Zam could not ideologically reconcile with.

And Zam was both not alone, and with someone Mapicc could not ideologically reconcile with.

And so Mawn was not the same situation at all with Bacon. Bacon didn't just not own spawn, he was alone.

And he wasn't going directly against Zam, putting wardens at Zaun. He wasn't being oddly obsessed with Zam's reaction and trying to force him to stay and build at Mawn.

And Bacon recently had told Zam, for the first time Zam had ever heard it, that he didn't think they were in the wrong for doing Abyss. That Bacon counts Abyss as one of his biggest successes. For the first time ever Zam had the support of a server member for one of the actions he held as both a massive failure, and bad for the server.

And a couple weeks later he's having a very interesting lore convo with Bacon. He almost sounds like how Zam sounded during the Joker arc, confident, happy, excited, talking like what he was doing was exciting for Zam too, and Zam found himself agreeing.

ZAM:” [mutes] he’s talking like me. It's so fascinating”

And well. Bacon was doing something Subz did. And trying to understand, what was the phrase *rifles papers* "my dead teammate's legacy" oh. ok. so, not "previous teammate". "dead" teammate. Like they were simply just recently alive and still a teammate. Got it.

Subz being the object of fascination of Bacon's is so much of why Zam helped him out. He wanted to know why Subz left too. Did his heart skip a beat wondering if Bacon could solve the riddle to if Subz forgave him for Eclipse? If Bacon found out the reason, could Zam bring Subz back? Maybe just for a convo?

All questions never asked. But then. "Im just saying bacon’s not the only person to carry out my dead teammate’s legacy alright?"

Oh me oh my. How the past haunts PrinceZam forever. How everything is always about ItzSubz_ (and Vitalasy)

Not that he could ever tell Mapicc that. That was the last time Mapicc competed for Zam's affection and he hated Subz for it. With the same passion he hates Derap, except Subz could kill him.

Always jealous after PrinceZam, our Mapicc.

[storkmuffin]

Okay, new anon take 2 :)

Sorry about asking about content that makes you uncomfortable :( I feel like it is hard for me to distinguish between what is uncomfortable from my cultural perspective vs what would also be uncomfortable from the Korean perspective (e.g., I find all discussion about weight/dieting deeply uncomfortable, but it seems like not everyone sees it that way).

I really liked the way you framed Yunho as super competitive, even about being seen as nice, friendly, etc. It feels like a very natural reaction to the weird idol dichotomy of, on the one hand, spending years in a super high pressure environment where you or someone you get close to could be cut at any moment and, on the other hand, needing to appear super close/friendly/supportive/etc. of the people who eventually become your members. It makes being nice in all of those ways a competition too.

Which brings me to the question - how do you see this affecting Yunho's relationship (on camera) with Jongho? I feel like Jongho is also very competitive (the "monster of capitalism"), but unlike Yunho, he does not seem to have the same need to be loved by everyone always. I think this is especially interesting because Ateez have said that they tried to push Yunho/Jongho as a pairing and Jongho never reciprocated.

Hopefully this one is better :)

Hi~

I think a Yunho-Jongho pairing would have been kind of a terrible idea, and I'm relieved that KQ (I assume you meant KQ) dropped it and/or Jongho forced them to drop it.

First and foremost, Yunho and Jongho look too similar. Before they matured out of their babyfat faces and prior to their plastic surgeries and make up choices, Yunho and Jongo actually looked exactly the same in the face. This is not to give permission to the racists who go All Asians Look Same, but! During my own baby-Atiny (what am I now? Toddler Atiny?) days I had a really hard time telling Jongho and Yunho apart, and I wasn't the only one. The yellow writing is a highlight of the Korean youtube comments that were commonly left on early Ateez performance vidoes, and it reads: Are the blue haired and blonde haired ones twins?

From this compilation of their moments

I later realized there's a significant height difference and demeanor difference between the two, but they really look very alike, and not in a way that enhances each other's beauty. This is no good. This is the antithesis of Yunho calibrating himself to Yeosang to create a 4DX Stereo-Surround Geisha Boy Effect in their joint TokToqs that I've written about here. Yunho and Jongho tend to make each other disappear.

But beyond the unfortunate visuals (which is such a weird thing to say about two extremely handsome guys but hopefully you understand what I mean), there are Jongho specific reasons why any pairing between him and the others would not work.

Jongho is very straight. He does not find playing at queerness either amusing nor worth it. He just finds it blatantly unbearable, and I've wondered if this is part and parcel with him being more a vocalist and less a dancer (though obviously a very skilled dancer). Dancers just touch each other a lot, singers less so, no? (Neither singer nor dancer here, so I'm just making this part up whole cloth).

Speaking of worth it - Jongho doesn't need to fight for attention from the audience in the same way as the people I am going to call the Corps - Wooyoung, San, Yunho, Yeosang, Seonghwa - have to. He's kind of got his own space that's very powerful, sometimes more so even than HongJoong, because the two rappers often are paired with each other, and Mingi also does double duty as Tall Dancer/ Formation Maintainer with Yunho. Jongho holds a featured soloist position for almost every song. He starts out already having won, so there's nothing to compete for, as far as he's concerned. So why do a pairing, when he hates that concept?

Jongho has the most definitely solid plans for a post- or apart-from-Ateez career. He has an extremely distinctive voice and for someone coming out of the Idol world, a very rare powerhouse vocal capacity. I think, honestly, he can take it or leave it in terms of being an Idol.

Jongho and Yunho together to me give off an old fashioned Korean masculinity (positive) vibe, that doesn't fit with what sells right now to the Western market, where Kpop boy bands are generally making their money. The caretaking that Yunho gives Jongho, for example, is to be the only one to think of bringing out something warm for Jongho to drink while he's shivering on the terrace alone, barbequing. Jongho will say he's fine, Yunho will insist (this is the dance) and then Jongho will sip gratefully at the cup of broth or whatever while Yunho leaves him alone to do the meat scorching. Being a Korean woman from a conservative family, I find these moments extremely charming, because I see this sort of exchange all the time all around me, and it makes me feel affectionate for these guys, to see them be ordinary Korean men. But this sort of thing, I assume, doesn't set Western fandom panties on fire, because you can't eroticize it or read lore into it. It's extremely dry, as fan service, is it not?

Post Script:

Thanks for trying to begin a discussion with me again. I'm glad I didn't come off too harsh for not wanting to look at the Jewel Box stuff. And I think - I can't gauge but - I think Hong Seokchon at least is now considered something of a mainstream star just from sheer longevity, so it's not like Koreans in general dislike him or find his content objectionable. You didn't make a cultural faux pas or anything. This is very personal and specific to me, and how could you possibly have known until you asked?

As for Yunho competing to be the best at everything, but especially at being Good and Kind and Lovable, two examples for you to consider:

Left: Here is Yunho threatening a plate of pasta with defeat, because he's going to eat the whole thing. This is just funny.

Right: This was him talking to San trying to see who would win in wishing each other well (this was his birthday). (In this second one I'm not doing a literal translation, which would be "You think I'd lose?")

But Yunho's vocabulary is generally about winning and losing, very frequently, about things that normally don't have anything to do with either.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

while i am absolutely still engaged, i am also old. and tired. been at actively trying to avoid this brand of very specific eventuality for a very long time. i’m also loving all of this newer activist energy. people write me a lot, asking how i haven’t completely burned out over time. so. fwiw…

notes to newer activists (or) things i wish i would’ve known 30 years ago (or) what i’ve learned so far:

activism without community leads to burnout. find your people. stay engaged. cultivate community. if you don’t have it, build it.

while we’re all aligned, there will inevitably be differing ideas. anchor into your values. the infighting will happen. that’s just a given. esp on the left. we’re famous for it.

you don’t have to do everything - just do a one thing. something. anything. and then do the next right thing.

ask yourself often - is my reaction and movement rooted in trauma response? adjust accordingly. work from a place of wholeness, as close as you can get to that. rage is fine. incredibly valid. but also embrace grief, love, joy, imagination, creativity, vision. they last longer. feel it all.

rest is resistance. it’s not a detour. or betrayal. community is resistance.

take news breaks. let your nervous system reset, as best as possible.

before actions or organizing, make a little ritual. get grounded in the present. a breath. a mantra. a magical rock in your pocket. after, return to rest. a quiet walk. a nap. a cup of tea. reflect in a journal. create a playlist of songs that soothe you. this is a reminder to your nervous system that right now you are safe, whole, human.

celebrate small wins. joy is also resistance. there will be far more of these.

you’re likely feeling a great sense of urgency. hold that by the edges. none of this happened overnight and it’s not going to be undone overnight. urgency culture is real. what’s an emergency? triage it, emotionally and practically.

observe, don’t absorb. act where/when you can. it takes all of us. it takes every moment you are able to give.

your heart will break. a lot. you’ll feel frustrated. it’s part of being aware. take care of you. a lot of trauma lives in activist spaces. the basics: sleep, eat, hydrate, move. the not so basic but also vitals: somatic work, breathing - the intentional kind. therapy.

keep learning, keep unlearning. being teachable, being open, stepping outside your comfort zone is radical. you don’t need to be a flawless activist, just show up. know you’ll screw something up. own it. adjust. shift.

vision: what are you fighting for, not just against. imagine it. draw it. write it. collage it. build it in micromoments.

healthy activism means you’re leaving it better than you found it.

get cozy with grief. it’s part of justice work. it honors what hasn’t changed. what’s been lost. grieve alone, grieve collectively.

visibility isn’t impact. anchor to your why. return to it often. not all social media posts are effective. not all social media posts are performative. but some are. will it have an impact? is it effective? things to ask you.

justice is a practice, not a purity test. guilt and shame backfire and will not lead to action. teach. welcome. provide on-ramps to action.

go back and find the activists throughout history that bring the fire for you. there are certain words i always return to when i’m feeling despair. collect them to have at the ready.

stay open to wonder. look at the stars. listen to old songs. look at the sky. a river. babies. there’s a lot of beauty to fight for.

authoritarianism wants you tired, scared, joyless. your delight is resistance fuel. joy is resistance.

never forget. we are all connected. what happens to one of us happens to all of us. we are wired for connection. fierce individualism is killing us.

empathy is not weakness. it’s a lifeline. no matter what they say. don’t let the bastards grind you down.

mostly, thank you, deeply and sincerely, thank you, for whatever it is you are doing to make the world a better place. for knowing we are all connected. for acting accordingly.

(Kara Joy)

[whumpster-dumpster]

This is for those "moral discourse" asks, because I think they truly need to hear this.

YOU ARE NOT A BAD PERSON BECAUSE YOU LIKE WHUMP OF ANY KIND!

Are you hurting an actual living person? Are you actually assaulting someone you can see, feel, touch? No? Then you're not doing any harm. You cannot hurt someone by writing a story. As long as you tag correctly, that's up to them to filters themselves out. If they see the tags and still read, and then blame you for getting triggered, that's on them. They made a choice that they didn't like the consequences of. It has to do with them not wanting to take responsibility for their own actions, and they believe if they make you feel bad enough, they can force you to do it. Don't let them blame you for their actions.

Regardless, whump has been a part of literature since literature's creation. It just didn't have a name the way it does now. We can read older manuscripts and see "wine-dark sea" and still understand that it means the ocean, right? It's the same thing with whump. Plenty of older, classic (western) novels have whump in them, or whumpy themes, we just don't call them whump stories. Older tv shows have whump in them, movies from the silent era have whump in them. The wonderful Star Trek ladies who built the fandom and fanfiction experience wrote stories with whump in them. We've always been here, we just haven't always had a name, or the kind of community we have now because of the internet. Daniel Jackson may have given us the name whump, but he was never the original source of it. Fuck, I'd been writing whump before the term was created!

I will say it again. You are not a bad person, and you're not a bad person for writing dark themes, even things like sexual assault or torture. Romanticizing pain has become one of the "purity testers" buzz words they've been throwing around lately, because they think it's effective to discourage people from doing what they think is wrong. But some people think that the Earth is flat, and some people think the moon landing was fake. and while they're entitled to their own opinions, that doesn't make them true.

If the only people who were allowed to write about dark themes were the people who experienced them, then a) millions of books would disappear overnight and b) we'd know exactly what that person went through even though it's a horribly personal trauma and c) we'd have to make them prove it. Honestly, those who write it who haven't been through it help those who write it who have been through it. So we don't have to automatically assume people's deepest traumas and the worst days of their lives, and we don't have to demand proof of those people.

Don't live your life based on what other people think is wrong, you'll never be able to enjoy anything again. There will always be something wrong with every piece of media, every hobby, every single experience humans can have. If you're still worried, then write for yourself, and figure out whether or not you want to post it. You cannot romanticize anything for yourself. If there's a judgement call inside your head when no one else has read your fic, that's other people's words in your head and that's not fair to you. You do not have to live by other people's morals, especially the ones you don't know.

Also, imo, there's nothing wrong with sadism as long as you're not hurting another real live person. There's a whole community that's been around for a ridiculous amount of time where sadism is part of their name (bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism) and that's a controlled, safe space where pain and pleasure (not necessarily sexual) mix together. That's what writing whump/being in the whump community is. A safe space to feel and inflict pain in a place where that is controlled and accepted.

tbh, that original anon sounded a bit like a teenager, so I'm gonna continue as if you are. You have been raised in an environment where any deviation from societal norms is severely punished, and unfortunately, you're growing up in a recessive time, where conservatism is becoming the loudest voice. But just because they can scream louder than we can doesn't mean we need to live by their rules. At the end of the day, you only have to live with yourself, you don't have to live with their choices. If anyone tells you that hurting a fictional character is just as bad as hurting a real live person, even yourself, remember that thousands of main and side characters in media of all kinds have been killed off or tortured or disabled, and not a single real life person has ever been injured or killed because of it. There is no book that's ever been published where it's words alone have hurt a real life person. The worst injury a book can give you is a papercut. (or a bruise from dropping it on yourself)

Give yourself room to breathe, kid. You don't need to figure out everything about yourself and your life in one day. You've got your whole life ahead of you, and you should enjoy it whenever you can.

.

[suireunie]

YOU SHOULDN'T BE ON MY MIND [SJY]

Pairing: Jake Sim x Reader

Genre: Enemies to Lovers, College AU, Angst, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Smut (18+)

Warnings: Strong language, sexual content (protected), emotional denial, unresolved tension, academic setting, mutual obsession, soft aftercare, rough sex, spanking kink, dirty talk, jealousy, possessiveness, semi-public setting (party), light choking, overstimulation, praise/degradation, protected sex Heavy emotional angst, heated argument, yelling, crying, possessive!Jake, unprotected sex, creampie, wall sex, marking, rough/passionate sex, choking, dirty talk, toxic attachment themes, intense make-up sex, light aftercare

Word Count: ~ 7.5k

18+ only — NSFW

I couldn't choose the photo that I had to put in this post BECAUSE JAKE IS SO DAMN HOT in every photo!!!😭❤️‍🔥🤭🔥

○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○

You never meant to hate Jake Sim.

But you did. It wasn’t just the braces comment back in middle school or the way he’d always snatched the last word like it was a trophy. It wasn’t just the fact that he somehow ended up in your classes every goddamn semester, or how his voice always, always, managed to find your ears even in a packed room.

It was how he made everything feel like a competition. Like he had to one-up you just to breathe. You said you were writing a research essay early? He started his the week before. You got the highest midterm score? He “accidentally” beat you by two points and made sure you knew it.

And worst of all, it was how he looked at you. Like he knew exactly how to get under your skin. Like he enjoyed it.

“Still trying to make up for not being funny by being smart?” he’d asked last month as you passed each other in the library. You didn’t even turn your head. “Still trying to coast by on mediocre charm and tight jeans?”

You always had something ready. So did he. That’s why the thought that had crept into your brain lately—the inconvenient, unforgivable, absolutely wrong thought—was so dangerous:

> Jake looked really fucking good when he was irritated. And he was always irritated. Especially around you.

He’d sigh with dramatic flair whenever you raised your hand in class. Glare whenever you got praise from a professor. And one time, when you laughed too loudly at another guy’s joke, he’d snapped his pen in half. Just snapped it and muttered, “So stupid,” under his breath.

You were starting to notice things you shouldn’t. The veins on his forearms. The way his tongue poked the inside of his cheek when he was holding back a comment. How his hair fell across his eyes when he leaned over his notebook. How his hoodie smelled like cinnamon and sandalwood when he brushed past you too close. You’d catch yourself thinking about him and hate yourself for it. Every time. But the final push—the thing that shifted it all—was the stupid love proposal.

A guy from your behavioral psych class had waited outside the lecture hall, fidgeting with a single folded note and a candy bar. It was awkward, sweet, earnest. Jake saw the whole thing from a few feet away, leaned against a vending machine like he was casually bored. But you caught the flicker in his eyes when the guy reached for your hand.

And when he walked past you afterward, he didn’t even look at you. Just said, “Didn’t think that was your type.” You’d snapped. “What is my type, then?” Jake looked at you then. Really looked. And the silence between you was violent.

He walked away. You didn’t go out with the guy.

---

Later that night, you sat on your dorm floor, textbook open, rereading the same sentence over and over while your mind screamed his name.

> “Jake Sim is not attractive. Jake Sim is an arrogant, smug, irritating—” You groaned and pressed your hands to your face.

He was ruining you. You were thinking about his hands when you were eating breakfast. Imagining his mouth when you zoned out during lectures. You’d caught yourself wondering what his bedhead looked like, what his laugh sounded like when it wasn’t mocking. This wasn’t just attraction. It was a spiral. The worst part? You were sure he hated you just as much. But if he did… why did he look at you like that?

A week later, the university held a spring bonfire. It was late, crowded, the air smelled like smoke and citrus. You weren’t planning to stay long. Just enough to show face, sip a soda, make sure your friends saw you pretending to have fun. And then Jake showed up.

He wore a flannel half-buttoned over a tank top, hair messily swept back like he’d barely tried and still managed to look better than everyone else. His eyes landed on you the second he arrived. You turned to leave. You made it halfway across the field before his voice stopped you.

“Running away? Not very on-brand.” You spun. “I’m not running. I’m avoiding stupidity. Big difference.” He stepped in front of you. “So I’m stupidity now?”

“Are you seriously fishing for a compliment?” His eyes narrowed, but there was something in them. Something shaky. Almost… vulnerable.

“Why didn’t you say yes to that guy?” he asked, voice lower now. You blinked. “What?”

“The dude who gave you the note.” You swallowed. “Why do you care?” Jake didn’t answer right away. Instead, he looked at you—really looked—and said, “Because I think about you more than I should.” The words hit like a punch. Your mouth opened. Closed. “You—what?”

“I don’t want to,” he added quickly. “Trust me. You piss me off. You’re loud and stubborn and always act like you know everything—”

“You’re literally describing you right now.” “Exactly.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We’re both nightmares.”

“And yet here you are,” you said, voice suddenly dry, “at a party, standing in front of me like you’ve been thinking about this.”

“I have,” he admitted, jaw clenched. “I’ve been thinking about it every damn day.”

He stepped closer. “And I hate it.”

Your breath caught.

“I hate that I think about you when I wake up. I hate that I look for you in every class. I hate that I remember the exact sound you make when you’re about to argue, and I especially hate that when I see other guys talk to you, I want to break something.”

Silence.

Your heart pounded in your chest, and your fists clenched at your sides. “You’re an idiot,” you said softly. Jake’s lips twitched. “I know.”

Then you kissed him.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t gentle. It was years of repressed tension, years of eye rolls and bickering and heat, colliding all at once. His hands were on your waist, pulling you in. Your fingers tangled in his shirt. He groaned into your mouth like he’d been waiting forever to do this—and maybe he had. People around you blurred. Disappeared. It was just him. His lips, his breath, the way his body pressed into yours like he couldn’t get close enough.

“Come with me,” he whispered against your mouth. You didn’t hesitate

The moment the dorm door closed behind you, he pinned you gently against it, kissing you again—harder this time. Messier. His hands roamed your sides, skimming under your shirt.

“I’m still mad at you,” you breathed between kisses. “Good,” he growled. “Let it out later.”

His lips traveled down your jaw, to your neck, sucking softly where your pulse jumped. “God,” you gasped. “I hate how good this feels.”He chuckled.

You undressed each other like it was a challenge—mouths never far, touches getting bolder. Jake’s hands were reverent, like he couldn’t believe he was allowed to touch you. When he slid your pants down, he paused, eyes dark and serious.

“You okay?”You nodded. “More than.”

“Tell me if you want to stop,” he murmured.

You kissed him instead. Moments later, you were on your bed, skin against skin. His body pressed against yours, solid and warm. He kissed you like he meant it. Like he’d never stop. When he slid inside you, your back arched instinctively.

“Shit,” he whispered. “You feel…”

You pulled him closer. “Don’t stop.”

He moved slowly at first, watching your face, learning every reaction. Then deeper, faster. Your nails dug into his back. His forehead pressed to yours. You didn’t say “I love you.” Neither of you were ready for that. But everything about the way he held you said it for you. When you came, it was with his name whispered against his neck. He followed, shuddering against your body like he was unraveling.

After, he kissed your shoulder. Then your collarbone. Then your fingers.

“I still think you’re annoying,” you mumbled into his chest. He laughed, voice low and wrecked. “Yeah? Still hate me?” You hesitated. Then shook your head. “I think we’ve been lying to ourselves for years.” Jake kissed the top of your head. “Then let’s stop lying.”

You didn’t become a soft couple overnight. You still fought—about grades, coffee orders, group chats. But now, every argument ended in breathless laughter, in touches, in quiet apologies whispered in bed.

You still hated him. Just not the same way.

Now, you hated how good he was at making you fall in love.

And he? He didn’t mind being hated like that.

Not anymore.

---

It was supposed to be a normal party.

Another too-loud, too-drunk, too-packed house party where you’d show up, stay just long enough to be seen, and dip out before anyone spilled jungle juice on your shoes. But Jake was there, and you were already halfway fucked before the second song dropped. He wasn’t supposed to look that good.

Dark jeans, black tee tight across his chest, chain glinting under the flashing lights. Leaning against the kitchen counter like he owned the place. Drink in one hand. Smirk in place. Eyes on you.

Always on you.

The tension hadn’t gone anywhere since that night in your dorm. If anything, it got worse. Because now he was yours—but you still argued like enemies. You still challenged each other with every glance. You still liked pushing buttons. Especially when the consequences felt this good. So when some random guy at the party leaned in too close, touching your arm, complimenting your laugh—you didn’t stop him. You didn’t even have to look across the room. You felt Jake’s eyes burning into the back of your neck. You leaned in a little closer. Smiled. Touched the guy’s chest lightly when he said something dumb.

That’s all it took.

You barely got a breath before Jake was behind you, voice low and deadly in your ear.

“Outside. Now.”

You turned, slow and smug. “Problem?”

His jaw clenched. “Big one.” You didn’t protest. Didn’t even pretend to resist. Just let him lead you through the crowd, one hand tight around your wrist as he pulled you down the hallway to a guest room and slammed the door behind you.

The second it shut, his mouth was on yours. Not soft. Not sweet.

Hungry. Brutal.

He kissed you like he was mad about it. Like he wanted to ruin you for ever looking at someone else. And maybe he did. You gasped against his lips, and he growled, walking you backward until your back hit the wall.

“You think I didn’t see that?” he hissed, dragging his mouth along your jaw, down your neck. “Letting that loser touch you?” “He was just talking,” you breathed.

“Don’t play stupid,” Jake snarled. “You wanted me to see.” His hand slid under your skirt—rough, fast, no hesitation. His fingers skimmed your inner thigh, and he smiled when he felt how soaked you already were. “Fuck,” he muttered. “You’re wet from teasing me? You like pissing me off, baby?” Your head fell back against the wall, and he took that as permission. One hand gripped your jaw, forcing you to look at him. The other slid between your legs again, rubbing circles over your panties.

“You like making me jealous?” he whispered, voice hot against your cheek. “Want me to show you what happens when you act like a fucking brat?” “Yes,” you whispered before you could stop yourself.

Jake laughed—a low, dangerous sound. “You’re gonna regret that.” He spun you around, pressing your chest to the wall. His hands roamed your sides before hiking your skirt up over your ass.

“No panties?” he growled.

You looked back over your shoulder, daring. “Wanted to be convenient.” A sharp smack echoed through the room as his palm met your ass, hard.

You moaned, legs buckling slightly.

“Oh, you really wanted attention, huh?” He spanked you again, this time grabbing the flesh after. “This ass is mine. You hear me?”

“Yes, Jake,” you gasped.

Another slap. “Louder.”

“It’s yours!” you cried.

“Damn right.”

He spun you again, kissing you hard before pushing you toward the bed. You fell back onto the mattress, hair a mess, skirt bunched up, legs spread. Jake stared for a second, chest heaving, lips parted. “You look like a fucking dream.”

You smirked. “You gonna stare or—”

He dropped to his knees between your thighs before you could finish, tongue licking a long, slow stripe up your pussy. You gasped, hips jerking. He didn’t let you go. Just held you there, arms tight around your thighs, mouth working you with practiced, filthy focus.

“Jake—” you whined, hands grabbing at his hair. He pulled back for just a second, mouth shiny with spit. “What, baby? Need to come already? Thought you could handle a little attention.”

“Please,” you moaned.

“You’re not getting shit until I say so.”

He went back in—rougher now. Tongue flicking, sucking, devouring like he wanted to make you cry from it. You were shaking by the time he finally pulled back again.

“You take my cock this needy and I’ll break you,” he said darkly, unzipping his jeans. “Do it,” you challenged, voice wrecked.

Jake’s eyes went wild.

He stripped his shirt off, then shoved his jeans and boxers down just enough to free himself. He was already hard—thick, red at the tip, veins prominent along the shaft. He slid a condom on quick, then grabbed your hips, flipping you onto your stomach.

“Ass up. Face down.”

You obeyed without question, back arched, breath ragged. Jake lined himself up, dragged the head of his cock through your wet folds, and slammed into you in one rough thrust. You screamed into the mattress.

“Fuck, you’re tight,” he groaned, snapping his hips again. “God, I missed this pussy.”

His pace was brutal from the start—deep, fast, relentless. Each thrust sent shockwaves through you, your hands gripping the sheets like they’d keep you from falling apart. He leaned over you, mouth hot against your ear “You’re mine,” he growled. “No one else gets to touch you. You understand me?” You nodded frantically.

Another slap to your ass.

“Say it.”

“I’m yours! I’m fucking yours, Jake!”

“Say you’re sorry for teasing me.”

“I’m sorry!”

“For what?”

“For making you jealous!”

“That’s right, baby. Next time you wanna flirt with some loser, remember how I fuck you.”

He pulled you up by the hair so your back arched harder, hand sliding around to grip your throat—tight enough to make you gasp, just enough to make your pussy clench around him.

“Gonna come?” he hissed.

You nodded again, tears pricking your eyes.

“Then come for me,” he growled, slamming into you harder. “Make a fucking mess.”

You broke with a sob—shaking, moaning, your whole body tensing as your orgasm ripped through you like a storm. Jake cursed, hips stuttering.

“Shit, baby—fuck—” He slammed in deep one last time, groaning as he spilled into the condom. You both collapsed—sweaty, panting, fucked-out messes. For a long moment, all you could hear was the distant thump of party music and your own heartbeat in your ears.

Then Jake shifted behind you, brushing sweaty hair from your face, kissing your shoulder softly. “You okay?” he murmured. You nodded, still trembling slightly. “Yeah. That was…”

“Intense?” You laughed breathlessly. “Yeah.”

He helped you sit up, gently pulling your skirt back down, then took off his shirt and offered it to you like a robe. You pulled it on without thinking. It smelled like him—cologne, sweat, faint beer.

Jake watched you with something softer in his eyes now. “Next time you want attention,” he said, voice low, “just ask.” You smirked, lips swollen. “Where’s the fun in that?” He grinned. “I fucking hate you sometimes,” he whispered, leaning in.

“I know,” you whispered back, kissing him slow. “I fucking hate you too.” But neither of you stopped touching each other. And neither of you planned to.

--- A weeks later ---

It started with something stupid. As always. A sarcastic comment in a group setting. You’d snapped at him in front of his friends, and Jake—prideful, sharp, already high-strung—bit back harder. By the time you stormed out of his apartment, you were trembling. By the time he caught up to you halfway down the stairs, he was shouting.

“You’re always fucking running, huh?” Jake spat, chest heaving. “Every time I say something you don’t like, you leave like a fucking coward.

You turned on him, eyes glassy and wild. “Because you don’t fucking listen, Jake! You think everything’s a goddamn game.”

“You think we’re a game?” he shot back, stepping closer, dangerously close. “You think I just fuck you to pass the time?”

“No,” you said, voice cracking. “But you sure as hell act like you don’t care sometimes.”

Silence.

Jake’s expression fractured for a beat. Then came the low, guttural response “You think I’d be this fucking crazy over you if I didn’t care?”

You blinked, breathing sharp. He laughed, bitter. “You think I don’t care when I think about you all day? When I fucking ache every time you look at someone else like I don’t exist?”

You said nothing. It was too much. His voice dropped, strained. “You don’t even see it. You don’t know what you do to me.”

“I didn’t ask you to fall for me,” you snapped, even though it hurt to say. “I didn’t want this. I never did.” That did it.

Jake’s face darkened. Eyes burning, jaw clenched like he was holding back something violent. “Don’t you fucking walk away from me.”

You turned anyway. But Jake moved fast.

One hand grabbed your wrist, the other fisted in your hair—and before you could even gasp, he had you pinned against the stairwell wall, body caging you in. “You don’t want me?” he growled, voice shaking. “Then why the fuck are you shaking right now?”

Your breath caught. Jake leaned closer, face inches from yours, all rage and desperation.

“Say it,” he snarled. “Say you don’t want me and I’ll let you go.” You said nothing. Because your heart was beating out of your chest, and your thighs were clenched, and your whole body ached for him—even through the anger.

His hand slid between your legs, rough and knowing. “Yeah,” he whispered. “That’s what I thought.” He kissed you then—hard, furious, all tongue and teeth, like he was trying to erase the fight with the taste of him.

You moaned into his mouth, letting him press you harder to the wall, letting the heat swallow you both whole. “Fucking hate how much I want you,” he growled against your throat, kissing and biting, leaving marks like proof.

“Then show me,” you whispered. “Prove it.”

Jake didn’t hesitate.

He dragged your shorts down just enough, shoved his sweats down, and lined himself up, bare and already leaking. “No condom?” you gasped.

“Don’t give a fuck,” Jake growled. “Wanna come inside you. Wanna claim what’s mine.” “Yours?” you snapped, even as your back arched. Jake shoved into you hard—deep, rough, bottoming out in one go. You cried out, nails scraping his arms.

“All fucking mine,” he growled, rutting into you like a man possessed. “You feel that? No one else can fuck you like this. No one else gets to own this cunt.” You were panting, already close, already ruined from the pressure and the pain and the goddamn emotion behind every thrust.

“Why do you even want me,” you choked out. “All we do is fight—” “Because I’d rather fight with you than breathe without you,” Jake hissed.

He lifted one of your legs, wrapping it around his waist for better angle, and drove into you deeper—sharp, punishing thrusts that made you see stars. “I think about you every fucking night,” he muttered, face buried in your neck. “I jerk off to the memory of your voice. Your smell. Your fucking laugh.”

You whimpered, head rolling back. “I’d kill someone if they touched you,” he growled. “That’s how bad it is. That’s how fucking gone I am.”

You grabbed his face, kissed him like it would fix something, and broke apart as your orgasm ripped through you—violent and desperate. Jake slammed in one more time, groaning against your neck as he spilled inside you, pulse after pulse of hot, messy come deep in your pussy.

He didn’t move for a long time.

Just held you there—fucked-out, sweaty, crying—and kissed your shoulder as you caught your breath. Eventually, he pulled out, watched the mess drip down your thighs.

“Come here,” he muttered hoarsely, scooping you into his arms. You didn’t resist. He carried you back up the stairs—to his bed this time—and pulled the blanket over both of you. You were still shaking. He kissed your temple.

“…Don’t leave me again,” he whispered. You buried your face in his chest.

“I won’t,” you whispered back. “Not if you fight for me.” His arm tightened around you. “I’ve been fighting since the day I met you.”

○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○

[dean-winchester-is-a-warrior]

Starting at the End Ch. 4

Summary: Lily Crawford has been receiving disturbing letters from a worrisome fan. On the advice of an acquaintance she goes to Winchester Private Security and seeks out Dean Winchester to keep her safe. Will this troubled ex-marine be able to save her, and can she save him too?

Series Warnings: Angst. Smut. Fluff. (as usual, of course!) Discussion of war, loss, trauma, PTSD, grief. Stalking. Obsession.

Chapter Warnings: Nothing major. Talk of stalking. Sexist attitudes. Innuendoes made regarding sexual harassment/assault. Nothing is shown, things are implied.

Pairing: Dean x ofc (Lily Crawford)

Word Count: 5,379

A/N: This is my Dean "Bodyguard" AU. (Technically he calls himself Private Security and not a Bodyguard, but 🤷‍♀️) I've never written a bodyguard AU before, so I hope you all enjoy this one. It's been a while since I've written an ofc, so I hope you like Lily. I'm enjoying writing her. I know OC's aren't the fandoms favourite, but I really felt like I needed Lily to be Lily in this one. Hope you give it a chance anyway. ❤️

POSTING EVERY FRIDAY! ❤️

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Lily walked sleepily out of her bedroom, rubbing her eyes. Ordinarily she liked mornings. She wouldn’t call herself a morning person exactly, since she wasn’t fully alive until she ate food and drank a cup of coffee, but she liked the quiet of mornings, the promise of a whole day that was, so far, unspoiled. 

Lately though, she’d been sleeping so poorly it took a lot more than one cup of coffee to fuel her into the day. Though sleep had been a bit easier since Dean had taken up residence. 

Things were definitely better, but also…weird.

She’d been living alone for years; it had been a long time since she’d had a roommate, and it was a bit tough to get used to having another person around all the time again. Also, of course, no roommate she’d ever lived with had followed her around everywhere she went. 

It had been two days since Dean followed her back to her place and claimed her guestroom. One of her guest bedrooms was next door to her room and the other was down a hallway towards the back of the house. She just assumed he’d take the one with a little more privacy, but as she’d led him towards the back bedroom, Dean stopped her.

He nodded towards the other room. “Is it possible to take this one? I wanna stay close to you.”

Lily felt ridiculous over the way her belly flip flopped when he said that, so she pretended it didn’t, smiling and waving him towards it. 

“Sure, yeah, of course.”

That had been two days ago and things had been a bit strange for her ever since. She’d never been around someone that seemed to be both her shadow and a ghost at the same time. Dean was literally never more than ten feet from her, but he barely spoke. He was never rude, always answered any direct question she asked of him, but otherwise he stayed quiet. 

When she was home, whether she was eating, cooking, working out in her bedroom, reading, watching tv, working on her laptop, or talking on her phone, he was always standing, or occasionally sitting, by her large living room window. He spent most of his time, when he was in her house, staring out the window and scanning her yard and the street beyond. 

When she went out, no matter what, he went with her. That was one of the first things he told her that first day. 

“Look, I’m not here to get in the way of your daily life. I don’t want you to change your schedule or the way you live, and I’m not a houseguest. Do all the things you’d normally do, in the same way you’d normally do them. But I have just two rules that are hard and fast and can’t be changed if you want me to protect you.”

His face was incredibly serious, so even though the idea of another grown person giving her “rules” made her bristle slightly, she nodded. 

“Number one,” he ticked them off on his fingers, “please never lie to me about anything. Even if you think something is insignificant, or frankly none of my business, if I ask you about something, please promise me the truth. I can’t protect you if I don’t have all the information.”

Lily nodded again. “Yeah, that’s fair. I have no big secrets, so I think we’re good.” She joked, hoping to lighten the mood. But he remained as serious as ever as he continued. 

“And two, never, ever leave the house without me.”

Lily had agreed to that easily. The uneasy feeling of being watched all the time when she was outside, made her desperately happy that someone else was standing close and watching her back. When they were out, Dean’s focus never wavered, and he always stayed just a step behind her, very close. She realized quickly that he was shielding her back while he scanned the whole area in front of them, tense and ready to act.

Somehow Dean’s constant tension when they were out made hers fade away and she was very grateful. 

But when they were home, she always felt a little awkward. He was so still and quiet, like a particularly gorgeous statue in a white button down shirt and blue suit pants. He went to bed after she did, and woke up before she ever stumbled out of her room. 

This morning was no different. He smiled briefly at her before resuming his surveillance of the front yard. 

“Morning.” She mumbled, heading for her kitchen.

She put the coffee on and began gathering ingredients for breakfast. She looked across the living room at Dean standing by the window and decided enough was enough. Who knew how long it was going to take to catch this creep and in the meantime she couldn’t take the weirdness anymore. 

“Hey, I’m making scrambled eggs and bacon. Want some?”

Dean’s head turned briefly towards her. “No, I’m good. Thanks.” And he returned to the window. 

Lily let out a quiet sigh. “Please let me make you scrambled eggs. Or over easy, or, I don’t know, poached. They don’t have to be scrambled.”

Dean looked back at her, his expression slightly curious. “Uh, no really. I’m good.”

“Do you eat?” Lily asked before he could turn away again.

The question seemed to catch him off guard and his brow wrinkled in confusion. “Yeah.” He said, dragging the word out slowly as though trying to guess at the reason for the question.

“When? I never see you eat. You’re with me all day, every day and yet in the last two days I haven’t seen you consume a morsel of food. If you hadn’t been drinking from a water bottle yesterday, I really would’ve started to think - robot.”

The hint of a smile played around Dean’s lips. “I eat in the room after you go to bed and before you wake up.”

“Eat what? You’ve taken none of the food or dishes from the cupboard. Or do you secretly cook a meal and then run the dishwasher after I go to bed? How soundly do I sleep?” Lily asked, only half teasing.

An actual smile hitched up the side of Dean’s mouth and made Lily wish he smiled more often. He thumbed towards his room.

“I packed a bunch of MREs.” Lily just blinked at him and he clarified. “They’re uh, army rations. I can just eat them as is.”

Lily must have seemed unconvinced because he continued, gesturing towards the bedroom. “The wrappers and packages and stuff are in the little garbage can in the room; you can look if you don’t believe me.”

She chuckled softly. “No, I believe you. But…” She shook her head. “That’s no way to eat for any length of time.”

Dean shrugged. “They’re actually not bad. I mean, they’re not a home-cooked meal, maybe, but they do the trick.”

“But…why are you eating packaged food, alone in your room when I’m offering eggs and bacon? And coffee?”

Dean shook his head. “Lily, I told you, I’m not a houseguest. It’s not your job to feed me, or entertain me. I don’t want to interfere with your life. You should just pretend I’m not here.”

Lily snorted. “Yeah, right.” As if there was some way to ignore a six foot Adonis standing in your living room. Not wanting to admit that was the problem, however, Lily offered up reasoning that was still mostly the truth.

“I’m trying to tell you, it’s not possible for me to just pretend there isn’t another human being living and breathing across the room from me. There’s no way I’m going to be able to live like that for any length of time. So, please, occasionally talk to me? And come eat eggs and bacon. Unless you're like, a vegetarian, or vegan or something?”

Dean shook his head and his shoulders relaxed a fraction as he sidled across the room. “No, definitely not.” He smiled as he got closer and for a moment Lily wondered if she’d made a mistake encouraging him to come nearer. Up close this man’s face was lethal. 

His mossy green eyes were slightly teasing as he sat down at her counter. “So, eggs scrambled, coffee black, and bacon plentiful, please.”

***

The days stretched on, and over the first week or so, Dean and Lily fell into a kind of rhythm. They had breakfast together and Lily ran through her schedule for that day, with Dean making notes about the locations she was going to. 

“So I can research them ahead of time.” He explained when she’d asked him why he needed to know. 

While he researched, she worked out in her bedroom - treadmill, elliptical, and free weights. She kept her blinds down all the time now. She missed the sunshine, but there was no way she was letting the creep watch her workout, sleep or dress. 

After working out, Lily showered. Dean showered at night, after everything was locked up tight, but before she was asleep, so she’d notice if anything was weird and be able to call him. Lily was slightly ashamed to admit that there had been a couple of nights when she’d contemplated making something up just to see Dean come out of the bathroom quickly, in nothing but a towel.

She was sorely tempted, but decided that it was almost stalker level behavior on her part and scolded herself out of it.

When they were out of the house, Dean returned to the stoic and silent bodyguard persona, not engaging in any conversation and barely interacting with her at all. But in the house, he’d thawed a fair bit. He’d often watch tv with her in the evening, both of them having an affinity for 70s and 80s sitcoms. The shows sometimes sparked conversation.

Lily quickly learned that Dean was much funnier than she would have originally thought. He had a quick, slightly dark sense of humor, sarcasm falling from his lips easily, and often making Lily laugh out loud in surprise.

As they passed the evenings together, they discovered they also shared the same taste in music and movies, and agreed with each other on many things to do with the state of the world. They fell relatively easily into a few conversations about politics and religion, and found they had shared philosophies. 

The one thing neither of them talked about was their past or their families. Lily never liked talking about hers, and as a result, it had sort of become a habit not to ask anyone else about theirs. Dean seemed perfectly okay with that.

One evening, nine days in, Dean turned to her after seeing a trailer for a new action movie. “So, can I ask you a question?”

Lily hated when someone said that, but she nodded. “Sure.”

There was a brief pause before Dean spoke. “What happened after the Cobra Strike movies? You were so famous, and the franchise was so popular, I would have thought you’d have your pick of movies.”

Lily felt her stomach lurch a bit. Dean must have read something on her face, because he immediately backed off.

“Nevermind. That’s none of my business.”

Lily shook her head, attempting a smile. “No, it’s fine. It’s a fair question. But uh…” For just a moment Lily contemplated telling Dean the truth. After all, he’d told her to never lie, and for some reason, she found she wanted to share the truth with him.

But then her better sense kicked in and she just shrugged, giving her standard answer, the one she gave anytime a reporter was interested enough to ask it.

“You know, the industry is just fickle and it’s just all about timing. The right project just hasn’t come along. But I have faith that it will.”

The answer felt rote, which it was, and Dean seemed to notice. But he smiled anyway and shook his head. “Sure, that makes sense. Again, sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

They moved on to more pleasant subjects for a while longer before Lily decided to go to bed. 

***

Two weeks passed, and they hadn’t heard or seen anything from her stalker. Lily wondered, perhaps, if YA had moved on, whoever he was. Maybe Dean’s presence hadn’t challenged him - instead, maybe it had just scared the shit out of him and made him run. Lily was beginning to be hopeful that that was the case.

One morning, as she and Dean were sitting at the counter having breakfast, her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number and frowned at her phone. Dean noticed, of course.

“Do you know who that is?” 

Lily shook her head. Dean pulled the phone from her hand and answered.

“Hello. This is Lily Crawford’s personal assistant, can I help you?”

He listened for a moment before frowning slightly. “Okay, please hold for a moment, I’ll see if she’s available.”

He took the phone away from his ear and spoke quietly. “Someone from Ethan Brown’s office?”

Lily felt her heart leap. “You mean Ethan Braun?”

Dean shrugged. “Yeah, probably what she said.”

Lily was reaching for her phone. “Give it, give it!” She said with barely concealed excitement.

Dean passed it over and Lily took a deep breath before she put the phone to her ear. “Hello, this is Lily Crawford.”

There was a slightly nasal, feminine voice on the other end. “Miss Crawford, Mr. Braun would like to sit down with you and discuss the upcoming callback audition you have for the film, Eternal Night? He’s available today at four.”

Lily nodded, trying to keep her voice level. “I would love that. Four o’clock will work, I’ll just move some things around.” She said, attempting to seem like she was busy with something more than being an out of work actor.

“Great.” The assistant said in the same monotone voice. “I’ll text you the location of the restaurant. Is this the best number to reach you at?”

“Yes. This is the best one.” Lily realized too late that she should have given the number of her agent. Successful people in Hollywood had “people”, they didn’t answer their own phones. She was suddenly even more grateful Dean had answered her phone pretending to be her assistant. 

“Terrific.” The woman said, before abruptly ending the call.

Without a goodbye, it took Lily a moment to realize they’d reached the end of their brief conversation. But when she was sure the other woman was no longer listening, she jumped up from her stool and gave a big whoop of triumph. 

She was desperately trying not to do a happy dance around her living room, so she just pumped her arms into the air.

“I have a meeting with Ethan Braun!”

When Dean continued to simply stare at her bemusedly, she tried to contain herself to explain. “He’s the producer for this horror movie I auditioned for a couple weeks ago and he wants to meet with me!”

She bit her lip and shrugged, her enthusiasm waning just a bit. “It’s a bit of a cheesy script, but there’s, I don’t know, the potential for something really interesting and a bit different, if they go the right direction. The role I auditioned for is Alexis and she’s…well, she’s a vampire, but she’s determined to blend into the world. She gets a job on Wall Street, and is…well, there’s the potential for a few good comparisons between the Stock Market Bros and a blood sucking vampire.”

She shrugged again. “Like I said, if they do things right and don’t lose the plot for the gore.”

Dean nodded and smiled. “That does have the potential to be awesome.”

Lily let out a little screech of excitement and bolted to her bedroom. “I gotta find something to wear that evokes, ‘Trader by day, Mistress of Darkness by night’.”

***

It was ten to four as Lily and Dean strolled into Vicario’s. Dean didn’t like how dark the place was. He’d looked it up, but as one of the exclusive restaurants favored by the elite of Hollywood, there were very few pictures of it online, successfully keeping its air of mystery.

Now that they were inside, Dean was even less happy. He assumed the back exit would be through the kitchen, but there was probably a delivery door as well, likely also through the kitchen. He’d like to know where both those doors led to.

Lily, of course, wasn’t paying attention to any of his worries. She’d spent most of the morning trying on clothes in her room. Occasionally she’d pop out with an outfit on, asking for his opinion. But before he could give it (that she looked amazing in everything she wore) she’d shake her head and throw up her hands.

“No, I hate this!” She’d exclaim and return to her room, where Dean could hear her rummaging around and often cursing behind her closed door. 

Finally having chosen something, she scarfed down a sandwich, and then dropped onto the couch and buried herself in the script for Eternal Night. She was silent for the rest of the afternoon.

When the time came to get ready and leave, she got up quietly and got dressed, returning to the living room, in a strange, subdued mood. 

Over the time he’d been with her, Dean had discovered that Lily was many things - funny, vivacious, easily happy, sometimes a bit temperamental, but she was very rarely subdued. In fact, he’d never seen this mood on her before, and he found it didn’t really suit her.

There was something in her eyes that resembled the same fear she’d had when she came into his office with that letter a couple weeks earlier. Without examining why, Dean felt the need to bring back the bubbly, incredibly excited Lily from earlier in the day.

As she grabbed her purse, he smiled at her, waving a hand at the red, pencil skirt and white blouse she’d landed on.

“That’s definitely the look of a vampire stock broker.” He said teasingly.

Lily laughed lightly and the tension in her shoulders had eased slightly.

“Thanks.”

But now that they were in the restaurant the nervousness and fear seemed to have returned in full force. Dean could practically feel the tension rolling off of her as he stood at her elbow.

The maitre’d approached them and seemed to be expecting Lily, and knew her on site.

“Ah, Miss Crawford, Mr. Braun is seated and waiting for you. Please follow me.” They walked towards a darkened corner of the restaurant and all of Dean’s senses were heightened. He absolutely hated this setting. 

The man sitting at the table could have been the dictionary definition of “producer”. He wore an expensive suit, a Rolex watch, and two rings on each hand, one of which was a wedding ring, Dean noted. He was a large man, slightly barrel-chested, with surprisingly narrow shoulders. His face was tanned and round, and he wore a placid smile as they approached him.

He stood up slightly as he reached across the table to shake Lily’s hand. 

“Miss Crawford, so nice to meet you.” His voice was a bit rough, almost as though he was forcing it lower.

Lily nodded as she returned the handshake, speaking as the maitre’d tucked her chair in under her. “Thank you so much, Mr. Braun. It’s a real honor to meet you.”

He waved dismissively. “Oh, Ethan, please. May I call you Lily?”

She nodded. “Yes, of course.”

As a waiter brought a pitcher of water to the table, Ethan looked at Dean standing just behind her chair, a question in his gaze.

Lily seemed a little flustered as she cleared her throat. “Oh, yes, please, um, this is my private security, Dean Winchester. Dean, Ethan Braun.”

Dean nodded at the man, who didn’t bother to try and shake his hand. Instead, he looked at Lily. “A bodyguard?”

Lily laughed lightly and it sounded nothing like her real laugh. “Oh, yes, well there’s um…” She paused for a beat, and then clasped her hands together. “You know, you can just never be too careful these days.”

Dean assumed she didn’t mention the stalker, in case this producer saw it as a potential set security issue to hire her. 

Ethan Braun nodded, but seemed a bit annoyed. “I understand.” He said. “But I’m afraid some of what we’ll be discussing is of a proprietary nature, so we can’t have it being leaked.”

Dean wanted to respond that he could give a shit about this guy’s movies and certainly wasn’t about to leak any information to the tabloids or entertainment outlets. But he kept his mouth shut until Lily spoke.

“Oh, yes, I…uh, I see. Of course.” She turned her head slightly. “Um, thank you, Dean, you can, uh, can you please wait by the car?”

Dean took a step forward so he was in her eyeline and frowned at her. “No.” He said simply.

Lily looked slightly taken aback, but then stared at him meaningfully. “Dean, thank you for your concern, but you can wait outside. I’m perfectly safe in here with Mr. Braun.”

Dean begged to differ. “Mr. Braun” just oozed entitled dickhead. But Lily’s eyes widened and she made a quick jerk with her head towards the outside. 

Dean scowled at her; she was obviously forgetting one of his two hard and fast rules. However, not wanting to cause some kind of issue for her, he took a step back.

“I’m going to go check out the exits in the kitchen, then I’ll sit over there.” He pointed to a table about twenty feet away. Thankfully the restaurant was relatively empty at that time of day. 

He nodded to Lily and ignored the producer altogether, before moving off to quickly check the kitchen. 

***

Lily laughed lightly as Dean walked away. “I’m sorry about that, he’s just a bit overprotective, I’m afraid.”

Ethan Braun was silent for a beat longer before he smiled. “It’s fine. That is the job of a good bodyguard, after all. Let’s order something.”

He snapped the waiter over and gave him their order without asking Lily. If this had been a date, Lily would have been walking out already, but this guy was a producer who could seriously impact her career trajectory. 

She felt a small knot form in her stomach as echoes of the past rang in her ears. But she shoved them aside, concentrating on Ethan Braun and the keys he held to Eternal Night.

An hour passed as they ate and talked about those people in the industry that they both knew. She noticed Dean slip back in from the kitchen and sit to the left of them, wisely staying behind Ethan so he didn’t notice him.

Ethan was like a million other people she’d met in Hollywood, pretty full of himself and his own importance. But as producers went, she’d met worse. He was at least intelligent, with a wry sense of humor and an actual working knowledge of movie-making. He was clearly more than just the money part of the film.

Finally, as they were served coffees, Ethan threw Lily a knowing look. “So then, Lily, let us admit that we aren’t just here to spin gossip about tinsel town. You want to be in my movie.”

Lily felt her stomach twist again and she gripped her hands in her lap. “Yes, very much. I really like Alexis, and I love the idea of poking a subtle kind of fun at capitalism and greed. I think the script has so much potential.”

Ethan nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! I agree. I’m glad you understood those metaphors.”

Trying not to take offense over his shock that she could pick up on symbolism, she smiled brightly and nodded.

Then Ethan got serious. “Now, as you know, we’ve cast Tom Ridgely as Severs.”

Lily nodded again. “Yes. I’m not very familiar with his work, but he does seem like a bright up and comer.” The truth was Lily had watched some of the young guy’s reel and wasn’t very impressed. She was confused by the casting until she realized he was the casting director’s son. But she wasn’t about to say that.

Ethan agreed. “Yes, I think he has a lot of talent. However, as far as putting you in the role of Alexis, obviously, the most important thing is the chemistry between you two.”

“Yes, of course.” Lily bit her lip. “I was told that I’d be booked in for a chemistry read with him.”

Ethan rubbed his hand across his chin before leaning forward and covering Lily’s hand with his own where it rested near her coffee. 

“Chemistry is everything, isn’t it?” 

Lily felt her stomach plummet and the screaming alarm bells go off in her mind, but desperately tried to continue on with the meeting.

She swallowed. “Yeah, yes. I mean, obviously it’s a big part of the success of any film.” She knew she was rambling slightly, but Ethan’s hand was closing around hers and he tugged her gently forward.

“I want you to have success, Lily.”

Suddenly a shadow fell over the table. “Get your hand off of her.”

Lily jumped slightly at Dean’s hard tone and she looked up at him as Ethan dropped her hand and sat back. 

“Excuse me?” He demanded, clearly incensed at Dean’s audacity. He turned his gaze to Lily. “Is this how you normally conduct business? Get your goon to hover around trying to intimidate people who are in a position to help you?”

Lily felt torn. On one hand, her logical mind knew she wasn’t imagining the look in Ethan’s eye a moment ago, and that part of her was so grateful Dean had come along. 

But there was still a part of her that was desperate to make this work. The film could be her vehicle back, the beginning of a possible comeback. Her desperation argued that maybe Ethan was just overly friendly, or maybe he was just trying to shoot his shot. 

With that possibility in mind she shook her head. “No, no of course not.” She looked up at the towering man beside their table. “Dean, everything is fine. You can wait outside now. I’m just going to finish my lunch and I’ll be out soon.”

Dean didn’t stop glaring at Ethan. “No.” 

“Dean.” Lily said sharply, anxious for him to understand how important this was to her, and not make things worse.

Finally Dean looked at her and his green eyes were like chips of jade. Her eyes were imploring. “Please.” She said again. “I’m fine.”

After a few breathless moments, Dean turned on his heel and walked out. Lily’s lungs deflated in relief and she smiled hopefully at Ethan, who was on the verge of actually pouting. 

“I’m so sorry, Ethan. Believe me, he’s just a bit too overzealous about his job. He didn’t mean anything by it.”

Ethan nodded, anger still simmering below the surface, Lily could feel it. When he smiled, it didn’t reach his eyes. “Sure.”

Lily cleared her throat. “So, to get back to things, you were talking about meeting with Tom and working a scene together.” She didn’t mention the words chemistry read again, hoping they could just move away from it all together. 

But obviously, this was Ethan’s big move because, as he sipped his coffee, he eyeballed her over his cup. Then he set it down and once again reached across the table to take her hand. This time though, his thumb brushed over her pulse and his voice got softer and more intimate.

“As I was saying, Lily, I want to see you succeed, and I think we could forgo the chemistry read. You know, I can get a real sense of your appeal, your sexiness and your charisma just like this.” He entwined their fingers and raised her hand to his lips. “There are things we can work on together, to get you ready, you know. I’m not the only producer on this project, you’ll have to convince the others, and of course Stewart, the director. I can help you convince them.”

He stared into her eyes and there could be no doubt of his meaning. “Right now, you just have to convince me that you’re who I want.”

Lily felt bile rush to the back of her throat and she fought against the lump of tears that formed there too. She took a sip of her coffee and asked a question in one last hail mary attempt to resurrect her hopes. 

“And if I can’t,” she looked at him meaningfully, “or won’t convince you?”

Ethan frowned. “That would be likely to ensure a bad outcome.”

Lily nodded and a tear escaped despite her best efforts. She ripped her hand away from his to dash it away quickly as she stood up.

“Well, I’m afraid that a 'hell no' is the only outcome you’ll get from me, Mr. Braun.”

She spun away from the table and wanted to walk out with her head held high. But the truth was she just felt sick, and dirty, and more heartbroken than she cared to admit; she knew she looked every bit as defeated as she felt as she slunk out of the restaurant.

She blinked into the bright sunshine as she stepped through the door. Dean was standing directly beside the door, and immediately moved in front of her, blocking out some of the glaring light.

“Lily?” He asked quietly, and there were endless questions in her name.

But she just shook her head. “Look, I won't play ball, so I’m not gonna get the role and I’d just like to go home now, please.” 

Dean’s jaw clenched and he made a move to go back into the restaurant. But Lily frantically reached out for him as he tried to walk past her.

“What are you doing?”

“Dealing with an asshole.” He said simply, still resisting her pull on his arm.

Lily jumped in front of him. “Please, don’t. There’s no point, Dean. Listen to me!” She shouted, finally getting him to look down at her. 

“I’m telling you to forget about it. You going in there and what, beating him up? How on earth would that make things better? It wouldn’t.”

Dean scoffed. “I didn’t say I was going to beat him up. I can just…pressure him to give you the role you deserve.”

“What are you, in the mafia now?” Lily shook her head and admitted the truth. “That role was never going to be mine. I was never really considered.” Her heart squeezed. “Or at least not considered as anything but a desperate has-been willing to…” 

She bit her lip and pushed on Dean’s chest. “Please, let’s just go.”

Finally Dean relented and they walked back to the car. He looked like he had a lot more to say to her, but she practically jumped into the passenger seat and slammed the heavy door. Dean walked to the driver’s side and stood there for a moment with the door closed. Lily worried for a moment that he was going to go back inside after all. 

But finally, he sank into the seat beside her. He turned the key and adjusted his mirror slightly before speaking softly. “Sorry.”

Lily frowned. “For what?”

Dean shrugged slightly. “I let you get hurt.”

His quiet words broke the dam holding back her tears and they fell silently. She laughed without humor. “Don’t be silly, I’m fine. Not the first time, won’t be the last, and there’s no one who can protect actresses from that.”

Dean grunted softly as he put the car in reverse to back out of the lot. “Huh. Bet guys like that would stop that shit pretty quick, if every time they tried, someone swooped in and broke a finger or two, maybe an arm.”

Lily couldn’t help but smile as she sniffled. “Maybe it’s worth a try.”

Dean put the car in park and looked hopeful, as though he might still get to do some damage to the pig producer inside. But Lily laughed for real and waved at him.

“No. No broken bones.”

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[lareinedulune]

Chapter 1 of Shades of Grey by La Reine Du Lune

After life has left you wounded and alone, you decide to apply to teach at Xavier's School For Gifted Youngers. There you meet the older, wiser Professor Logan Howlett aka The Wolverine and while your attraction to him is undeniable, you know love and romance isn't for you. Your mutation has left you too damaged and unlovable a thing. Logan may have a different opinion. While you navigate your new life and friendship with Logan, one of the X-Men, once a friend to all, may become a threat to you.

Read at Ao3 - Shades of Grey Chapter 1 and see the banner Tumblr deemed too mature to allow me to show, despite having found all the images on Tumblr! 😂

This fic is dedicated the extraordinarily inspirational @princessanglophile whose encouragement and support made this nearly novel length fic possible!

I hope you all enjoy this introductory chapter. I hope to post once or twice a week. This is also my first go at writing smut! Eek! There are a few kinks in this one!

Shades of Grey

©2025 La Reine Du Lune

This story takes place a year post the end of "X-Men: Days of Future Past", after Logan has returned to his new, kinder future, a thriving school and a whole new world to get used to.

Our very sexy, but older, wiser and kinder Professor Howlett.

Chapter 1

On with the show!

Your nerves always got the better of you when you entered into a new situation. Reserved and guarded, you walked through the front door of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngers, more than a little awestruck by the sheer size and scope of the mansion. It was unlike anything you had known before, especially compared to the run down little studio apartment you’d come from in the city.

It was time for you to start over and to start fresh. Your life in the city had gotten to be too much, too stressful. You’d done as much good as you could for as long as you could, but in the end, it was swallowing you whole. When you applied to Charles Xavier's school, you honestly hadn’t expected a response, but you’d been offered an interview. The Professor himself and another, Ororo Munroe, had met you in New York City in your neighbourhood for an informal meeting. You’d been shaking like a leaf, but both of them had put you at ease. Being a mutant yourself, they understood how challenging it was for you to fit into society. While your powers were not beneficial to the X-Men, but they would serve you well in working with children.

You had described your empathic abilities as best you could, as they were unusual. What you couldn’t explain was why you had allowed Professor Xavier to touch your mind, but you knew he hadn’t manipulated you into it. He appeared trustworthy and didn’t probe too far into your psyche. After he’d caught a glimpse, you’d held back tears at the sympathetic look he’d given you. You understood then, that he was not just offering you a job, but also a refuge and a sanctuary. Life had been monstrously unkind to you, and he presented security and stability. It was something you’d never truly had.

Your possessions were few, having not gathered much of your own to hold dear in your twenty plus years of life. Mostly, you had your clothes, some necessities and your art supplies. You had more of those than clothing. Your boxes and suitcases were brought in by the cab driver and he deposited them just inside the front door. You’d given all your paintings to a gallery you’d discovered. Your identity would be kept quiet to the public at your request. The dealer was certain the New York art scene would have an avarice for your work. You hoped it would give you a nice little nest egg, but money couldn’t buy purpose.

Early on you knew you couldn’t have made a living as an artist and that was why you’d originally become a social worker. You had tried in vain to fix what you could touch of the broken system, but you’d saved a few kids and helped them along to better lives. Inevitably, a breaking point had come. It had taken you weeks to get over your last case. The abuse of those poor little ones had experienced had been too much for you to cope with. You couldn’t go through it again. Knowing that kind of suffering existed was a burden you’d bear, but it had nearly killed you.

When no one had answered to your knock, you’d opened the door to the mansion and walked inside. You’d paid the cabby and thanked him. You hoped the Professor could sense your arrival. You’d given him the time you expected to be there, and you were always punctual. A bell rang out and you braced yourself as the classes were dismissed and children of all ages poured out into the hallways and the foyer where you stood. You smiled at the few students who caught your eye. You stepped forward, to look for anyone who might be faculty, when a man with red lensed glasses came towards you. You realized too late that he hadn’t even noticed you were there and he accidentally collided with your shoulder, sending you off balance as you stumbled back. He didn’t stop to apologize or see if you were ok, and instead wove his way between the students, hell bent on wherever his destination was.

You winced and rotated your shoulder. Your diminutive frame had taken quite the impact and it had hurt. You were used to pain at least, but you hadn’t been expecting it today. Sighing wearily, you girded yourself but before you could take any action, you felt eyes on you. Looking up to the great expanse of the staircase you saw a rather large, rather handsome man coming down, his stare fixed on you. By the attractive gray hairs at his temples you guessed he was a couple decades older than you. His hazel eyes held mystery and his stature had you feeling weak the knees. He was a giant compared to you, well over six foot tall, muscular and broad. Suddenly you realized who he was, he was the infamous Wolverine. While physically impressive in the flesh, you were taken by surprise at the openness in his face and the kindness behind those mysterious eyes of his. He had a look of concern. Once at the bottom of the stairs he approached you, cautiously so as not to intimidate you. You supposed you probably did seem like a little rabbit caught in a snare. You’d dressed down for your travels in a pair of boots, jeans and a t-shirt under a grey cardigan. Your jewelry was silver and delicate, your long hair done up in a messy bun. You would dress more professionally for class of course, but hauling all your possessions had necessitated a more basic attire. You looked up at him when he stopped in front of you, trying not to gawk. He really was so handsome.

He placed a hand on your wounded shoulder and frowned. His touch was warm and unexpectedly soothing. “Are you alright?” he asked in a gruff voice.

“I’m ok,” you replied, swallowing any other words you might have for him.

“I apologize for Scott. He’s been in a foul mood for weeks,” he spoke, “Not that it’s an excuse. He needs to get his act together. You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

“Um… yes, of course. It’s just a little wrench. I’ll be fine in a few days. I’ll make an ice pack later,” you replied, trying to sound bright and upbeat, but your voice waivered. Logan’s scowl deepened. He took his hand away and offered it for you to shake. You took it, his skin practically thrumming against yours. He felt so alive. “Logan Howlett.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Howlett,” you smiled at him with doleful eyes, you couldn’t help yourself. “I’m Y/N. The new art teacher.”

“Oh! So, you’re her, huh? Chuck told us you were coming on. Welcome, and call me Logan.”

“Thank you, Logan. No formalities for me either, please, you can call me by my first name. Is the Professor in? Or Ms. Munroe?”

“Yeah, of course, they should be around here somewhere. Guess I’m apologizing for everybody today. They’d normally be here to greet newcomers. Tell you what, have a seat on that bench over there and I’ll find them for you. I think I know where they’re putting you, I’ll take your shi… stuff upstairs.”

“That’s ok, you don’t have to, my suitcases are pretty heavy…” But Logan was already piling everything together. He bent down and lifted them all as if they weighed nothing. He winked at you as he walked past and made his way up the stairs with your things. Your skin turned a shade pinker. That always happened when you felt a little spark of joy. You admired the way he moved and the ripple of his muscles under his too small t-shirt as he carried your belongings up the stairs. You were pretty sure you were already developing a crush. Crushes were easy. They were sweet and harmless. You’d never let anything be any more than a crush. Love and romance? That was not for you. It would never be for you. You were too broken on the inside and too damaged by the havoc your mutation had wrought upon you. You might’ve been conventionally cute or pretty enough on the outside, but the inside? On the inside you were ugly. Putrid, even. A nice man like Logan Howlett, the hero of the X-Men, would be revolted if he knew how your power manifested itself at its maximum. That would stay private. Even the Professor hadn’t seen the worst of it, but rather just a superficial glimpse. If you were anything, you were good at keeping your mental wards up. Still, a crush on someone so attractive was pleasant. He’d left a good first impression on you, unlike Scott, aka Cyclops. You knew who all the X-Men were.

The children made their way to their next class and soon the hallways were clear again and all had become quiet. You took the seat Logan had suggested and sat with your hands folded in your lap, feeling butterflies gather in your stomach. You debated getting your phone out of your purse, but decided against it. You didn’t want to appear as one of those flighty young people who couldn’t stand a moment without looking at their phone. As time wore on, you began to grow impatient and even a little worried. Then, way down the hall you were certain you heard a crash. It sounded very much like breaking glass. Though startled, you rose and followed after the sound, wondering why no one else was coming running. There was another crash, this one a little denser, more like pottery being smashed. You quickened your pace, down the corridor and past all its closed doors to a wing of the mansion that seemed to house offices.

You peaked around a corner and found a gathering of adults, including the Professor, Cyclops, Storm, the one you knew was called Beast, and to your surprise, Logan. The mansion must be quite the maze as he hadn’t come back down the front stairs. The five of them were gathered around a young boy of about 10 or so years old, huddled in a ball, rocking himself, crying out every time someone came near him.

“Can’t you just calm him down?” Scott snapped at the Professor.

“I would prefer if we could talk,” the Professor spoke, directing his words at the boy and ignoring Scott. “Tyson, there’s no need to be upset. You can redo your project. I’m sure Susanne didn’t mean to break it. It was only your homework, no one is upset with you. I have every confidence you can remake it just as good if not better. Come now, place the objects back on the desk, if you please.”

The boy was caught in some sort of emotional spiral, it was plain to see. His mutation allowed him a degree of telekinesis, as several objects from the room floated above them. Every time Scott tried to inch closer the boy sent one flying at him.

“Ty,” Logan spoke, calm and measured, “We talked about this, keeping your cool. You were doing great with your breathing exercises. C’mon, we’ll go to the gym and I’ll let you kick the shit outta things again. We had fun last time, remember?” Logan cast a concerned look at the Professor.

“This is getting ridiculous, just put him to sleep Charles!” Scott all but shouted.

“Can it, Summers, we’re not doing that to Ty,” Logan growled.

“The Professor has promised Tyson not to influence him with his power, you know this, Scott,” spoke Beast. The conversation quickly unravelled into arguing as Tyson became increasingly agitated and you decided that was enough. Manoeuvring between Logan and Beast you got down on your hands and knees and crawled towards the boy, evading Logan’s reach to hold you back.

“Tyson?” you spoke softly once you got closer to him, he looked up at you warily. “Hi, I’m Y/N. I can make it stop. If you want. I can take it away, if you let me. You don’t have to feel hurt if you don’t want to.” Tyson looked at you, skeptical, but intrigued by your words. “Will you let me help? There won’t be any pain. I promise. It’ll all stop.” You offered your hand and after a few moments, surprisingly, he took it. You opened yourself up and made the connection and invited in all of Tyson’s negative emotions. The anguish over his school project getting accidentally bumped off his desk and smashing, the anger and humiliation over the other students laughing at his misfortune, and most of all the embarrassment of the girl he liked laughing along with them. But then, it went deeper, so much deeper. You felt his years of frustration at not being understood. You felt the deep, soul tearing ache he felt at missing his parents in addition to the rejection he’d felt when they’d sent him away. You took all the negativity into yourself and left Tyson free of it. You snatched your hand away as it overwhelmed you and the room began to spin. You’d taken too much and cursed yourself for your mistake.

The next thing you knew there was a cool wash cloth being pressed against your forehead and you lay on the couch in the Professor’s office. Tyson was nowhere to be seen, but the others were with you. You tried to sit up, but became woozy and was forced to lay back down. You looked at your skin and saw it was drained of colour, appearing sallow and grey. Every nerve in your body felt like it was on fire and every joint ached something fierce. The migraine in your skull was excruciating. But inside, inside was worse. All of Tyson’s emotions swirled around inside your mind in a miasma. When the emotional pain is too great, it turned itself into physical pain. Your eyes filled with tears and streamed down your cheeks from unopened eyelids.

“Is Tyson ok?” you mumbled.

“Young Tyson is quite alright, thanks to you,” the Professor spoke, “The boy is on the Autism spectrum and while he’s made excellent progress, he occasionally is unable to self-regulate when deeply upset, and he closes in on himself and becomes very hard to reach. He hasn’t had an episode in nearly a year but he was set off today. Usually, one of us can help him focus, but not today. That was quite remarkable what you did. I’ve not seen an empath with such sway. What precisely occurs?”

“Make it not hurt…” your words slurred and you thought you may pass out again.

“And the physical manifestation in you?”

“Just… just pain. I… I take their pain, make it mine. My skin… it changes.”

Logan’s face grew deeply concerned.

Your face scrunched up as a wave crashed over you. You closed white knuckled fists around the fabric of a throw pillow and your body shook while you involuntarily whimpered, high pitched and long.

“I’ll head down to my lab and…” Beast spoke, but you shook your head.

“Painkillers don’t work,” you whispered as your curled in on yourself and then you knew no more. You came back to yourself on and off for the next little while. You vaguely remember being scooped up by strong arms and the warmth of a firm, ample chest beneath your cheek. It was the sort of warmth you wanted hide yourself under. You felt protected, which was a rarity in your life. You remembered a scent filling your nostrils, heady and wild, like a forest after a storm.

When you finally came back to yourself, it was nighttime. You were in a bed in a darkened room with moonlight streaming in from a closed window. You were under a thick chenille blanket and someone had taken off your shoes. Your purse was on the bedside table and your luggage was in a corner by an armchair. This must’ve been your room at the mansion. It was fairly spacious with all the furniture you’d need, and an en suite bathroom. You still felt nauseous and your body ached, but the worst of it was over. The experience with Tyson was minor. You’d experienced far worse. You rose and cracked your spine and your hands, wincing as you did so. Fishing into your suitcase you found your toiletries bag with your toothbrush and toothpaste. You made your way to the bathroom and made use of it, brushed your teeth and splashed cold water on your face. You took your hair down and brushed it out, letting it cascade down your back. You sighed wearily, worried about what sort of impression you’d made on your new colleagues. You hadn’t intended to reveal so much of yourself so quickly, but you knew that young Tyson had been in an awful state. What was your temporary pain compared to a lifetime for a child? Tyson would be better in all ways now. Still entirely himself, but just without a soul so wounded as it had been. Your mutation wouldn’t ‘cure’ him of his natural self, but you’d taken his heart’s pain away of all that had come before. He’d experience new pain one day, but for the time being, he’d be whole. Meanwhile, you’d hold on to his soul’s pain forever for him.

Though wobbly on your feet, you wanted a comforting cup of tea. You hadn’t been shown the way to the kitchen, and you’d probably not be able to find your way back to your room, but you were feeling antsy in your own skin and wanted part of your nighttime routine to help ground yourself. Moving stiffly, you went to your door and gently opened it. The hallway was dark save for a sliver of light under the door across the hall from yours. You cringed as the door hinge creaked, while at the same time the door across the hall swung open. There, stood Logan wearing the same clothes as earlier, though now in socked feet.

“Y/N!” he whispered hoarsely, deliberately keeping his voice low, “How are you feeling?”

“I’m so sorry,” you spoke softly, eyes going wide, “Did I wake you? What time is it?”

Logan shook his head, a ghost of a smile turning up the corner of his mouth, “I’m a night owl, you didn’t wake me. It’s about 1am. Most everyone’s asleep. I don’t sleep too much, don’t need it. Now, I asked a question, how are you feeling?”

“Oh, um, I’m ok, thank you, Mr. Howlett.”

“It’s Logan, remember? You hungry? You haven’t eaten since this morning.”

“Actually, dinner last night, I was too nervous to eat this morning. Didn’t exactly make the best first impression on my new bosses, did I? Um, I was just hoping for a cup of tea?”

“C’mon, I’ll show you where the kitchen is,” Logan beckoned, closing his door behind him. You followed meekly behind him until he turned and waited for you to catch up walk along side him. You were moving slowly on account of the pain you were experiencing and as much as you tried to hide it, you couldn’t. You kept your eyes cast downwards, your hair masking your face. Feeling Logan’s hand at the small of your back as you approached the stairs was lovely. It was kind of him, given how unsteady you were on your feet. “Here, take my arm.” He offered and you hesitated, cautious as frightened bird, but eventually you placed your hand around his arm upon his bicep. The muscle was solid as a rock and your small hand was dwarfed by it.

You struggled down the stairs, but made it with Logan’s help. You paused at the bottom, still holding on to Logan’s bicep and took a few steadying breaths to work through the flare of pain in your body before nodding your head. You proceeded down the long corridor in near dark. You were sure Logan knew it well enough to not need the light, but the dark made you a little scared. It always had.

Upon reaching the main kitchen, he guided you to sit in a barstool at the kitchen island, “I can make my tea if you just show…” you began, but Logan flipped on a light and looked at you with an eyebrow arched.

“What kind do you like?” he asked.

“It’s late, so maybe a camomile if you have it? But anything’s fine, really.”

“Yeah, we’ll have it around here somewhere.” He started looking in drawers and eventually found the one that held a variety of teas. He put a kettle on to boil and got down a mug. Just then, your stomach rumbled loudly. You cringed inwardly, completely embarrassed and not for the first time in front of Logan.

“Sorry,” you whispered, barely audible. Logan looked at you but you couldn’t look back at him.

“Toast?” he offered and you nodded your head. “You want anything on it?” You shook your head, not wanting to be a bother. After a few minutes Logan slid the dry toast on a plate and cup of tea in front of you. He watched you take a first bite before leaning on the counter across from you. “Tyson’s a good kid,” he began. “He’s always needed a little more patience and understanding. He’s smart too, incredibly smart. He idolizes Hank – Dr. McCoy.”

“Is that Beast?” you asked.

“That’s right. Worst thought out name you could give a man like Hank. He’s all science and altruism. Last word that comes to mind is beast, but he has his moments in a fight. At any rate, I think Tyson might be a doctor one day, if I was to take a guess. But, when Tyson doesn’t feel in control, or he’s the centre of unwanted attention, he gets scattered and when that happens he disassociates. It’s his coping mechanism and he doesn’t have much control over his telekinesis. That’s why Charles and Ororo weren’t there to greet you when you arrived. They’ll apologize in the morning.”

“There’s no need for an apology.”

“Yeah, well expect one anyways. What I’m getting at is that it’s almost impossible to pull Tyson out of it when he gets like that. Charles pressed into his head too far once and now it sets the kid off in a panic, so he promised to never do it again.”

“Then why was Cyclo…Mr… Scott? Summers?”

“Yeah, Summers. Why was he insisting Charles should?” You nodded. “Well, first thing to know about Scott is that he’s dick. He’s been worse the past couple of months. His wife left him. She was, well she was something all right. She was Charles’ right hand for years. When I first got here, we’ll let’s just say I was infatuated with Jean, but she was with Scott. She was beautiful. I hate to say it, but she could be cruel. She stringed me a long for a few years, though nothing ever happened between us. She just liked me to know something could, y’know? At any rate, they got married. Jean was fickle though. Strung Scott along too, I guess. She had a fling with a colleague at some fancy scientific convention somewhere in Sweden or whatever. She cheated on him, came home and told him what happened and that they were done. I felt for the guy, but it’s gone on long enough. He’s pissed off, I get it, but he’s taking it out on everyone else. She up and quit, then went to Europe to work. We aren’t keeping in touch. Anyways, that’s why he’s been a jerk. He can’t get over her, still loves her, but hates her for how she hurt him. That’s the story.”

You finished your piece of toast and nodded your head in acceptance. “I hope he recovers. That must be awful, to love and trust someone and have them betray you like that.”

“Yeah, agreed. Scott’s going through it, alright, but that’s no excuse for bumping into you like that and not even checking if he hurt you. And it’s no excuse for ragging on Tyson for something he can’t control.”

“Oh gosh, I forgot to ask! How is Tyson?”

“The kid’s just fine, better than fine. Haven’t seen him smile like that, well, ever.” You smiled and your skin shifted ever so slightly from its pale grey to a distant shade of pink. Logan studied you, seeing the shift. “So, tell me, how’s it work? What you do?”

You shrug. “It’s nothing useful, I mean, in terms of…” you gestured absently, “What you all do as X-Men. I mean, I can’t fight or anything. My mutation, it manifested pretty early on, as far back as I can remember. I can only remember back as far as about age five or so? But it’s always been there. I didn’t really know I had it or what it did…” You paused and swallowed thickly. No, Logan could never know about your childhood. “I decided I wanted to go into social work when I was a teenager, so that’s what I went to school for and art was an aside to that. Drawing and painting’s always been my passion though, but I knew I���d never make a living at it and it wouldn’t really help anyone, so social work it was. I grew up in the system, so I knew how tough it was and how important it was to be an advocate for those you who didn’t have a voice. But, it burned me out so fast. I’m ashamed of how foolish I was, thinking I could handle it from the other side. I don’t have a teaching degree, so I’m not sure why the Professor even gave me a chance, but I figured it was worth a shot and I applied.”

“School of life, I’ll take it over a university any day. I don’t have a teaching degree, or a history one.”

“You lived it though? Didn’t you? I read that you were born in the 19th century?” Logan nodded his head, “That’s just… incredible! All you’ve seen and done.”  Logan’s face darkened and you realized you stepped out of line, “I’m sorry. I’m being rude.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. You’re not. I just spent most of the 20th century fighting in wars. I lived it, sure, but I lived the worst of it.”

“Oh.”

“The Professor is a pretty perceptive man. To say the least. You wouldn’t be here if he didn’t see something in you.”

“I hope I don’t disappoint him. Or any of you. I really want to do a good job.”

“You’ll be fine. We should head up, morning comes quickly and it’s your first day tomorrow. Ororo will give you your orientation. Breakfast is at 7am, classes start at eight. The school day’s over at 3pm and you’re free until dinner at six. The faculty usually eat together, but you’re not obligated to.”

You nodded your head but then stopped half way out of your chair. “I’m sorry, I didn’t answer your question.”

“You sure to apologize a lot.”

You bit back another apology. Logan was smiling at his teasing words but the smile fell away quickly when he saw how upset his little jab had made you. You soldiered on and began to talk again, “My mutation doesn’t work by just touching someone. I have to let them in once I touch their skin. It’s like this black hole inside me opens up and just pulls in all the negative emotions someone’s feeling out of them. It doesn’t take their memories, but their feelings surrounding those memories. It clears their head, relaxes them, all the hurt just melts away. I gather it up and then it works its way out of me physically.” You weren’t going to tell him what else happened, how you lived the experiences inside your head on fast forward. It was so intense it felt like you were moving at the speed of light and the emotions associated with the experience slammed into you like a supernova.

“You skin loses its colour and you experience physical pain?”

“The more I absorb, the darker my skin gets. The physical pain settles in and after a while, it dissipates.”

“And the other person?”

“They’re left feeling like what’s happened to them was years in the past. They feel healed. Like they processed it all and put it behind them. They feel free.”

“And meanwhile you feel like shit?”

“It’s temporary.” It was not entirely temporary. But that was your secret to keep.

“Sounds like a raw deal to me.”

“Not when you see a little kid smile, not after they believed they never could again.” Logan made a non-committal sound and nodded his head, then led you back to your room.

To be continued...

[gimmethatagustd]

false advertisement | kth + jhs

Taehyung advertised himself on Grindr as a dom top. But all men do is lie.

Pairing: Taehyung x Hoseok

Rating: Explicit

Genre/Trope: Established relationship, humor, queer social commentary, slice of life, smut, fluff

Word Count: 5,021

Content Warning: Hobi is sassy and a little terrifying (as he should be), Taehyung is a Golden Retriever Boyfriend (as he should be), light dom/sub, anal sex, anal fingering, rimming, capitalism, we must unlearn toxic cishet masculinity

A/N: Writing this brought me back to my roots as a writer of "goofy smut" and honestly, I missed it soooo bad. This fic was initially posted on AO3 as anonymous for a fest, and before they revealed that I was the writer, my moot had already clocked it as mine purely based on the summary 😂 when will i become serious ??

From: LOML !!!! Wanna see something funny?

Taehyung stares at Hoseok’s text message while he anxiously bites his thumb nail. Ten minutes have passed, and he still hasn’t responded. It’s unlike him; everyone knows Taehyung is always on his phone. If he doesn’t respond to a text immediately, then it’s clear that he’s ignoring it. 

He doesn’t want to ignore his boyfriend. He’s just scared. 

Hoseok hadn’t used any emojis, not one. No laughing crying face, no mysterious side eyes, nothing. 

Whatever Hoseok shows Taehyung, he knows one thing for sure: it will not be funny. 

To: LOML !!!! Yee

Taehyung winces as he presses send knowing how stupid and uncommitted he sounds. Guilty, even, though he doesn’t know for what. Hoseok is sweet, sunshine personified, and one of the kindest people Taehyung knows. He’s also one of the most terrifying, and Taehyung knows not to cross him. 

From: LOML !!!! I was clearing storage on my phone and deleting apps And I realized I still have Grindr, just offloaded But I decided to look at it Yknow For memories~

Taehyung runs his hand over his head, so accustomed to messing with his curls when he’s stressed that he forgets his head is buzzed now. The messaging app shows that Hoseok is still typing. 

“Taehyung-ah, what’s up with you?” Yoongi approaches Taehyung from the side and tries peering over his shoulder to look at his phone. “Shit, is that Hob-ah sending you so many texts back to back?”

“Hyung!” Taehyung elbows Yoongi in the chest, only briefly looking up when Yoongi smacks his arm back. 

“Watch it!”

“Mind your own business, hyung!” 

Yoongi glares at Taehyung before returning to their grocery cart. They’re supposed to be shopping for ingredients so Yoongi can show Taehyung how to cook a few of Hoseok’s favorite foods. Taehyung wants it to be a surprise for their one-year anniversary. But he needs Yoongi as his lifeline since he hates to cook and barely knows how.

“I’m going to the next aisle,” Yoongi announces as he marches past Taehyung, pushing the cart along.

Taehyung waves Yoongi off, too busy scrolling on his phone to start at the beginning of the multiple screenshots that Hoseok has sent him and trying not to pass out in the middle of the grocery store. 

From: LOML !!!! I found our messages from the first time we talked I think i forgot how charming you were Oof. Past-tense here to kick Taehyung in the ass. 

Oof. Past-tense here to kick Taehyung in the ass. 

From: LOML !!!! Yknow what i never forgot, though? Kim Taehyung?  THAT YOU SAID YOU WERE A TOP YOU SEE THIS SCREENSHOT? THAT IS YOUR GRINDR PROFILE AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT SAYS RIGHT THERE TAEHYUNG 28 DOM TOP T O P D O M T O P AND YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’VE BEEN THIS WHOLE TIME?

Taehyung closes his eyes and lets his head tilt back. He lets out a long sigh through his nose as his phone continues vibrating in his hand. He doesn’t need to read the rest of Hoseok’s texts to know what he’s saying. 

“Fuuuuck,” Taehyung groans. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’m so fucked.” 

And that’s exactly the problem: Taehyung is fucked even though he was supposed to be the one doing the fucking.

From: LOML !!!! Anyway Tae Sweetie Would you like to know what the legal term is for the atrocity I’ve put up with for the past year and a half?

Taehyung knows it’s a rhetorical question. Hoseok provides the answer almost immediately.

From: LOML !!!! False advertising You are subject to prison time You little twink

“Are you still getting your ass chewed out?” Yoongi grunts as he strolls past the aisle, more food in the grocery cart. 

Taehyung lets out another sigh. “Yeah, that’s half of the problem.”

Yoongi’s face crumples, and he sucks his lips in, pressing them together so tightly that it looks like it hurts. 

“Right. Well. I’m gonna go pay for all this now…”

Taehyung slips his phone into the back pocket of his jeans and gives Yoongi a weak smile. 

“Good idea.”

Here’s the thing: men are liars. Everyone knows that.

Taehyung has never done anything dominant in his entire life. He’s too shy to even correct waitresses when his food orders come back wrong at restaurants. He makes Hoseok do it for him! And as far as topping goes… well, Taehyung is pretty sure everyone knows having a dick up their ass is great, hence why Hoseok is complaining that he never gets one up his. 

Can anyone blame Taehyung for enjoying that his partner is vers? They shouldn’t. He’s innocent. 

Of course, he can’t really tell Hoseok any of this. But on the drive home from Yoongi’s apartment, Taehyung definitely plans to tell Hoseok. He practices a little speech as he drives the speed limit because he doesn’t want to get home any faster than he needs to.

“It’s simple, really,” Taehyung says to the Hyundai Avante driving in front of him. “The first time we hooked up, you just, sort of, took the lead on things. And I, as an accommodating partner, was willing to go along with whatever you wanted. Because I love you!”

Taehyung waves his hand as he talks. Judging by the sudden horn honking, he surmises that the Kia Sorento speeding next to him thinks he flipped them off.

Misunderstandings! How stupid they are.

“And then,” Taehyung continues as he pulls into the underground parking garage of their apartment complex, “we kept doing what we were doing, and it was never brought up! So, therefore, I thought everything was fine.”

By the time Taehyung crosses the threshold of his apartment unit, he has mentally rewritten his speech at least three different times, each draft with a failed conclusion and no viable responses if Hoseok challenges him as a follow-up. What is he supposed to say? It has been over a year since they met each other. If this was such a big deal, shouldn’t Hoseok have spoken up earlier?

The front door opens to a small entryway that leads to their kitchen, where Hoseok sits at the island counter. He has his feet tucked behind the rungs of the wooden barstool, and his arms folded so that he can lean over a book lying flat on the counter. Hoseok’s been into reading lately—mostly fantasy and graphic novels. He says he wants to appreciate art forms other than music and visual art.

Taehyung wishes he was more like Hoseok.

“Hi.” Taehyung slips out of his shoes and shuffles further into the kitchen.

With the capped part of his ink pen pressed against his bottom lip, Hoseok tilts his head just enough to meet Taehyung’s gaze. “Shouldn’t you be in jail?” 

“Hyung.”

Hoseok taps the pen against his bottom lip a few times, as if counting to ten and waiting for Taehyung to correct his bad behavior.

Taehyung would like everyone to know that he was well-behaved as a child. He completed his chores without complaint, submitted his homework on time, and only received detention in school once when he was eight for playing outside in the rain when he wasn’t supposed to. He’s almost thirty now and still the bestest boy there is, thank you very much.

“Yoongi hyung bailed me out?” Taehyung offers the joke with a shy smile. He hovers at Hoseok’s elbow, keeping his hands in his pants pockets. On any other day, he would interrupt Hoseok from his reading by smothering himself in the crook of his neck and squeezing him until his arms cramp.

“Well, I’m glad he did. Someone had to, and it wasn’t gonna be me.”

“Hyung,” Taehyung whines. He taps his thighs, fingers twitching in his pockets with the need to grab Hoseok. “Don’t be so mean to me. I’m sorry.”

Hoseok tilts his head and raises his eyebrows, skepticism written on his pursed lips. “You don’t even know what you’re apologizing for.”

“Yes, I do!” Taehyung bounces on his toes.

“And what is it?”

Taehyung doesn’t respond immediately. He chews his bottom lip and pulls one hand from his pocket to rub his palm across his buzz cut, back and forth in quick swipes. “For, uh, not reminding you I’m vers. And, uh, a switch?”

Hoseok snorts, and Taehyung drags his hand down his face, pulling at his eyes and lips like he’s wiping away the embarrassment coloring his tan skin.

“You’re ridiculous, do you know that?”

“Yes!” Taehyung nods. He knows his eagerness will make Hoseok laugh, and it does.

A selfish part of Taehyung revels in Hoseok’s sweet giggles, the way his lips curve into a heart-shaped smile, revealing bright teeth and crinkling his eyes. Hoseok is so effortlessly handsome. Even in his after-work outfit of brightly colored baggy sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt that doesn’t match, hair a mess, and slight bags under his eyes, he captivates Taehyung.

Reaching up, Hoseok curls his fingers around the nape of Taehyung’s neck. He strokes his skin, fingertips tapping along in a gentle dance that leaves goosebumps in their wake.

Taehyung closes his eyes and leans into Hoseok’s touch.

“You’ll have your court hearing within the next five business days. I hope you’ve found a lawyer.” Hoseok’s smile turns into a smirk, but Taehyung doesn’t see it. “But in the meantime, I’m hungry.”

Taehyung cracks one eye open to look at Hoseok through his long lashes when he stops caressing his neck. “Takeout?”

“Mhm, I’m not in the mood to cook.” Hoseok closes his book and sticks his pen behind his ear. “Unless you were planning on feeding me?”

“I could feed you this cock,” Taehyung blurts.

The barstool makes a scraping sound as Hoseok stands. His lips part slightly, and Taehyung can see the tip of his tongue move behind his teeth like he’s revving up to speak, but can’t get the words out. Maybe what Taehyung said was a little too much. Maybe he should take it back.

“Because that’s what you” — he bounces on his toes again and tries to pass a grimace off as a smile — “what you wanted, right?”

Hoseok’s shock grows into a blushing grin. He grabs Taehyung’s shoulder and shoves him with a laugh. “Shut up, Tae.”

Stumbling, Taehyung reaches for Hoseok’s wrist to keep himself on his feet, lucky that Hoseok has a strong core to stop them from falling. He giggles until the tension in him lifts and his shoulders sag with relief.

“Want to watch something while we eat?” Hoseok asks, letting Taehyung tuck him under his arm as he scrolls through his phone to pick a restaurant for takeout. He pauses for a moment to tilt his chin, bright eyes glittering as they stare up at Taehyung. 

It's easy to read Hoseok, especially when his pretty, heart-shaped lips pucker out just a bit. It's even easier to kiss him. 

Hoseok tastes sweet, though he always does. Taehyung whimpers into the kiss, digging his fingers into Hoseok's shirt to pull him close by the baggy fabric. It's short-lived because Hoseok breaks the connection of their lips with a giggle. Taehyung's smile presses against his bottom lip. 

“I want whatever you want, hyung.”

Taehyung means it now, with Hoseok’s decision on which restaurant they’ll order from and which TV show or movie they watch, but he also means it for later, when Hoseok wants something else from him. He doesn’t know if Hoseok understands the double meaning, but it’s okay. He just hopes Hoseok will be vocal about what he wants.

In the days that follow, Taehyung finds himself occupied with his demanding corporate job, leaving him with little time to indulge in conversations with Hoseok about his useless fat cock and how criminal it is that he’s a twink. Hoseok is busy, too. His increasing prestige in the world of choreography has made him somewhat of a hot commodity. Left and right, idols come to Hoseok to train backup dances for their music videos or choreograph special unit performances at award shows. Taehyung is proud of his boyfriend, but he misses their cuddles at night when they both work late and come home at odd hours.

However, as their anniversary approaches, Taehyung takes time to plan how he wants to orchestrate Hoseok’s surprise.

This year, neither of them are supposed to give each other gifts. Hoseok had made it clear there was no point in “spending unnecessary money” on frivolous things. They both know material items can’t express how much love they have for each other. Of course, Taehyung had challenged him on that, complaining that anniversaries are all about gift-giving. To which Hoseok had countered that “the greatest gift would be your dick up my ass”.

The situation works out for Taehyung, regardless. Giving Hoseok the gift of his dick wouldn’t be breaking the rules. Hoseok only said no to spending money on gifts. Taehyung’s dick is free.

Except for, you know, the exchange he’ll have to make, considering everyone knows prostate orgasms are best, and he’ll be missing out on one. It’s fine. He loves Hoseok enough to give up the opportunity for multiple orgasms. It’s fine.

At least he’ll be avoiding jail time and lawyer costs! If some dick and a (hopefully) gorgeous homemade dinner aren't enough to acquit Taehyung, he has no hope. 

On their anniversary, Taehyung wakes up early. He usually gets up before Hoseok, lacking the flexible schedule that comes with Hoseok’s position in his industry. Today, Taehyung sets aside extra time to finish a few tasks before leaving.

What is supposed to be the guest bedroom in their apartment has become a home office of sorts. One side of the room has a desk for Taehyung’s computer and gaming setup. On the other side, a colorful array of Hoseok’s art supplies lay strewn about: pencils, paints, charcoal, and clay. Taehyung knows there are notebooks stashed in the cabinets beside the drawing table; he bought Hoseok a few sketchbooks for his birthday. Finding one is easy. He rips out the first blank page and grabs a nearby pencil.

This is probably the stupidest thing he’s ever done. There’s a strong chance Hoseok won’t find his joke funny, but Taehyung is determined to give his boyfriend what he wants, even though it’s the opposite of what Taehyung wants.

Not that Taehyung hates topping. He has done it before, plenty of times. It’s just that bottoming is nice. Taehyung enjoys the affection often shown to bottoms, the societal expectation of praise and care for them. As an affectionate person, it fills Taehyung’s love language in full. Oddly, Hoseok was the first person to let Taehyung bottom in ages. Most people assume Taehyung is strictly a top. He’s not sure what it is about himself that gives off that impression. Or perhaps it isn’t him. Perhaps he’s just unintentionally drawn to bottoms. Who knows?

Now that Taehyung is dating Hoseok, none of that past stuff matters.

Leaning his forearm on the table, Taehyung takes his time crafting a little anniversary note for the love of his life. He doesn’t have much time before he needs to grab a granola bar and head out the door, but he’s determined to make this note look at least semi-decent. He’s not much of a drawer, so the sketch comes out rough, but it conveys the message Taehyung is trying to get across, and that’s what matters.

Taehyung’s sketch is of a hand making an “okay” sign and another hand pointing at the first with its index finger. Under the hands, Taehyung draws a pair of winking eyes and a sharp nose. Scribbled across the top of the page is his straightforward declaration: “me + you”. 

Once his sketch is complete, Taehyung tiptoes down the hall to the kitchen. He’s careful not to make any noise that may wake Hoseok up. With each step, he can feel his heart beating a little faster, and a wave of giddiness washes over him. 

As he places the paper on the kitchen counter, Taehyung checks his watch. A wave of disappointment ripples through him when he realizes he doesn’t have time to make Hoseok breakfast. But why? He can’t even cook. The only reason he’s going to make it through their anniversary dinner is because of his secret weapon: video calling Yoongi.

But first, he has to give Hoseok his anniversary gift.

With a nervous pep in his step, Taehyung takes a deep breath and slips out of the apartment. He hopes his little note is inviting enough. Taehyung has never been great with words. He hopes he’ll be better with his dick. 

Taehyung spends the entire day consumed by thoughts of Hoseok’s reaction to the note he left. Taehyung’s anticipation grows, and he finds it difficult to focus on anything else. Each passing minute sitting at his desk, halfheartedly responding to emails, feels like an eternity as he anxiously awaited when Hoseok would finally read the note.

Is it weird that Hoseok doesn’t mention it in their texts? They send each other brief messages throughout the day whenever they can, mostly when Taehyung is on his lunch break or pretending to be taking notes during a meeting. Yet, Hoseok never mentions Taehyung’s sketched invitation. He doesn’t even go into much detail when he wishes Taehyung a happy anniversary.

Maybe Hoseok is mad at him for being so flippant about their conversations. It isn’t entirely his fault; Hoseok has been mostly passive aggressive ever since the "Grindr conversation".

Just in case Hoseok is mad, Taehyung practices another speech on his drive home from work. He mentally reworks the drafts a few times once he arrives at their apartment, muttering to himself as he lights vanilla candles to place on their dresser and nightstands and sprinkles rose petals across the bed.

“Well, hyung,” Taehyung tests out his argument, “you see, it was a joke. No, calling it a joke makes it sound mean…” Taehyung frowns, rose petals pinched between his fingers. “It was a… I wanted to…”

The sound of the front door closing makes Taehyung’s mouth snap shut. Hoseok will know Taehyung is home from their Bluetooth speakers playing Ginuwine.

“Jagiya,” Hoseok calls to him from the living room, where he’s likely dropping off his backpack. “Care to explain the note you left me this morning?”

The sexually explicit note was an invitation for Taehyung to fuck Hoseok, of course. That was exactly what Hoseok wanted. What better time than their anniversary for Taehyung finally to give up his moment to please his hyung?

“Hyung,” Taehyung shouts from the bedroom, “can you not just follow the instructions on the note and come here?”

Hoseok laughs as he opens the door and steps into their dimly lit bedroom. The vanilla-scented candles cast long shadows across the bed and fill the room with a soft, warm glow.

Taehyung sits on the edge of the bed, his heart racing as he tries to play it cool. He’s still wearing his work clothes: a white Oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and black slacks. Clearing his throat, he drops the loving expression he was wearing for Hoseok, forcing his features into a stern frown. “I thought the note said you were supposed to come to me naked? Are you really that cock dumb that you’ve forgotten how to read?”

Hoseok’s mouth falls open. “Excuse me?”

If Taehyung wasn’t so nervous, he would have laughed at the shock that colors Hoseok's tone and turns his cheeks pink. But he has a role to play. This is Grindr Taehyung, and he doesn’t laugh unless it’s humiliating the blushing man standing in the doorway.

Pressing his tongue to the inside of his cheek, Taehyung stands from the bed. “Got nothing to say, hyung?” Taehyung murmurs. He snakes his arm around Hoseok’s waist, pulling him closer. “You want my cock, you have to follow my rules.”

Hoseok’s eyes narrow, but he obeys Taehyung’s command. “Okay,” he says as he brings his hands between their bodies to untie the drawstring of his joggers.

Taehyung watches with a smirk, but on the inside, he’s honestly freaking out. The sight of Hoseok stripping naked for him makes Taehyung the one who’s cock dumb. He just can’t let Hoseok know.

“Perfect.” Taehyung brushes his fingers across Hoseok’s perky nipples, his touch drifting lower until he reaches Hoseok’s cock, already leaking a little bead of precum from his slit. Taehyung wraps his hand around Hoseok’s cock, giving it a firm squeeze, and watches his eyes flutter close. “Get on the bed.”

Despite Hoseok’s initial stubbornness, he gets on his knees with his chest flat against the bed willingly, desperately, because this is exactly what he has always wanted. Taehyung has seen Hoseok naked countless times, but never like this, never offering the most sacred parts of himself for Taehyung to take. And, fuck, has Taehyung forgotten what it’s like to be on the other side. He forgot how good it feels to have someone present themselves to him. “Spread yourself wider, hyung. I want to see you.”

Hoseok complies, reaching back to grab his ass cheeks and spread them apart. His hole quivers as he clenches, and Taehyung can tell that Hoseok must have prepped himself during the day — maybe in the morning, after Taehyung left for work.

“Fuck,” Taehyung breathes, voice shuddering as he momentarily breaks character. This is really happening. Taehyung is going to fuck Hoseok for the first time. He reaches into the nightstand, pulling out a bottle of lube and tossing it onto the bed beside Hoseok. That action alone has his cock straining against his zipper.

Taehyung covers Hoseok’s hands with his own so that they’re both holding his cheeks apart. Leaning in, he flattens his tongue and licks across Hoseok’s rim.

“Tae,” Hoseok gasps, his voice strained. “Shit, I don’t remember the last time someone ate me out.”

A twinge of guilt shoots through Taehyung’s chest. He has been denying Hoseok this pleasure for over a year. It really hasn’t been fair of him. Rather than respond, he continues licking and sucking Hoseok’s rim. He occasionally dips his tongue inside, feeling Hoseok’s tight heat around him, and his cock throbs even more.

Hoseok starts to rock his hips back, seeking more. “Tae... please,” he begs, his voice shaking.

Taehyung’s fingers join his tongue, hooking his thumbs in Hoseok’s hole to see how far he can spread him open. “Are you even ready for my cock?” he teases, blowing air on Hoseok’s wet rim just to make him squirm.

“Fuck, Tae,” Hoseok moans. “Jagi, I’m sorry, but I’ve been ready for over a year.”

“You’ve been very patient.” Taehyung sits back, unzipping his pants and pulling out his cock. “But you have to say please.”

“You’re an ass.”

“You always say I’m a good boy, hyung.” Taehyung drizzles the lube directly onto his cock and Hoseok’s hole. “All I’m asking is for you to be one, too.”

“Taehyung-ah, why do you do this to me? I thought this was a gift.” Hoseok groans and presses his forehead into the mattress. “Please.”

“Does this mean I’m acquitted of all charges of false advertisement?”

“If you actually do something!” The bed muffles Hoseok’s voice as his body trembles.

Taehyung grabs Hoseok with one hand, his hold snug at the crease where his thigh meets his hip. “I’ll give you what you want, but remember, hyung, you asked for it.” With his other hand, Taehyung rubs the tip of his cock against Hoseok’s hole. His precum mixes with lube.

Hoseok’s body tenses the moment Taehyung presses the head of his cock past his rim. With enough lube and preparation, Taehyung’s cock slides in without difficulty, though the fit is tight. He watches more of his cock sinks into Hoseok’s hole, his heat consuming him. Hoseok sucks him in, the grip unbelievably tight when Taehyung pulls back slightly just to ease back in again.

“Fuuuck,” Taehyung moans, letting his head fall back. He pants from his open mouth, eyes screwed shut. “I forgot how fucking good this feels.”

“Same,” Hoseok admits with a gasp.

Taehyung opens his eyes to look down at where their bodies connect. He runs his hands up Hoseok’s back, squeezing his shoulders as he pushes his hips flush against Hoseok’s ass and grinds into him as deeply as he can.

“God,” Hoseok groans, arching his back. “You’re so fucking big.”

Taehyung feels a sense of pride that’s different from when Hoseok praises his ass when he fucks Taehyung. It’s hard to explain, though both praises make his heart swell. Taehyung wraps an arm around Hoseok’s waist, pulling him closer so that their bodies are flush against each other. His chest presses to Hoseok’s back, his cock sliding in and out in a steady rhythm that makes Hoseok tremble. It’s not fast, but it’s deep. The position makes Taehyung overly aware of how fucking hot it is that Hoseok is naked underneath him while he's still fully clothed.

“Hyung, you’re so tight.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hoseok gasps, pushing back to meet each of Taehyung’s thrusts. Every time Taehyung pulls back, lube and precum squelch around his cock and sticks to Hoseok’s skin.

“Gonna fuck you every day, hyung. Multiple times a day. So I can make up for lost time,” Taehyung groans into the crook of Hoseok’s neck.

“Good.”

The single word from Hoseok is all Taehyung needs. He realizes he enjoys watching Hoseok fall apart. It’s satisfying, knowing he’s why Hoseok grips the sheets with white knuckles, eyes shut and mouth hanging open.

Hoseok’s mouth, such a pretty pink heart, wet with drool. Taehyung doesn’t care how messy it is when he leans in to capture Hoseok’s lips. He slides his tongue inside Hoseok’s mouth, licking and sucking like he had with his rim. They haven’t kissed nearly enough. Taehyung had wanted Hoseok to earn his kisses, back when he was trying to plan out what he thought Grindr Taehyung would do. Obviously, all his plans went to shit the moment he sank his cock into Hoseok’s ass.

Sitting back on his knees, Taehyung grabs Hoseok’s wrists. He forces Hoseok’s arms to his side and pulls on them, as though he’s using them as reigns to keep Hoseok steady as he fucks him with hard, sharp thrusts.

“Oh god,” Hoseok turns his head to the side so his cheek rubs against the mattress with each thrust. His teeth sink into his bottom lip, and his cheeks are flushed with heat and sweat.

“I’m really sorry,” Taehyung groans, his hips moving faster now, “but I’m gonna come.” He can feel the coil of pleasure in him tightening, electricity sparking through his cock every time Hoseok squeezes around him.

Hoseok has the audacity to laugh. “Don’t apologize” — he tilts his head so he can look back at Taehyung more easily — “just come in me while you get me off, okay?”

“Fuck, okay, okay.”

Taehyung almost forgot that he has to help Hoseok get off. He can’t just get lost in the feeling of his cock driving in and out of Hoseok’s delicious, glorious, perfect hole. Taehyung releases one of Hoseok’s wrists and reaches around to squeeze Hoseok’s cock. His grip is firm, stroking in time with his thrusts.

“Yeah, like that.”

“There you go,” Taehyung murmurs. He moves faster, tightening around the shaft as he feels Hoseok’s cock twitch in his grasp. “Let go, hyung. I’ve got you.”

Taehyung feels Hoseok’s body tighten around him, the muscles in his ass spasming. It takes one last twist of Taehyung’s wrist and Hoseok’s body goes rigid as he spills into Taehyung’s hand with a loud sob of his name.

“Keep going, inside, Tae. It feels so, fuck.” Hoseok looks exhausted, sweaty and slumped into the mattress. The only reason he’s still on his knees is because Taehyung is holding him up.

They’re nearing Hoseok’s threshold for overstimulation. Despite being granted permission to continue, Taehyung focuses on finishing as quickly as possible. He squeezes Hoseok’s ass, giving it a slap that makes it jiggle as he fucks him, trying to avoid direct pressure to his prostate. He’s still holding Hoseok’s cock, and more cum spurts into his hand as he fucks it out of him.

And then the feeling inside of him snaps, the rush of pleasure shooting forward in a current Taehyung couldn’t stop if he tried. He pulls back as he comes with a groan through clenched teeth. When Taehyung pulls out completely, cum trickles from Hoseok’s hole and drips from his balls onto the bed.

“Shit.”

Hoseok rolls onto his back and throws his arms over his head, stretching them out from the uncomfortable position Taehyung had held them in. He squints up at Taehyung, probably trying to get a better look at his face as the candlelight casts flickering shadows across it.

“Tell me again why we haven’t done this before.” Hoseok’s voice is always raspy after sex. It makes Taehyung’s chest tingle.

Taehyung flops down face-first onto the bed beside Hoseok. The fabric muffles his voice when he responds, “Because I’m… stupid? And a criminal?”

Despite how sweaty Taehyung is, Hoseok’s fingers slide along the buzzed hair at the nape of his neck. It tickles, but Taehyung tries his best not to squirm.

“You’re not stupid.”

“But I am a criminal.”

Hoseok snorts. When Taehyung turns his head to peer at Hoseok through one cracked eye, he’s met with a heart-shaped smile.

“I should at least sue you for all you’re worth. All that corporate money,” Hoseok suggests. “What do you think?”

Taehyung’s whole body feels like jelly, but he’s never felt more secure than he does when he’s with Hoseok.

“I was hoping my plan of fucking you multiple times a day was good reparations, actually.”

With a fit of giggles threatening to slip out, Hoseok leans in to give Taehyung a fat kiss on the forehead. And, of course, Taehyung is a goner because he realizes he can be TAEHYUNG, 28, DOM TOP, and still be Hoseok’s little baby.

So maybe he was kind of stupid.

Hoseok says he loves him, anyway.

@rkiveslibrary @mar-lo-pap @remmykinsff