#I have so many more thoughts but this will do for now

[hueseok]

it was always you.

for as long as you remember, you’ve always had the fattest crush on your childhood friend, jeon jungkook. it never blossomed into something more though, because that’s what happens when life naturally takes it course—you grow up, you move on, and you pretend that those feelings never existed in order to maintain the good friendship that remained between the two of you over the years.

so when he visits you after work one day, asking you to marry him, you do everything you can to refuse, because the reason he’s asking you isn’t due to the fact that he finally realized that he loved you after all this time, but because he thinks he’s doing you a big favor.

or at least, that’s what you think.

pairing: jungkook x reader

word count: 13.2k

rating: 18+

content: fluff, semi-angst, childhood friends to lovers au, pining au | ft. naval aviator!jungkook + brother’s best friend!jungkook; professor!reader + editor!reader | inspired by purple hearts

warning/s: swearing, potentially wrong medical & military information (i’m sorry but i tried to do as much research i can 😭), mentions of having type 1 diabetes, making out, heavy petting, implied sexual content: oral (f. receiving), fingering, penetrative sex, unprotected sex (this is only fiction!)

MINI PLAYLIST: ♫ die with a smile — lady gaga, bruno mars ♫ juno — sabrina carpenter ♫ selfish — *nsync ♫ nandito na ako — benj pangilinan, angela ken

opening note. omg this is my first full length fic in two damn years i think??? certainly took a long time before i had the motivation to write again but i hope y'all like this! to my og readers who still keep up with my shenanigans, this one's for you 🥹💗

“Any questions?”

A boy wearing half-rimmed glasses raises his hand and you gesture for him to speak. “Can we get an extension on the Save the Cat project due tomorrow?”

You sigh, just as several of your students begin agreeing with him and muttering reasons of their own why the extension should be approved. It’s the week before finals, and you’re aware that the class must be packed with assignments and projects for several of their classes because of it, hence the rather last minute request. They look tired and pleading, a complete reflection of how you were when you were the one in their position nearly a decade ago, begging for an extension from a professor who you thought was kind enough to be swayed with the proposition.

You scan the crowd. “How many of you are at least 70% with it, hm?”

More than half of the class raises their hands.

“Okay, that’s honestly unexpected,” you say, pleased to know that they aren’t slacking on your subject. “Does Monday sound good? That’s three more days, to be fair. I don’t want to extend it further because I have to read everyone’s work and you guys know I don’t like rushing it before turning in your final grade.”

A chorus of relief and thanks echoed in the room, all of your students either dramatically sinking in their chair or erupting in an animated conversation with their seatmate or making crying faces to portray how grateful they are.

“Thank you so much, Ms. ____!”

“I love you, Ms. ____!”

“Ms. ____, I will offer my first child to you,” one theatrically adds and you smile a bit, rolling your eyes at students like this one who is now opting to flatter you way too much for your act of kindness.

“Alright, alright. Just get it done and I’m expecting quality work, okay? Class dismissed.”

The whole class begins to gather their things at the cue and you don’t stay there a minute longer after your announcement, exiting the lecture hall to head to the faculty room where you’re certain half of the teaching staff have gone home already. It’s already 8:47 p.m., and all you want to do is head home to get the rest you deserve after an eventful day.

There was a time that having a schedule from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. wasn’t the norm for you. You used to value work life balance so much—it was even a nonnegotiable you used to say in interviews, saying that if you didn’t get enough rest within the week, then the job most likely wasn’t for you. But things have been very different for the past months; you have definitely grown out of that mindset due to the fact that you’re simply in need of another source of income to pay for your monthly rent, utility bills, and now your medication. You’re in a stage of your life wherein you consider working part time as a professor was a blessing rather than a big nuisance.

Making a right turn to where the hallway to the faculty room is, you’re too busy rearranging the papers inside the folder you’re holding to notice a man sitting on the bench placed just beside the entrance. He notices you the second you appear in his line of vision though; he straightens his posture and proceeds on standing up immediately upon seeing you closer, calling your name softly when you failed to look at his direction, too preoccupied with the thought of finally coming home that you’re oblivious that the man trying to catch your attention is Jeon Jungkook.

“____,” he calls again and this time you notice him, your eyes widening instantly.

“Holy shi—” You stop yourself from finishing that sentence. “Jungkook?”

He grins. “Hey, lamb chop.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Is that how you greet an old friend?”

“Oh, fuck off.”

He laughs, following suit to you who’s already giggling just by his presence alone, outstretching his arms then. “You gonna hug me or what?”

You beam and step forward to embrace him. He returns it without hesitation, muscular arms circling around you and squeezing tightly that it lifts you up from the ground for a quick second. The faint smell of fabric conditioner on his clothes enters your nostrils and you feel like a teenager again, warmth rushing to your face while your heart hammers loudly in your chest. Regardless of how old the both of you are, you think your hopeless crush on the guy will forever live on and constantly transform you into a middle school girl whenever opportunities like these to have him near arise. You’re just happy you’ve trained yourself to be better at hiding it now compared to when you were younger.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in base or wherever it is that you’re designated?” you ask, the first to let go from the hug.

“Actually, I returned from deployment three days ago. I’m on leave for two weeks.”

“Wow. Two weeks, huh?”

“Yep. It’s the longest break I’ve gotten in a while.”

“That’s good. Everybody needs a break from time to time.”

“Says the girl has a day job and a night job.” He points out with a smirk; your heart does a little leap at how handsome he looks doing that. “When the hell did you get into teaching, by the way? I never pegged you to be the kind who can tolerate it. You hate kids.”

“You’ll find yourself tolerating lots of things in this economy.” You snort. “And my students aren’t kids. They’re in college.”

“Yeah, which you graduated from six years ago. Still technically kids.”

“Are you seriously jabbing at my age when you’re two years older than I am?”

He rolls his eyes at that one, an indication that you won the argument. “Anyway,” he starts again and you grin, “I didn’t come here to compare how old we are—”

“You didn’t?”

He sends you a look. Your grin gets even wider.

“I’m here because I was hoping to treat you to dinner.”

“Dinner?” you repeat, not masking the surprise from your voice.

Let’s get the facts straight before we proceed to this conversation.

It isn’t a lie when you say that you and Jungkook are great friends. You have been since you were 7 and your family just moved into the house next to theirs. He was a natural playmate, a companion when you couldn’t tolerate the antics of your older brother, the boy who looked out for you aside from said older brother, and the person you’ve shared significant history with throughout your youth that you can never seem to forget nor disregard.

It’s just that you never deemed that you were great enough friends for him to go out of his way and visit you at your workplace, offering to treat you for dinner. Gestures like that were reserved for your older brother, Seowon, who’s the same age as he is and who you’re sure is considered as his best friend. Compared to them, yours and Jungkook’s dynamic shifted slightly after graduating from college. What once was a really close friendship turned into a casual one, with mostly just teasing, light talks, and the occasional welfare checks at times you hear certain news from the other that’s worth speaking directly about.

At the mention of that, realization dawns on you on why he must be here.

“Jungkook…” You’re trying not to sound mad but you can’t hide the exasperation from your voice. “That’s not the real reason you’re here.”

“Of course, it is. Why else would I be here?”

“He told you, didn’t he?” you ask, not willing to drag this out. “You’re just going to give me another lecture that I definitely don’t need.”

Jungkook frowns, like he’s dismayed that you caught on pretty swiftly.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” You pressed.

“He meant well, ____.”

You scowl. To remark that Seowon is unnecessarily nosy and coddling would be an understatement. That man hasn’t left you alone the second he was aware of your condition. Usually, whenever he gets into his ‘big brother tendencies’, his girlfriend Winnie steps in and helps you lay him off your back. However, it’s different this time; no matter how much you reinstill your independence and insist that you’re fine, it’s like you’re talking to a wall.

“What exactly did you hear from him?” you query.

He seems hesitant in answering that. “That you got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.”

You wince.

“Look,” he steps forward towards you, “I wasn’t going to bring it up unless you did, okay? I’m just here because I’m genuinely worried about you and I want to know how you’re doing.”

“I’m fine.” You murmur. “You don’t need to worry.”

“Worry doesn’t vanish magically just because someone says so.”

“Well, it should—because I’m fine.”

“You sure? I heard that you’re struggling to buy insulin among other things you’re having a hard time paying.”

“Fuck. Seowon told you that too? That’s private.”

“My parents know. He just filled me in because he wants you to have as much support as you can get.”

“I don’t need that. I’m an adult. I’ve lived by myself for years. I can fend for myself just fine.”

“It doesn’t look like it from what I’ve been hearing.”

“All you’re hearing is a warped and exaggerated version of the story told by Seowon who won’t listen to a word I say.” You huff. “I’m fine and I’ve been doing everything I can, alright? I’m taking care of myself. I’m going to the doctor whenever I need to. I’m making ends meet, buying treatment for this goddamn disease and regulating my sugar levels all the fucking time. Why do you think I’ve been working two jobs for the past year? It’s because I’m doing everything I can to stay alive.”

Jungkook doesn’t reply, he only remains gazing at you.

“If you’re here to offer me money or whatever because of what he said,” you add, already embarrassed that you can’t even look at him anymore, “then I don’t want it.”

“That’s not what I’m here for,” he says.

“Then are you really just here to treat me to dinner?” you question sarcastically.

He laughs and you dare return your eyes at him, catching him peering at you with a fond expression. “Yes. It’s my way of doing a welfare check.”

“Welfare check.” You echo with squinted eyes. “Well, in that case, here I am—alive and healthy.”

“I can see that, and I’m glad.” He smiles. “But I need more than just seeing you. I need a conversation and an apology.”

“An apology?”

“For being the last person to know about your condition.”

“And we’re still talking about that apparently.” You mutter under your breath. “Sorry. I didn’t think that you wanted to know.”

“Of course, I would have wanted to know. It’s you we’re talking about here.”

Something about how he said you causes your lips to twitch as you fight off a smile. This isn’t a good time to dive into your romantic feelings for your childhood crush, but when he’s letting go of lines like that which are sure to have your heart soaring out of your chest, it’s hard to keep on a cool and unfazed facade. You just convince yourself that he sees you as a little sister and that’s why he’s so worried; you should already be past your ‘delulu’ phase at this age to be affected by such statements.

“I didn’t want to add to your worries,” you reason. “You already have your life to think about. Add to the fact that you’re a naval aviator—so you literally have your own life first to think about.”

“I can make space for you.”

Is he flirting? Is this a normal thing to say between friends?

You blink. “Okay, uh, that’s… that’s completely up to you, I guess.”

“I just like knowing those things first hand. It makes me worry less.”

“Got it. Next time I learn I’m dying, I’ll tell you.”

“____,” he says your name in warning, and you know he’s serious.

“Sorry.” You heat up. “I couldn’t resist.”

“Don’t be a pain in the ass.”

“I promise that’ll be the last time I make a dark joke, Lieutenant.”

Jungkook’s nostrils flare. You prevent yourself from grinning like a fool again in success of getting on his nerves.

“Are you done here? Because I’m hungry and would really like to get going now.” He changes the subject and gestures to the faculty.

“Yeah. I’ll just get my things and then I can get out of here.”

“Great. You’re letting me take you to dinner, right?” 

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

“Fine.” You deadpan.

This time, he’s the one who’s beaming at you. “I’ll wait for you here and we can go.”

“Okay.”

****

When Jungkook discovered that you had type 1 diabetes through a phone call with Seowon, he spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling, ignoring the snores of his squadmates and overthinking what’s supposed to happen to you now that you had an autoimmune disease which he was told didn’t have a cure. He was assured that you were okay despite it, that there was medication to treat it, and that you had access to them and have been very careful with your lifestyle due to the diagnosis ever since.

He still couldn’t be put to ease though. As ridiculous as it may sound, he had this overwhelming realization that life truly was short, that you had to make certain decisions all the time because you need to adjust to what the universe is only willing to give you. It was funny coming from a person who risked his life for a living. He thinks that perhaps he never understood the philosophy of the quote ‘time is gold’ until he had a loved one on the same trajectory, always one step closer to possible death.

And so that same night, he decided to file a leave for two weeks, effective immediately after his deployment. 

He wasn’t sure what his game plan was exactly in filing that two-week leave. Was he supposed to barge in your life and force you to let him take care of you? Was he supposed to demand why you ended up having diabetes? Was he supposed to act as a big brother like your actual big brother because he was that worried about you? But if Jungkook was going to be truthful, he already had an idea on what he wanted to do in the back of his head—he just didn’t want to execute it because it was absolutely insane.

Until he heard Seowon suggest it himself when they met up at a bar to share a drink together.

“She would never say yes,” Jungkook said, beyond doubt that you won’t be persuaded that easily with a plan like that.

Seowon made a face. “I know. That girl is so hyper independent—she’d rather die than accept help.” He scoffed. “She needs it though. It’ll help with her medication and she won’t have to pay rent for that shit apartment she’s living in. Plus, she'll actually get the chance to take care of her body if she’s not juggling two jobs to have sufficient income.”

“You’re right.” Jungkook shrugged.

“You’ll do it then?”

He took a sip of his beer. “Yeah. I’d do anything for ____, you know that.”

“Even as crazy as marrying her?”

“Sure.”

Seowon stared at him, narrowing his eyes and morphing his expression into a teasing one. “Are you sure you’re not just considering this because it’s a perfect excuse to marry my sister? I know you like her.”

“I don’t like her.” 

“You’re in love with her.”

“I don’t—” Jungkook began to deny but Seowon was staring him down. “Fuck you, man. Don’t make me some kind of pervert who’s trying to lock her into marriage because he likes her. You’re the one who brought the idea up.”

Seowon laughed out loud. “I know, I just can’t believe you’d agree. It’ll benefit ____, that’s for sure—you, on the other hand? It’s career suicide.”

He shrugged. “I’m okay with the thought that she’ll be okay.”

“Because you love her, man.” Seowon pushed. “Why on earth would you consider this if you weren’t? It’s a fraudulent marriage. You’ll be thrown in the brig and be dishonorably discharged if you get caught.”

“We don’t even know if she’ll agree to this whole thing. You said it yourself, she would never say yes.”

“Yeah, unless maybe you’re the one who tries to persuade her.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to buy her a ring and kneel down before her or something?”

“That can work.”

“What?” Jungkook laughed.

Seowon raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you don’t know how she’s been crushing on you since we were kids.”

He barked out a laugh again. That he knew; it was impossible not to when a lot of friends and cousins kept on teasing you before, especially at instances Jungkook was in the very same vicinity. “We’re not kids anymore and I barely see her though.”

“Still, it ought to count to something. It raises the chances of her agreeing.”

“You’re really cool with me marrying your sister, Won?” Jungkook asked.

Seowon placed down the beer bottle he’s consuming on the counter. “Yeah. You’re a good guy. You’re not perfect, but I know you enough to know that you won’t do anything that will purposely hurt her. Besides, if this sham marriage ends up to be a real relationship and then for some reason, you fuck up and decide to break her heart—I’ll easily know what to do, where to find you, to fuck you up.”

Jungkook pressed his lips together to stifle a chuckle.

“Noted.”

****

It’s always been a big wonder to you how no matter how long it’s been since you saw each other, it still feels like no time has passed between you and Jungkook. You think that’s why you can never get over him; he always had this comforting and familiar aura that you appreciate—something that you sought for in every other person that you liked. Maybe it was impractical, maybe it was the reason you can never hold a relationship for more than two years, but unless you gain the courage to confront your feelings and tell Jungkook about it, then you constantly dispel any doubts you might have whether this was good for you or not.

You don’t want to lose him. Admitting that you harbored romantic feelings for him would just make it awkward for everyone: your brother, your family, and then his family. You don’t think you can ever trade his smile, the sound of his laughter, and all the good things about him for anything in the world. 

“Are you dating anyone?” he asks.

You choke on your drink, having just poured yourself and Jungkook a glass of water after the server arrived with the pitcher. You’re in a Japanese restaurant near the university, aware that the cuisine was a favorite for the both of you hence why it’s what you recommended when he asked where you wanted to dine. The place is packed with people from the workforce and students; you’re thankful that you don’t see any of your students within the mix.

“We’re getting straight to it, huh?” you say.

Jungkook smirks. “I’m just making sure I’m not upsetting a boyfriend by meeting you tonight.”

“Don’t worry, you’re not upsetting anyone.”

He nods in understanding. You don’t want to add more meaning to his actions for the evening but he seems glad about the information.

“How about you?” you ask back. “Are you dating anyone?”

The ends of his mouth lift a bit upwards. “Nope.”

“Why? You don’t have the time for it?”

“Precisely.”

“It must be really hard dating when you’re in the Navy then.”

“Kinda. We’re away a lot and stationed in different places most of the time. It can get really dangerous for us too and people don’t like the stress that comes with that.”

 You bob. “Does it get lonely?”

“Sometimes, but when you’re on duty, you don’t get to think about those things.” He chuckles. “Besides, I don’t know if this sounds fucked up or not—but it can get exciting. Flying a plane can be fun, you know. Not to mention that it helps when you’re surrounded by good men in your squadron.”

“You’ve always been an adrenaline junkie.”

“And you’ve always been a scaredy-cat.”

You scoff at the declaration. “No, I’m not.”

“Remember when Seowon and I forced you to ride that ship in the amusement park that sways left to right and as it goes on it falls from a higher standpoint?”

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

But you do, and Jungkook knows you do, it’s evident by how your expression is trying to feign innocence. That memory is your villain origin story; the whole pretext of why you refuse to ever visit the amusement park or ride an exhilarating ride again. Yet you can’t help but recall that it’s one of the rare instances wherein you got to hold Jungkook’s hand when you two were younger, as his hand was the one you were clinging for dear life when it happened while the other was too busy slapping Seowon in irritation.

He snickers, appearing like he’s replaying the scene in his head. “We should do that again with Seowon during my break.”

“Hell no.”

“I thought you weren’t a scaredy-cat?” He challenges.

“I’m not.” You give him a kittenish glare. “But I am busy. I have to send the final manuscript of this book I’m editing to the chief editor next week and it’s about to be finals week for my students as well.”

He fakes a shiver. “I don’t know how you can do two jobs like that, ____. Truly.”

“You work as a naval aviator so I’d say we’re pretty even.”

The waiter arrives with your orders not long after, and you and Jungkook carry on with your conversation, jumping from topic to topic without difficulty. You’re not certain when was the last time you saw each other like this to have so much to talk about—was it last Christmas? Or was it more recent or longer than that? Nevertheless, it feels good and you find yourself blushing multiple times throughout the night, whether it’s because of how his words can have two meanings or how his eyes are staring at you so intensely whenever you’re the one who’s talking.

You like the undivided attention, the back and forth that’s occurring as you discourse, the subtle touches one of you does when something funny arises, how your knees are touching underneath the table. You wonder what’s so different with this encounter that the energy feels so bizarre in a good way? As far as you’re concerned, you’re positive that you’re acting like you always have in his presence—lively, smiley, sarcastic—and aside from the little touches of flirting here and there, Jungkook’s acting like he always has too.

When dinner was done, Jungkook offered to drive you home. You obliged, no longer in the mood to annoy him for you were tired to make the effort. Before stepping outside the restaurant however, you excused yourself to the restroom first, checking your blood sugar with the glucose meter you brought along wherever you went. It’s a hassle but it’s necessary, largely because you’re still in the middle of saving up for the insulin pump that would help you regulate your sugar levels easier.

After administering yourself with the insulin injection you have, you spend a few more seconds inside the enclosed room. You should be past the point of feeling sorry for yourself, but it’s times like this wherein you’re with a loved one that the dejection hits and you wish that you’re in a better predicament than you are right now. You’re close to being broke, you’re overworked, you’re somehow fatigued all the fucking time—those factors aren’t soothing your worries at all. It’s a miracle how you manage to keep an optimistic mind amidst everything.

“Ready to go?” Jungkook smiles at you once you’re back at the table and you nod, clutching your bag tighter against your body and following him to his car.

He drives you to your place, turning the radio on, and letting it play while the both of you sit in silence. You’re both tired and you almost even sleep during the ride. It’s only when Jungkook gently shakes you awake that you realize that you’ve arrived in front of your apartment building.

“I’ll walk you up,” he insists as you’re unbuckling the seatbelt. 

“That’s no need, Kook.”

“Of course, it is,” he says. “I’ll walk you up. That’s nonnegotiable.”

So, you allow him.

It takes five minutes tops to reach the door leading to your apartment. As you rummage through your bag to grab your keys, Jungkook patiently stands there, occasionally glancing around the hallway and even smiling when the old lady that resided in the same floor got out of her room to throw out the trash. He receives a smile in return which you notice and grin fondly at.

“Well, this is me.” You turn to him, done unlocking your door. “I’d invite you inside but you should probably get going. It’s quite a long drive back home.”

“Yeah.” He breathes out a chuckle. “Hey, tonight was fun. It made me realize how I missed you.”

Your brain temporarily malfunctions; you force yourself to recover quickly. “Me too. I had fun tonight. Maybe we should do this again whenever you’re on a break.”

“Agreed.”

You flash him a smile. “You can go now. Goodnight.”

Jungkook nods, however doesn’t move a muscle. He’s looking at you, like really looking at you, his eyes moving from one feature to another, as if he’s memorizing your face or having a hard time arranging the words he wants to say. You guess it’s the latter, familiar with a tongue-tied Jungkook that it takes you a few good seconds before you’re demanding why he’s impersonating a mannequin.

“There’s something I want to say,” that’s what he utters and you almost snort due to your assumption being right.

“Okay…” The smile is still on your lips. “What is it?”

“Promise me you won’t get mad first.”

“Well, if you’re making me promise that then it’s probably worth being mad about.”

“It’s not as bad as you think.”

“That’s not convincing at all.”

“It’s just…” He begins and trails, biting his lower lip, “it’s… it’s why I went here. Why I went here to see and meet you, I mean.”

You unconsciously recoil at the revelation. It’s certainly a rookie mistake to believe that there was no ulterior motive in Jungkook meeting you today. You just didn’t reckon you’d actually be truly disappointed at that—at the idea that he just didn’t randomly decide to visit and be with you earlier until now.

You draw a long breath. “Well, I knew you weren’t just feeling generous and wanted to treat me to dinner out of nowhere.”

There’s a pause and then he resumes. “Just—before I say it, you have to hear me out, okay? You have to let me explain before you berate me.”

“I can’t promise that either.”

“You have to.”

“Why do I have to?”

“Because what I’m about to say is for your own sake. You know I always have your best interest at heart, don’t you?”

You wrinkle your forehead in further confusion. “Can you just get on with it? The vagueness is making me more annoyed.”

“I just don’t want you to misunderstand.”

“Misunderstand what?”

“What I—and Seowon—genuinely think is the best option.”

“Oh, and Seowon is in on this too?” You bellow. “Have you and Seowon just been conspiring behind my back the whole time?”

“Calm down.” Jungkook puts his hands on your shoulders, a chuckle inevitably escaping him. “I’m sorry for dragging it out. You should know I’m high key afraid of you, that’s why.”

“You should be.” You grumble.

Another chuckle, but he’s back to appearing anxious. You want to shout that this isn’t healthy, that you’re close to giving him a real reason to be afraid of you—yet once he blurts the confession out, you’re speechless, gawking at him and staggering backwards in complete shock. Perhaps you would have bolted as far away from him as possible if not for his solid grasp.

“What?” You hiss.

He swallows hard.

“I want you to marry me, ____.”

You don’t bolt away running. You shake off his hold on you though, and before he gets another word in, you’re hastily rushing inside your apartment and slamming the door to his face.

****

Jungkook was your first kiss.

It happened in a game of truth and dare. You were at a party of a mutual friend and when the bottle miserably pointed in Jungkook’s direction, the person who was tasked to think of his dare when it was his pick said that he dared him to do 7 minutes in heaven with you. 

He profusely refused at first, especially since Seowon was in the same party, but everybody began booing and next thing you know, Jungkook was agreeing as long as it was fine with you. When you nodded to make your consent apparent, your friends were quick to shove you both in the closet, some of them pulling Seowon back who was complaining how it wasn’t right to bully you into doing 7 minutes in heaven with Jungkook. They calmed him down once they bullied him into agreeing too.

“We don’t have to do anything,” Jungkook told you in the darkness, his breath fawning over your face. “You don’t have to feel pressured. It’s just a stupid game.”

You blushed.

Secretly, you were hoping that he’d kiss you or touch you. Who didn’t want to do anything with their crush at the age of 15? A lot can happen in 7 minutes. You were aware that sometimes people made out, went as far as third base, and although you didn’t want to go that far with Jungkook, you wanted something to happen while you were stuck in this small closet with him. There weren’t a lot of instances that put both of you in this kind of situation; you wished that you were brave enough to ask him to kiss you or do the first move yourself.

5 minutes in, Jungkook turned towards you.

“Is it true that Taehyung kissed you last week?”

You whipped your head so fast that you might have given yourself whiplash. “That’s—that’s not true. Where did you hear that?”

“During homeroom. Some girls were talking about it.”

Your cheeks burned. “Oh.”

“So, it’s not true?”

“No.” You shook your head. “I haven’t even had my first kiss yet.” You laughed weakly.

It was his turn to seem stunned. “You haven’t had your first kiss yet?”

You shook your head again, then realized he might not see you doing so. “Not yet.”

“Want me to change that?” he asked, grinning.

He said that with a boyish grin and teasing tone, but you sucked at social cues (plus, you really couldn’t see shit that much) that you started nodding.

“Okay,” you told him.

“Huh?”

“You can kiss me.”

“Oh, oh, shit—I didn’t—” He was blabbering, about to take back what he offered. “I mean, I was just joking but—”

You widen your eyes. “You were? Oh my God, I’m sorry, I thought you were—”

“No, it was my fault. That was a little out of line for me. I’m sorry.” He was laughing and you felt like burying yourself 6 feet under. “It was a stupid thing to say. But if you want me to kiss you, it’s cool.”

“It is?” Hope sparked within you.

“Yeah. It’ll just be a peck anyway.” You can tell he was smiling through his voice. “Just don’t tell Seowon because he might punch me in the face for kissing his sister.”

You cackled. “Deal.”

56 seconds before the 7 minutes were up, Jungkook leaned down to match your level and placed his lips on yours. 

****

You’re seething with rage, the embodiment of Godzilla, channeling the God of War, Ares, in your body; you harshly press Seowon’s number on your phone to call him and he answers after three rings.

“What’s up?”

“I will fucking murder you,” you snarl.

A beat. You hear shuffling. Then he answers, “you already talked with Jungkook?”

The nonchalance and calmness in his voice drives you to be more frustrated than you already are. “Yes, I have! What is wrong with you? Why would you plant that idea on his head?” You yell, not caring that your walls are thin and that your voice can probably be heard by the couple that lived next door. You’re feeling a mixture of anger, embarrassment, and every negative emotion that exists at the moment. You’re comparable to a bull who just saw the color red.

“____, it won’t be a big deal if you don’t make it to be.”

“Are you hearing yourself right now?”

“Did you even let Jungkook explain?”

“I don’t need him to spell everything out. I know why he’s asking me to marry him.”

“Then you know too that it’d be good for you.”

“Marrying him won’t be good for me.”

“Why not?”

“It just won’t!”

“You’ll get health insurance benefits that you don’t get with your current jobs. You can pay less rent once you move in at Jungkook’s place—there’s a huge chance he won’t even let you pay him while you stay there too. He’s away most of the time anyway, so staying there wouldn’t be a problem. Plus, you can start studying for a masters degree like you’ve always wanted.”

You groan. “Not like this. This is crazy.”

“The both of you can divorce once you’ve saved up a little. It really isn’t that complicated.”

“It’s a sham marriage!”

“It’s a sham marriage with Jungkook.”

“That doesn’t make it better.”

“Are you sure? Your grade school diary might disagree.”

“Oh my God, that’s fucking low of you to bring that up. You just gave me another reason to hate you.” You stomp around the living room, acting like a teenager because of your brother’s behavior. This isn’t the first time he revealed that he’s read your diary before; that doesn’t mean it’s less infuriating to be reminded that he has. “I swear, you better fucking sleeping with one eye open tonight. I’m choking you to death.”

Seowon laughs out loud. “Just marry him. He’s surprisingly amicable with the idea.”

“That’s because you’re pressuring him! I bet you and Mom devised this entire thing together.”

“Mom doesn’t know. To be fair, she’d probably have the same reaction as you. It’s all me and Jungkook.”

“Wow. You have two brains and yet none of you thought this was goddamn stupid?”

“It’s not stupid. It’s genius if you come to think of it,” he says. “Jungkook just wants to help you, dude. He wants to make sure you’ll be okay and all that shit. You’re the reason he filed for a two-week leave, did he tell you?”

Your heart does that jumping thing again. “No.”

“Well, he did. He’s on a break for two weeks because he wants to convince you to marry him and actually marry you within that time frame.”

“This is nuts.” You sigh, finally flopping down the sofa and rubbing your face with your free hand. “The both of you are nuts. How are you okay with this?”

“It’s Jungkook. I trust him. Don’t you?”

“Of course, I do, I just—” you cut yourself off and frown, “I just feel like it’s unfair for him. I’m marrying him because of military spouse benefits and what does he get?”

There’s a long pause, and you almost check your phone to see whether Seowon has already hung up on you or not.

“It’s better that Jungkook answers that question,” he tells you finally.

“Why? You can’t answer it on behalf of him?”

“Something like that.” You can imagine him shrugging. “All I know is that he’s genuinely concerned about your health and your financial status right now. So, just think about it, okay?”

“God, fuck it, fine. I’ll think about it.” You grimace.

You hang up and glance at the door.

You don’t think the conversation you just had with Seowon took that much time. The initial rush you had upon having your longtime crush propose to you is wearing off and you’re realizing that it was a dick move to literally slam the door right in Jungkook’s face earlier, leading you to stand up from your seat and look through the peephole to check if he’s still there.

He isn’t, which you sigh in relief at.

As you lean against the door and regulate your breathing, you think how funny it is that Seowon is right about one thing—and that was grade school you would have been delighted at the thought of getting married to Jungkook. He’s your dream guy; your parents loved him, his parents loved you, the both of you got along very well, and his personality and looks are everything that you’re looking for in a partner. It sucks that you live in a world where the only reason he wants to marry you is because he’s afraid you’ll die because of self-neglect. 

Your phone pings and you unlock the screen to look at the message that flashes on it.

Jungkook: hey, seowon just messaged me to say that you two already talked Jungkook: i’m sorry for jumping on you with a topic like that… Jungkook: i’m shit at confrontation lol Jungkook: also it’s the first time i’m proposing so give me some slack

You scoff at his audacity to joke about it this soon.

You: it’s okay You: i’m sorry too for what i did You: the answer is no btw

Jungkook: already??? Jungkook: let’s talk about it first

You: no need You: i don’t want to marry you

Jungkook: oof that’s harsh

You: sorry not sorry?

He doesn’t respond and you think you’re safe. Maybe Jungkook does take no for an answer and you’re confused because you’re a little disappointed that he’s not falling on his knees, begging you to marry him like what your imagination is supplying you.

However, after you took a shower and went to check your phone again, you see that Jungkook messaged you a few minutes ago in response to your last message.

Jungkook: give me 10 days and i’ll change your mind

You have the urge to go take a shower again because of how hot your body is feeling at the statement.

You: hate to break it to you but you’re not matthew mcconaughey

Jungkook: 🤣🤣🤣

****

It’s not part of Jungkook’s branding to chase a woman. Typically, women chase him; they chase him in every city and country that he gets stationed in, flirting with him and hoping that they’ll get the chance to take him home for the night for a mindblowing one-night stand. They never succeed though, for despite their pretty faces and sultry gestures, Jungkook only smiles and declines every offer, saying that he had a girl waiting back home that he loved very much.

He used to think that he only used that as an excuse because he’s not the type to hook up with every attractive girl he meets. There are times when he succumbs, when he gives into the temptation of a little fun, especially after a life threatening or highly stressful mission—but most of the time, he thinks he declines and use that pronouncement of his because his mind reverts him to the idea of you, to what would happen if he just gained the balls to ask you out.

Evidently, although asking you out and asking you to marry him are two completely different things, he’s a bit afraid that your answer will always be a hard no. It’s what you’ve been literally spelling out to him since the day he presented the idea, regardless of how he’s trying his best in swooning you or explaining how this is the perfect plan to help you gain an upper hand with your diagnosis.

“I’ll file a restraining order against you, I’m serious,” you say to him when he appears yet again outside the faculty room, waiting for you to gather your things and head home. You’re wearing a white button up shirt and pinstripe wide leg trousers, an outfit combination that he ogles at before he goes down to business.

“You wouldn’t.” He glares at you. He gestures for you to let him take your backpack, and despite what you said, you let him. “Also, what the fuck is in this thing? You’ll break your back if you keep using this.” He swings your backpack on one shoulder.

You laugh. “My laptop, its charger, a couple of notebooks, books, pens, then the outputs of my students.”

“Aren’t they supposed to submit virtually? What happened to Google Classroom?”

“I still use it, but sometimes I like to have their work printed out so I can write the comments better. How do you know Google Classroom?”

“I have a squadronmate whose kid uses it for class.”

“Ah.” You nod in understanding.

You two continue walking forward.

This has been your program for the past few days. Jungkook goes to the university you work at, he’ll wait outside, you’ll threaten him with something ridiculous, he’ll take your bag, he’ll offer to take you to dinner, you’ll decline, and then he’ll drive you home anyways. Before that routine ends, he’ll lean on your door frame and give you his best puppy eyes, asking you to marry him for the sake of your welfare, and you’ll scowl at him, insisting that you don’t need his help to survive.

“Dinner?” he asks, right on schedule.

You glance at him. “No. I want to go home and sleep for 12 hours.”

“Busy day?”

“Yep.”

“You know, if you marry me, you won’t have to work two jobs and overexert yourself.”

He doesn’t need to turn to you to know that you’re giving him a dirty look. “I won’t marry you, Jungkook.”

“Why not?”

“Because marriage doesn’t work that way.”

“It does. Billionaires do it all the time. The mafia does it too. It’s always been some kind of transaction.”

“Well, if I marry you, what do you get?”

“The assurance you’re taken care of.”

“That’s cheesy.”

You share a laugh and he grins.

“It’s true,” he says. “I’ll be fine as long as you are.”

He waits for you to quip back a reply, flickering his eyes to you when it takes longer than usual. Instead of the sneer he’s expecting, you appear to be flustered, an expression that is very recognizable for him who’s known you since forever—an expression that makes it too obvious for Jungkook that the crush you had on him that he thought has been long gone was still there. He’s been seeing it a lot lately, particularly when he’s uttering lines that sound flirtatious on purpose; he’s positive that you’ll threaten to kill him when you discover that he basks on the fact that he can still make you all flustered and cute, which encourages him to do and say anything that would elicit a reaction from you. Was it unethical to seduce you into marrying him? He might have to rethink that part too.

Reaching the parking lot, he unlocks the doors to his vehicle and places your bag inside the backseat. He watches you walk around the car, about to go to the passenger’s side, but then you wobble a bit and his attempt to get inside is instantly forgotten.

“Hey,” he strides to where you are, gazing at you as you now hold onto the hood, “you alright?”

You raise your chin up. “Kook, can you get my bag?”

Jungkook doesn’t need to be told twice. He’s swinging the door again and getting your bag from the other end of the backseat while you get on the passenger’s seat, keeping the door wide and placing your legs outside, your feet planted on the concrete.

“What do you need?” he asks, crouching in front of you and zipping the bag open.

“Glucometer.”

He halts. “What does that look like?”

“It’s in the yellow bag. There.” You point at it right when he rummages through a certain part.

He brings it out and you take it from his grasp. Your movements are sluggish but he can discern that you’re doing your best not to be too slow; he’d present to help but he knows that he might prolong what you’re doing due to his cluelessness, so he just observes, noting how you’re pricking your finger with a device and then pressing it lightly to the glucometer which shows that your blood sugar is low.

“Blue bag,” you mutter to him and he finds it faster than the last one.

It’s the insulin this time. You grab the unopened syringe, rip it out from its packet, insert it to the vial of insulin—then your hand shakes, preventing you from continuing.

“Let me do it,” he says.

You don’t fight him, you just slump against the seat as Jungkook picks up from where you left, and the moment he administers the insulin through your shoulder, a huge and long exhale escapes you.

“How are you feeling?” he whispers. He didn’t notice that he was holding his breath the entire duration of the scene.

Another sigh. “Better.”

“Does this happen a lot?”

You seem to hesitate. “Not a lot. Just when life gets a bit too hectic.”

“____—”

“Just take me home.” You don’t give him the chance to lecture you. “Please, Jungkook.”

Defeated, he nods. “Alright.”

“Thank you.”

He helps you position yourself properly on the passenger’s seat. “But we’re talking about this at your place.”

Before you can protest, he closes the door.

****

Lee Hyunwoo was the name of the guy that you brought home for Christmas Eve eight years ago. It was the first time that you did, and Jungkook hated how Hyunwoo was considerably handsome, intelligent, and kind—the exact kind of person he always imagined you deserved.

In the short time Hyunwoo spent with theirs and your family that night, everybody loved him and was already inviting him to the next gathering, all the while Jungkook avoided him at every cost, puzzled by this strong dislike he was feeling for your guest. He was annoyed at the manner in which Hyunwoo had an arm around your waist the entire evening, how you grinned up to him, eyes sparkling and all that shit. Hell, you used to look at him like that.

“Honey, can you get the mango float we have in our freezer?” Jungkook heard your mother tell you, and without thinking, he stood up from his chair and made a beeline to where you were, telling you he’d accompany you to your house.

“That’s fine,” you told him. “It’s literally next door.”

“Yeah, but it might be heavy.”

“It’s not.”

“Better safe than sorry.”

You rolled your eyes and agreed then, excusing yourself from Hyunwoo who was in an engaged conversation with Seowon. The pair were geeking out because of their mutual love for the MCU and the next film slated to be released the following year.

Upon arriving at your home, you dashed to the kitchen with Jungkook trudging behind you. He wasn’t sure what his next course of action should be now; all he wanted was some alone time with you, away from the presence of that college boyfriend of yours, but now that he had that, he couldn’t think of anything that he wanted to say or do. He wasn’t even sure why he was feeling a bit jealous—was it because of that saying? Wherein people are bound to want what they can’t have? Or was it that you only appreciate what you had when you’ve already lost it?

“How long have you and Hyunwoo been dating?” he asked, leaning against the counter as you pulled your freezer open.

“Four months, I think.”

“Four months? And you already brought him home?”

You snorted at his tone. “His family is in another country so I thought it’d be nice to invite him.”

“You must really like him then.”

“Yeah, but I’m not in love with him or anything.” You placed the mango float on the space beside Jungkook on the counter. “He’s nice, and he likes me too.”

“Does he treat you well?”

You flashed your eyes at him, amusement dancing in them. “What’s with that question?”

“What’s with it?”

“Nothing, it’s just that…” you trailed, a smirk etched on your face. “Wait a minute, are you… you can’t possibly—” Jungkook was widening his eyes, ready to deny your accusation once you questioned whether he was jealous of Hyunwoo or not— “are you pulling an overprotective brother skit on me, Kook?”

Fuck, thank God, he thought.

“I prefer ‘overprotective friend skit’,” he said.

“That doesn’t have a nice ring to it.”

“But I’m not your brother.”

“You don’t have to be, I’m just saying that you and Seowon have been acting similar since Hyunwoo and I arrived.”

“Nonsense. Seowon likes him.”

“Oh, so you don’t?”

He pressed his lips into a tight line.

“Did you just admit that you don’t like Hyunwoo?” you asked, chuckling. He was grateful that you didn’t seem to be offended by it.

“I didn’t say I didn’t like him.”

“Instead you implied it.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You kinda did.”

He heard you laugh and he couldn’t help but allow himself to laugh as well.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “Maybe I’m just not used to you dating anyone. You are chronically single.”

“Can’t say you’re wrong.” You snorted and picked up from the mango float, marching back to his house and gesturing for him to follow you.

He did, no words spoken between the both of you once more. Though when you were entering their place again, with Jungkook holding the door open for you, he mentioned something he never reckoned he’d have the guts to mention out loud.

“When you open my gift,” he began, “don’t do it in front of Hyunwoo, okay?”

“Why not?” You weren’t paying attention to where you were going, intrigued by his warning.

“He might not like it. You’ll see.”

That night, at the comfort of your bedroom, Hyunwoo nowhere near but instead sleeping at the coach downstairs in your living room, you opened Jungkook’s gift and saw that it was a necklace with your birth flower as its pendant.

You smiled, rolling your eyes to yourself, and slept with that giddy look never leaving your face.

****

“Not so fast,” Jungkook grunts.

Did he think that you were going to be less difficult since he was helpful earlier? Yeah, he did. He likes to think that if it wasn’t for him, you would have taken longer in injecting yourself with insulin, so he at least wanted a thank you in the form of your willingness to have an adult conversation with him tonight. However, that clearly isn’t the case because when he walked you up to your apartment like he always did, you’re attempting to lock him out, shutting the door as fast as you can once you’re inside, thus trying to prevent him from initiating that talk he wanted the two of you to have.

“Seriously?” He successfully pries the door open and you scowl at him.

“Jungkook—”

“No, you don’t get to reason your way out of this. I’m done hearing you out. It’s your turn to listen to me.” He steps inside your apartment.

You groan, striding to the sofa and throwing your bag there. “You can’t force me to marry you.”

“Is marrying me so fucking bad that you can’t get over it for health insurance benefits that can really help you?” He demands, infuriated. 

“That’s not the issue.”

“Then what is?”

“You can get arrested!” you exclaim. “And so can I! Does that not freak you out?”

“We’ll only get arrested if we get caught.”

“I’m not willing to take the risk.”

“I’m not willing to see you die.”

You scoff out a laugh. “Who the fuck said anything about dying? I’m not dying.”

“You almost passed out on me. You almost—”

“It’s an error on my part, I admit.” You sigh. “When I get busy and preoccupied, sometimes I forget to check my sugar levels regularly throughout the day. I’m sorry.”

“And you expect to be convinced that you have everything handled?”

“God, I’m not a child. Stop treating me like I can’t do shit for myself.”

“Please, ___,” he approaches you with the most pleading expression he can muster, and he watches as your hard expression crumbles, “just accept my help. It’s really not a big deal—you won’t even see me often, so keeping up with the whole marriage ploy wouldn’t be difficult. We’ll divorce in two years, we can pretend we never got married after that.”

“You just don’t get it, don’t you?”

“What do I not get? If you think I don’t understand something, then explain it to me—”

“I can’t marry you,” you say. You do so like it’s final, like there’s no point in arguing with you because he can never change your stand on this. As he’s pleading with his eyes to urge you to agree, you’re communicating with your eyes in a similar way that’s wishing he would just drop this. “It’s wrong.”

His eyebrows furrow. “This isn’t the time to go on your high horse and decide what’s wrong and what’s not. It’s a fraudulent marriage—of course, it’ll be wrong to some degree.”

“No, I mean…” You turn away from him, rubbing your face in exhaustion. “It’d be wrong of me to marry you. I’m taking advantage of you if I do, and I don’t like that.”

Jungkook shakes his head, frustration worsening at the childlike excuse. Surely, you weren’t that naive, were you? “You’re not. I’m not doing this against my own will. Besides, we get extra pay just for being married. If it makes you feel better, I won’t split it with you.”

“That won’t make me feel better.”

“Then what will?”

You flop down on the coach and lean back, closing your eyes. He knows he’s being a pain in the ass but he can’t just stand here and do nothing. He thinks he’s already come too far in convincing you, he isn’t going to back out now. Every single day spent together, he can feel you warming up to the idea of marrying him for health insurance. Your connection and entirety of your relationship has been off the charts recently that it’ll be harder for him not to be assured that before he leaves for his job, you’ll be taken care off.

Jungkook goes to the spot beside you, sitting down. Your knees bump together, he keeps on gazing at you, waiting for you to focus on him; a minute passes and his gaze moves to your hand that’s laying on the small space between you.

Without overthinking, he stretches out and clasps it, allowing his fingers to play with yours that finally captures your attention. The moment he glances up, he sees that you’re staring at him and he doesn’t let go, he even smiles, a quiet promise that he’s always willing to listen to whatever you want to tell him.

You hesitantly smile back. “You know,” your eyes train back to your intertwined fingers, Jungkook reveling in the warmth of your skin, gaining more confidence in acting out his feelings, “there was a time wherein I would have said yes immediately if you asked me to marry you.”

He smirks, can’t deny how hearing that inflates his ego a bit although this route in the conversation isn’t where he expected to go. “What changed?”

“For one, I grew up.”

“Ouch.”

You laugh. Then you stay quiet for a while before speaking. “Can I confess something?”

That piques his interest. “Anything.”

“But you have to promise not to make fun of me.”

“That’s impossible.” He teases. “What is it?”

You stall, readjusting your position so that you can directly face him. Jungkook doesn’t let go of your hand, he keeps it in his grasp, his thumb rubbing along the expanse of your knuckles.

“I like you, Jungkook. I really really do,” you finally say and he blinks, startled.

It shouldn’t surprise him, considering that it’s been long established that he knew of your crush already, though he doesn’t seem to have anticipated for you to boldly admit it when all these years, it’s only been some kind of unspoken understanding that neither of you downright acknowledged.

You continue speaking. “In fact, I like you so much that maybe it developed into love at some point—I’m not sure. I’m at this stage of no longer being afraid of what I feel, I think? Most of the time, I just let it occur like it’s something so natural. Like it’s a feeling that I can never get away from? Like whatever I do, there’s no way to shake you.” You chuckle half-heartedly. “Though never in a million years would I have thought that I’d confess all of this. What for anyway? I don’t want you to be burdened with what my teenage heart couldn’t rub out.”

His mind is racing; hundred thoughts, hundred scenarios, hundred experiences he’s spent with you since the day you met. Jungkook never realized how much he needed you to say that you liked him—that maybe you even loved him—until he heard it from your very mouth that you did, causing every inhibition and doubt he had to vanish. Now, he only wants to engulf you in an embrace and shout Yes, I feel the same way! Sorry for being a fucking corward and not doing this first!

He would have done all of that in a flash if it didn’t appear that you still had something to say. Based on your rather constipated posture and the hand he’s holding that’s becoming clammy, he discerns that you’re just in the first part of what you wanted to admit.

“Actually, that’s also why I can’t let myself marry you,” you say. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but I don’t know… it feels really icky somehow. I feel like I’m holding you hostage, or that I’m tricking you because of an ulterior motive, or that I’m defying the laws of the universe by having the chance to marry you. I’m not sure. I just know that I don’t want to marry you if it means I’ll only get to do so because you think you’re doing me a huge favor. I don’t want to be your charity case, Kook—I deserve to be more than that, you know? I’m not traditional or whatever but if it’s not for love, I’m not keen on getting married.” You abruptly pull away from his clutch, embarrassment washing on your features by what you stated. “Plus, two years might not be that long but what happens when you meet someone and you like her? How can you explain that you’re only married to me because I need it for my medication? It’ll just be unnecessarily messy. I don’t want to hold you back from those kinds of things. I don’t want to be a hindrance.”

That’s his cue. That’s when he knows he’s supposed to kiss you and take your breath away, to admit that he’s certain that he has loved you since that one time when he was in the Naval Academy and although the training was hard as fuck, the thought of you gave him strength and he didn’t want to see anyone as much as he wanted to see you after—that when you and Seowon visited him, that familiar urge to have you alone was all he felt the entire time, solidifying the idea that perhaps he didn’t just see you as a friend.

“You’re unbelievably dense, ___,” he murmurs, smirking at the play of events, and you glance at him, expression showing disbelief that he’s somehow treating this matter lightly.

“What?”

“Do you honestly think I go around and offer marriage to every woman out there who can benefit from being a military spouse? Do you think I’m that generous? I’m not. I wouldn’t ask anyone to marry me for the same reason if they weren’t important to me—or if I didn’t like them. I’m not that much of a saint,” he adds. “I mean, I’m taking a two-week break to convince you to marry me. I’m spending time with you every single day. I’m driving for almost an hour and a half, enduring the traffic to get from my apartment to the university you work in to do that—and you think this is because I want to be charitable?”

Silence. Your forehead wrinkles. He thinks you’re still not getting the point.

“I’m in love with you, ____,” Jungkook says.

Your breath hitches in your throat. You’re opening your mouth, then closing it, then opening it again, then pressing it into a thin line. He thinks you look cute, being taken aback like this, and he’s wishing that he’s done this sooner so that the last five days of him chasing you around like a lost puppy was spent with talking more about what’s possibly waiting for yours and his relationship next.

“Are you serious?” you ask after what seems like forever. “Or are you just saying that because you’re that desperate to have me on board with the whole fraudulent marriage thing?”

“God—” He’s inching closer to you now, laughing, watching your lips twitch at his reaction— “I’m convinced that you were born into this earth to drive me fucking crazy.”

And just like that, he no longer restrains himself from kissing you.

It takes you a few good seconds before you will yourself to move. You can’t seem to process the reality of Jungkook admitting that he was in love with you and then taking the liberty to plant his lips on yours. You’re not complaining, of course, but you are a bit overwhelmed that it literally makes you freeze, unaware of what you’re supposed to do now that your fantasies are coming into life.

However, once you feel him angle his head to the side, doing so to deepen the kiss, your reflexes kick in and you’re kissing him back, encircling your arms around his neck and leaning towards him, Jungkook sighing in what appears to be relief. He grips your hips to support you as you try to straddle him, but your movements are so clumsy that you end up sprawling against his chest instead, perched on a leg of his that provides pleasure on the spot you need him the most. He chuckles at your lack of gracefulness, gliding his lips to your cheek and down to your jaw, nipping.

“This okay?” he whispers with a palm drifting to your bottom.

You nod and Jungkook’s mouth is back on yours in an instant. He squeezes your ass, takes his time in fondling with it, cheekily slapping whenever you get brave yourself and push your tongue past his lips, before he skims his hand lower to your thigh and signals for you to mount him. Upon being properly sat on his lap, you get an immediate feel of his hard length through his jeans, prompting your imagination to run wild and induce the filthiest things he can do to you if neither of you stops.

“Holy shit,” he curses, your kisses roaming to the base of his throat where you lap and suck.

It becomes a dirty pattern for a while. The both of you will take a brief pause from making out to remove a piece of clothing or kiss every other exposed skin there is: the cheek, the jaw, the neck, the collarbones, the shoulders. Then one of you hauls the other back for another passionate kiss, hands skating everywhere on your bodies, sounds of arousal echoing inside the room; you’re starting to get lightheaded but you’re positive it’s not because of your sugar levels running low.

“I hate that it took us so long to get to this point,” he mutters.

You grin. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. I’m the man—I should have confessed long ago.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know. ‘Was afraid to lose you, I guess.” He draws his head back and admires your blissed out expression. “But then when Seowon told me you had diabetes, I panicked and thought that I might lose you either way.”

You go back to making out, Jungkook guiding your hips in grinding on his clothed length. It’s addictive—the intimate feel of him, how he’s not shy in making sure you know how much he’s craving to be as close to you as you are to him. You think you can spend the whole night just doing this and be okay with it.

“Fuck, Kook,” you groan against his mouth, a hand descending to his stomach and to his manhood, “you’re so… so fuckin’ hard.”

You’re palming him now, tracing the erection evident under his boxers.

He lets out a grunt. “Yeah, baby, I know.”

“Do you… do you want me—” You’re breathless, not able to continue whatever it is that you want to say.

He understands you just fine though. “No.” He shakes his head. “Don’t do anything.”

You’re not sure what Jungkook means by that. How are you supposed to do nothing when you want to do everything to him? You soon comprehend what he means when he guides you to lay down on the sofa, when his lips skim lower and lower, passing your breasts, giving them the attention they deserve, until he goes lower than that and discards your underwear, kissing you in between your legs.

It’s like he’s releasing all the pent up emotions he’s been keeping all these years. His tongue and fingers are relentless, his voice is telling you that he’s eager to coax an orgasm out of you, and as he lifts himself up to return to his previous position, face hovering yours, you’re positive that he’ll get everything he wants because without a doubt you’ll give him everything he wants from you too. Hell, if he uses this opportunity to ask you to marry him again, you might answer yes straight away, no longer bearing in mind the worries you expressed to him earlier.

Although did that even matter anymore? Jungkook said he loved you. He said you drove him crazy. You never thought you’d come to see the day he’d utter those words but here you are. The man of your dreams is kissing you, pleasing you, and looking damn enthusiastic as he does all of that.

“Last chance to stop me,” Jungkook teases. His eyes are glassy and you can feel his cock nudging on your thigh.

You giggle, bringing his head closer to press another long kiss on those pink and plump lips of his. “Please never stop.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“I’m going to take you up on that.”

“Please do.”

After this night, you’re certain that you’ll never allow yourself to be with another man aside from Jungkook. At the back of your head, you always thought that you were his, regardless if that wasn’t true or that there was no real relationship to prove that—however, at this moment, as he thrusts in and out languidly, you unquestionably know that you’re his. You belong to him now and he belongs to you; he lets you know through his love-filled gaze, his passionate kisses, and the manner wherein he moans your name.

“I love you,” he says, like he’s still in deep longing for your touch and affection.

You hum, tangling your fingers through the strands of his hair. “I love you, Kook.” You stare at his eyes. “I can’t remember a time I didn’t.”

A boyish grin erupts on his features.

Time passes by quickly. In a few more of his kisses, of the intoxicating slam of his hips, of his seductive whimpers, you’re coming beneath him, Jungkook pulling out and jerking his length until he too comes, his seed landing on the base of your tummy. You have the nerve to giggle at that, grinning at him with low-lidded eyes, and Jungkook hastily wipes his cum off your skin, attacking you with another passionate kiss that leaves you breathless.

“There’s no way you’re not marrying me after this,” he murmurs.

You teasingly graze your teeth on his bottom lip. “I’ll think about it.”

He groans. “Don’t think about it. Just say yes.”

“At least let me sleep on it, Kook.”

“Fuck—fine.” He grabs your sides and pulls you flush against his body. “Guess I’ll have to keep on convincing you until you agree.”

****

“God, why is this so difficult?” Jungkook whines, keeping you in his embrace, head tucked between your cheek and shoulder.

The air is very humid and Jungkook’s in his naval aviator uniform, which doesn’t look cool in a sense that air is properly flowing through the material. He doesn’t care though, doesn’t care that it’s sticking to his skin as he refuses to let you go, not even when you complain playfully.

“Kook, I’m fucking sweaty.”

“I don’t care.”

You laugh. 

He’s leaving to return to his duty and you’re here with him outside the base before he enters, being with him until the last possible minute because that’s how much of a good wife you are.

Yes, you and Jungkook did get married. Three days ago in fact, at the city hall’s courtroom. Neither of you invited your parents; they didn’t know about the occasion and you refused to tell them, afraid that they may be critical about yours and his choices when they discover the true reason why you’re rushing to be wed. The only people that remained to be aware of it was Seowon and his girlfriend, Winnie, who served as the witnesses, which was fine by you. In your understanding, this was just for the papers and your health, and not the real deal yet to be celebrated lavishly.

“I’ll propose to you again after a couple of years,” Jungkook promised after the ceremony. “Let’s renew our vows and I’ll give you an amazing wedding.”

You would have told him that there was no need, but who were you kidding? You did want a proper wedding with Jungkook. The previous week didn’t even feel like you were newlyweds. Yes, the both of you compacted all of the dates you could have if one of you weren’t such a chicken in five days, and yes, though the honeymoon stage was experienced and practiced—it was only because you were a new couple who after years of hiding their feelings for one another, was now finally free to express it as much as they desired.

“Call me everyday?” you ask when he finally pulls back, Jungkook pecking your lips one more time.

“Definitely.” He smiles. “Visit me whenever possible?”

“Of course.” You kiss him too.

His smile transforms into a grin. “Take care of yourself, alright? Keep me updated all the time. No sugarcoating allowed.”

“Yes, Lieutenant.”

Rolling his eyes, he gives you another kiss and engulfs you in a tight hug, lifting you off the ground that causes you to giggle.

“Okay, pack it up, love birds!” Seowon shouts.

The two of you turn to your brother who’s leaning on his car, the vehicle that was used to transport the three of you today. You’re still in the middle of moving your belongings at Jungkook’s place and Seowon was kind enough to volunteer helping, always dubious that you could do stuff on your own. Despite your reluctance, you let him assist you, mostly because you’re trying to make a conscious effort in not upsetting him again.

Let’s just say that when the judge hailed you husband and wife at the civil wedding, Seowon wasn’t thrilled to see that the kiss shared between you and Jungkook wasn’t as fake as the supposed sham marriage, leading him to the conclusion that in the middle of Jungkook’s ruse of convincing you to be his wife, something must have happened that led to your approval and that rather 18+ rated kiss. Mostly though, he’s just offended that neither of you thought of telling him that you were an official couple before the wedding.

Jungkook unwillingly places you down.

“I think I need to go,” you say.

He nods with a sigh. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too.”

“Call you tomorrow?”

“Yes.” You affectionately caress his cheek, bringing his face down for the very very very last kiss. 

He leans into it. “Fuck, I don’t want to leave.”

“Seriously—hurry up!” Seowon shouts and you pull back.

“I will kill him,” you tell Jungkook.

“He’s your brother,” he says. “And now, my brother-in-law, so I can’t let you do that.”

“That might be your very first red flag, Jungkook, insinuating that you’re choosing my brother over me.” You cross your arms. “Tell me, if the both of us were drowning, would you save me or Seowon?”

“You,” he answers without missing a beat.

You narrow your eyes. “Is that the truth?”

“Of course. Seowon would probably undrown himself anyway and you’re shit at swimming. It’s an easy choice.”

You punch him hard on the shoulder and he feigns hurt, snickering. “For the record, I don’t think anyone can ‘undrown’ themselves—but fine, you pass the test.”

Jungkook faces Seowon’s direction and does a final salute, your brother returning it swiftly, and just like that, you and him share your last farewells. You watch as he goes through the entrance of the base and sends you a wave of goodbye; you weakly copy the gesture and stand there for a few seconds, just watching him fade from your view the further he trudges inside. You don’t think saying goodbye to him ever felt this heavy, and you blame it on the fact that after all this is the first time you’re saying goodbye to him with the assurance that he loves you too—and that alone weighs millions.

You spin on your heel and go to Seowon who’s already in the driver’s seat. As soon as you get in and wear your seat belt, he’s giving you a dirty look.

“What?” you ask.

“Please never do that in front of me again.”

His statement makes you smirk. “Why? Didn’t you want this?”

“Want what?”

“Me and Jungkook to be together.”

“When on earth did I say that?”

“You previously admitted that you were lowkey playing cupid by suggesting that Jungkook marry me for health insurance.”

A short pause. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I have to watch you two reenact a porno every fucking time.”

“We’re not—”

“You are. Don’t deny it.” He grumbles. “God, every time I see you two, it’s like I’m Ross from that one Friends episode where he accidentally sees Monica and Chandler doing it from the window of his apartment.”

“Yeah, I remember that.” You laugh. “In my defense, you haven’t seen me and Jungkook actually do the deed so—”

“Wait, so the two of you have?”

Your expression drops. His tone is approaching older brother protectiveness territory and you’re quick to attempt diffusing the situation. “I will not dive into that. All I’m going to say is that I’m a grown adult and so is Jungkook.”

He grimaces before starting the engine. “Yeah, never dive into that. I don’t need to hear the details.”

You share a laugh and then silence fills the car.

You press your lips together, looking at him while he backs out from the parking spot. “Hey, thanks, by the way. For driving today, and for offering to help me later, and maybe for also never minding your own business.”

You recall how Seowon was the one who couldn’t stop worrying about you and finding a solution when you told your family that you had type 1 diabetes. Your parents were concerned, they pestered you for months to force you to accept financial assistance from them, but they gave up soon after. Seowon though? He never did. He persisted through every outburst you had; he tolerated your bitchiness and your dirty looks all the time. Out of everyone in your life, you always felt like regardless of how stubborn and prideful you could be, Seowon was worse—in the best way possible.

A crooked smile illuminates his face. “You’re my kid sister. It’s my job to never let you experience peace in your whole life.”

You scoff. “Well, you’re damn great at what you do.”

When you reach Jungkook’s apartment, unloading the boxes and arranging your stuff to its designated places, your heart swells in happiness as the reality sinks in that your life is heading in the right direction after months of feeling hopeless. It drives you to be more thankful to the little things, to the people who were always by your side, to your previous circumstance that although wasn’t ideal was still manageable. A lot don’t get to have that kind of privilege and you promise yourself that you’ll make an effort to find more things to be grateful about from this day forward.

“Oh, I forgot to mention,” Seowon approaches in the middle of you arranging your books on Jungkook’s near to empty shelf, “Winnie wanted to give you this. She would have handed it over herself but she’s going to be busy for the next few days.”

You take the frame from his hand and see that it’s the picture Winnie took of you and Jungkook after the ceremony. It’s in the restaurant that you ate at to celebrate the civil wedding. Jungkook was grinning at you with an arm around on the backrest of your chair, you were leaning towards him, smiling at the camera—and the absolute selling point of why this was the best picture ever taken was because of how cake icing was scattered on your faces, places on spots in an artistic manner like it was planted there on purpose for the picture and not because the both of you were being silly that instance.

You think it showcases your relationship with Jungkook marvelously. It’s playful, it’s sweet, and most of all, it demonstrates how you two are clearly great friends.

“This is so beautiful, Seowon,” you say.

You immediately send Winnie a heartfelt thank you message for the gift and continue to take a photo of the frame, sending it to Jungkook as well.

Once you hit send, you type out a message to accompany it.

You: look how cute we look 🥹

You’re certain it’ll take hours before he replies so you keep your phone again, going back to staring at the picture which is now placed on one of the shelves. It’s the sole picture frame you have with Jungkook. In fact, it’s the only picture that Jungkook has in his apartment, and you like to think that this might be the mark of the new beginning you’ll have with him. Even though your relationship wouldn’t be traditionally explored given his occupation and how he’s most likely going to be away a lot, you don’t mind.

If there’s one thing you really believe in, it’s that waiting for Jungkook—whether consciously or unconsciously—always brings out the best outcomes.

thank you for reading! as i live for positive reinforcement, feedback is always appreciated ♡

[vanesycho]

Summary:A little warning to your boyfriend who is insecure about his face.

warning:smut, face riding, pussy eating

a/n: @ldh0000 hope you like it luv😔🫶🏻 really obsessed with him🙏🏻

wc:0,9k

"Baby, aren't you ready yet?" Chan spoke as he entered the room and looked at you doing your makeup in front of the mirror, you looked at him in the mirror and spoke "No, I'm sorry this is taking so long." Chan walked over to you and leaned over the mirror, fixed his hair "Wow, today I'm declaring myself the ugliest man in the world." You put down your makeup without reacting to his 'joke' and turned to him, saw that he's smiling at you "How many times do we have to talk about not saying things like that?" He looked at your furrowed eyebrows and chuckled, kissed your cheek "Oh, don't take it seriously honey. It was just a joke. I mean… when I look at myself, well… I'm just exaggerating a bit."

You rolled your eyes and talked more to yourself as you did your makeup "It pisses me off that you don't realize how good you really look. I can't understand all your insecurities." he folded his arms and continued to listen to you as the smile on his face grew "I wonder how you dare to call yourself ugly when your handsome face and amazing body drive me crazy. I could even sit on your face and praise you for hours just to prove how beautiful you are, stupid." He raised his eyebrows questioningly and let out a chuckle, then you realized what you said and turned your head to him and made him laugh.

"Okay I didn't expect this much, to be honest. But I can't say I didn't like it." he leaned towards you and spoke against your lips "Should we cancel today's plans? So you can sit on my face and I won't joke about my looks again." You licked your dry lips, the thought of it making you clench your legs together. "Promise?" He smiled and held out his hand. "I promise." You took his hand and stood up, watching Chan take off his shirt and lie down on the bed. You now realized you were holding your breath and let out a deep breath. Chan, who was looking down at you, bit his lower lip excitedly and patted his lap. "Take off your clothes and come here," he didn't even have to repeat.

Your panties were on the floor in a short while and you were now on his lap, he gripped your hips tightly and let out a deep groan as he pressed you against him. "You look so beautiful." You smiled at the compliment you received. "You should see yourself. God...I have the most beautiful boyfriend." He gave a shy smile and pressed you back against him. "Let me taste you, I can tell how wet you are even through my clothes, fuck." You lifted your hips and moved forward a little more, stopping when you got to his face, Chan placed his hands on your legs and gave your clit a small lick first. When this unexpected move made your hips move away from his face, Chan tightened his grip and made you sit down completely.

His tongue started licking your hole, as you felt his big nose, made you let out a loud moan at the same time. "C-chris..Y-yes- you're so good.." The compliment he received excited Chan instantly and he continued his tongue strokes. Your moans showed that he was doing a good job, and with the confidence that came from it, he took care of your entire pussy. You ran a hand through his hair, begging for more. “Ride my face baby, I know you want it. Make your boyfriend happy by giving him what he wants.” You started to move your hips slowly, Chan’s face was almost completely covered with your juices, you moaned in pleasure as he sent a muffled moan into your pussy. “Please- you’re so good yes keep going- f-fuck I’m so close.” Chan didn’t care if he was out of breath at that moment, he didn’t stop or slow down his movements, what mattered right now was for you to cum on his beautiful face and he wanted it right now. Your moans were now like tears, your hips roamed over his face, Chan’s tongue was enough to destroy your hole. First he licked it all over and then he guided it to your hole and pushed it inside, while he helped you ride his nose where it was right next to your clit. Your hips were still moving to your face, you let your clenched body relax as you finally came. The cum that was dripping from Chan’s chin started to run down his neck. He didn't let you get up, he wanted to clean up every bit of liquid himself.

When he finally loosened his grip on your legs you shifted to the side and looked at him, swallowed as you looked at his face that was still full of your juices. “Fuck, you’re beautiful even when you’re this messed up.” He laughed at your hypnotic tone and looked away from you for a moment. “Thank you baby. Ah..if that’s what I’m going to have to go through every time I’m insecure, I’m okay with that.” You laughed and punched him lightly in the chest. “No, you promised.” He caught the spot you hit and a laugh echoed through the room. Chan leaned in and kissed your head. “I know, I’ll keep my promise…If you sat on my face every time I wanted?” You nodded, he smiled at that. “Good. Come back now, I’m not done with you.”

[lcriedlastnight]

Hi can i pls request a lando x reader where he mentions in many interviews that he wants an army of kids and the camara always pans to other drivers teasing reader

ofc you can baby <33 thanks for helping me celebrate! here's that kiss i promised xoxo

requests are open!

852 words.

it wasn't unknown that lando wanted kids. it's not like he went out of his way to to talk about having children either, he just went on half an hour tangents anytime an interviewer brought up the topic is all. you didn't find out just how many until you decided to ask him about it one night, not long after lando had gotten slandered on twitter for being 'obsessed' with having a mini version of himself running around.

"so.. you know how you've said you want kids?" you start, voice a little hesitant knowing he was a bit peeved about the bullying he was getting online for that very thing. if looks could kill you swear you would be a dead girl.

"don't you start." he groans, eyes rolling so hard to the of his head you thought they may get stuck.

lando, who had just gotten ready for bed, slips in beside you and you immediately know he's not actually pissed off at you because he is pulling your arm to get you as close to him as he physically could.

"i don't mean it like that, i just wanted to ask you about it." lando watches as you strain your neck up to be able to see his reaction from your very comfortable position on his chest. it does bring the smallest of smiles to his lips.

with a joking sigh he asks "what do you want to know?".

"well, i guess the most important one is-"

"if i want them with you?" lando interrupts, sending your brows into your hairline. you smack him on the back of the head and he just laughs like it was actually funny. dickhead.

"no! how many you want. but now i don't want any with you if they're going to turn out like you." you cross your arms over your chest, trying to convince him you actually were in a huff. a strong hand running down your front seconds after ruins your plans for any further annoyance though.

lando hums in thought before he answers your question. his hand now drawing random shapes on your hip bone.

"you're going to hate me when i say this, but i only really wanted a few maybe two max? but being with you? i want minimum four."

your gasp makes him wince. you're shocked, there is no way he is actually being serious. you tell him as much but he shakes his head and assures you just how serious he is.

"honestly baby. i want a big family with you."

his words may or may not rile you and you guys maybe get started on that big family that night, but you don't kiss and tell..

˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱

lando wasn't to hold back on his thoughts or feelings and with his rants about wanting to start a family were proof of this, well you had thought so. the next time you're at the paddock is the next time he's asked about starting a family. you're watching from the side with max and oscar as he gets interviewed and you can see the say his whole face lights up at the question, as if racing was a chore he was getting forced to do every few weekends and not the second favourite part of his life.

lando takes a quick glance in your direction before he starts and it's like your conversation on the topic opened the floodgates in lando's mind as he reveals his every thought on having a baby or two or ten.

"me and my girlfriend were talking about this and it made me realise i want a full on norris army of children behind me. i want minimum four with my girl. ideally two of each but wouldn't even complain if all i had was girls because then that means that there would be so much more of my girl out there in the world, and little parts of me i guess too." lando's smile is splitting and the interviewer smiles back at him, loving seeing him being so open and honest about it.

"would you encourage your little ones to get involved in karting and racing?" she enquires. you can already picture taking your imaginary children along to watch lando in his races. it does make your heart skip a beat or two.

as the interview continues, unbeknown to you and the other two drivers who are making kissy faces at pretending to cradle a child in their arms just to tease you and how much lando was infatuated with the idea of kids with you, the camera pans in your direction to get a nice reaction shot to your boyfriend's words.

all they capture is your bright red face, from the teasing and lando blunt words, and the boys childish behaviour.

that night is then filled with lando teasing (and comforting) you as it was now your turn to get teased on twitter, millions of fans already making your reaction a meme. you knew you'd never live it down and a small part of you was excited to explain the video and reaction picture to those future kids.

[babyleostuff]

─ PINK RIBBONS

𝜗𝜚 THEME: fluff, domesticity, you being jeonghan's whole world (mention of the military) 𝜗𝜚 PAIRING: idol!jeonghan x fem!reader 𝜗𝜚 WORD COUNT: 792

natalia's note: idc if this is too dramatic, i don't want jeonghan to go

⦗💌 ⦘your favourite past time? playing with your boyfriend's hair, duh. sadly, it's the last time you get to do it for the next two years.

“here,” jeonghan drops a bunch of… somethings in your lap and sits down on the fluffy rug you bought last month, his back facing you. 

your boyfriend’s randomness is nothing new; even before you began dating, you quickly found out that yoon jeonghan was an unpredictable man. but no matter how much time has passed since you agreed to be his girlfriend, you are still taken aback each and every time he decides to do something out of the blue in his jeonghan fashion. 

you quickly grew to love his randomness, though. it’s like being surprised in the best ways possible.

“what,” you pick up a packet of colourful hair ties and hair pins, “what do you want me to do with those?”.  

jeonghan turns around and looks up to meet your eyes, his own holding nothing but fondness and warmth. “my hair,” he says and shakes his head of messy brown hair he died a couple of days ago. “we haven’t done this in a while, so i thought it’d be nice.” 

your stomach churned. how many times have you sat like this - you on the edge of the sofa and jeonghan in front of you, resting comfortably against a cushion you placed so as not to strain his back. a drama or a cooking show would be playing quietly in the background, neither of you watching it, too busy with basking in the domesticity. 

looking back, it was a no-brainer that you got addicted to your boyfriend’s hair so quickly. playing with it became a little habit of yours - before bed, in the morning, at a game night with the boys, during parties - whenever jeonghan was in your arm’s reach, you’d play with his hair, no matter if they were short or long (though you always mourned his long hair whenever he cut them). it always managed to calm you down and ground you when life got a bit too much. 

you’ve never experienced deja vu before, but if this was how it felt then you’d rather be hit with a sledge hammer. it’d hurt less. 

and now… despite that you could feel your heart breaking, you couldn’t tell him no. it’s probably the last time you’ll be able to do this before the enlistment anyway, so maybe… maybe it’ll be a nice way to celebrate his last days at home? 

“it’s hair. it’s just hair,” your mind seems to scream into the void as you grab a couple of the purple-ish hair bands and slide them on your wrist. but your heart is even louder and it feels like you’re being ripped apart. 

were you being dramatic? definitely. did you care? not at all. your whole life would change in the next day or so and despite preparing for this for such a long time now, it didn’t make it any less painful. with jeonghan leaving you’d be losing a part of yourself.

“hey,” he raises his hand and grabs your chin, “get that scowl off your face.”

“i know,” you sigh. “it’s just that-,”.

“i don’t want to hear any of that. we’re having fun tonight, honey,” jeonghan says and runs his thumb over your cheek. affection and pure love, which are always there whenever he looks at you (coups makes sure to point that out on every possible occasion), seemed to slow your racing heartbeat, because the longer you stared into his brown, gentle eyes the more your mind seemed to quiet down. oh, how you are going to miss that lovesick stare. “no more sad faces, yeah?” 

you swallow and nod, your heart heavy from all the emotions. the pink ribbons and blue pins look like the opposite of what you are feeling, but… you have to be strong. if not for yourself, then for jeonghan. 

“any specific requests?” you ask and comb your fingers gently through his silky hair.

“nope. whatever you do,” he says and turns his back to you, “it’ll look perfect.” you couldn't see jeonghan’s face, but you could hear the smile in his voice. 

placing a peck on your exposed leg, he makes himself comfortable against the cushions and lets out his grandpa-esque sigh. 

what the next days are going to bring - you aren’t sure. you don’t even want to think about it. but for now… for now, you are as content as you can be. enveloped by your love’s affection like a security blanket, his warm hands sliding up and down your calves, as if reminding you that he’s still there, it is enough for you. enough to swallow your tears and put a brave smile on your face for the man sitting in front of you. 

for now it is only you and him and all the pink ribbons.

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[ms-demeanor]

On insurance: I still live with my parents and don't know a lot yet about the sorts of things adults usually have to spend money on. I've always been skeptical of things like insurance and credit cards because it seems to me they wouldn't be selling that if they didn't expect to make money from it. I talked to my cousin a while ago about credit cards and basically came to the conclusion that they do that because they're betting on the customer getting sloppy and letting their debts stack up, and the way you beat that and get money from credit card companies is just by being careful.

I'm a little more confused about insurance though because it seems much more straightforwardly like a gamble they will simply not take if it won't pay off for them. Like, you don't go to a casino because every game they play at a casino is one they've done the math on and have determined that statistically most people will lose money on most of the time. Is insurance not kinda the same? Where they estimate the risk and then charge you an amount calculated to make sure it probably won't be worth it for you?

I know if you have a car you legally need car insurance so everyone knows you can pay for another car if you crash into someone, and I gather that here in the US at least health insurance companies have some kinda deal with hospitals so that the prices go down or something, and there's a reason I don't fully understand why not having health insurance is Really Bad. But we get to pet insurance, or like when I buy a concert ticket and it offers ticket insurance in case I can't make it to the show, and surely if they thought they were gonna lose money on that they just wouldn't sell it, right? Or they'd raise the price of it until it became worth the risk that something bad actually will happen? Wouldn't it only be worth it to buy insurance if you know something the insurance company doesn't?

So the deal is that most people don't use their insurance much, and often insurance companies will incentivize doing things that will make you use your insurance less.

So, for example, you can get a discount on car insurance if you have multiple cars because people who insure multiple cars are more likely to be responsible drivers (the ability to pay for multiple cars stands in as a representation of responsibility here). The longer you go without an accident, the lower your premiums get because that means that you are not costing your insurance company anything but you are paying into the system. The car insurance company's goal is to have the most responsible, safest drivers who never get into car accidents because they can predict (roughly) how much they're going to have to pay out to their customers and they want the number they pay out to be lower than what's paid in. So they try to discourage irresponsible drivers by raising their rates and encourage responsible drivers by giving them discounts.

Health insurance companies often do the same thing: I recently got a gift card from my health insurance company because I had a visit from a nurse who interviewed me about my overall health and made sure I had stable blood pressure and access to medications. It is literally cheaper for my insurance company to give me a $100 giftcard and hire a nurse to visit me than it is for me to go to my doctor's office a couple of times, so they try to make sure that their customers are getting preventative care and are seeing inexpensive medical professionals regularly so that they don't have to suddenly see very expensive professionals after a long time without care.

Insurance in the US has many, many, many problems and should be replaced with socialized healthcare for a huge number of reasons but right now, because it is an insurance-based system, you need to have insurance.

We're going to use Large Bastard as an example.

Large Bastard had insurance when he had his heart attack and when he needed multiple organs transplanted. He didn't *want* to be paying for insurance, because he thought he was healthy enough to get by, but I insisted. His premium is four hundred dollars a month, and his out of pocket maximum is eight thousand dollars a year. That means that every year, he pays about $5000 whether he uses his insurance or not, and if he DOES need to use the insurance, he pays the first $8k worth of care, so every year his insurance has the possibility of costing him thirteen thousand dollars.

The bill for his bypass surgery was a quarter million dollars.

The bill for his transplant was over one and a half million dollars.

His medication each month is around six hundred dollars. He needs to have multiple biopsies - which are surgeries - each year, and each one costs about twenty thousand dollars.

Without health insurance, he would very likely be dead, or we would be *even more* incapable of paying for his healthcare than we are right now. He almost ditched his insurance because he was a healthy-seeming 40-year-old and he didn't think he'd get sick. And then he proceeded to be the sickest human being I've ever known personally who did not actually die.

Health insurance costs a lot of money. It costs less money for people who are young and who are expected to be healthy. But the thing is, everybody pays into health insurance, and very, very few people end up using as much money for their medical expenses as Large Bastard did. There are a few thousand transplants in the US ever year, but there are hundreds of millions of people paying for insurance.

This ends up balancing out (sort of) so that people who pay for insurance get a much lower cost on care if they need it, hospitals get paid for the care they provide, and the insurance company makes enough money to continue to exist. Part of the reason that people don't like this scheme is because "insurance company" could feasibly be replaced by "government" and it would cost less and provide a better standard of care, but again, with things as they are now, you need to have insurance. Insurance companies are large entities that are able to negotiate down costs with the providers they work with, you are not. If you get hit by a car you may be able to get your medical bills significantly reduced through a number of means, but you're very unlikely to get your bills lower than the cost of insurance and a copay.

Because of the Affordable Care Act, which is flawed but which did a LOT of good, medical insurance companies cannot refuse to treat you because of preexisting conditions and also cannot jack up your premiums to intolerable rates - since Large Bastard got sick, he has had the standard price increases you'd expect from aging, but nothing like the gouging you might expect from an insurance company deciding you're not worth it.

Pet insurance works on the same model. Millions of people pay for the insurance, thousands of people end up needing it, a few hundred end up needing a LOT of it, and the insurance companies are able to make more money than they hand out, so they continue to exist. This is part of why it's less expensive to get pet insurance for younger animals - people who sign up puppies and kittens are likely to be paying for a very long time and are likely to provide a lot of preventative care for their animals, so they're a good bet for the insurer. Animals signed up when they are older are more likely to have health problems (and pet insurance CAN turn animals away for preexisting conditions) and are going to cost the insurance companies more, so they cost more to enroll (and animals over a certain age or with certain conditions may be denied entirely).

This weighing risk/reward is called actuarial science, and the insurance industry is built on it.

But yeah it's kind of betting. The insurance company says "I'll insure ten thousand dogs and I'm going to bet that only a hundred of them will need surgery at some point in the next year" and if they're correct, they make money and the dogs who need surgery get their surgery paid for out of the premiums from the nine thousand nine hundred dogs who didn't need surgery.

Your assessment of credit is correct: credit card companies expect that you will end up carrying a balance, and that balance will accrue interest, and the interest is how they make the money.

And it is EASY to fuck up financially as an adult. REALLY EASY. But you are still likely to need a good credit score so you will need a credit history. That means that the correct way to use a credit card is to have a card, but not carry a balance.

To do this, never buy anything on the card that you can't afford. In order to avoid needing the card for emergencies, start an emergency fund that is at least 3 months of your total pay *before* you get a credit card. That seems like a *lot* of savings to have, but from the perspective of someone who has had plenty of mess-ups, it's a lot easier to build up a $10k emergency fund than it is to pay off a $10k credit card debt.

If you don't understand how interest works on credit cards, or why a 10k savings is different than a 10k debt, here are some examples working with $10k of debt, 23% interest (an average-ish rate for people with average credit), and various payments.

With that debt and that interest, here's how much it costs and how long it would take to pay off with $200 as the monthly payment:

Fourteen years, and it would cost you about twenty four thousand dollars in interest, for a total amount paid of about thirty four thousand dollars.

To save $10k at $200 a month would take four years and two months.

Here's the same debt at $300 a month:

4.5 Years and it costs about six grand (again, just in interest - sixteen thousand dollars total). Saving ten thousand dollars at three hundred dollars a month would take just under three years.

Here's the same debt at $400 a month:

3 years, about $4000 dollars (fourteen thousand dollars total). Saving ten thousand dollars at $400 a month takes just over two years.

The thing is, with all of these models you're going to end up paying one way or another. Insurance vs out of pocket is you weighing the risk of losing a fair amount of money by signing up but not using the system, or potentially losing a catastrophic amount of money by not signing up.

For credit cards they really only work if you know you're never going to need them for an emergency, because an emergency is what you're not going to be able to pay off right away. I didn't have an emergency fund when Large Bastard had his heart attack and needed surgery, or when we moved between states suddenly, or when we moved between states suddenly AGAIN and needed to pay storage costs, or when Large Bastard needed a transplant, or when Tiny Bastard got in a fight with my MiL's dog, and the fact that I didn't have an emergency fund is still costing me a lot of money.

So, young folks out there: what's the takeaway?

Get insurance. Get the best deal possible, which usually ends up being the one you sign up for early. You may think you can let it ride without insurance, but man in the six months between when I graduate college (and lost my school insurance) and when care kicked in after 90 days at my job I got electrocuted and needed to go to the ER. If that hadn't been a worker's comp payout I would have had thousands of dollars in bills. Something could happen. You could break your leg, you could get hit by a car, you could suddenly find out that you actually have heart disease at twenty, you could develop cancer. Have insurance, you need insurance. You legally need car insurance in the US, and you financially need health insurance. If you have a pet, I think it's a good idea for them to have pet insurance.

Credit cards are not for emergencies, they are not for fun, they are not for buying things that are just ever so slightly out of your budget, they are for taking advantage of the credit card company and managing to get by in a system that demands you have a credit score. ONLY put purchases on your credit card that you already have cash for. Before you get a credit card, build up an emergency savings so that you aren't tempted to put emergency charges on your card.

If you DO end up with an interest-bearing debt, pay it off as fast as possible because letting it linger costs you a LOT of money in the long run.

Stay the fuck away from tobacco and nicotine products they are fucking terrible for you, they are fucking expensive, and they are not worth it put the vapes down put the zyns down put the cigarettes down I will begin manifesting in your house physically i swear to fuck. Knock that shit off and put the cash that you'd be spending on nicotine into a savings account.

Take care, sorry everything sucks, I promise that in some ways it actually sucks less than it did before and we're working on trying to make it suck even less but it's taking a while.

[midday-clouds]

Yandere Batfamily x Neglected & "Immortal" Reader 》 II

Part I

Thank you so much for the love for the first one! 💞 There are so many ways I can imagine how this story can go and it's hard to pick one or try merging all the ideas. Nonetheless, I hope this meets your expectations!

CW: Stalking, Breaking and entering, Violence(Being stabbed, beating up a thief), Blood

You had officially moved into your apartment in Bludhaven

Everything has moved so quickly and now you can finally relax

You gave up connecting with your family, got kidnapped, died, came back to life and moved out

It may be a bit much to pick the farthest college from the manor but you’re clearly unwanted there

Your family has neglected you and didn't do anything when you were kidnapped, so you have every right to be as far away from them as possible

It was honestly quite lucky that you were already accepted into a college in Bludhaven during your senior year. If you had applied after your kidnapping, the chances of you getting in would have been low.

But you’re here now and can finally feel happy. Well, if you don't count some of the nightmares you get from when you “died”.

Sometimes you do wonder how you survived that gunshot. Were you not hit somewhere vital? But then, where was the hole?

A part of you was curious and wanted to replicate the injury but that would be painful. You surviving the gunshot also could have been a one-time thing

You never ended up going to the police or the hospital because what were they going to do? You don’t have any proof that it even happened because your injury is gone, the blood left at the abandoned building is likely dried up and doesn’t look fresh, and Bruce probably threw away the ransom letter. 

The only proof you have that it even happened is your memories and you telling your friends. But the police or doctors would just look at you and say “You look fine now, no need to look into the situation anymore.” 

But enough about that though, you’ve got a few more hours before it gets dark and you want to get to know about the area.

It is still the middle of summer so your college classes haven't started yet. You could have waited until class started to move but you wanted to be out before Alfred returned from his vacation.

Alfred was the closest thing to family in the manor. But he and Bruce have never felt like safe adults to share your problems with. 

He should be back from his vacation now, has he found out about your kidnapping or did Bruce cover it up? He probably did to avoid getting news out. You should probably look into how you can change your surname.

Just as you finish your thoughts about the manor, you use your laptop to find interesting places in the area before heading out the door with directions in a notebook

Bruce and the rest of the family may know where you are currently, but bringing you back home was the hard part. Alfred had to convince Bruce that if he wanted you back, he shouldn’t just barge in all of a sudden. 

You’ve been hurt by the family's actions and won't return without a fight. 

But even then, Bruce has to see you. The entire family needs to see you with their own eyes at least once.

With this in mind, the whole family decides to take a small road trip to Bludhaven. They’d find you and figure out the best way to approach you without scaring you off. 

It was almost sundown when the family got to Bludhaven. They change into their vigilante gear so it’d be easier to hide in the shadows

Tim loads up the tracker on your phone and leads the way. It seems the tracker you have isn't the best because once the family gets close to your apartment, your phone just says your laptop is nearby instead of its exact location. 

No problem though, Tim can easily hack into the computer system for the apartment and find which room is yours.

Once your room is found, the family takes a peek inside. You’re nowhere to be found, which is a little worrying.

The locks on your windows are broken as the family opens them and sneaks inside. Your living room and kitchen are littered with boxes but that’s it. They each take a look around to find you but come out empty-handed. If you were here, they may do exactly what Alfred discouraged and just take you home. However, because you aren’t home, the only other place you could be is outside. Where it’s dark out and you’re alone.

Worried for your safety, the family immediately goes on another search for your

Because you could be anywhere, the family decides to split up to find you

You look around as you walk back to your apartment, a few small bags of food and snacks in your hands. Because it’s getting dark, you do begin to pick up the pace. You’re so focused on not getting home that you don’t notice when a person peeks over at you from a rooftop.

You’re just about to pass a convenience store when someone runs out and knocks into you. The person curses as they quickly get up and reach for their bag of stolen goods. Filled with adrenaline, the thief takes out a knife and stabs you. They were aiming to kill you so there weren’t any witnesses but ended up putting the knife in your shoulder. As the thief makes a run for it, a certain vigilante quickly blocks their path

Nightwing goes full force on the thief. How dare they hurt his baby bird. He refuses to make the same mistake of leaving you alone and hurt.

Your heart is racing as you attempt to pull the knife out of your shoulder. Your eyelids feel weak but you refuse to fall asleep. Unlike before, you aren’t restrained and can still escape.

You pull the knife out and let it fall on the ground next to you. After a few breaths, you do your best to stand up. You take a small glance at Nightwing before quickly running back to your apartment. 

Once inside, you almost collapse on the floor but try to get your first aid kit.

Your bandaging may not be that good but the best but it’s enough for you to feel comfortable sleeping for the night

Nightwing sighs as he handcuffs the thief. He went a lot harder than he expected but how can you blame him? His family was in danger and he needed to do everything to make sure it doesn’t happen again

The vigilante turns to where you were but only finds a bloodied knife and the bags you left behind. He carefully picks up the bags and knife while he considers where you have gone.

Spotting a trail of blood, Nightwing quickly follows it, contacting the rest of the family as well

The family gathers at the same spot near your apartment and finds you sleeping in your bed. Wanting to help you, Nightwing comes up with an idea

You lay on your bed, waiting for sleep to consume you when a knock comes from your door. You try to ignore it but the knocking continues. The only thing that gets you up is the realization that the knocking is too loud to be from your door. Opening your eyes, you realize that someone is at your window. 

Getting up, you pick up your pepper spray as you slowly walk towards the window. You have your curtains closed so you try to peek past them to see who is there

Who you see is Nightwing and it gets you worried. Does he think you were involved with that other person? He must have seen that the thief stabbed you at least

Not wanting to make the vigilant wait, you open your window slightly. Only enough so you can hear what Nightwing has to say

Nightwing happily greets you and shows you the bag of items that you left behind when leaving the scene.

Surprised, you thank Nightwing and open the window. Making sure to not open the window more than necessary, just enough to collect the bags

Just as you reach for it, the vigilante points out your bandaged shoulder. He goes on to say the importance of properly handling injuries and offers to rebandage your arm.

It takes you a couple of moments before you agree to his help.

Like a big brother, he sits you down and redoes the bandages. Honestly, it makes you wish your actual big brothers would care for you in this way. Even though one of them is right in front of you

Once your shoulder has properly been bandaged, you thank Nightwing for his help. He offers to stay the night but you tell him that you’d be fine. Plus, doesn’t he still have to take care of Bludhaven

You make sure to close and lock your window once Nightwing leaves before going back to bed.  As sleep consumes you, your whole family watches from a distance. You didn’t seem to recognize Dick as Nightwing so it may be possible to get you to trust them before taking you home

[kdinjenzen]

So with all the stuff going on around Nintendo Vs Pocketpair I feel like people are missing the point of what's going on.

And this article actually finally brings up the biggest point: Nintendo has 1000s of patents and chooses not to enforce them all on everyone.

The idea that, quoting the article and Serkan Toto, "Nintendo's sweeping list of patents means it likely "could have sued half of the gaming industry back in 2017," …so like WHY NOT DO THAT?

There's a million reasons to not do it for Nintendo but TLDR is it's just bad business for them to do so.

The real take away is -what has PocketPair/Palworld done- that has brought out Nintendo to start enforcing these things in this particular situation?

A lot if you pay attention to PocketPair/Palworld's marketing and social presence. They threw rocks at Nintendo, so Nintendo is finally pushing back.

Now I'm not going to fully go to bat for Nintendo and say "they are a good company" because there's no such thing truly…

But in most cases with Nintendo, they C&D folks multiple times before even thinking of escalating anything to real legal trouble. Which is kinder than most companies.

The final thought of the article says that Nintendo may feel "threatened" by PalWorld but… I don't buy it.

Pokemon is THE highest grossing franchise in the world… ever… of all time. It's total revenue is around $100 BILLION with a B.

PalWorld, even at it's height, didn't even come close.

The aspects that I think Nintendo decided to act upon in their mind for this is the brazen bold rudeness and shit talking that happened on social media/marketing with PocketPair/Palworld.

PLUS the fact that Pokemon fans were also quick to be like "bruh, even if this isn't stolen it's obviously design lifted" for a lot of Palworld's Pals.

Add in the fact that both Microsoft and now Sony have pulled PalWorld onto their platforms… Nintendo is going to notice and get mad.

The truth is that PocketPair is an indie dev… with major AAA studios behind it now in a lot of ways. Which actually hurts PocketPair in a sense.

Nintendo tends to ignore indie stuff and has actually collabed with many indie studios before in major ways, so they aren't anti-indie.

Nintendo is OLD SCHOOL and expects a little bit of respect.

Nintendo has not taken action against pretty much any of the other true new Tiny Critter Collecting Indie IP that have popped up, a lot of them are ON Nintendo platforms and have had Nintendo feature them in directs…

But PocketPair threw rocks. Nintendo easily saw this as disrespect, but could be ignored.

What CAN'T be is the outcry from their own fanbase to "look into things" with PalWorld to see what, if anything, was lifted from Nintendo directly.

And Nintendo did. They took over a year to look into it.

This isn't Nintendo doing a knee jerk reaction, they went over things and took their time to research what PalWorld and PocketPair were doing.

Nintendo isn't stupid. They don't pick fights for no reason.

Regardless of if you LIKE Nintendo, or your feelings on a big company taking on a little company… Nintendo is very likely on the right side of business, IP, and patent law here.

Nintendo -losing- here would be, actually, really bad for small folks more than big guys in the long run.

Adding in the fact that PocketPair launched a generative Ai art game on top of all that…

This feel like, yes, Nintendo is flexing in a lot of ways but… they chose who to flex on and not to flex on -everyone-… so there seems to be a solid reason as to -why-.

Again the real take away is that IF Nintendo could have sued half of the gaming industry (as of 2017) with all the patents they have … why didn't they and WHY are they choosing to sue PocketPair/Palworld -now-?

Because that's more important than anything else.

[stopbeeping]

Torn - CL & MV

summary: Meeting her soulmate in the middle of the night wasn't part of the plan, but apparently Charles couldn't wait until the next day.

note: soulmate AU

warning: a teensy bit of smuttish sentence if you squint.

“Why do I have a feeling I’m gonna get another day of community service?” 

She looked over at Max who was leaning against the elevator’s cool metal wall, eyes closed as he thought about the post-qualifying madness. Luring the journalists outside like the Pied Piper, clearly enraging the FIA officials was deliciously petty, and she knew this fixture of pettiness and cockiness would benefit her at the end of the day. But right now, at least until they stepped inside their shared hotel room, the main question was whether or not the FIA would retaliate for this move of his. 

This question wasn’t really a question to be answered, he was just thinking out loud, but she couldn’t help but step in front of him and stand on her toes to kiss his chin. “You heard what Lewis said. You shouldn’t do it, no matter how many days you get. Although, I read some posts in which they suggest a cat shelter for the location,” she added with a wide grin when he opened one eye to look down at her.

With a thoughtful hum, he reached for her hand and glanced over at the panel on the wall across the elevator to see how many floors they had left until they arrived. “A cat shelter is risky. I might end up bringing home a few,” he said with a playful smile. “So, what does it feel like to be the girlfriend of a convicted criminal?”

Rolling her eyes, she moved to stand in the door as the elevator slowed down to come to a halt, but her fingers were still laced with his as he stepped next to her. “You got community service, not a race ban,” she pointed out once the door opened, then began to walk out with her boyfriend right behind. 

“Oh, so if I got a race ban, you would be all over me?” he joked, although she could tell this wasn’t entirely a joke. 

Over the past few months that had passed since they met by total accident in a shop in Monaco, she learned that he could be dead serious about certain things. If it meant that she would love him more, he would probably go out and commit war crimes on the track for her. When she stopped in front of the door, she looked up at him with a sweet smile. “Well, I was planning to be all over you once we stepped inside the room, but if you insist, I can wait until that happens,” she said with a shrug.

Max let out a deep growl as he hurriedly forced his keycard into the slot, then dragged her inside just enough to close the door and push her back against it. His lips crashed into hers without the hint of hesitation, hands moving down her sides to reach under her yellow mini sundress and see if she wanted him just as much as he needed her after today. She moaned into his mouth when he slid his fingers between her wet folds, teasing her just enough to get her to move her hips a little, silently begging for more than that. 

She didn’t have to ask twice, he happily provided his services to satisfy her in every way possible, and she was also keen to make him feel a little better after today’s events. They made a good pair in and out of bed, with him taking his time showing her the things he loved, explaining some things about F1 that she hadn’t known before, and he was overall the sweetest and most honest man she had ever met. 

This was the very first race weekend she attended as his girlfriend, while today was the very first day when she visited the track with him. Their relationship was nothing new, his fans had already seen photos of the two of them together, but there was still something that stirred up her feelings, making her nervous from the pressure of performing well on his side. Could she live up to the expectations? Could she be the perfect girlfriend for him? 

For now, she decided to enjoy every second of this. She tried to close out every doubt, every small voice in the back of her mind telling her she wasn’t good enough. And as they were in bed with Max’s chest pressed to her back, an arm protectively wrapped around her waist, she began to believe that maybe this could be something good. He could become her home eventually. Maybe he could love her the way she always yearned to be loved. 

She woke up at one point in the night, feeling cold from the lack of physical contact. As she opened an eye to see if he was even in bed with her, she noticed a few strange things. Firstly, she didn’t have a comforter covering her. This could be explained, of course, maybe she kicked it off. Secondly, Max wasn’t there and she didn’t hear any movement from around her. Thirdly, this wasn’t their room. It was a hotel room, she could tell, but there were things missing that gave away that she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. 

Rubbing her eyes, she sat up and took a look around, only to find a figure standing by the window with their back to her. The broad shoulders gave away that it was a man, wearing sweats and a white shirt, although she couldn’t quite make out their face in the dark. Who could it be? She didn’t dare to say a word, not when all she could think about was how she ended up here, how this man could take her from Max’s side without a problem.

Suddenly he let out a long sigh and turned around, looking genuinely surprised to find her there. “Oh, you came!” he exclaimed happily, slowly moving closer to the bed. 

“C–came? I didn’t, you brought me here, I should–Wait,” she suddenly interrupted herself, “Charles?!”

A shy smile appeared on his lips when he turned on the light on the nightstand by her side, then kneeled next to the bed with his forearms resting on the side of the mattress. “You don’t remember, do you?” 

She had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to remember, but… Strangely, she didn’t feel like screaming for help or darting out of the room. If anything, she felt safe, maybe even safer than she did in her boyfriend’s arms. There was something about the way Charles’s green eyes were watching her, full of a level of familiarity that she couldn’t quite place. 

Charles licked his lips, then let out a soft sigh. “I know you can teleport. You know what they say about those who can do it, right?” Of course, she thought, they are the ones who have a soulmate, someone they can meet whenever and wherever they are. “But you never teleported to Max, and he never came to you either, correct?” he voiced her next thought. 

Shaking her head, she pulled up her knees and rested her forehead against them. This was so confusing. Charles said that it was her who came to him, but how could that be possible? As a child, she did have another kid she visited often, someone who also came to see her sometimes, but that was a long time ago and they hadn’t met since then. So, if she had that kid in her life, the one who could just as well be her soulmate, what was she doing here with him?

As if he could sense her turbulent thoughts, Charles gulped loudly, then stood up to sit down next to her, a hand landing on her back to rub it in a soothing manner. “That boy’s name was Marc.” Her gaze landed on him, eyes opened wide from the surprise, but she still managed to nod. Before she could ask how he knew that, he flashed a small smile at her then went, “My full name is Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc. I… had a phase at the time when I wanted my friends to call me Marc. Don’t ask why,” he explained with a forced laugh to lighten the mood. 

A mix of strong emotions rushed through her body while her brain tried to process the fact that the boy who was supposedly her soulmate was the same guy who was now staring at her with those familiar green eyes. Because now that she looked into them, taking her time to examine them, she realized that she had seen them before, and not just on a photo or a video. And suddenly, without registering what she was doing, she smacked his head. 

“Ouch! Why did you do that?” he asked as he rubbed the spot where her hand met his skull. 

“If you really are my soulmate as you claim, where the hell have you been all this time?!” she said angrily, eyes narrowed at him. She was mad, yes, because back then she had been certain that boy was special, she could feel it even as a child, but then he stopped coming, and she couldn’t reach him anymore, so she began to assume he was nothing more than an imaginary friend. And now here he was, all those years later, telling her all this when he knew perfectly well she had a boyfriend. “And why now? I’m happy with Max, what do you want from me?”

At first, he was only watching her with his bottom lip between his teeth, looking like a puppy that knew they had done something wrong but were now trying to get away with it with that adorable look in their eyes, but she wasn’t having any of it. Charles soon realized that, so he took a deep breath and tousled his already messy hair a bit. “My older brother knew about this… thing that happened to us. He once overheard us talking in my room, and when he peeked inside, he saw you there. He told me about this whole soulmate thing, and… I don’t know, I got scared,” he explained with a guilty look on his face. 

“So why now? If you could stay away from me for so long, why did you have to come forward now?” she tried quietly. 

Charles shrugged. “I saw the photos of you and Max, and… I recognized you right away. You didn’t come to the races, so everything was fine, but seeing you in person yesterday? That was… different. I don’t know about you, but for me there was a spark, a rush of memories in my mind, and I couldn’t ignore it. I just want to talk. If you don’t want to leave him, that’s fine, but I wanted to make sure I have a final answer from you. Say no, and I’ll stay away,” he told her, his voice cracking a little. 

In all honesty, she was way too confused to have a final decision about this. Yes, she was a little angry that he had disappeared for so long, and she did love Max, but missing the chance to be with her soulmate? There had to be a reason why fate brought them together, who was she to resist? Was it even possible to resist this forever? With a groan, she buried her face in her hand and tried to pull herself together. “Can I give you an answer some other time? This is too much, I can’t think straight,” she asked before glancing up at him. 

Nodding, he leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on her cheek, but he didn’t pull away, he stayed so close to her that she could feel his hot breath on her chin when he looked her in the eye. “Take your time, mon coeur.”

As she let out a sigh, her brain moved on to an important question. “So… How exactly do I get back to my hotel room?” she wondered out loud. 

“You don’t know?” Without hesitation, she shook her head. Charles reached out to swipe a strand of hair back behind her ear, but his eyes never left hers. “I assume you haven’t done this in a long time. Just relax and think about going back to that place.”

“We haven’t met since we were kids, how can you remember this?” 

With a gulp, he finally moved away. “It doesn’t matter.” She gave him a serious look, one that quickly made him talk. “The fact we didn’t talk doesn’t mean I haven’t… been around. I occasionally checked on you, but I never dared to talk to you. You were happy without me, I didn’t see the point of ruining it for you,” he admitted. 

She let out a long sigh as she thought about this. All the times she felt like someone was watching her, all the times this made her feel good instead of freaked out now seemed to make sense. It was all because of him. He was there for her, even when she didn’t know that. With a nod, she was ready to put this behind her and focus on her breathing with her eyes closed. In and out, over and over again, until her mind was clear enough to take her home to her boyfriend.  

A few seconds later she was back in the familiar room, sitting on the edge of the now empty bed. She looked over at the alarm clock on the nightstand to see what time it was, and it was odd that Max wasn’t sleeping. The bathroom was dark, there was no light seeping through the small space under the door, but if he wasn’t there, where the hell could he be? His phone wasn’t there either, so she looked at her own and saw a bunch of missed calls from him. 

Without hesitation, she hit the call button and waited until she heard the familiar voice from the other end of the line. “Schatje, where the hell are you? You weren’t in the room and you didn’t answer your phone,” he said worriedly.

“I’m in our room now,” she replied, her mind in overdrive as she tried to think of an explanation. “Sorry, I think I started sleepwalking again. Haven’t really happened since I was a kid,” she lied, her heart already hurting from the fact she had to be dishonest. Max didn’t deserve this, so fuck, it was hard to keep the truth from him. 

She could hear a sigh of relief from him. “I’ll be right back, don’t go anywhere.”

“Okay, I’ll be waiting.” 

While she waited, she had time to think. She loved Max, they were good together, but having a soulmate was rare. Should she really give up the chance to see what it was like to be in a relationship with your own? With someone who loved you unconditionally, someone who could be there anytime you needed them? Yes, her current boyfriend would probably leave everything behind if she needed him, but that was different. It wasn’t meaningless, it was just… not enough. Maybe. She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure about anything anymore, to be honest. 

So, before the Dutchman could return, she picked up her phone and looked for Charles’s profile on social media, then sent him a short message. Baby steps. Just to figure out if we could be friends first. Then we’ll see where that leads us. And soon his response arrived. Anything you want. We’ll keep it a secret if you don’t want Max to know.

This was bad on so many levels, she knew she was supposed to tell him the truth about this, but should she really tell him all this before finding out if this could work between Charles and her? It was selfish, she knew, but she didn’t want to be left alone. Letting out a groan, she lay back on the bed with her phone in her stomach. No. She should be honest. Maybe Max would understand. Maybe he would give her the time and space she needed to find out where this could lead with his rival. 

Soon the door opened, and Max kicked off his shoes in record speed to get in bed next to her. “I was so worried about you,” he told her. 

Now that he was here, her previous bravery disappeared. She couldn’t break his heart. Not when he was so dedicated and clearly in love. She would tell Charles to forget about her message. It would be better not to risk a perfectly working relationship. Damn, why did this have to be so hard? Why did that stupid soulmate of hers appear in her life after all that time? 

“What’s on your mind?”

“Do you believe in soulmates? You know, especially that story about how they can teleport to each other?” she asked quietly. At first, he looked a little confused, but then he nodded as his thumb massaged her side. “I read something about it, and it made me think. If your soulmate showed up today, telling you that you belonged together… What would you do?”

“You want to know if I would leave you?” She nodded. “I would like to get to know them first. Why would I leave someone I love when I don’t even know that other person? Yeah, they might be destined to be my soulmate, but I wouldn’t want to force myself into a relationship just because of that. So no, I wouldn’t leave you. I would just spend some time with them to see if there’s any reason to believe the stories,” he replied. When she moved forward to bury her face into his chest, Max began to rub her back and placed a soft kiss on her head. “It’s not an article, is it?”

Looking up, she noticed the realization in his eyes. He knew. He was smart enough to put the pieces together. “He just showed up out of nowhere. I–I didn’t have a choice, I just somehow teleported there. He wants to see what this means, if this thing could even work,” she explained quietly, eyes shiny from the tears. 

It was clear that he wasn’t happy about it, but she could also see that he understood what was happening. “Talk to him. I don’t want to lose you because of something you have no control over. Let’s see what happens. If you want to be with him, I’ll accept it,” he told her. 

“But I don’t want to lose you, Max,” she pointed out. “That’s my biggest problem, because I’m torn between this and the feeling that maybe I shouldn’t miss out on my soulmate.”

He put his palm on her cheek and began to massage her skin as he watched her. “We’ll figure it out. Meet him, get to know him, but the moment there’s something more, something I should know about, tell me. Then we’ll discuss how to move on with this, okay?” 

“Okay. I love you,” she said, her voice laced with the emotions that were still there, and still strong. 

“I love you too,” he replied before giving her a kiss. 

note: I wasn't entirely sure about this one, but hey, here we are, with my first story. Oops. I hope it's not that bad.

[teddybeartoji]

18+ mdni; gn!reader

with a hand on the back of your head and another holding your throat, nanami curses under his breath, the sight of you gagging around his cock so filthy that the usually composed man has his knees threatening to buckle from underneath him. 

sweat trickles from the side of his face and there’s a deep shade of blush spread across his nose and cheeks, hiding the freckles you love so much. even the tips of his ears burn, the pleasure blooming everywhere under his skin as he rocks his hips against your face. the first buttons of his dress shirt are undone, a few hickeys already starting to darken on his skin from you nipping at him before dropping to your knees. he’s been working so very hard, and you just want him to let off a little steam – he just needs a bit of a push sometimes. 

so with you sat on his lap, sucking on his earlobe while pleading for him to take a break, it was impossible for him to say no. how could he when he’s got an angel in his arms, playing with his hair and kissing his neck ever so sweetly – he’s a weaker man than he thinks. 

when you slithered down between his thighs and stared up at him with big, hungry eyes, he found himself loosening his tie, his mind already beginning to cloud with the nastiest thoughts. 

ghosting your fingers over the growing bulge in his slacks, you rested your head against his thigh with a mischievous smile etched onto your lips. “c’mon, ken… i want to make you feel good.”

your words come out as a purr, as a siren’s call – you always have been a little tease, always the one to make him break and crumble. 

so here he finds himself now – slacks pooling around his ankles and the hem of his shirt caught between his teeth, trying his utmost best not to fill your mouth with cum after the first ten minutes like some damn teenager. his hair is a fucking mess, dusty blonde strands falling over his forehead no matter how many times he tries to push them back. he’s given up on it now, realizing that there are better things to be doing with his hands – the one on the back of your head, protects you from knocking against the wooden cupboard while the other rests on your neck, marveling the way his cock slides up and down your throat. 

it’s mesmerizing, the feeling of the bulge under the palm of his shaky hand. he’s in there, filling you up like nothing else and it’s the hottest fucking thing in the world. 

his pace is slow and steady, every roll of his hips has your nose nuzzling into his pubes, your chin pressing against his heavy balls. drool trickles from the corners of your mouth and it’s a sight to behold – it dribbles all the way down onto your thighs and from there on onto the floor and nanami can’t help but feel the coil in his stomach tighten faster than ever. you’re the only one that makes him feel like this, who manages to mold him to your own liking all while being down on your knees. 

the tip of your tongue tickles his balls and the growl he lets out makes you clench your thighs together. his shirt falls from between his teeth and he rushes to undo the rest of the buttons, desperate to get the material off of him, so he can give you his full attention once more. it’s exciting to see him this needy. 

you try to look up at him with him still down your throat and as a reward, he moves to stroke your cheek with his thumb. “you’re– you’re doing so good for me, darling.” 

his voice is raspier than ever and the praise that tumbles from his bitten lips has you moaning around his cock. his vision goes blurry for a moment as the pleasure overwhelms his senses. you’re something else. 

you’re fucking perfect. 

the ache in your knees fades in your mind as you get to watch him unravel above you. his strokes become more languid; he pulls out only a little before pushing back in, his tip reaching deeper and deeper with every thrust he makes. he wants to stay inside you, he wants to stay there forever. 

squirming below him, you screw your eyes shut and try to focus on your breathing – but as he stays slotted deep down your throat, it’s getting harder and harder and you can’t hold back the few tears that have been brimming at your lashline.

“f–fuck, i’m sorry, sweetheart… i– “

he feels you struggling, but doesn’t pull out even an inch, only grinding his hips into your face as if he was fucking your tight little hole instead. you claw at the backs of his thighs, your nails marking up his sensitive skin as you gag around him. but nanami’s mindful not to go too far, to make sure that he wouldn’t miss the moment your scratching should turn into tapping instead. as much as he’s enjoying himself, he’d rather die than to hurt you.

he waits for your signal but when it doesn’t come, he presses himself even further down your throat, moaning loudly when you gag around him. his blonde pubes stick to your skin, your spit acting as glue between you. 

your mouth is so fucking warm and tight and, fuck– the obscene sounds that fill his ears are making him lose his mind. you feel divine and it has him wondering what ever did he do to deserve a lover like you. 

all it takes is two pats against his thighs and he’s pulling away, his eyes locked onto your face as you gasp for air. crystalline droplets brim in the corners of your eyes and run over the apples of your cheeks, leaving behind salty remainders of your hard work. your lips are swollen and covered in a mixture of his precum and your own spit. trying to catch your breath, you take a moment before looking back up at him. 

the way his lips part in a silent groan the second you make eye-contact, his chest rising and falling as he strokes his fat cock right in front of your face. there’s still a strand of spit connecting the two of you, from your lips to his tip, and nanami wants to hate how big of an effect such a small thing can have on him. it’s romantic. 

you look ruined. 

he thinks you look absolutely fucking beautiful.

leaning down, he presses a fiery kiss to your lips as a thank you, as another form of praise. he loves the way you taste and they way you feel against him. 

you breathe into his mouth. “more…” 

nanami squeezes his fist around his base, another groan falling from him as he pulls away from you. the grin on your face, the hearts in your eyes and the love pooling on your tongue are more than enough to have him taking in a sharp intake of air – you reach out to him, gentle fingers wrapping around his way bigger ones as you guide him back to your mouth. your heavenly lips. 

as embarrassing as it is, it only takes another few minutes for him to cum down your throat with a loud, deep groan. he holds your neck just as before, feeling the way his own cock twitches inside of you as he gives you his all. 

there’s so much of it that despite you swallowing around him a couple of times, it still pours out from the corners of your mouth, turning you into an even bigger mess than before. but it’s not like you mind – this is exactly what you wanted in the first place. he’s panting like a dog above you, face red as a tomato as he bucks his hips into your mouth one last time. 

the sound that leaves his lips as he finally pulls out resembles a whimper and he lets out a sheepish chuckle, a bit flustered that you managed to pull that out of him. but then again…

it is you. 

his beloved, his love – the one who knows him the best, the one who knows what he needs without ever having to ask. you read him like an open book and he couldn't be more grateful. you're more than he could've asked for. hoped for.

and he loves you.

[lilacgaby]

title: i've changed, won't you see?

pairing: prohero!katsuki x reader

summary: katsuki ruined your life when you were small, giving you a life altering injury, though getting nothing more than a pat on the back. throughout his successes he can't get you out of his mind, so he sets out to make amends with you.

tags: silent voice inspired!! childhood bully katsuki :(, disabled reader, mentions of violence, angst to fluff, su1cide attempt, comfort, implied nsfw, no proofread

(a/n: i wanted to give my hand at really long works while doing drabbles in between but i have so many drafts now jajsjsj)

wc: ~4k

your eyes were always blurry around him it seemed. your hands shaking as your voice cracked, just begging him. "please leave me alone!" with all the might a five year old could muster.

they scoffed at you, they always did. "crybaby. blame your parents for not giving you a quirk. you should've moved when i told you to anyways, it's my park dont you know?" katsuki mocked, moving closer to you, noticing the card behind your back.

"stop being so mean! quirkless people don't do anything wrong!"

"quirkless don't do anything."

your chest was heaving with pain, your little heart couldn't take it. "you-- you'll never be a hero, you're too mean!"

in an act of rage, he set off an explosion. it was only meant to intimidate you but..

once the smoke settled your screams of terror filled the playground.

blood dripped on the floor, pooling in your hand as your grasped your ear. a ringing was all you could hear, it was driving you crazy.

were you crying? you couldn't tell, you couldn't hear. your eyes were shut as you were filled with panic, the smell of iron flooding your senses.

but katsuki remembered so much more.

the smell of the burned cartilage of your ear, the sight of it, or rather the lack of. the blood that wouldn't stop coming, why wasn't it stopping?

his group that usually rallied behind him was now gone, leaving him and a wailing you alone. he tried to talk to you, but you weren't responding.

he grew the courage to touch you, tapping on your shoulder slowly, but that didn't comfort you. in fact he thought it made it worse, making you bow your head in a defensive position.

he stared at you, unable to move, he was supposed to be a hero like allmight, were you right?

finally, a teacher came running to get you, an ambulance already on the way. they didn't look at katsuki, only at the pitiful state you were in.

you didn't respond to them either.

katsuki felt sick as he stood where you and the teacher had left them. he felt sick as he looked down to the remains of what he'd done to you.

he couldn't process it yet, but he felt a sickening despair and guilt be placed upon his shoulders.

one that wouldn't disappear.

he wasn't blamed for anything, only getting a quirk consolation. they thought he lost control? his parents eyed him as he tried to explain what had truely happened, he didn't know why he was trying, did he want to get punished?

but even after, nothing was done. with a lecture and a couple promises he was sent back to class with nothing done to him.

your life was changed forever though, it was apparent in the way that you seemed even more quiet and closed off. you sat in the back, never spoke to anyone, and got teary eyed when he even stood close to you.

your hair covered your ears constantly, a hearing aid peeking through the strands occasionally. the teacher never forced you to participate, none of them ever made an effort.

the teacher had explained to the class how you were completely deaf in one ear, and extremely hard of hearing in the other. how you'd use sign language from now on, and that the class would learn some in support. they never did though, the conversation going ignored as soon as it was uttered.

you were pulled out of class often, the teacher having to tap you on the shoulder to get your attention. your eyes dejected and your presence small as the person who came to get you made gestures with their hands to you.

you'd been cruelly placed in matching classes 'til your last years of junior high. you'd stayed the same way for forever, it was like a weight placed over his chest.

yet he felt he deserved it. he knew he was messed up. he watched you, a lot. he saw you in the back corners, usually forgotten and ignored. when you were acknowledged you were mocked, people making random hand signs to make fun of the way he forced you to communicate, mocking your unconfident speech right after.

he saw the way you sunk into yourself afterwards, making his heart hurt as you grew impossibly smaller. your hands held your own as you prayed for it to be over.

everytime you'd catch him in the halls, you'd still freeze up. your breath shaky as you bowed and left quickly, making his friends laugh but make him queasy.

that interaction was witnessed by your teacher who, after a day of you not showing up, assigned him to give you your work for the day.

with sweaty palms and a racing heart, he dropped by your house. he knew where it was, of course he did, your mom and his were close industry friends even after the incident.

because you'd never told anyone about what he'd do to you.

he knocked on the door, attempting to seem nonchalant. when you answered though, he felt his heart lurch in his chest.

"[name], uh-- this is your work."

you didn't respond, you looked almost nauseous at the sight of him, it was deserved though.

he placed your work on the floor and walked off, that was the only time he'd spoken to you since the incident,

and he couldn't even apologize.

- - -

U-A wouldn't only be a dream for him, but a release for you both. was it selfish to want to run away from his problems? sure, but it'd help you too.

as everyone in the class exclaimed the names of the schools they picked, unsurprised at katsuki's choice, he pondered on where you'd go.

nobody asked you, so you didn't speak. staying quiet as you looked out the window.

katsuki got accepted into U-A easily, but he couldn't help but feel he lacked the main criteria. he'd hurt people poorly, and couldn't apologize because of his ego.

he felt sick to accept these accomplishments of his, knowing it'd be built up on the foundation of hurting you.

but he did anyway, selfishly. he kept up his harsh demeanor in U-A anyways, working hard and scoring high. he graduated top of his class, job offers to agencies left and right.

he accepted one, working for his old internship officially now. he climbed the ranks quickly, saving lives and catching the attention of the media.

a couple years later, he was a steady number five hero when he took a patrol route over for deku. as he strolled through the city, stores littering the buildings, he saw someone he never thought he'd see again.

you, only now working for your mothers seamstress company. you were embroidering something on the station, hands precise and focused, not noticing him.

he had to keep moving, but.. he made a mental note to come back later.

he finished his patrol anxious, he went to sleep thinking of what he'd even say to you. 'hey sorry for ruining your life, can you forgive me?' he slapped his forehead in frustration.

he searched up basic sign language for beginners, learning a bit. he laughed at the stupid thoughts of your forgiveness that he dreamt of.

"as if i deserve it." he muttered, looking deeply at the ceiling of his room before falling asleep.

as soon as he awoke, he got dressed and prepared. he tried to look causal, as if he wasn't planning this.

he walked in, immediately greeted by your mother who congratulated him on his heroics. "well isn't that dynamite? saving the world i see."

he laughed politely. "i'll be number one soon enough."

"of course! well, what're you looking for? i'll give you a family discount, you grew up so close to [name] didn't you?"

his heart jumped into his throat.

"uh.. we did."

"you two were so adorable! she was so nervous around you, she must've had a crush on you or something!"

"i definitely don't think so."

"oh, you're just being modest." she said, hitting his arm lightly. "there she is now, go and speak to her."

"uh-- i--"

"go!" she shoved him in your direction, making you look up to see him. your lips parted in an unrecognizable expression as you saw him, the line you were working on now crooked as you were left alone together.

it's been about ten years hadn't it? ten years since he last saw you, but a lifetime he needed to apologize for.

he'd learned so much in U-A, outwardly changing his demeanor to what he always aspired to be. but all that meant nothing to you, who only experienced him at his worst.

he awkwardly raised his hand up to you, he did his best to sign while speaking, his hands shaky and unconfident. "hi [name], i'm really sorry about what happened back then."

your eyes followed the movements, your hands absentmindedly wrapping around yourself loosely, defensively.

"i know this is a lot but,

can we be friends?"

he waited anxiously for you to answer, you looking as if you were processing it.

in a grown up, yet timid voice, one that he hadn't heard since you were young, you almost whispered, signing as you did so out of reflex. "thank you, bakugo." your eyes grew watery. great, he just couldn't seem to stop making you cry.

he sat near you after getting wordless permission to, hanging onto every word you spoke, and being mindful to speak in a calm tone himself.

"i.. i'd like a friend, honestly. a new one anyways."

he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding when you said that, but still, it wasn't enough.

he wanted to, no needed to make you happy. the years of torment he subjected you to couldn't be made up by anything less than years of happiness.

after a bit of small talk, him asking you questions about what you'd been up to, how your life was treating you. he zoned out a couple times, thinking of how beautiful you've become.

"what would make you happy, [name]?" he finally said, his head supported on his hand as he gazed at you, making sure to enunciate his words so you could read his lips.

"what makes you ask?"

"i-- i want to make you happy. no matter the cost, it's what you deserve."

she laughed softly at that, her eyes flickering with an indistinguishable expression. "...i always wanted to travel. around the world, to see mountains and landscapes."

"then i'll take you."

"you don't have t--"

"i do. and ill do more [name], what i did to you was-- is horrible. you know that."

"i..

okay, okay bakugo."

"katsuki."

you smiled, "katsuki."

going from having very limited contact with your only friend from high school, to having a prohero come to your shop everyday was jarring. but not unwelcomed.

he brought gifts with him everytime, learning what you'd like and not. it ranged from food to stuffed animals, flowers to accessories, all of which you really appreciated.

you grew closer, eventually starting to meet outside of your mother's shop. at the park or walking around the mall, he'd take you anywhere you wanted to go. he'd pay for everything too, despite your reluctance.

he kept his word to you, and at the end of the month he asked you to come up to his apartment.

a penthouse.

as you walked in, greeted by the shimmering atmosphere of the expensive furniture and decor all around, abstract paintings and trophies littering shelves on the walls.

you stood by the front entrance, taking off your shoes as you walked in. "katsuki?" you asked, looking around.

he came out, a tiny smile on his face. "ya made it." he had something behind his back, "come in [name]."

the apartment was huge to say the least, it becoming even bigger than it looked from the entrance. he guided you to his plush couch, sitting next to you.

"so, i know you said you dreamt of traveling, right?"

at your nod, he pulled out the tickets from behind his back. "i.. got this tickets for you. i didn't want to push it in case you didn't want me to go with you but--"

you cut him off with a hug, tackling him into the couch.

"of course i want you to come,

katsuki."

you signed his name differently than other times,

you'd finally made a name for him.

he hugged back mindfully, so excited to finally have a huge first step in the right direction.

but he still needed to make you happy. "we'll leave in two days if that's okay, i just wanted to give you time to pack."

"okay, that's good."

"do you.. want to stay?" he asked nervously, the thought had popped into his mind and out his mouth in a millisecond.

you blinked, sitting up on his legs, pondering it over.

"sure, okay."

he put on some movies for the two of you, his heart was racing at the proximity of your body to his.

the night ended with you laid on top of him, fast asleep as he was comforted by the beating of your heart against his. your chest against his, his hand in your hair as your head laid in his neck.

he woke up first, to the sight of the gold light making you look heavenly, your hair messy from how he was playing with it throughout the night. your face was almost against his, he could kiss you right now.

but he shouldn't. he would move but he didn't want to couldn't, so he looked you over. you woke up to the feeling of his fingers caressing your face, your eyes half lidded from sleep.

"'suki. g'morning."

his heart was getting used to irregularly pounding around you at this point. "[name], uh-- hi."

after a couple moments, you got off of him, much to his discontent. his hands sliding down your legs as you got up.

"i'll be going now, i gotta pack and stuff." you said, looking in one of the many mirrors scattered around as you fixed your appearance as much as you could.

he nodded. "let me walk you home at least."

and he did walk you home, hand in hand.

those two nights he spent pondering over you. he didn't know why, but hero work felt much lighter after talking it out with you. becoming your friend was one of the best things he'd achieved in years, and that was including his recent rankings.

he thought back to how he treated you as a kid, had he really just been searching for your validation all along?

is that why it hurt when you told him he'd never amount to his dreams, because he only valued your opinion?

he let himself sleep, he'd see you tomorrow. and he'd make it all right.

he woke up and picked you up at your place, his expensive sports car standing out against the comfort of the neighborhood. you walked out, dressed simply but cute, a bag of your own in hand.

he grabbed it from you and placed it in the back, opening the passenger door for you as he drove to the airport. his hand on your thigh as he did so, letting you play the music you'd like with loud bass.

it was a half hour ride in comfortable silence, he gazed at you occasionally, a thoughtful expression on your face.

on the plane, you sat by the window. it was first class so you'd get to sleep in a physical bed, in a closed room. you were treated to whatever food and drinks you wanted, hugging katsuki when you found out you where you were heading.

the flight was a long eighteen hours, but it was spent hanging out with katsuki. on his lap asking him questions about the shows you two had watched, power scaling arguments about past heroes, fights he'd recently been in.

also what you two planned to do as you were there, you wanted to go to the beaches and mountains, he just wanted to follow you.

you fell asleep together again, your face laid directly in his chest as he held you.

you woke up to katsuki tapping you on the shoulder. as you raised the volume on your aids, you heard the beeping on the intercoms that meant you'd have to go back to your seats for the landing, groggily being helped up by katsuki as he moved you to to your seats.

you sat by the windows, looking at the tropical region as you two landed, your hand still in his. the moments after we're a blur, before you knew it you were in a car being buckled up by katsuki as you were being driven to your hotel.

what you didn't know was that it was a villa, built on top of the waters of the ocean, your very own private beach right outside your doors with the mountains you'd dreamt of treking right behind you.

you'd never been so happy.

the days you'd spent started and ended all the same, you waking up and going to sleep in katsuki's arms. pretending like you didn't notice how your bed hair got worsened after he played with it all night.

the first days you'd spent at the beach, attempting and failing at surfing. your jet lag was killed off by your utter excitement.

you being thankful your aids were water resistant because of how much you loved the waters of the river and the seas.

you'd had a sandcastle competition, sunbathed, and soaked off in the hot tub of your villa together.

the trek's were fun too, katsuki was annoyingly good at everything so you'd have to fight to keep up.

your polaroid in hand as you snapped candid shots of him, turning it to yourself as you got a selfie of you two with the gorgeous rivers as background.

you jumped into those too, making katsuki freak out as you dived in to the deep waters.

you even got to the top one day, jokingly saying that you should've brought a flag to the top to celebrate. the golden hours of the sunset making you glimmer.

a moment of silence passed over you as he slowly approached you, wordlessly asking for permission as you once again put your hands in his.

you leaned in first, kissing him with the sun as witness.

"i really like you [name]." he sighed and spoke after you pulled away.

"i like you too." you replied, hugging him tightly.

the rest of your trip was filled with your firsts with katsuki.

your first official date was in the burrows of the forest, a picnic where you two painted portraits of eachother. albeit, unique portraits... but painting nonetheless.

your first moment truly loving someone, the feeling you recognized as you laid him in your lap for the first time.

your first talk about what happened all those years ago. a deep one.

"[name], before we become something um.. official. we need to talk about how i hurt you." katsuki said one day, laying faced to you but taking your hands into his.

"kats--"

"let me speak. please." after you nodded, he took a breath and began.

"i was egotistical and really insecure all those years. you were the only one who really read me, that's why i think i got so upset.

i didn't mean to hurt you, i never wanted to hurt anyone i swear-- i just hated that you were right.

that weighed over me all these years, the fact that my hero work meant nothing if i was doing it while acting so.. unheroic.

i never fully felt like a hero, not until i met you again.

not until you graced me with your friendship, your undeserved affection towards me. i just-- i really care about you. and im really sorry, ill spend the rest of my life apologizing to you, and you don't have to accept it because i don't deserve it.

i guess what i'm trying to say is..

sorry, and.. i love you [name].

you don't have to--"

he was cut off by a kiss on his lips.

it felt different somehow, he couldn't place it. almost sad in a way as you pulled back.

"i don't think you were trying to hurt me. but, you did.

and you're working to change it, i appreciate that.

i really care for you too katsuki."

the rest of your trip was comfortingly domestic, learning things about each other you'd never know.

your last week was bittersweet, having to leave your jointed paradise was a reality that saddened the both of you. but your dream was fulfilled, and so was his.

seeing that he was the cause of your smiles and not your horror, making you happy was the light of his day. no, his life.

he thinks he was born to make you happy.

the flight back was a blur, you spent it clinging to him. you started to gift him your own things over the hours, a scrunchie of yours, a bracelet for him to keep.

a locket with a photo of you two, and the polaroid you'd taken on the mountains.

"why are you giving this all to me? not that i'm complaining."

"well, you'll get more use out of it. that's all."

he scrunched his face up in confusion, but with a smile you waved off his concerns.

he wished he pushed you more.

he wished that you'd forgive him for failing you once again, as he fought to take the razor blade out of your grip, slicing your hand in the process.

you were in your bathtub, surrounded by water yet fully clothed, tears and wails wracking your body as you just wanted it to be over.

you finally relented, your blood staining his clothes and the water as he picked you up. you couldn't hear him, you'd taken out your aid.

but you could feel his sobs, his tears hitting you as you shut your eyes, embarrassed of what you'd just done.

you were rushed to the hospital and given stitches, you were to be closely watched from your mom now on, you were told by an interpreter.

katsuki's eyes were red, matching his pupils as he looked at you.

he was frustrated, you could see it in the trembling of his fists and the scowl in his mouth. if he hadn't been there.. you would be dead.

why, he asked you. and to be honest, you really couldn't explain it yourself.

when you got home to your apartment, empty and reminding of your reality away from katsuki, you just felt so..

scared. what would happen when he finally got the validation he needed and left you? your whole life was quiet and tranquil, you'd gotten used to it. but he flipped it upside down again, showed you what your life really could be.

it was too much for you. you had to escape, so after sitting on it, tapping your leg anxiously as you pondered your decision, you went on your phone.

you went online and saw his life outside of you, how he had everything going for him yet what did you really have? a mom and a job at her company?

you grew impulsive, grabbing it absentmindedly and filling up the tub with the water you grown to love over the past month.

after you started bleeding, you panicked. what had you just done? but it was too late..

until he saved you from yourself.

you were zoning out. when you didn't answer him, he repeated himself, grabbing the interpreter so you could sign.

but still you said nothing, except a small sorry.

he left afterwards, leaving you alone in the bed to think.

you were back in your childhood room now, your mom having sobbed as she looked over your hands, as she asked you, "what the hell were you thinking?"

you looked at those glow in the dark stars and tried to find an answer, but there was none.

you held yourself to sleep for the first time in months, already missing him deeply.

little did you know, he was thinking about you too.

the next morning you awoke to a knock on your bedroom door. assuming it was your mom, you got up and opened it.

it was katsuki instead, holding a bouquet of flowers and the locket you'd given him.

"can i come in?"

you opened the door wider, leading him to sit on your bed.

"katsuki i--"

"[name]. i don't know why you did what you did.. but i know it probably has something to do with me. so what did i do wrong?" he looked defeated, as if he thought it was his fault you tried to end your life.

"no! no that wasn't it at all. well, it was about you but not like that.

it's just.. i've been alone. for so long? having you around felt.. too good to be true. i didn't want to go back to how i was before. in a way, you were too good for me."

"you're.. an idiot. but i guess i understand."

"i just.. i really love how you treat me. i didn't want it to go away."

a moment of silence passes, a small anxious laugh leaving katsuki's lips.

"fuck, i thought you hated me. could barely sleep without you."

he pulled you into him, staring deeply into your eyes as he pulled you impossibly closer. he kissed you deeply. his worries, passions, and frustrations all poured out into it.

he pulled away, eyes half lidded as he asked gruffly.

"wanna take this back to my place?"

he took your last first away, gentle and loving as he guided you through it. reassuring you that he'd never leave you.

you moved in with him soon after, finding it hard to sleep without eachother, no matter how late he got back to your shared home.

he'd be welcomed back by the sight of you, who always tried and failed to stay up waiting for him. he'd pick you up, like always, and hug you to sleep.

he'd know he woke you up by the feeling of your smile in his chest, the way you tightened you arms around him.

he loved spending every waking moment he could with you. you were right though, he did break up with you after he got your validation.

...

but that's just an odd way to say he proposed to you, vowing to spend the rest of his life making you happy and fufiling your wishes one by one.

he changed not only himself, but the way you see yourself. he changed your relationships with yourselves and eachother for the better,

and as you walked down the aisle, your wedding planned by your two designer parents, being lavish and gorgeous. the silk on the floor being runway to your expensive shoes specially designed for you, the guests in awe of how gorgeous you are.

you both knew, you'd better eachother for better or for worse, for as long as you'd be together.

he signed 'i do', sealing the rest of your lives together,

with a kiss.

[justatypicalwizard]

Katsuki doesn't believe in love at first sight

Katsuki never believed in love at first sight. How could someone meet eyes and feel as if a thunder ruptured down from the skies and struck them? To love someone means to accept every part of them and to be able to incorporate them into your everyday life. It means building a brand new everyday with that person.

In order to do so you need to know a lot about them. Who they are, what are their plans for the future, what is their character and so on. Then you need to see if you are compatible in many spheres. You need to invite them to your friends group to see if it’ll hit off, you should try living together, they need to get to know your parents.

There are simply so many things to check off the list in order to be able to say you love someone. Otherwise it’s just empty words. I love you here and there. I love you for a week. I love you when you do as I please. Bullshit.

Mina constantly pestered Katsuki that his definition of love feels more like a chore or a job interview than like something a human would be able to accomplish. It wasn’t his fault he had some standards everyone else seemed to lack.

So even now Katsuki doesn’t like to admit that he fell in love at first sight, because it wasn’t the first time when he looked at you.

A quiet ping of his phone tore him out of his work. A new message from someone he didn’t recognise. Without much thought he opened the text.

[Hi, you may not know me but we go to the same lecture on Wednesday at 1 PM. I heard you have neat notes and wanted to ask if it wouldn’t be a problem if you send me today’s ones. I  got sick and couldn’t come and I wouldn’t want to fall behind with the material. Thanks!]

Geez, was there a longer way to type it? Couldn’t you just write: can you give me notes? On the other hand he always complained about people being douchebags.

Clicking onto your profile Katsuki saw a cheesy photo and a few posts from your daily life and vacations. Nothing much to be honest. Yet, he could vaguely remember your face around the people who entered the lecture hall. It won’t hurt to help.

[Sure]

[File attached]

Pushing his phone to the far end of his desk he went back to work. A few minutes later there was another quiet ding and this time Katsuki felt irritation bubbling inside him. It was you once again.

[Thank you so much!]

[I owe you]

[If you ever need anything feel free to write]

Whatever.

It only took a week for Katsuki to be indeed looking for help from someone. Once in a while, during his hero training, he was forced to pair up with someone in order to work on his rescue skills. Usually they’d use dummies but some fucktard in the course planning team decided that it would be most helpful if the students could train with a real human.

Normally Katsuki would ask Mina. He’d swallow his pride and force himself to listen to her babbling for two hours. Just to get it done. Unfortunately, Mina dumped him today, leaving only a [sorry, not feeling well, find someone else]. Damned flu season.

Who was he supposed to ask now, Denki?

As he scrolled down his chats, your profile pic flew by making Katsuki halt.

If you ever need anything feel free to write.

Screw it, you said it yourself, might as well find a person already and move on with his day. He typed a quick explanation and pushed the send button. The day was nearing the afternoon when you responded.

[Sure, if it’s two hours I can make it. Send me when and where I should be]

He shrugged and gave you the address for today's training.

In the early evening Katsuki found himself trotting towards his usual fighting ground absentmindedly. He was thinking about something related to work at Miruko’s when the idea flew out of his head. You were there, he could see you from afar, walking in circles in front of the main door.

Were you an idiot? It was the middle of winter and the early evening cold tore through layers of warm coats to sink into your bones. Why weren’t you entering the building to warm up a bit.

That’s why Katsuki is so stubborn about the whole love at first sight thing. It certainly wasn’t that exact moment when his heart skipped a beat because of you. You were shivering, hiding your chin and red tinted cheeks deeper into the collar of your winter coat. When you spotted him you reached out a gloved hand and waved.

“What the fuck are you doing outside, get in there or you’ll catch another cold.” He persisted, ushering you towards the entrance.

“Wow, good evening to you too.” You looked at him from under your woollen hat, surprised to get yelled at first thing you see him. Though, you did hear the upcoming pro-hero Dynamite, who went to the same lecture as you, was rather intense. “I don’t know, this place just looks fancy. Didn’t want to stand inside like a dumbass not knowing where to go.”

“So you stood outside like a dumbass not knowing where to go.”

“Exactly.”

He let you in and showed you around. After leaving your coat and getting a warm tea (his idea), you were ready to help with his training. The support students and university staff running around asked you to take off any unnecessary piece of clothing such as jewellery or sweaters that could get in the way. You gladly went through with their instructions.

You b-lined another student, a senior support course, who showed you the place where you’d be waiting to be rescued. The spacious arena was moulded into the shape of a city. Some buildings were fine, others rundown as if a villain attack rolled over them. There were paveways and roads, streetlamps and plastic trees. You even spotted a car, though it didn’t look like it could take off anytime soon. 

“It will look the same over and over. You sit or lie down in the place where I leave you and wait for your hero.” Your guide briefed the rules. “And every time pick out a different scenario and tie the band in the place that is put on it.” He handed you a dozen of ribbons with small notes attached to them. The first one you grabbed read: broken arm (tie around elbow).

“Sure.” You nodded your head and he left you on the second floor of a wannabe office building. There were a few chairs scattered around and a table that had a weird bite mark on it. You obediently wrapped the band around your arm and sat down on the floor, waiting.

You wondered how it’ll be, to get fake rescued. You were never in such a situation, always watching the villains from the comfort of your TV rather than first hand. What was Dynamite’s quirk? Suddenly you felt stupid for not knowing. On the other hand, you were never up to date with new heroes and all the popularity polls or colourful magazines. Guess you’d just have to wait and see.

Katsuki didn’t leave you for long. You were counting the pieces of shattered glass beneath your feet when a series of explosions passed beside the building. The small pieces you were meticulously adding shook and you let out a squeak when something heavy hit the wall behind you.

“Shut up, it's me.” Craning your neck, you saw Dynamite’s face, upside down, looking at you. He was halfway through the window. “What have you got?”

“God, you scared me.” You chuckled but quickly shut your mouth. The guide asked you to play the best victim you can. Victims shouldn’t laugh.

Dynamite hopped in front of you and crouched to read the note attached to your elbow. He mumbled something in the lines of fucking scenario and looked you straight in the eye.

“I’m gonna get you out of here.”

There wasn’t anything dramatic going on, it was even quiet outside save for a few shouts here and there. Yet, there was just something in a bulked man looking at you and promising you protection, one secured by his own arms. You felt like the guy from the firefighters video.

You couldn’t stop the giggle at the thought.

“What the fuck are you laughing at?” Dynamite spat.

“Nothing, nothing.” You shook your hands in front of your still laughing face. “Oh shit, this one’s supposed to be broken. Okay, just save me already.” You really fought with the snicker but the cheesiness and awkwardness of the whole situation had you in a chokehold.

“Whatever.” The hero sighed, visibly annoyed, and scooped you into his hands like a sack of potatoes. “I’ll need you to wrap your legs around me. Push the broken arm into my chest and use your healthy one to hold onto me.”

You did as instructed and glued yourself to him as tight as you could. He still held you with one of his arms and just when you started to wonder how the two of you would get down from the second floor he jumped out of the window.

A scream escaped your lips but it was muffled by a loud explosion.

For the next two hours you flew through the air in Dynamite’s hands over and over again. He held you in different ways, depending on your supposed injury, but every time you landed into the safe zone, you realised you were the first or nearly the first. That guy was quick like hell.

The last scenario rolled over and it was a panic attack. You were supposed to be physically fine but otherwise unresponsive and difficult to work with due to your shock. Dynamite tried to take extra steps to calm you down, speaking about how he’ll take you to safety and how it will all be over in a second. It looked like he was having a hard time.

“I need to touch you to take you somewhere safe.” He said, wrapping one of his hands around you.

When you were both at the safe zone, with cardboard paramedics to take care of you, Dynamite did something different. Instead of leaving you in the place where the group of injured would grow, he carried you straight to the ambulance.

“She has a panic attack.” He said to the empty fake vehicle and you just couldn’t take any more of it. You erupted in a fit of laughter. Your body shook in his hands and you gripped the X on his uniform to steady yourself. “What the fuck?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” You tried to explain but the laughter squeezed your throat. “I’m a shitty actor.”

“I see that.” Dynamite grumbled.

“Do you really need to talk to cardboard people and empty vehicles for two hours every week?” You asked, wiping a tear from your cheek.

“Is it really that fucking funny?”

“No, no! I get it.” You finally calmed down, letting go of the front of his costume. “It’s not that funny, maybe a bit but not that much. I think I’m just in a good mood.” You shrug your shoulders. “It was fun, flying with you, like a free rollercoaster ride.” You gave him a big, big smile. A big genuine smile. A big, genuine, lovely smile, with your eyes closed and teeth out and cheeks tinted pink.

People are stupid. That’s what Katsuki thinks. It’s not love at first sight. It’s love because of a single sight.

Even though Katsuki came to some fundamental conclusions in the topic of love he would get all defensive and intense when he was asked about how the two of you met. It would sound way better if he could say the two of you met, then started to talk more, then went on a date and agreed to meet each other and so on. He just felt so stupid, so awkward and silly when he had to admit that all it took for you was a single smile to make his heart skip a beat.

The worst part? It felt a little pathetic honestly, as if people never smiled at him, but truthly they didn’t, not like that. Not like you.

Katsuki still doesn’t believe in love at first sight. Yet, every other piece of his meticulously calculated equation of love was torn down and rewritten, all of which he gladly took.

[shatterinseconds]

“Oh my fucking god,” Lance says as he runs a hand through his curls, tugging all the way down to the roots until the pressure stings. “You are single handedly the most frustrating person in this entire universe.”

Keith glares. “Try looking in the mirror.”

Lance grabs onto Keith’s jacket, dragging him forward until they’re inches apart. “I’m trying to ask you out on a date, jackass!”

Keith’s mouth pops open, silent shock weighing down the air around them. Lance quickly releases him and he stumbles back, still off balance from Lance’s confession. Lance didn’t even mean for it to slip out like that. He was trying to be a gentleman and ask Keith out subtly and politely, but things haven’t necessarily gone to plan. Between surprise Galra attacks and Keith’s thick skull, it’s been a difficult mission. Lance wipes his sweaty palms on his pants; his nerves spark the longer Keith remains silent.

He should probably apologize.

Disbelief shines in Keith’s gaze as he crosses his arms. Setting his mouth to a firm line, he snorts. “Since when have you ever been interested in men?”

Lance scrunches his nose. “I’ve been bisexual this whole goddamn time.” This man and his obtuseness; it will certainly be the death of him one day if not today. 

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

Keith purses his lips before staring at the ground for a moment as he mutters through pink cheeks, “Sorry.” He at least has the decency to apologize for his assumptions so Lance sighs as he slides his hands into his pockets.

“No, I should apologize too. It’s just really frustrating trying to ask you out, Mullet. I don’t know how many times this is now.”

“Really?” Keith starts to laugh a little before he clears his throat and traps it behind his lips. “I thought you were just testing out all your bad flirting attempts to get them out of the way.” Affronted, Lance opens his mouth, ready to defend himself, but Keith shakes his head. His next words stop anything Lance was going to say anyways. “Try again. One more time.”

Cautious, Lance steps towards him, and when Keith remains in place, he gathers the courage to close the gap. He rests his hand on Keith’s cheek, sliding it into his hair to weave through the unbelievably soft strands for someone who uses thirteen-in-one shampoo. Yes, this is the man he has chosen to have a crush on and there’s nothing he can do about it.

“Keith, Mullet, pain in my ass, apple of my eye, will you please go on a date with me?”

“Was being that direct so difficult?”

“With you, everything is difficult,” Lance mutters but doesn’t miss the softness of his own tone nor the way Keith slips an arm around his waist.

“A date sounds nice. But next time don’t take so long to ask.” Keith’s smirk grows across his face and Lance can’t even be mad as he chuckles into a kiss that eventually leaves them both breathless.

[pathologicalreid]

litmus test | s.r.

in which Spencer needs your expertise to help solve a murder, but crime fighting is most decidedly not for you

who? spencer reid x chemist!reader category: flangst (like. the end is a little angsty and it has case details) content warnings: typical cm violence, science talk, fem!reader, reader is not built for crime, morgan being an older brother, some fun banter!! death by firework is crazy lmao word count: 1.68k a/n: this is one of my favorite fluff pieces i've written in agessss i missed chemist!reader so much i learn so many things when i'm writing her. this was a request! i hope you like it as much as i do!!

“Do you have a second?” Spencer asks, his voice slightly choppy over the phone. Between his ancient phone and being inside concrete police precincts, some disconnect was bound to happen.

Saving your document to your computer, you rest the lab phone between your shoulder and ear, “If you’re asking me if I have any corrosive chemicals in my hands, the answer is no.”

He chuckles lightly, “I never know with you.”

You roll your eyes in response, even if he can’t see you, “It was one time and I needed a new phone case anyway.”

“You fused the plastic of your phone case to the material of your phone,” he retorts far too quickly for your liking.

“Yes,” you acquiesce, “but I know the exact chemical reaction that caused that phenomenon.” You cross your legs one over the other, maintaining your balance on your lab stool as you speak to Spencer over the phone.

He gave a light hum in response, “Speaking of chemical reactions – I need your help.”

Your eyebrows shot up in surprise, “You’re asking me for help in chemistry?” There really was a first time for everything, you suppose.

Spencer was more than capable of navigating a lab on his own, even so, he admits, “You have more applied practice than I do.”

Pursing your lips, you nod to yourself, “Fair enough. What’s stumping you, Dr. Reid?” Your inquiry, while innocent enough, garners a wolf whistle from your graduate assistant.

“There’s something burning a hole in these bones, and I’m not sure what would be causing it to happen this fast,” he explains, giving you minor background information on how long the bones were out and if the medical examiner had treated them with something.

You clear your throat, frowning at the notes you had scrawled down in front of you, “Burning or corroding?” What was seemingly a meaningless distinction would actually allow you to filter through approximately half of the possibilities.

“Corroding,” he corrects himself, “My mistake.”

Crossing off some of your notes, you purse your lips at the new possibilities, “No worries. Did you try flushing it out with water?”

You hear papers flipping on his end of the call before you get a response, “That would destroy evidence.”

“Well,” you raise your eyebrows, “It sounds like your evidence is destroying itself.”

“Baby,” Spencer says in a no-nonsense tone reserved for when he was deep in a case. You could’ve sworn you heard Morgan in the background of the call mocking him for the pet name.

Turning back to your notes, you sigh, “Yeah, yeah, all work and no play. Was the body buried?”

“Partially,” his reply intrigues you, “I can have Garcia send you the crime scene photos if you think it’ll help.”

Wrinkling your nose at the thought, you made an unsure sound, “Right, because nothing says lunchtime like getting up close and personal with a homicide victim.”

“What lunchtime? It’s three pm in D.C. right now,” he caught you, a slight chiding tone in his words.

Ignoring his questions, you ask more of your own, “Was the body near water? Did they test the pH of the soil and water?”

There were more papers flipping, likely someone presenting the results of those tests to him, “Yeah, the soil was a five-point two and the water was a seven-point eight,” he listed off for you.

While your knowledge of the pH of the soil in Iowa was limited, you did know that those levels were pretty on par for the northern Mississippi River. “O-kay,” you say, extending your vowels, “and they didn’t find anything else on the scene that points to corrosive materials. Hydrofluoric acid?” You posit, “No, you know what – maybe you should send me those files. My work email is encrypted, you can give it to Penelope.”

He speaks to someone else in the room with him and you resist the urge to ask him if he’s enjoying Iowa, “It’s sent,” he confirms with you.

Pulling up your email only takes a moment, and once you get over the initial shock of seeing a dead body on your computer screen, you lift your lab glasses to the top of your head in order to get a better look. “I mean,” you think for a moment, “those look like alkali burns to me. I’ve never seen them on bones before, but you should do a litmus test to check either way.”

“So, we rinse it with water?” He asks, seeking instruction from you in a way that makes you feel oddly powerful.

Your eyes widen, “No, no, no. If it’s a metal compound then it’ll be covered in a mineral oil, so rinsing it with water would actually make the burn worse.”

Pausing for a moment, you consider the possibility that Spencer didn’t have the luxury of time – he was trying to solve a murder, not do experiments in a lab.

“Alkali burns can be serious, it all depends on what caused them, and most are helped by rinsing with water. So, unless you have the time to test for metal compounds, I’d go ahead and rinse it. You might want to brush the damage to the bones with a dry brush first. If there’s lime on the bones it’ll foam, which not only will corrode the bones even further but it might release a toxic gas,” you have no idea how the corrosion would interact with bone marrow, but something tell you that you don’t want to know

“Wait a minute,” Derek interjects, being included in the conversation now that Spencer put the call on speaker, “I thought things like alkaline water were good for you.”

You scoff instinctively, “Oh, there’s no definitive evidence that shows alkaline water as having any real health benefits. Especially not the benefits that the internet says it has.” Straightening up in your stool, you continue, “In fact, there is evidence from the NIH that says drinking alkaline water could cause kidney damage. There’s a particular-“

“My bad,” he interjects, effectively stopping your rambling before it really took off, “I forgot whose girlfriend I was talking to.”

Groaning at your new vexation, you huff, “Oh, fuck off, Derek. Go kick down a door.”

Spencer quickly switches the phone back, “Thank you, angel.”

Squinting at the photos that were still on your laptop screen, a crude, disturbing thought came to mind, “You know, sparklers can cause alkali burns. It might be something to consider because of the diameter of the burns.”

Your boyfriend was silent on his end of the call for so long that you had to check and make sure the call hadn't dropped. “Did you say sparklers?”

“Yep,” you confirm, “like the ones you can get everywhere this time of year.”

He says something to Morgan, placing his hand over the receiver so you can’t hear, “There’s only one spot in this town, though. I’ve gotta go, see you soon.”

“Stay safe, please! I prefer your bones unburned,” you rattle off into the phone before it clicks, placing the phone back on the stand and deleting the crime scene photos from your inbox.

The front door to the apartment opens and shuts quietly, with Spencer under the assumption that you already went to bed, he was surprised to find you on the couch, nursing a cup of tea. “Hey, baby,” he chirps, unusually peppy for this time of night.

“Hey,” you say half-heartedly, threading your fingers through the handle of the mug.

Your somber tone gets Spencer’s attention, “What’s wrong?”

The slight panic in his voice causes your eyes to snap up to his, “Nothing,” you murmur. “It’s just… the woman who was in those pictures. There- the burns on her bones, they were signs of torture, weren’t they?”

You’d been thinking about the burns ever since Spencer showed them to you, “Yes,” he answers with a reciprocating softness, sitting down next to you on the couch. “The medical examiner concluded that she was burned antemortem.”

That woman had been burned alive by fireworks, sparklers had seared their way through skin and muscle until it finally met her bones. You blink a few tears from your eyes at the thought, “I like my lab, Spence.”

The confusion on his face was palpable, “I know you do.”

“I like my minimal human interaction and my chemicals, and I like knowing why certain things cause certain reactions. I like it when things make sense.” You take a deep, shaky breath, “Killing someone. Torturing someone with fireworks. That just doesn’t make sense to me.”

You had no interest in hearing the excuses that the killer had provided. You had no interest in hearing the psychological breakdown of that woman’s killer. Spencer knows that, “The photos got to you?”

Taking a sip from your mug, you nod solemnly, “I can’t stop thinking about the way it must have felt. Oh, the smell must have been horrible. That poor woman.” In theory, it was a ridiculous notion, killing someone with fireworks seemed neither probable nor possible. Yet here you are.

“But we got the person who killed her,” Spencer reassures you, resting his hand gently on your knee. “We couldn’t have done it without you,” he adds.

Your face warms at his compliment, “I wish I could have helped before she was killed.” You were grateful that Spencer hadn’t passed on any personal information about the woman, it was easier for you if you kept things in separate storage files in your mind.

Spencer hums, reaching out and sweeping a strand of hair behind your ear, “There’s always going to be another one. I’m sorry about the photos, I should’ve made sure Garcia only sent the necessary ones.”

Nodding absentmindedly, you look at him thoughtfully, “This will pass, but for tonight I just feel bad for the victim.”

“I can have Penelope share some of her favorite baby animal videos, if you’d like,” he offers softly, resting his head on your shoulder.

In return, you give him a small smile, “Well, I suppose it really can’t hurt.”

[luveline]

hello lovely angel!! humbly requesting zombie!steve au, perhaps more of jealous steve? i love their dynamic so much💗 maybe someone is flirting with reader, and enter protective steve:)

thanks for requesting! fem, 2k

You tend to think of it in two weird halves. You love Steve, and you never would’ve known that without the end of the world, so things are okay. Sometimes you wonder if he ever could’ve loved you if he hadn’t been so close to you for so long, but he loves you in this insane capacity of softness that says otherwise. Like, soulmate style. 

It didn’t begin that way. Steve your reluctant guide, and you his unlikely saviour. You’d stopped him from dying at the very start of it all and he couldn’t leave you behind. And Steve, he’d been mean to you. He didn’t want to take care of you initially, but you’d grown to get along. You’d argue black and blue and he’d still rub your back at night. 

There are so many moments you’ve shared that make what you have all the more special. A hundred different memories from before you’d ever kissed. You think about it now, watching him across the firepit as he shows a young girl, Cassandra, how to braid her hair. 

The one that’s sticking today is when Steve got really bad food poisoning for the first time. When you’d known you were in love with him for a while, and when he’d stopped pretending he didn’t know. He’d been sick everywhere, on both your shoes, and you’d rubbed his back through everything.  

It was nice to take care of him. Nicer that night when you’d shared a bed and he’d hugged you half to death. 

He has no idea how much he means to you, or how much those moments with him kept you going when you were all alone. You’re lucky now to have found community, but those stolen hours in bed with him hugging him and getting to be his support, you wouldn’t have made it here without them. 

“Hey.” 

You look up as a man sits down. A boy, a man —what do you call twenty somethings? You don’t feel like a woman most of the time, but you are. 

“Hi,” you say. 

“I’m Jamison.” 

“You’re Eddie’s friend, right?” 

“Who, Munson?” Jamison makes a kidding face, a disgusted scrunch of his eyebrows that falls away to more friendly fondness. “Yeah, we go back. You’re Eddie’s friend too, right? I saw you guys taking out some laundry a few days ago.” 

Jamison is handsome. He has tan skin, short hair, and a crooked nose. His smile is disarming. If you hadn’t fallen in love with the handsomest guy around, you might feel nervous under his gaze. 

Time spent ugly under Steve’s reverent handling makes you confident. You genuinely feel prettier knowing Steve loves you, and it makes it easier to be yourself with strangers. 

“Eddie’s awesome,” you say easily. “I thought he was gonna kill me when we first met, but he’s too nice.” 

“Nice, really?” 

Jamison is casual, as people go. You wonder what his motivations are for talking to you at first, but as conversation stretches, littered with the cracking pops of the fireplace and brief pauses of surprisingly comfortable silence, you realise he’s just talking. Maybe he’s lonely. You know how that feels. 

He tells you that he and Eddie had been in a rock band together before the apocalypse. You’d known to some extent that Eddie was in a band, but Jamison tells you all the details you’d been missing. They were called Corroded Coffin, four members, Eddie played guitar and Jamison thought he was pretty fucking good at it, actually. 

“I don’t think we would’ve been, like, Metallica. But we could’ve been good. We were gonna make a record.” 

You smoke sympathetically. “I bet you could’ve been.” 

“What were you doing? Before all this?” 

“I honestly barely remember,” you say quietly. Your life before Steve is a blur, and it’s painful, too. “Things are harder now, I know that. I wish every day that we could go back to how things were, you know, I miss TV and grocery stores and my family.” You lick your lips. “I wish things were different, but somehow, I think I like my life now. I have stuff to do. Is that crazy?” 

“It’s not crazy. Everything fucking sucks,” —you both laugh— “but that’s not crazy. I’m lucky, I still have my dad, and my friends. There’s purpose in being here.” 

You nod emphatically, just once. “Exactly.” 

You have purpose, now. You get to be a friend, a girlfriend, a confidente. You take care of people. 

It all comes back to Steve, at the end of the day. Would you change the world if it meant never having met him? 

Nope. 

You glance across the fire for him, but he’s not there. 

You put your arm behind your back and bend, looking for him. 

“Looking for someone?” Jamison asks. 

You deflate with relief when you spot him standing near the gaggle of tents about fifty feet away. He’s looking at you from over Robin’s shoulder. You wave, and he waves back with a big smile. 

Something seems a little wrong. 

“Steve,” you explain. 

“He’s your boyfriend, yeah? Eddie told me you’ve been together since the start.” 

You don’t bother correcting him. He might not mean together as how you’re thinking it. “Yeah, that’s him. Have you met him?” 

“Kind of. We all thought he was a huge dick, back then.” 

“He sort of was,” you say. “I mean, we all had our own stuff going on. I get that I’m biased, but he’s my favourite person I’ve ever met. He’s so kind, I don’t think I could describe it to you or anyone just how much he cares about people. I wouldn’t be here without him, and… I don’t know, I’m not saying you’re wrong, but if you ever wanted to meet him again, he’s amazing. He’s a great friend. He’s so fucking funny, he makes me laugh every day.” 

“He’s sort of giving me the stink eye,” Jamison says. 

You wave your hand weakly. “He has raging jealousy issues.” 

“Shit, am I getting you in trouble?” 

“No, never!” you say, tempted to laugh. “He doesn’t get mad at me for stuff like that. He’s normal, I promise. Just sensitive.”

You tell Jamison that it was nice talking to him because it really was, but you’ve been missing Steve for hours already and you need to get back to him before you go totally bonkers. 

He’s sitting on the floor in the tent. The weather has been beautiful lately, you could sleep under the stars if you weren’t scared of being zombie charcuterie. Steve has stripped down to just his jeans and socks, no t-shirt or shoes to be seen. He has his sketchbook splayed open on his thigh, but he abandons it the moment you kneel down. 

“Hey,” you say. 

Steve folds his book closed, pencil between its pages. “Hi. Have I told you lately how beautiful you are?” 

You shuffle in to take his hand. Clumsy touches, his fingers warm and a tad clammy between yours. “You told me yesterday that I have a smile like an angel. I know you were kidding, but I still felt it.” 

“I wasn’t kidding,” he says, wrinkling his nose with a smile. “You think every compliment is a joke.” 

“Don’t make me laugh so much, then.” 

He squeezes your fingers gently. “Sorry I didn’t introduce myself to Jamison. Just, I knew him already from school. And he did not like me.” 

“That’s okay. He seemed nice, I think you’d get along if you met now.” You kick your shoes off and crawl as close to him as you can get. He looks up at you, but you look down at his lap. “What are you drawing?” 

“I was just trying to touch up that landscape I did of the river,” he says, a sheepishness to him as he opens his sketchbook. 

You read it with affection, trace lines and hatchings in awe. “Steve, I really wish you had time and space to do this stuff properly. Not that you aren’t doing it properly, just, I know you could make something just as beautiful as this with paint.” You slide to be sitting properly, putting you both at the same height, so you can meet his eyes as you continue. “Did you know what you wanted to do, when you were finishing school? Did you ever think about art?” 

“I thought about it.” His lips quirk. “Mostly about how my dad would’ve kicked me out if I said something that stupid.” 

“It’s not stupid.” 

“I know.” 

That would’ve been a nice life. You and Steve living together, with a basement for his paintings, or a garage turned studio. You’d read books together every night like you do now, and you’d scrub paint smudges off of his cheek. 

You love him so much it must give you an aura. 

“I’ve got nothing to worry about, huh?” he asks softly. 

You drift in, tipping your head back for a kiss you don’t take. “I don’t know, Steve, Jamison used to be in a rock band.” 

He scoffs in disgust. You think it might be a mixture of anger at Jamison and himself. “Who wants to date a rockstar?” 

“I might’ve.” 

You’re teasing, of course, smiling as your kiss draws nearer, and nearer. 

“Well, I can be a rockstar,” he says quietly, warmth of his breath on your lips. “Just give me a chance to get there.” 

You brush the tip of your nose against his and hold your breath. “That’s okay,” you say, letting it rush out of you in a huff, your excitement to be kissed too much to bear, “I like my guys all mixed up. Preferably good at track, and swimming, but with a soft side. Kind of guy who fills a sketchbook up with my face.” 

Steve lists to the side. Your lips are so close, you can feel the phantom of them against yours as he moves in. “It’s not just your face… it’s your hands, your arms… your everything–”

He cuts his own explanation off with a soft kiss. That softness swiftly hardens, turns rough, ten long seconds of sweetness before his hands coming up behind your head and he’s pressing inward, deepening the kiss, and giving you little room to breathe. 

You have no intention of dating any rockstars, but his jealous streak has nothing but upsides for you. Steve knows that his jealousy over the innocuous is his own problem, his own insecurity that he’s working on, and while you sympathise with him (after all, haven’t you yourself worried he’d find someone else he liked more?), you have to confess to enjoying the edge to his kissing. 

You make a pleased, humoured sound as he breathes you in like you’re a drug he’s been waiting for. He gets sloppier, and you can’t help pulling away to laugh. 

“What?” he asks, thumbing at your cheek in a soft juxtaposition. “Sorry, am I being a dick?” 

“No, it’s fine. Kiss me how you want to.” 

Steve kisses your cheek softly. “He knows you have a boyfriend, right?” 

“He knows.” 

Steve hums like he’s smiling and nudges your nose with his, until you part your lips, and he wades in for another dose. 

[honeydewandcake]

TW — Asylum/Hospital setting, mental disorders, medical malpractice

Inspired by Fran Bow, Sparklecare, Pure Trance, and other such things; I had an idea for a Dandy’s World AU that centers around a hospital setting

I feel like a lot of people don’t like asylum or hospital AUs because they are full of exaggerated or misinformed ideas of what mental illness is. I tried not to do that, though I’m not a professional so I still might be wrong about some things. I don’t want to take this idea too far in fear that it might be distasteful, but I do want to share this idea to see if others like it too.

Dandy’s Care is a separate world where, instead of a museum, Dandy and his friends were meant to be for a children’s hospital to treat the sick and ill. They were meant to be comfort characters to patients and were meant to support them during their stay. Like in Dandy’s World, the hospital shut down due to unspecified sanitation issues. Dandy, also known as Dr. Dandicus Dancifer, slowly became more and more starved for activity. He started targeting his friends, making the hospital into an asylum for them. He changed their characters, changing his friends into patients. The toons have no memory of their former self, only knowing their diseased and ill present self.

The staff is made up of the main toons. All of them are nurses and Dandy is the main doctor. They all act like their former selves, though they have no memory. I didn’t want to draw all of them so just imagine Astro and Vee in these uniforms.

Read more to see other toons (not all of them drawn or thought of yet, don’t attack me ;-;) ↓

Razzle and Dazzle, the only ones that I thought of completely because I already drew them before. They’re the reason why I made this entire thing anyway.

They are just experiments by Dandy, who wanted to see if the two could live together if they were attached. They used to love each other, now they don’t. Razzle is no longer looking for comedy, Dazzle is no longer looking for hope. Both are only set on the idea of revenge against Dandy for making them this way.

Life is hard when you can only feel the sensations on one half on your body, they can barely walk and can only stand or sit. They take many painkillers as their wounds take a long time to health properly. They wish they could escape this place and just die already, but they’re stuck and forced to live for as long as Dandy wants.

Razzle is a lot more violent now. He is prone to biting and scratching the staff. He hates doing all the lab tests and medical procedures, he hates being near Dazzle, he hates being stuck in this living hell. Razzle is the reason why they’re not allowed near sharp or blunt objects.

Dazzle became paranoid, scared of any noise that happens. He’s terrified of Razzle because of how violent he can get, he hates him too. Dazzle cries a lot, he cries until he can’t everyday. Dazzle wishes he could just die already, he thinks everything is scary and out to get him.

Shrimpo is thought to be a patient that had anger issues and aggressive tendencies. According to Dandy, he was admitted for being violent in public, although this is only part of the fake story that Dandy gave him. Shrimpo was forced to get a lobotomy, unethical but who cares. Dandy sure didn’t.

He’s still in the recovery phase, so he might be a bit loopy. Once those bandages are off, he’ll be as right as rain. Shrimpo is a wanderer around the hospital as he’s no longer a threat. He’s allowed to leave his room and go out in the play yard but only if a nurse is with him.

Shrimpo doesn’t really have much going for him. His thoughts are scrambled and he only cares for things in front of him. Although the lobotomy made him more passive, it doesn’t mean he’s any better in terms of motivation. Shrimpo certainly has no drive for anything anymore, he doesn’t mind but it gets in the way of his health as well. The staff needs to remind him to go to the dining room to eat or to go take a shower, because otherwise he’ll forget.

Boxten was made to believe that he has had problems with insomnia ever since he was little, of course it’s not true. He takes sleeping pills and melatonin, but it only seems to worsen his nightmares. This makes him skip his doses to avoid sleeping, repeating the cycle over and over.

Boxten is afraid of imaginary things that might get him. He thinks they’ve already in his head, eating away at his brain and giving him nightmares. Of course the only thing the nurses can see is his music box. Boxten has lost all trust in the staff since they couldn’t see or feel the things he can.

In my original notes, it said that Boxten might have psychosis.

Well that’s all the once I’ve drawn, I don’t really have the motivation to make every single toon. I have a couple of ideas though

— Goob somehow survived a terrible accident, but both his arms needed to be amputated making him armless. He suffers from brain damage and internal bleeding. He doesn’t seem to have any change in his personality, still as joyful as ever. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism

— Tisha has severe OCD which damages her mental health. She’s constantly worried about everything that happens around her, making her super aware of her surroundings. She could be a danger to herself and others as she sometimes has very aggressive thoughts but can’t control her actions. She unintentionally hurts herself because of her OCD, such as washing her hands so many times that they start to bleed.

Not for a toon, but I did have an idea for an added addition to the hospital. Maybe there’s a twisted reform center where the staff try and heal twisteds back to their normal self. They would clean the ichor from them but since the ichor is also inside of them their personalities don’t change as much. Twisteds such as Finn and R&D might be too far gone though, they would have to be disabled for life. I might draw this idea because I think it’s kind of cool, I definitely will if people also think this is interesting.

[ctghost]

okokok i can't stop thinking about @yan-randomfandom 's godling fic so here's some drabbles on ford's thoughts.. this can be some sort of continuation of this! (P.s i hope i'm not bothering by tagging you jdkdkrjk 😭😭)

part 1 part 2

visualization that inspired me

"Well i'll see you later, pines, until then!"

Ford wakes up.

You really aren't just a piece of his dream. But he can't just believe fact that you aren't bill. Second dimensional, wearing a bowtie, and all that. Who would know if he could just be wearing some sort of bizarre skin?

But then he starts thinking what you just called him. Pines. Bill never called him that. All his years studying and time with bill, he had never heard anything about a deity like you. Could you possibly be from the same dimension as bill? If so, wouldn't that mean you're bill's ally? That's got to be the only logical reason here. You're likely trying to trick him to be able to make a deal with you. Well that sure isn't gonna work now.

But he had to be sure.. maybe this night he'll try to get some answers out of you.

-

"You're not here to make a deal, are you?"

"Deals aren't my forte,"

"I do wishes."

-

"Is that so? Well then, how many wishes?"

"One." His eyebrows furrowed at that. "Bill-"

"I am not Bill Cipher."

-

"You could use your wish to help me gain my memories back, or you could use it for yourself, it's your choice, really."

After a little more talk, he knows now that you are likely not lying, and that really don't have any recollections of your own past, and even your name. Still, he couldn't just trust you. Everyone knows what happened the last time that happens. Maybe he'll try to ask more questions later, he still needs to fish out as many answers as he could get.

But you probably even don't have much to give anyway, since all your replies are just "i don't know" or "i don't remember". He became slightly frustrated at your lack of vary answers, but guess he should appreciate you not trying to twist any truth there is.

Back in the mindscape, Ford's deep in his thoughts as he observes you moving around almost boredly. There's just so many questions.

If he really used his wish to get your memories back, would you be indebt to him? Or would you try to burn the world down just like bill?

He let out a small sigh, but soon a realization hit him, You can read his mind. If bill has that power, you could do the same-

He suddenly jumped, alarmed. You paused what you were doing and looked at him. "You alright there, pines?"

He was about to retaliate- but seeing your almost sincere and confused look on just a singular eye, he calms down abit from his overthinking. Just because you have similiar physical traits, you're not bill. Atleast not as far as he knows now with your memory loss.

You can't hurt him. Not in the mindscape anyway.

"I'm fine." He finally replied, after seeing that you were still staring at him.

He should probably start investigating to see if there's anything out there that could tell him more about you.

-

Aka, ford keeps comparing you to his ex muse after first few meetings