#I opened my phone and this thing just sort of unraveled

[wongyuseokie]

Gotcha! | y.j.h

Summary: Jeonghan loves pranks, creating chaos and mischief, and you love it too, but one day he goes too far, and he’s unsure how to fix it because how do you fix a broken heart? 

☆ 18+ minors dni |☀︎fluff | ☁︎ angst |  ♥ completed works Word Count: 3249 words

Pairings: Jeonghan x Female Reader Genre/Trope(s)/AUs: Fluff and angst, sort of idol AU, not in detail, but it does mention that Cheol is a leader and Jeonghan has members. Content Warnings: Angst and fluff, a bit of fighting, Jeonghan cries, Y/N cries. Jeonghan sprains his foot and drowns his foot. Mention of food (Y/N stress bakes)

Authors Note: Thank you, my soulmate @here4btsfics, for beta'ing this and helping me figure out the ending too!! 💕 Thank you so much to @onlyseokmins for listening to me babble, reading over a bit of the fic, and helping me with the flow! Finally, thank you to @the-boy-meets-evil for reading this over too!! ✨

Crossposted to AO3 © wongyuseokie 2023. All rights reserved.

Jeonghan grinned. His newest prank was all set. He’d been priming you for it, and tonight he was pulling out the big guns. This would be the most epic thing if he pulled it off. 

Jeonghan tucked his phone away when he heard the front door open and resumed ‘sulking’ on the couch by the window. He heard you kick off your shoes, put down your bag and put your keys in the bowl on top of the shoe rack. 

“Hi, I’m home,” you greeted, sitting next to Jeonghan on the couch. 

Jeonghan grunted in response, and you took a breath and placed a hand on his knee, but he didn’t bother to look at you. 

“Babe. I even got your favourite cake from the bakery!” You said excitedly, trying to get his attention. 

Crap, Jeonghan thought. His favourite cake was from a bakery on the other side of town, which meant you went there in the cold. Granted, you had a car, but it was still an inconvenience, and you went out of your way to get it. 

“Shall I grab a couple of forks, and we can dig in?” You suggested, and Jeonghan shook his head. 

“Oh! I know we haven’t had much ‘us’ time, and you said you wanted to spend more time together so that we can do just that. I took the next two days off work and looked up the weather if you wanted to drive out and enjoy the winter!”

You didn’t know what caused the shift in your relationship, but Jeonghan was distant, unavailable and curt for the past week. There were times when Jeonghan would suddenly pull away before planning and pulling off some grandiose prank, but this time, it felt different. Usually, he’d keep up a facade for a day or two, but this time it was a week. He’d even pull away from your touch at times. 

You weren't sure if it was work or other personal stress, but he seemed fine when he was alone and when he came back from work, he was fine. The only time the grin would be wiped off his face would be when you were around. 

You were the common denominator. You were why Jeonghan was distant. 

“Hannie, what’s wrong?” You asked, and with how weak and broken your voice sounded, Jeonghan wanted to stop and abandon his plan, but he just had a couple of lines to say, and then he knew you two would one day laugh over it. 

“Y/N, we should talk.” 

You felt like your heart stopped, and your blood ran cold. That sentence was never good, and you felt like a fool. All the signs were right there, yet you ignored them, and now everything was unravelling. 

“Mhm,” was all you could muster, not trusting your voice. 

“I think. There’s no easy way to do this, but we need to break up.” 

You didn’t know words could inflict so much pain until Jeonghan said those words. It felt like he ripped you apart. 

“Is there anything I can do to fix it?” You mumbled, your voice breaking, and Jeonghan felt even worse, but he was determined to see this prank through. 

“I just don’t love you the way I once did,” Jeonghan lied, and you took a sharp breath and let out a broken chuckle. 

“Well, I guess there’s no fixing that,” you mumbled, getting up and trying to keep your emotions in check as you paced to your bedroom. 

It all made sense, the distancing, the curt responses, the annoyed glances. You were trying so hard to love a man who was done. How could you be so blind? Simple. You loved him, it made you blind, and he didn’t. 

Jeonghan was in the living room for over 30 minutes when he decided to finally go into the bedroom and reveal his grand plan and laugh, telling you all about his dumb prank. He had a massive grin on his face that was wiped off the minute he opened the bedroom door and saw a suitcase on the bed. 

“Baby?” Jeonghan called out, seeing you emerge from the bathroom with your belongings. 

“What are you doing?” Jeonghan asked, panicked. 

You stared at him, confused, your eyes red and sore from crying. 

“I’m moving out. You broke up with me. I don’t want to be here if you don’t love me,” you mumbled, and Jeonghan swore he could hear his heart shatter.

“No, no. Oh my god. No, you misunderstood,” Jeonghan rambled as he moved to hold your wrists gently. 

“What?” 

“Baby. Uh. This was a prank. I just wanted to do something a little more intense,” Jeonghan answered lamely, making your eyes widen. 

“Yoon Jeonghan.” 

Jeonghan froze. You never called him his full name, even if you were upset. 

“Baby, it was meant to be funny, I was going to come in here and joke and laugh, and we’d be fine,” Jeonghan rambled. 

“You sure as hell committed to it, a week of near silence from you. You committed so much to it that I didn’t even question it,” you fumed, your voice low and calm, and honestly, it scared Jeonghan. 

“Baby. I had to commit, you know,” Jeonghan said nervously, trying to joke, and you glared at him. 

“Are you trying to be funny?” You asked. 

“Baby, it was a joke,” Jeonghan repeated, and you pulled away from him and threw your remaining things into the suitcase. 

“The fact that you could even think I’d find this funny. I know you’re playful and mischievous, but this? This was low and cruel, and fuck, I don’t care if you were joking, you broke my heart Jeonghan, and I don’t know if I can be with someone who finds that funny!” You cried out. 

“Baby. No, please. What does that mean?” Jeonghan asked, and you sighed. 

“You found it so easy, but even if all you wanted to do was prank me, you still broke my heart. I need space. I need time apart from you because I don’t know if I can be with someone who finds my love for them something to toy with,” you explained, and you saw Jeonghan’s eyes water and his lips quiver. 

“Don’t fight me on this. I need space from you, Jeonghan, because right now, prank or not, you’re still the guy who broke my heart,” you said as you went back into the bathroom to collect more of your belongings. 

Jeonghan nodded and slowly left the bedroom, glancing at your suitcase. How did a prank misfire this badly, and that too, on him? How did a breakup prank become a reality? 

“You did what?” Jeonghan cringed, pulling the phone away from his ear when Seungkwan yelled at him. 

He could hear the ruckus and scuffling of the other members. He could hear Mingyu complaining about how you always baked sweet treats. 

“Hyung, that’s messed up,” a deeper voice commented. 

“Wonwoo. I know. I just don’t know what to do,” Jeonghan answered lamely. 

“We’re coming over, Shua and I. I’ll text her to find out if she’s safe,” Seungcheol stated, the voice of reason in such moments. 

“She is. She’s at her friends' place. She texted me,” Jeonghan added, grateful that you even updated him. You had no obligation to do so, he broke your heart, but you’d always been the more gracious one in the relationship. 

“We’ll be over in a bit,” Seungcheol said before hanging up. 

Jeonghan sat on the couch looking despondently. You were indeed too good for him. That’s all he could think. Even though he broke your heart, you still told him that you were safe, and you even told him to sleep well, but how could he? How could he sleep well when he didn’t have you to hold in his arms?

“It’s open,” Jeonghan mumbled from the couch when he heard the knocking on the door. 

In the last half hour, Jeonghan had torn himself apart. Dissecting everything he ever did in his two years of being your boyfriend, he was an utter mess and hated the fact that he felt upset and like he wanted a hug. He was in this predicament because of something he chose to do. He had no one to blame but himself.

“So, a breakup prank?” Seungcheol asked the second he entered the apartment, and Joshua simply stared at Jeonghan, disappointed. 

Seungcheol and Joshua sat across from Jeonghan and stared at him until Jeonghan sighed and explained his so-called elaborate plan. 

“So, at no point did you think this would be a bad idea?” Joshua asked. 

“Of course I did. Especially when I told her that we should talk,” Jeonghan admitted feeling extremely foolish. 

“So why go on with it? If you knew it was going to hurt her?” Joshua probed, and Jeonghan fell silent. No reason or excuse would ever justify what he did.

“I get that you take pranks and causing chaos seriously, but sometimes it goes too far,” Seungcheol started to say, and Jeonghan nodded shamefully. 

“She deserves so much more,” Jeonghan mumbled, making both men roll their eyes. 

“Nope, we’re not enabling your pity party. You did something stupid, but you love each other and have been an amazing boyfriend. You just did something incredibly dumb,” Joshua reasoned. 

“I miss her,” Jeonghan confessed, and both men shrugged. The urge to hug and coddle Jeonghan was something they were both fighting because they needed to kick some sense into him. 

“Okay. We get that, but you need to fix this because right now, you committed so much to the prank that maybe she thinks a small part of you did want to end things,” Seungcheol suggested. 

“Also, she could feel insecure because if you can joke about breaking up so easily, she might wonder how much she means to you, especially if you can make light of something so serious,” Joshua added. 

“Should I go see her?” Jeonghan asked, and both men shook their heads. 

“No. She wants space. You can stick to wishing her a good morning and night but nothing else. No apologies, it won’t mean anything.”

“What about ‘I love you’?” Jeonghan asked and got an eye roll from both men in response. 

“She knows you love her. I'm sure she loves you too, but for now? No. Show her you love her instead of concocting dumb pranks to make her lose faith,” Joshua elaborated, and Jeonghan nodded. 

“We’ll try and stop by or call her to understand how she is, and we’ll give you an update if we can, okay?” Seungcheol added, noticing Jeonghan’s despondent state. 

“You’ll get your girl back. Just let her have some space for now,” Seungcheol added confidently. He was sure you two would be fine, just needed some time. 

“Y/N, you have some visitors,” your friend Hana told you. It had been nearly 24 hours since you left Jeonghan, and you had just been moping at her house the entire time. 

“Who is it?” You mumbled, pulling Jeonghan’s hoodie that you took with you closer to your body. 

“Seungcheol and Joshua.” 

“I’ll be out in a second,” you said. 

“Hey,” you mumbled, making both men turn to smile at you. They both had soft and caring smiles on their faces. 

“How are you?” Seungcheol asked as you sat down across them on the couch. 

“I miss him,” you admitted. 

“Well, he does, too,” Joshua added. 

“How is he?” You asked. 

“Miserable. Feels terrible,” Seungcheol answered. 

“Maybe I was too hasty,” you mused. 

“No, you weren’t. What he did was shitty, and he got an earful from us, and frankly, he deserved it. It was a dumb prank,” Seungcheol elaborated, and you frowned. 

“I just don’t know why he found it funny?” You thought out loud. 

“We don’t either, but we do know how he is. Just never means to harm. He legitimately thought it'd be funny, I guess?” Joshua offered. 

“I know, I’m fine with his pranks, but he was so damn committed that I thought he was actually done with me,” you stated. 

“Yeah, he overcommitted and overdid it,” Seungcheol agreed. 

There was a moment of silence between you three until you broke it. 

“I’m not breaking up with him. I just needed some space.”

“That’s a decision that is only up to you. If there’s anything else we can do, let us know,” Seungcheol comforted. 

“Actually, yes, can you take these? I made two batches, so there’s plenty, and if you could give one box of cookies to Jeonghan too,” you said shyly, grabbing a box you kept on the table. 

“Stress baking?” Joshua asked. 

“Mhm.” 

“Gladly. We’ll go deliver these. If you need anything at all, call us, okay?” Seungcheol said, and you nodded, hugging both men before they headed out. 

Wonwoo never thought he’d live to tell the tale. But here he was, watching Jeonghan sniffling and eating a cookie while Wonwoo tried hard not to laugh at the sight. It wasn’t entirely funny, but Jeonghan sniffling and biting into a cookie like a child was almost amusing. 

“She makes nice cookies,” Jeonghan mumbled, and Wonwoo could no longer hold back a laugh.

“Hyung, she said she needed space, and she told Seungcheol and Shua that she wasn’t breaking up with you, so I think the sniffling and cookie eating can stop,” Wonwoo suggested lightly. 

“It’s been two days,” Jeonghan sulked. 

“But she won’t break up with you,” Wonwoo repeated, making Jeonghan place his sixth cookie down. 

“That’s true,” Jeonghan muttered. Words could not explain how relieved Jeonghan was when Seungcheol told him that you weren’t planning to leave him. He couldn’t believe it. It was such a relief. Now, all he could do was count down the days. It was just difficult when he didn’t know when. 

“Maybe instead, you could do something nice? Like cleaning up the apartment, getting her her favourite flowers, chocolates or something? Cook for her, make her feel welcome?” Wonwoo suggested, and Jeonghan nodded, huffing dramatically as he got off the couch. 

“Yes. To quote Cardi B, I shall cook, clean and be the best boyfriend. Am I missing anything?” Jeonghan asked. 

“One thing, just don’t play any more dumb pranks.” 

“Got it. Anything else?” Jeonghan asked. 

“Yeah…don’t ever quote Cardi B again.” 

It had been four days, and today you were going back. You missed Jeonghan, and you just wanted to see him, but also, he had not sent you a good morning or good night text yesterday, and you were slightly concerned. 

Concerned that he was wallowing, over-blaming, and criticising himself. You decided to go back and find out why he wasn’t responding to your texts. 

You missed him, and it was the perfect opportunity to see him again. 

Jeonghan wasn’t a good cook. This was a fact. Even his best efforts couldn’t take away from the fact that he could never cook. When you’d cook, he’d always watch and sometimes help prep some vegetables. That was it. 

However, Jeonghan decided to take Wonwoo’s advice and wanted to cook you a three-course meal. It started going wrong during the first course. While boiling the vegetables, Jeonghan looked up the recipe and held his phone precariously close to the boiling pot; one second, he looked at the recipe. Next, he was trying to figure out if putting his arm into boiling water would be wise. 

Jeonghan drowned his phone and couldn’t text you. To make matters worse, he accidentally slipped on a potato peel and rolled his ankle. Jeonghan wasn’t clumsy, but the nerves about you possibly coming back sometimes made him frantic and careless. 

Jeonghan was lying in the bedroom with his swollen ankle and drowned phone. He had hobbled to the bedroom, wondering how he’d contact you or his bandmates. Granted, he had a laptop, but that meant more walking, and right now, he just wanted to wallow a bit. Maybe it was karma for pulling such a crappy prank on you. 

“Hannie?” You called out as you entered the apartment, setting your duffle bag on the floor and kicking off your shoes. You walked into the apartment and noticed that the kitchen was a mess, but everything else was spotless, and there were also flowers in vases. There was also a humongous teddy bear on the couch, and you smiled fondly at it. 

“Hannie?” You called out again. 

You were starting to get worried. Between Jeonghan’s silence and the messy kitchen, you were worried that he had hurt himself badly. You walked in further and headed to the bedroom. 

“Hannie?” 

Jeonghan sat up quickly and jumped out of bed, shrieking in pain once his foot landed on the floor. 

“Baby,” Jeonghan whined, and you ran to him, pushed him back on the bed, and sat next to him. 

“What happened? Why is your foot purple?” You asked, noticing the swollen foot. 

“Uh, don’t laugh. But I was trying to cook, but I tripped on a potato peel and rolled my ankle,” Jeonghan explained sheepishly, and you bit your lip to keep from laughing. 

“Shall I get you some ice? It must hurt?” You offered, moving to get up, and Jeonghan gently wrapped a hand around your wrist and pulled you back down. 

“You came back,” Jeonghan mumbled, and you nodded. 

“I missed you, and I love you too much not to come back,” you said softly, and Jeonghan wrapped his arms around your waist and placed his chin on your shoulder. 

“I’m so sorry,” Jeonghan apologised, and you turned in his embrace to face him. 

“I promise no more pranks, ever.” 

“That’s not necessary, but just not ones that’ll break my heart. I love that you’re playful and a pain in the ass at times, but just don’t make me worry if you love me or not,” you explained. 

“Never. I promise.” 

“Hannie?” 

���Hmm?”

“Why didn’t you call anyone if you hurt yourself?” You asked. 

“Right, so I drowned my phone. It fell into the boiling water, so,” Jeonghan trailed off. 

“I leave for four days, and you’re a mess?” You joked, and Jeonghan nodded. 

“I’m always a mess without you. I’m so sorry, Y/N.” 

“Jeonghan. I won’t say it’s okay because it wasn’t, but I can move past it, just no more dumb pranks?” You asked, and Jeonghan nodded. 

“I promise, no more dumb pranks.” 

“Hannie, you could have emailed me or said you were hurt or, like, I don’t know, used something to tell me.”

“I was scared you wouldn’t believe me,” Jeonghan mumbled, and you shook your head at him. 

“I think I believe you a little too much,” you teased, making Jeonghan pout. 

“Let me grab you some ice, and we can catch up on lost time?” You offered. 

“I don’t need it. I just want to hold you.” 

You smiled at Jeonghan and leaned in to place a soft kiss on his lips, making him smile into the kiss as he moved slightly to deepen the kiss. 

“I have a lot of making up to do,” Jeonghan mumbled as he pulled away from the kiss. 

“After your foot recovers.” 

“Baby, I am a man of many talents.” 

“You drowned your phone and rolled your ankle because of a potato skin,” you countered. 

“I don’t need my foot to bury my head between your legs, though,” Jeonghan teased, winking at you, making you laugh at him.

“You’re impossible. You’re lucky I love you,” you said with a smile.  

“I am, baby. The luckiest.” 

[andiftheycare]

AU where Suguru’s an overworked salaryman and Satoru keeps stealing his umbrellas as a bad attempt at flirting.

Or the you swan he frog meme but make it a fic

☂️ Part one here, and also on twt

☂️ Part two point one here, and on twt

I should be banned from my notes app when I'm this brain fried. Highly unedited & nothing much happens in this update. More thievery in part 3

Tags to be aware of: AU, squint and it’s a reincarnation au (more on this soon), office AU, squint and there's some side Itafushi

☂️☂️☂️☂️☂️

☂️☂️2.2

“You forgot your pass?”

The receptionist, an old guy called Jogo who’s been there since Suguru started as an intern, weights him down as if he’d never seen him a day in his life. A whiff of suffocatingly hot air hit him as the reception's doors slide open.

“Unfortunate,” Suguru smiles brightly at him, glad for the air con and the extra hours of sleep. Breakfast was good, too. Especially since Megumi brought in miso and coffee.

His phone buzzes and Suguru ignores it as Jogo handles him a temporary pass “I know where you work.” Jogo says, squinting. “Return this when you clock off.”

On his Line chat with Gojo, there’s now a link to a ten years old article Suguru doesn’t want to open.

Megumi says you’re awful

Don’t take it personal, though. He doesn’t like me either.

Whatever his relationship with Megumi is, Suguru doesn’t ask. Megumi sat with him in awkward silence for a while, and watched while Suguru washed the dished and scribbled a post it on the rice cooker, up until he left for a shower. There, Megumi stared until Suguru disappeared down the corridor.

Now, the elevator takes Suguru to the 14th floor, and another day —

which will look exactly like the one before and the one before that, an endless circle of numbers and calls and emergencies and pathological examples of system’s incompetence ——

starts.

“Is that a new suit?” Yuki asks, first thing in the morning, as she delivers an americano on his desk.

“Sort of,”

“Ehh, what’s with that answer?”

Suguru shrugs and, truly, what’s there to say if not “I might return it, you know. It’s tight on my shoulders.”

She snorts. “Fits you, though. Blue’s your colour.”

Suguru’s phone buzzes again. The insistent tick tick of the rain is partly cancelled by the office floor’s chatter.

“Nonsense.” Miguel says, dropping his laptop bag on the desk next to Suguru. “He looks better in orange.”

“I don’t wear orange.”

“Exactly my point.” Miguel says, unfazed, and Yuki sighs loudly and theatrically just for Nanami to catch her in the act. He clocks in right on time, not a minute before or after their mandatory office hours, and says “I assume Tsukumo-san’s here to discuss the latest budget updates?”

Which, to be fair, she needs to do. Still, that comment doesn’t go down well. Suguru watches the consequences of Nanami’s actions unravel as he turns on his laptop, coffee burning his tongue.

☂️☂️☂️☂️☂️☂️

At lunch time the air is dense with humidity and sticks Suguru’s hair to his neck. The walk to the conglomerate of flats where he slept the previous night is an experience similar to swimming, the weather a prelude to a later storm.

Suguru will need another umbrella, and he’s running out of coins.

When he taps in the key code, as if he lives there, he knows he’s violating an implicit pact of trust with Gojo, but in that moment it doesn’t matter.

He’s sure Gojo won’t mind. He’ll make up to him, at some point. Besides, his brain doesn’t fumble with morals when he has an end to a meaning — in that case, it’s just retrieving his lost pass without having to ask Gojo.

Because if he does, Suguru will be in the same room as Gojo while they search for it. And that, somehow, will make him real, rather than a convenience store ghoul hunting in his memories.

“Oi, Megumi, did you get…”

Gojo blinks at him from the other side of the room. Suguru blinks back, hand still on the door knob.

“You could’ve called me.” the corner of his mouth tugs into a smile, a note of unexpected happiness in his voice.

“I didn’t think you were home.”

“Ouch. What a way to sound unsuspicious.” He pauses, pensive, because clearly Gojo wants to savour his next words “Were you trying to rob me, Suguru?”

Of course. The article run his full name.“We’re not on first name basis.”

“Yet you sleep in my bed.”

“With your consent.”

Gojo’s eyes glints. In the daylight, sun caressing the angles of his face, they’re a clearer blue. Softer, almost, or maybe that’s only in how he’s looking at Suguru. It’s the first time he sees Gojo properly, instead of registering his presence under neon lights and the influence of sleep-deprivation.

There’s a compulsion to get closer, feel him closer, to see for himself if those eyes are shielded by coloured contacts or are the byproduct of winning a rare genetic lottery. Mostly, he wants, but the ending to satisfy his desire doesn’t lay in giving in to the physicality of Gojo Satoru.

He doesn’t understand it. Quite frankly, he doesn’t want to.

“I forgot my pass.” Finally, Suguru’s brain reboots. He shuts the door behind him. “I’ll take it and leave. So you don’t need to…” he waves a hand at him.

“What?” Satoru looks down, blind to the drops of water shimmering down his chest, to the trail of white hair disappearing behind the towel draped around his hips.

So his hair aren’t bleached.

Suguru wishes he found that distracting, rather than the droplets of water pouring from Gojo’s locks down to his neck, right behind his ear. A spot to bite.

“Dress?” he deadpans.

“Oh,” Gojo looks up, quickly. “Right. Dress.”

Of course, no action is taken because why Gojo would ever do as he’s told. After a moment of silence, Geto says “Have you seen it?”

Gojo tilts his head slightly “Uhm?”

“My pass?”

At that Gojo jolts back to life, shifting from one feet to another, “No?”

“Help me find it then.”

So they move. Geto takes off his shoes and inspects the kitchen while Gojo rushes to change, moving between the flat surfaces he cleaned under Megumi’s supervision, bending to look under tables and sofas.

Filling in the paperwork to request a new pass is, in his company, a well-known path to insanity. On top of the corporate inflicted excruciating admin intertwined with the entire process, he’d need three levels of approval and two new HR checks before they can grant him a new one.

As if Geto hasn’t been working there for ten years. There’s no trust, really. Which doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t trust them either. He sees their numbers, where their money goes and how much Geto and Yuki have to play around higher egos for their own careers. It doesn’t make sense.

Plus, Geto doesn’t want to go through the company’s data security training once again.

Gojo remerges wearing joggers and a white t-shirt, pass in his hand “Was in the bathroom.”

Where Geto changed clothes that morning. Figures.

“Oh, thank —“

The lanyard flips above his head, rigid plastic hitting his chest with a swing, fingers adjusting the collar of his borrowed shirt, Gojo’s face so close Suguru can count his eyelashes, feel his breath brushing on his skin. A soft, lingering warmth of an almost touch tickles his nape, and he sees Gojo indulging, hazy and lost, and Geto remembers. With lucidity — one rarely attached to his brain in those undescriptive long days — he knows the feeling of that hand on the back on his neck.

Except, of course, that he can’t. That’s a dream more than a memory, and uneasiness travels down his spine.

It’s not the intimacy nor the familiarity of it to nauseate him. It’s how he yearns; and equally, how that yearning’s alien, because it feels attached to a body that isn’t his own.

Something shifts in the air, which is tense now, and makes Gojo deliberately step away.

There isn’t a inch of regret in his face. The audacity.

“Your pass picture is awful.”

“I’ll pass your feedback to the photographer.”

“It’s a selfie, isn’t it?”

Suguru tilts his head and smiles. Gojo shakes his head “Unbelievable.”

Suguru plays with his pass to push back the ticking remains of Gojo. “I’ll get going then.”

“No,” Gojo fumbles for a second, fidgeting. Geto raises an eyebrow at him. “Have you eaten? Would you like to—“

“My break’s almost over.”

“Oh.”

His expression unravels in something vulnerable, too open, so that Suguru bites his tongue and doesn’t ask, did you feel that, too, just a moment ago? because it would sound deranged and like a cheap pick up line, playing into Gojo’s shameless flirting.

“Thanks for the rice, then.” Gojo clears his throat, starting to look a little bit like the man he meets at night.

It takes Geto a moment to understand he’s talking about the rice cooker. He nods, despite that machine not leaving him any other choice — minimum capacity was half a kilo. The design was for a family rather than a single man.

“Weirdly how the smell of fresh rice,” Gojo adds, “can make a place feel like home, uhm?”

☂️☂️☂️☂️☂️☂️

After, when Geto’s back in the office and his heart is rushing in the right anatomical places, the world realigns.

Of course, he’s probably catching a cold. He’s tired. The heat’s suffocating, never something he dealt well with at any point in his life, and his project’s deadline approaching. That’s all. Because what was he actually thinking. What was he actually feeling.

Maybe he should give in to Gojo. They should fuck. That will make him snap out of it.

☂️☂️☂️☂️☂️☂️

At night, he dreams of a warm blue spring.

There are flashes of lights — lazy days rushing to get the train; sun reflecting on transparent water; orange petals falling on an open cola can.

Waters ripples in perfect circles around his body, and there’s something else. It’s warm and dense on his face.

He thumbs it away. It’s blood.

Suguru jolts rather than wake. The alarm drills a hole in his brain, sharpening reality around him. He reaches for water before tending to his loud phone, desperate to temper the disgusting taste in his mouth. When water isn’t enough, he brushes and brushes his teeth and tongue, until he’s won by sickening persistence on his palate.

It makes him reject breakfast and skip coffee, leaving in a discombobulated haste to avoid peak rush hour. His thoughts go briefly to what he has to do — groceries, help Mimiko with her club’s project, dry clean Gojo’s suit — before the emails on his work phone start to ping up. A couple of commuters shots him some nasty stares, annoyed by the noise.

“Do you think there’s meaning in what you do?”

The mechanic pencil Itadori’s dragging on a notebook stops briefly, “In selling you our annual stock of umbrellas?”

Geto gives him a genuine smile. “Maybe?”

Itadori looks up, and takes in the two plain onigiri Geto placed on the counter. “Uhm, then, yes. You’re not getting rained on most days, no?”

“Is that enough?”

“I’m helping, somehow. Even by vehiculating capitalism, if you can believe it. And you know, I won’t be here forever. After graduation—“ and then he halts, head bobbing up the same way puppies do in front of a ball.

Suguru turns to find Gojo - grinning, one hand up to say hi - and Megumi trailing behind him.

“I’m sure Fushiguro will have a better answer,” Itadori says, leaning conspiratorially towards Geto “He’s smarter than me.”

“I’m not.” Fushiguro says, on cue, unceremoniously walking behind the counter and next to Itadori. He looks down at the notebook “But this is mostly wrong.”

Itadori squints “Where?”

“Here.” Gojo points somewhere in the notebook, crunching so that he can be at the same level of the two boys. He picks up the pencil, and points again, “But the real issue is…”

“Ohh.” Itadori muses, and follow with rapt, almost undivided attention, “Sensei, you could’ve make the coursework easier.”

Gojo laughs, while Fushiguro, almost completely overshadowed by the unprompted lesson, stares quietly at Itadori. Geto leaves the 300 yen for his dinner on the counter.

Before Gojo can finish his next string of explanations, Suguru grabs him by the collar of his shirt and yanks him upward, effectively lifting him with less strength that Geto thought he’d need. The man isn’t build to be lift as easily as a feather. Yet, past the initial faint supplies, he follows Geto's pull with little complain.

“What— are you doing?” Gojo glares at him, the down at Suguru’s grip on his collar, then back to where Suguru’s eyes are.

“Come,” he says, “Help me curse some minor criminal.”

☂️☂️☂️☂️☂️☂️

“I’m not six.”

“Your previous curse was about frogs.”

“And what’s your point?”

Gojo elbows him and tried to type down the screen, sunglasses firm in the top of his head.

“You’re good with kids.” Suguru says then, watching Gojo trying to type wart and on your face on the monitor.

The man barely shrugs. “I’m pretty sure Itadori’s twenty.”

A child in Geto’s eyes. A toddler. Geto’s twenty-eight, but he doesn’t remember being twenty. All he can pinpoint from that year are Mimiko’s school recital, Nanako’s first crush, the green mold eating their bathroom’s walls. “Shouldn’t he be in kindergarten then?”

Gojo side glances him “I thought you were my age? Don’t speak like an old man.”

Geto elbows him back. He should go back to the office. There’s so much left to do before he can wrap up for the day. “I never told you my age.”

“Well, then I hope you are. I’m twenty-nine in December.”

“Yeah.”

A huff. Gojo tilts his head to watch him, and Geto wonders how’s possible that looking at someone can leave you with such a warmness rooting in your chest. He swallows, the aftertaste of the morning still there, still a reminder of his fragmented sleep.

“So you teach?”

Gojo nods, “Yeah, Jujutsu Tech is just around the corner from here.”

Humming, Geto turns to the machine again. “You don’t look like a teacher.”

“I know, I’m definitely too attractive for the profession.”

“Absolutely not.”

There’s a laugh. “Well, I also work at my family’s company.”

This is where the late nights and expensive flat slots in. “Why do you also teach, then?”

“Because there’s meaning in that,” Gojo says, not thinking about it. “I’m raising a new generation, you know? Then they can sit where we are and take better decisions.”

Gojo doesn’t know how that makes Suguru’s heart sink. How it sounds stupid, because children talked like that; or people for whom the world was a blank canvas for them to paint.

“See?” Gojo smirks at him, filling the brief moment of silence “I persist to be the number one at lame. Where’s my trophy?”

Instead of scolding him, Suguru slaps away Gojo’s hands from the screen, and proceed to cancel every single word he typed.

“What on —“ he stops, for a moment “Steal this and you’ll find the love of your life? What kind of threat is that?”

“Don’t you know?” Gojo says, “There no curse more twisted than love.”

Suguru blinks. “Are you insane? Who speaks like this, anime characters?”

Satoru startles, faintly blushing, looking tremendously younger when his shoulder bumps into his. “You clearly haven’t been in love.”

“I have,” Suguru rebuts, “But love isn’t just romantic. How can you—“

Then he stops when Gojo focuses too closely on the machine, when he catches the veil of uneasiness at being betrayed by his own words. It dawns to him how Gojo, who’s always the biggest presence in the room, who seem to waltz in the world and get what he wants, who spends hours of his days hanging in a convenience store with his students, deep dark rings masterfully covered by his shades, might, in fact, be lonely.

“I’m not printing that.” Suguru says, at the end, looking away. “I’ll wish them to be eaten by a crab.”

It’s not that funny, but Gojo laughs regardless.

[ateezreactionsandscenarios]

Kinktober Day 26 - Marking

Pairing: Park Seonghwa x Reader

Genre: Smut

CW: Marking, possessive Hwa, use of Daddy, degrading.

Word Count: 1345

Summary: When Seonghwa overhears a conversation you have with your friend it gives him all sorts of ideas on how he can surprise you in the bedroom.

Prompt List               MasterList           Kintktober 2022           Buy me a Coffee

After an eventful day, Seonghwa kicks his shoes off at the door with his bag slouched down against the wall before making his way through the apartment, wondering where you were since he wasn’t meant to be home this early, so he wanted to surprise you. It was a surprise at the fact that you barely heard him coming in, too busy chatting away to your best friend on the phone in the bedroom. Seonghwa stops just outside, ear pressed against the wall as his eyes shoot wide open, 

“Oh my god, I honestly agree. I’d lose all control if Seonghwa used hickeys as a way of marking his territory. At the moment we’re still in the honeymoon phase, and don’t get me wrong, I love every second but the day that switches up, he’s got me forever”. He knew he shouldn’t be invading a personal conversation, but the way his lips curl at the edges, just needed to know more. That’ll be your surprise, cogs turn in that head of his, brushing his black locks back before plastering his ear back to the door, listening to you unravel all of the nasty things you want, well need him to do.

There was no saying in how long he stood there for, smirking ear to ear about the fantasies that you had about the things you’d love him to do with you, making him shake his head with his tongue between his teeth, 

“Such a filthy girl, oh you wait,” he whispers to himself, rushing to find something to do the minute he hears you say your goodbyes. Having to stage like he wasn’t just listening to your conversation, he rushes to the bathroom, tearing himself out of his shirt to wash in the sink. 

“I didn’t know you were home already,” your small voice calls out from behind, mesmerised by his muscly back, unable to resist trailing a hand down it as he looks at you through the mirror. His damp hair falls back, and a small smile creeps onto his face, 

“I wanted to surprise you but you were busy, and I didn’t want to interrupt you”.

His broad shoulders always take you by surprise when he straightens himself up and turns to look at you, leaning down slightly and cupping your face to place the softest kiss on your forehead manageable. His smile widens when you let out a small giggle, wrapping your arms around his torso and looking up at him with stars in your eyes, 

“I’ve missed you today,” you pout, pushing his damp hair back that falls on his face. 

“I’ve missed you too, princess,” he replies slowly, lowering his head into the crook of your neck as he lifts you up to hug you tightly, smirking to himself when the reminder of what you said earlier to Rachel comes through his head. Not now Hwa, he thought to himself, but it was so tempting.

Unable to fight the urge, his lips gently press against the skin on your neck, and you weren’t going to complain, letting him do his thing as you smiled happily, resting your head in the crook of his neck. That was until you started to let out little whimpers as he sucks and bites on the skin lightly, licking over the parts gently as he moves down your neck and onto your shoulder, getting slightly harsher each time. 

“Hwa-” you whimper, head throwing back as it gives him perfect access onto your bare neck, smirking and scoffing onto your skin as he holds you up by your ass, pressing you against the cold wall of the bathroom. 

“What’s wrong princess? Want me to stop?” he coos teasingly, placing kisses down your jawline as you muster a little head shake, 

“Want to take this to the bedroom? I can show you how much I’ve missed you too?” he continues to tease as you smile at him, the doe-eyes turning lustful.

Carrying you into the bedroom whilst holding you up close to him, he laughs as he sits onto the bed to make you straddle his lap, 

“Maybe I should start making my mark on you, to warn anyone who wants to try their luck with you that you’re mine, and only mine,” he growls against your lips as you whimper on them, a loud moan escaping your lips when he attacks the other side of your neck, being a little harsher than he was in the bathroom. Dark bruises rise to the skin with each bite he made, trailing from just under your ear to your collarbones, your fingers getting tangled in his hair as you cry at the pleasure, wondering where he suddenly got this from, but you were too occupied by the feeling to even think to ask.

Whilst he marks his territory on you, your hips start to roll against him, his erection starting to grow in the restrictions of his sweatpants, growling onto your neck as it sends vibrations down your spine. 

“Fuck-” you hiss, the mix of pleasure of his lips on your skin and the friction that was being caused by the way you rolled yourself on his erection was starting to make your mind go all fuzzy, and you were slowly crumbling apart, needing him more than you ever thought you would. You weren’t lying to Rachel earlier when you said you’d lose all control, becoming a whimpering mess under his lips, nails dragging up the skin on his back, digging deep enough as you did so and it was sure that you drew a little blood in the process.

“Daddy!” You cry out, his tongue making the hair on your skin stand tall, and just like that, he had you to the point where he wanted you, you were officially turning into the little slut he wanted you to become, all thanks to accidentally overhearing your conversation. 

“What was that, doll?” he hisses on your neck, moving his head away from it to look at you, his hands trailing up the skin on your back, a hand making its way up into your hair, grabbing a fistful of it to yank your head to the side a little. The way you whimpered from him doing that proved that you weren’t so innocent all along, 

“Daddy, please. I need you...” your breathing starts to become heavy, watching him enjoy every second of this as you begged for him to do more.

The way his lips curl into a smirk at your state taunted you, his tongue swiping across his bottom lip as his lips part slightly, matching your facial expressions as you grasp onto his neck, 

“Look at you becoming a little slut for me because I’ve marked you, marked my territory on you. You like that huh? I wonder what other little kinks you’ve been hiding away from me,” he whispers, his voice deep and raspy against your lips. All you could do was beg once again for him to touch you, you needed him badly that it was physically painful that he was drawing it out for this long, 

“Daddy, please. I’ll do anything... touch me,” your words spew into his mouth as it crashes against yours, tongues swirling against each other.

He gently places you down on the bed, but his glare wasn’t so gentle, eyes going dark as he lets out a little laugh, ripping every item of clothing off of your body, leaving you laying bare in front of him, 

“I wonder how you’ll cope now, kitten,” he grunts, forcefully putting your hands above your head, pinning them together with his one hand as he touches your sensitive clit with the other. His lips kiss every inch of your face, down your neck to your bare chest, 

“I wouldn’t dare to leave this uncovered,” he adds, marking every inch of skin he could as you cry his name out loud, whimpering and panting with every single contact he made whilst his fingers toyed with you, 

“Now let’s see what else you like, huh?”.

Tag list:   @kpopcrossworlds​​ @kpopjust4u​​   @littleparkseonghwa​​       @whatudowhennooneseesyou​​​   @8tinytings​​​   @jenotation​​​ @grim-adventures58​​​   @owjohny​​​   @ker1​​​   @hellomingi  @ate-ez  @steponmesannie​   @azeret98​​​  @queenwiinks​  @wubbster​​​ @eternalhongshine​ ​ @sansluvr​  @tinkerbell460

[dsudis]

The Second Drawer

Written for @domaystic Day 8: the things in that drawer. Explicit.

Dream is human, horny, and home alone. Luckily Hob planned ahead for this eventuality.

Dream paced the flat for what felt like hours, though when he peered out the window the sun had not reached the little marker Hob had placed to tell him when it was noon, let alone the one that indicated Hob would be coming home soon.

It was entirely possible that Hob had not arrived at the university yet. It would be ridiculous for Dream to bother him with this. It was ridiculous that Dream even wanted to. He was human now; he understood the workings of his body perfectly well, and this was not an unmanageable problem.

He just didn't want to do it alone.

Dream tried to distract himself with small tasks around the flat, tidying up, putting in a load of laundry by following the checklist posted on the inside of the laundry closet door. He sat down to try to study the book Hob had left him—it was about walking and hiking trips to particularly beautiful places, something Hob thought he would enjoy. Dream was dubious, but Hob had been right about many things Dream turned out to enjoy. He was also wonderfully apologetic and eager to make it up to him when Dream didn't enjoy something, so Dream was willing to try.

Unhelpfully, he had the same thought about every scenic photograph: yes, I would like to have sex with Hob there.

Dream sighed and set the book down. He had to circle the flat a few times to locate his phone, and as always, he squinted at the time on it though he knew that his mind would only ever read it as Some Numbers. The sun still hadn't reached noon. Hob hadn't sent him any texts, which was mildly disappointing if not surprising, but neither had anyone else, which was a relief.

Dream tapped out a brief message. My body is being foolish again.

Hob responded almost instantly, which meant he was either still on the Tube or in his office, or possibly was in the last few minutes before starting today's tutorials. Painful foolish, horny foolish, messy foolish, or a secret fourth option?

Dream debated whether he could possibly claim this was a secret fourth option situation, in which case Hob might continue texting him long enough to try to unravel it, or a painful situation, which might persuade Hob to come home to him.

So horny, then, Hob sent while Dream was still considering.

Dream made a face at his phone, but Hob was undeterred, though Dream was confident that Hob had known exactly what his reaction to that text would be.

Have a look in the second drawer on my side of the bed, love. See if you can't find something there to help you sort that out. I've got tutorials this morning so I won't be checking my phone but if you send pictures I'll hurry home that much faster when I'm done.

Dream felt heat curling through him at just the possibilities of what might be in that drawer, never mind the invitation to distract Hob with photos. His incipient erection was rapidly becoming actual, and as much as he wanted to have some dignity or at least not betray his desperation, he was learning that being human meant being at the mercy of these bodily urges. Dream didn't even wait to get into the bedroom before he was stripping out of his t-shirt.

He shed the rest of his clothing and tugged down the covers, lying down on Hob's side of the bed and giving his cock a teasing touch as he breathed in the scent of Hob from the pillow. Dream didn't really need more than this, now that he'd been persuaded to give in to his body's unruly impulses, but he couldn't settle to merely touching himself with the mystery of the second drawer unsolved.

Dream left off touching himself to roll over and pull the drawer open, and a moan escaped him at the sight of the items at the front of the drawer. Hob had used the curved and rippled glass dildo on him a few nights ago, and while Dream could never love a mere object as much as having Hob's cock inside him... he had come very hard on that unyielding pressure.

A pulse of that remembered pleasure shook through him, and Dream ground his hips down against the mattress in memory as he eyed the other options Hob had left for him. There was a plastic and silicon item, vividly pink, which had a very inviting curve and some buttons on the base—a vibrator, Dream realized, and whimpered at the thought, grinding harder against the mattress at the thought of how it would feel inside.

There was another one, so big that Dream had to pull the drawer out farther to see all of it. It was black, faintly sparkly, and when Dream pressed a finger against the ridged surface he found that it was slightly yielding. Challenging, but possible; he wasn't sure that he could force himself to take it alone like this, but...

Hob had left it for him. Hob had told him to look for it.

Hob had asked for pictures.

Dream whined, writhing against the mattress. His legs instinctively spread wide, and the feel of cool air against his hole made it all feel real and immediate. He could do this now, stretch and slick himself and push one of these devices inside himself—or all of them, one after another. He had hours yet until Hob was meant to come home, and he could feel already that coming once wouldn't scratch this itch. He might have to wait a while, but he would only want to go again and again and again, knowing what was waiting for him, what Hob had imagined him doing with each of these.

Tucked in beside them was a pump bottle of lubricant. Dream bit his lip, squirming at the thought. He'd never prepared himself; Hob always did that. He was clean enough, probably, but... Dream reached for the bottle, and discovered that Hob had tucked a pair of nitrile gloves behind it.

He had known that Dream would be uncertain about this part. He had planned even for that.

Dream moaned, tucking his face down against the edge of the mattress as if he could hide from Hob seeing him so clearly hours or days ago, as if he could conceal himself by hiding now when Hob wasn't even here and knew exactly what he was seeing at this moment. His hips hitched involuntarily, and he felt dampness under his cock where he rubbed it against the mattress.

With a whine of mingled humiliation and lust, Dream curled over onto his back and reached down to grab his cock, jerking himself helplessly fast as he thought of Hob laying this trap, Hob thinking of him even when he wasn't here, Hob anticipating photographs—and himself, too eager even to use any of the things Hob had left for him, too taken up in this ridiculous bodily excitement to play out his allotted role.

But he didn't care. He couldn't. There wasn't enough of him anymore to stand aside and criticize himself at moments like these. He was a small free thing now, and he could just get lost and think of nothing but touching himself faster and faster, gasping for breath and gasping out Hob's name until pleasure ballooned inside him and took up every inch of his body and burst free.

He lay awhile panting at the ceiling before he realized that he was still clutching the bottle of lubricant in his other hand. He laughed at himself, lying there alone, until the drowsiness after coming caught up with him.

That was all right, he thought. He'd just close his eyes for a moment, and then he would have plenty of time to try again and get far enough to take a good picture to send to Hob.

*

"Well, now," Hob said, startling Dream awake. "This is certainly a picture worth coming home for."

Dream flushed as he looked down at himself. His stomach was covered in dried and drying spend and lubricant—he'd gotten that far on the second and third tries, if no further. One glove was inside out on the night table, the other... he didn't know where, but not on his hand anymore. The vibrator was halfway across the bed, where he'd tossed it when it became abruptly Too Much sometime during the third try. The biggest dildo was resting against his thigh; the glass one was... oh, still in his hand. He vaguely remembered sucking on it during that last time.

He never had managed to take a photo to send Hob, but obviously his silence had been eloquent enough to lure Hob back to him.

Dream didn't realize he'd closed his eyes again until Hob's hair brushed his cheek a second before Hob's lips pressed to his, an absurdly chaste kiss when he was lying here in the wreckage of his sexual efforts.

"Have I missed all the fun, then?" Hob murmured, one hand finding Dream's hip. "Done being foolish for today?"

Dream huffed against Hob's lips. "I have told you before—it is not foolish when you are here. When you are here is what sex is for."

Hob picked his head up just to beam down at Dream, his dark eyes bright with fondness and his color showing a promising flush on his cheeks and ears.

"I have already come three times today," Dream said, reaching up to start unbuttoning Hob's shirt. "You might have to be a bit patient with me."

"Mm," Hob said. "Luckily that is my very favorite thing to be with you, second only to naked."

"Well, then," Dream said, swiping some of the detritus aside to make room in the bed for Hob. "Welcome home. You're just in time."

[Also on AO3!]

[artful-peculiarities]

Exit Music (for a Film) by Radiohead is kinda lining up with Teddy and Colin’s narrative really well and I’m having thoughts. Gonna start with Teddy and then move to Colin and I’ll see where I go from there.

Tmagp Spoilers below fair warning

First off, the title itself. The first time we meet Teddy is when he’s leaving the OIAR to work elsewhere, seemingly very glad he’s moving on. From what I can tell with the limited time and I formation we have of him, he never really liked his work at the OIAR, and the place as a whole. So, the title of the song itself is symbolic of the end of an era for him. Or so we think.

This set of lyrics, the opening lines. So much is packed into this for me.

So. Something obviously had to drive Teddy over the edge to go to Lena and to tell her that he quits. We know that he had been working at the OIAR for quite a good few years prior to the canon timeline, of which is still very vague to the audience; so the first lyric applies to him in the sense that he finally broke from a cycle, he “woke up”, perhaps in more than one sense.

Not much to say on the second lyric except that perhaps that can reference to the catalyst for his self-termination from the OIAR? Something just a little too upsetting.

And the last two; I think these can speak for themselves. “Today, we escape,” -> him quitting initially, “We escape.” -> the going away party.

Has anyone ever thought about why specifically the very first recording we get is of the going away party? Yes, it’s what sets up the arrival of Sam, but it also sets up another thing. Teddy’s departure and his subsequent fall. I think it was saying “you can leave, but we know you’ll be back.”

Like a misplaced puzzle piece.

The last two lines of this one piques my interest.

In regards to Teddy, this feels almost omniscient, almost like an overlying feeling. Something feels vaguely wrong about leaving the OIAR, like he’s doing something he shouldn’t be. And you know what happens after he leaves? Hell, not only begins to break loose, but slowly unravels like a ball of twine. A butterfly effect variation of sorts.

Some people have brought this up before, but I needed to put it here as well; the possibility of sabotage in a career related sense for Teddy. He didn’t get the initial job he left the OIAR for because of “team cuts”, or something of the sort. That seems like the thing that would be told outright to any applying persons no? It was a sudden thing. While I’m not exactly sure of the timeline of this, I’ll make a best guess here; then, sometime after, Teddy gets a new job. For those who have listened to tmagp 29, I think we all know what happens. Ergo, butterfly effect. Somehow, Teddy has gotten pulled back into something strange, and needed someone to help him. Enter Alice. Then, exit Alice. Quite a lot can be taken from their brief conversation and I fear I don’t have quite the brainpower to pick it apart fully at this time.

This sequence is just. It’s something phenomenal to me in a way.

It’s all about trying to keep your balance. Imagine you’re on a tightrope in a circus performance. There are weights dragging your arms down, your feet are bleeding, and all you can think is “keep standing. Keep standing.” There is no net beneath you. There was once a net, but it was folded away because someone thought your act could use a little… something.

Keep a cool head. Keep standing. Stay balanced. Do not fall. Do not fall.

Alice was once the net, in a way. Then, she got pulled away by something, someone, bigger than them both.

“I can’t do this alone.” Do you guys realise what this means to me? Teddy needed to talk to Alice about something important, specifically about his job. The job we know nothing about. What happened. What the fuck happened. Teddy sounds so weary in that brief phone call. I also picked up on the slight sense of anxiety from him, but that could just be me. But he was definitely worried about something.

And then there’s Colin’s place in this set of lyrics. Just barely hours later, Alice gets yet another call from someone who is asking for help, someone who is her friend. That call is haunting me; everything about it feels really just. Raw to me. There’s so much desperation in his voice. He needs help. Such a big part about Colin’s character is that he never wants help, nor does he think he needs it. Then there’s this. Turn me around twice and push me into a grave already.

The first part of this one seems more metaphorical than anything to me.

The “chill” is the surmounting aura of wrongness that climbs higher with every episode leading up to the s1 finale. It’s the strange happenings that are being collected and filed by the OIAR, it’s FRE-d1 continually becoming less and less machine as more incidents are washed in and read by Chester, Norris, and Augustus.

The “song” is nothing more than blind hope. Blind, foolish hope.

The second part to this one, however, is something that makes my head wrap into itself with interpretation. It’s another omniscient-adjacent feeling, addressing to “it” as “you”. It’s all very Colin to me. The “it” is FRE-d1. It’s the one thing that makes Colin completely snap. It’s laughing at him, taunting Colin with its ancient, unworkable hardwiring. It’s been slowly pushing Colin to and over the edge for the entire season, and it all climaxes to that one phone call.

That one, desperate phone call.

This is mainly about that first line.

We don’t know what happened to Colin, what really happened, after he hung up. I need to know desperately. But I’m going to take this in the sense that Colin’s violent obsession with figuring out FRE-d1 finally consumed him, very likely in more than just the mental sense.

What I think is that Colin has been turned into an external. Just think about it. What I gather from what we know about externals is that the common ground for most of them is obsession to some level or another, and we know that Colin was deep in that trench.

I have a very vivid image in my head of Colin sitting in the computer room of the office with the technology slowly growing over him, almost like lichen or moss. It melds with his skin, seeping into his flesh. It’s grotesque and looks like something agonizing, but Colin’s face is just. Tired. Exhausted. He gave his final hurrah. His phone sits fallen next to his limp hand, still opened to Alice’s contact page, his head leaned back against the wall. Hooded eyes, deep circles beneath them.

Both he and Teddy were destined to fulfill something greater from the beginning, and their tragedy lies in the way they both reached out for a hand, and was never given one to grasp onto.

[daisyful-gvf]

pretty // by daisyful

18+

*********************************************************

pairings : jake x reader

word count: 2.3k

tags: men in lingerie sigh , unprotected sex, oral (f), anal play (m), hm a hint of orgasm delay, pwp lol, praise/body worship

notes: so i started to reblog a post ab men in lingerie with a few little sentences and then it got really out of hand oops. this is not properly edited and it’s all in lowercase but it’s just an extended blurb.

*********************************************************

“hey, sweet tart,” you flash him a playful smile as you round the corner to his room, where he sits with his phone out, voice memos up, pen in hand. he’s been going over song ideas for about two hours, and it seems as good a time as any to offer him a break.

“yeah, honey?” he swivels in his chair and stretches his arms above his head, smiling back.

“got you something,” you cannot help but bite your lip mischievously as you extend the box to him.

“sweet girl,” he grins, “for no reason?”

you shrug; it’s only half true. there’s no occasion, but you bought it sort of selfishly, reason being, it would be really fucking hot.

“open it,” you coax as his fingers slide over the lid.

he does so with excitement in his hands, but then as soon as he pulls back the tissue paper, his whole body stills with a soft gasp.

“yeah?” he looks smug, “you could have just put it on for me, doll.”

“no, no,” you shake your head and move closer to him, petting his hair, “it’s…it’s for you.”

his head snaps up, eyes meeting yours urgently.

“what?” it’s a whisper.

“i—” you groan and work to collect yourself, already imagining him in it, “if you don’t want to, it’s okay, obviously. but i just…”

he looks at you in disbelief, with a tinge of pink rising to his cheeks, “i…” he licks his lips, “how long have you thought about this?”

his tone is gentle, careful to let you know that he’s not judging you.

you take a breath, “a few weeks, maybe a little longer.”

he’s still watching you closely.

“you don’t have t—”

“you’re a depraved little thing, you know that?” his lips are curling into a grin, “good thing i am too.”

you suck in a sharp, hopeful gasp. “yeah?”

he looks down to the box and pulls out the first piece, holding it up with slightly shaking hands. it’s a powder blue, sheer babydoll. simple, with lace on the chest and a sweet little bow by the sternum. he shudders.

“jesus…” he breathes, his voice pitched a little lower. he lays his hands down in his lap with the straps still looped around his fingers, and looks at you, “i don’t…i don’t know if i’m that into it, but if you are, i’m game.”

“i am,” you say before you can overthink it, “but only if…i don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

“no,” he shakes his head, “no, i don’t think so. i just mean, i don’t think i’ll get off from wearing it, but watching you…” his eyes roll back for a second, “i’m down for whatever makes you wet, honey.”

“jake,” you sigh. your legs feel like they might give out and you just want him to hurry up and open the rest of it so you can pounce on him.

he sets the garment across his thigh and unravels the paper the rest of the way, and with his long, slender fingers he holds up matching panties. he whimpers—so soft, but you could never have overlooked it.

“yeah?” he says, voice definitely trembling now, “you want me to wear this for you, honey?”

it’s pathetic, the little “mmhm,” that comes from you, but you don’t know what else to do. he nods and licks his lips, hastily shoving the items into the box and setting it aside, patting his lap for you to come sit.

you slide onto his lap quickly and waste no time meeting him in a needy kiss, grinding down into him hard. he groans at the pressure, though it’s hardly anything.

“fuck,” he sighs into your mouth. he moves his lips to your jaw then, and as he licks and sucks, he’s teasing you:

“you’re full of fucking surprises, aren’t you?”

“my dirty fucking girl, i love you.”

suddenly, as nice as the kisses are, you feel so desperately that you need to see him in the lingerie that there’s no time for it.

“can you put them on?” you whine, “please? i wanna see so bad.”

“anything for you, honey.”

he kisses you once more and guides you off his lap, spinning you around and giving you a slight nudge toward the door.

“get naked and get in the bed. i’ll be right behind you.”

“oh, god,” you groan. how your legs carry you down the hall, you’ll never know. you feel dizzy with lust.

the next several minutes feel like hours as you lay on the down comforter, squeezing your thighs together, waiting for him to walk in.

you never could have prepared yourself for when he finally does.

“fuck me,” it leaves you in a rapid rush of air, “jake, holy—”

the rest gets cut off in a groan, and while you feel the need to take a breath and close your eyes, you wouldn’t dare look away.

he’s clearly a little nervous to walk through the doorway, even though you’ve dimmed the lights quite significantly to help that.

he looks exactly as you thought he would: divine. the set compliments his curves in a way that lights a carnal fire in you, and the way it contrasts with the strength of his arms and thighs makes you swoon. his cock presses against the lace of the panties, not covered by the garment hardly at all.

a sheepish smile tugs itself across his face.

“you like it?” he asks, as if he doesn’t know you’re two seconds from cumming.

“get over here,” you beg, reaching for him. you lay on your belly with your head near the end of the bed, so when he walks over, you can immediately press kisses to the tops of his thighs and wrap your hands around his ass.

“jake,” you can’t stop groaning his name like that, like you’re begging for mercy.

“hmm?” he hums sweetly, though he knows already what you need.

“you’re so hard…” you observe, bringing a hand up to touch him over the lace.

he nods and gasps when you make contact, “it kinda…it kinda does turn me on…” he’s quiet, and you can tell he’s a little hesitant, a little surprised with himself.

“yeah, baby?” you grin up at him before pressing a kiss to the part of his cock that’s not covered by the panties, “you look so pretty.”

“thank you,” he whispers in a rush of breath.

you look at him again and skirt your hands over his hips and thighs, but your eyes dart everywhere, unsure where to look or where to start—he’s just so damn gorgeous, and this feels like a dream come true, and there’s too many possibilities.

he notices your dilemma, and tips your chin up with his finger.

“can i make you cum real quick so you can calm down enough to enjoy this?” he asks with gentle eyes and a hint of a grin.

“yes,” you hiss. what a perfect solution.

you turn over and face your legs towards him. he slides down between your legs, stopping only to suck one of your nipples into his mouth for a moment.

the way that you can see the blue mesh over his back as he lays between your legs, and the way you can just barely see the lace against his ass, is obscene.

he wastes no time and licks over you fervently, nudges two fingers at your entrance then sinks them in. he knows how to make you cum, so it’s not hardly a minute before you’re clutching at his hair, moaning his name in a mantra.

“good job, baby,” he praises, licking over you once more before rising up on his knees, “now you can just look at me for a second.”

it’s hardly any easier; he looks gorgeous. his tan skin against the baby blue of the fabric is delectable, and the way the curve of his waist is still noticeable through the mesh makes you want to sink your teeth into the flesh. the best part: the hem of the babydoll rests over his hips , just barely bunched up against the skin. you need him.

“baby,” you whisper, “come lay down,”

he nods and listens, tracing places with you. quickly, you straddle his thigh, grinding into it a bit, and his hands fly to your hips, pressing down so you’ll do it again.

“you really do like it?” he asks softly, eyes flitting up to you.

with almost a growl, you lean into him and suck on his neck.

“i love it,” you breathe, kissing the skin again.

“you’re so wet,” he pants as you grind against him again.

“mmhm,” you agree, kissing up his neck to his mouth. the kisses are filthy, mostly just licking into each other’s mouths, “cause i love it.”

“fuck,” he’s breathless, “ride me?”

there’s a million things you’d like to do to him like this, but for now, the thought of him inside you sounds too good to pass up.

you nod and break the kiss so you can tug the panties down below his balls (you wouldn’t dare remove them all the way) and line yourself up with him.

he doesn’t give you time to sink down, instead pushing up into you, and moans punch from both of you at the sensation.

you put your hands on his chest, over the delicate blue lace, and begin to bounce.

he looks dreadfully fucked out below you, his skin somehow already slick with sweat, his cheeks blushed, lips swollen.

you fuck yourself down onto his lap with a force, until his stomach is tensing.

“don’t cum,” you pant, “wait.”

he groans but nods, taking as deep of breaths as he can until you’re shaking around him with a rapture of an orgasm.

“jesus christ,” he sighs, “baby, i wanna cum.”

“no,” you shake your head and ease off of him. he looks at you with mild confusion, chest heaving, waiting.

“turn over.”

he sucks in a sharp breath and nods.

you slip off of his lap beside him and let him roll over on the bed, his arms up by his head, splayed out for you.

you cannot help the groan that escapes from your chest as you see the tan swell of his ass with the lace carving between them.

“fuck, jake,” you reach to palm at the flesh and he whines.

“talk to me, honey,” he says, head lifted from the pillow.

“you look so fucking good,” you swallow, “edible.”

“what are you gonna do?” he asks.

“you know what i’m gonna do, sweetheart.”

he whines as you lean down to bite the cheek, a bit harder than you intend.

“then do it,” he pants, reaching his hand underneath himself between the sheets.

“no, hun,” you reach for his forearm and pull it back, “i’m gonna do that for you. be patient.”

he nods and takes a heavy breath.

“where’s the lube?” you ask, licking over the bite you made.

“nightstand,” he answers quickly.

you grab it and settle between his legs.

“raise up just a little bit for me, babe,” you coax with a hand on his hip. he tilts his hips up, holding himself just barely above the sheets.

“so fucking pretty, jake,” you sigh.

“please,” he says once, because he knows it won’t take more, and he’s right.

you cost two of your fingers in the lube and nudge them softly against him as you bend down to kiss the tan skin of his cheek.

you reach your other hand under him and wrap it snug around his cock, tugging mildly until he whimpers.

this, he is used to. well, maybe not used to, but familiar with. you’ve done it a handful of times, and he always enjoys it.

for you, though? this coupled with the lacy set he’s wearing? heaven on earth.

you push one finger slowly into him, stroking him as you sink it in, and he lets out a beautiful sigh of relief.

“you can do the other,” he says, voice so low and broken.

you nod though he can’t see you, pull the other finger most of the way out, and ease the other in alongside it.

he whines and pushes back against it, gasping when your fingers curl down.

“baby…” he whines as you begin to draw your fingers barely in and out, taking care to curl them into the place that makes him groan every time.

“feel good?” you ask sweetly.

“mmhm,” he turns his head to try and look back at you,

you look at him before you: ass up, tan and perfect, the blue lace beautiful against it. His back looks gorgeous under the mesh of the lingerie, and the dark brown waves of his hair look rest on his shoulders. he looks incredible, and sounds even better.

he rewards you with soft groans and whines as you work him, his hips working both forward and backward against you.

“i’m close,” he says suddenly, in a soft, tense voice.

“c’mon, babe,” you coax.

it doesn’t take long. with a long groan, he’s cumming on the sheets, muscles tensing before he flops against the bed. you place a final kiss to his skin as your withdraw your fingers.

he rolls over after letting you look at his ass for a moment longer, and when he does, he’s disheveled and smiley. his hair is stuck to his face, his eyelids are heavy, and his face is flushed.

you crawl up between his legs and press a kiss to his warm cheek.

“hey, babe,” you purr.

“hey, honey,” he smiles, “you like that?”

you laugh at the absurdity of the question and kiss the tip of his nose, “yes. very much.”

“good,” he sighs, “me too. a little more than expected.”

“mm,” you hum against his temple, “wanna take it off and go to sleep?”

he shakes his head to your surprise.

“wanna kiss you for a second. get a drink, get naked, and then fuck you through the mattress.”

you jaw opens and he just grins.

“sound good?” he asks.

you nod, and lean into a kiss.

fin.

tag list✨

@starshine-wagner @dannywagners-chesthair @writingcold @kels-gvf @aconfusedhippie @fearless-wanderer @greenrubbersoul @thehourbeforesunrise @madz-0217 @gretavanbitches @doodle417 @rhythm-of-space @milkgemini @st4rdust-ch0rds @thegardensgate @myownparadise96 @gretavanfleas @josh-iamyour-mama @spark-my-nature @saltydogkiszka @jordierama @sammiejane22 @jakekiszkastaurussuit @jake-kiszkas-smirk @babyhoneygvf @gabyvanfleet @gretavanslut @dannyandthekiszkas @freckled-wonderland @haley1623 @objectsinspvce @sammyfuckingkiszka @why-ami-on-here

[canis-or-cannotis-lycaon]

Dead Weight || Gael, Rhett

TIMING: Mid-July LOCATION: Vicker’s Beach/Harborside PARTIES: Rhett (@ironcladrhett and Gael (@lithium-argon-wo-l-f SUMMARY: What was supposed to be sea urchin fishing turned into a salty sea dog and a chemistry professor fighting off a drowngr CONTENT WARNINGS: Body horror (it’s a drowned corpse)

He might’ve been a little… not dishonest but Gael could hold his breath for close to two minutes nowadays - he wasn’t sure when he picked it up but he figured hiking with Elias had already started to work its magic, nevermind his binges where he’d go out into the forest to blow off the pent-up energy that routinely came around every month or so. Brain defect.

Gael wasn’t really paying any of that much mind as he made his way to the spot on his map that was marked by Rhett, a man he could only mentally describe as either  “looking like an artist’s rendition of Blackbeard” or “reminiscent of a walrus with a hook for a hand”. Rhett probably looked like neither and he wasn’t disappointed, at least not that he’d say aloud. Then again, he was sure people heard ‘chemist’ and automatically put him in a lab coat with goggles on holding two beakers with colorful liquid in them like some sort of mad scientist. He never looked like that, though he could’ve styled his hair like Frankenstein if he tried hard enough. No, today he was wearing minimal gear - a gray tank top, a pair of bright blue swim trunks and carrying a small satchel with a towel, his phone and a couple other little luxuries; he hoped Rhett was receptive to him taking notes if the other man had anything else interesting to say. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for but he HAD spotted a man in the near distance - well, he had a beard that had black in it. And a mane of hair so Gael wasn’t disappointed. “Rhett?” He called to the stranger. “It’s Gael– er, if you aren’t Rhett, hi, I’m Gael and I think I’m lost.”

—

It was a strange thing to be equal parts relieved and disappointed that the person that came striding toward him on the beach didn’t set off any of his alarms—Gael being a nice person wouldn’t have stopped Rhett from removing his head from his body, had any of those chimes started dingin’. But they didn’t, and so he knew this would be a rather mundane afternoon, but… that was nice, sometimes. He was getting fucking old, sometimes he needed mundane. 

Raising a hand in greeting, the warden gave a sharp, boisterous laugh. “Aye, last I checked, was my name,” he answered in his unique accent, one that couldn’t really be tied to any one place, nomadic as his life had been up to this point. He wore red swim trunks that didn’t make it past his knees, a black v-neck, and sunglasses. Every inch of exposed skin from his clavicle down seemed to be covered in tattoos, all colorless and painting a confusing, nonsensical tapestry that could take a while to unravel if one was determined to do so, though there’s a good chance the warden would stick a switchblade through their eye before they finished. Mind yer business, he’d say.

“Kia Ora,” he offered a hand to shake, noting the bag the other had brought. At his own feet was a bucket for collecting the urchins, and in it, a hunting knife. For various purposes. Pulling the black elastic from his wrist, the warden gathered that wild mane of hair into a ponytail and tied it back. “Hope yer hungry—lotta fat suckers down there. If not, well, more fer me.”

— Was Gael just a little bit intimidated the closer he got to this man covered in tattoos, with fantastic hair and an implacable accent? Just a little. “Mucho gusto,” He replied with a nod, taking Rhett’s hand firmly as he glanced around at the environment for a moment - the sand, the shore, the bucket with the knife in it - presumably to cut the things open so they could enjoy the meaty insides. Gael was simultaneously curious and trepidatious and he tilted his head with the mix, setting his satchel down and almost opting to remove his shirt though he ultimately decided that it could stay on - they weren’t going that deep and this was supposed to be a fun outing with a guy who he was pleased to see DID in fact look like a pirate. Gael took a step or two into the lapping water. “I AM hungry. For knowledge and tasty sea urchins.” He tilted his head again. “I’ll follow you though - I’ve never seen one out in their natural habitat before.”

—

Rhett, for his part, did remove his shirt, because there were few things that annoyed him more than the feeling of wet clothes on his skin. He’d sooner be naked in the company of complete strangers than deal with that. 

Grabbing the knife and bucket, he followed the other man into the water with a grin on his face. “Aye? Good, good. Sure you’ll learn plenty.” He walked in about chest-high, then secured the knife between his teeth, took a big breath, and motioned for Gael to follow. 

It was a short swim to a cluster of underwater boulders that the sea urchins clung to, and with a wordless show and tell (more like show and make eyes at), Rhett taught Gael how to get the suckers off the rocks with said knife. Several trips to the surface later and their bucket was about half full. Would probably be enough, Rhett thought, and just as he was about to motion to Gael for them to surface, his eyes caught some strange movement behind him, even as shitty as they were. He gritted his teeth, air escaping between them in a bubble, his grip on the knife tightening. His gaze darted to meet Gael’s and he shoved the bucket into his arms, pointing up toward the surface. Then he was kicking to swim past him, down deeper to the sea floor, where something was… walking toward them. 

— His tattoos were fascinating. Gael had to try not to look at them, almost out of some Lovecraftian fear that they would mesmerize him and drive him to madness. Either that or he just figured Rhett was the type to, he didn’t know, fly off the handle over something completely innocuous. Call it a sixth sense but he knew how to respect people older than him, especially when they looked and acted like Rhett both online and in person. The older man didn’t do the whole ‘stand around and wait’ stuff which worked fine for the professor, who was rather eager to get started so with the newly-shirtless Rhett leading the way, Gael followed the salty sea-dog into the water, where they swam out a little ways. While the professor wasn’t a champion swimmer, by any means, he retained enough information to propel himself through the water without looking like an idiot who only knew how to dog paddle. After a show-and-not-tell from Rhett about what to do, Gael, being a quick learner, took to the activity with his usual enthusiasm, though he felt as though it didn’t need to be said this time. So the time passed in peace, just two guys diving for sea urchins in the pleasant summer weather. The bucket filling up and the professor was currently under the water, keeping his blurry gaze on the figure of Rhett when the latter suddenly motioned for him to surface. Being underwater, however, didn’t give Gael long to think about it and he just did what he was told, breaching the surface with a deep inhale though he wondered what Rhett wanted him to surface for. 

— He was already running low on oxygen and probably wouldn’t have time to deal with whatever it was wandering their way, but he wanted to get a look. Assess the situation. 

Well, the situation was shit. 

Knowing that he really lacked an edge underwater, the moment Rhett realized that they’d attracted a drowngr, he was off towards the surface. Popping up beside Gael, the hunter removed the knife from his bite and nodded at the shore. “Right, uh, sharks about. Best get goin’,” he lied, hoping that the creature wouldn’t follow them onto shore… even though he knew it probably would. 

Probably was giving it too much credit to lose interest, because the undead thing just kept coming for them, drawn to their body heat and wanting to take that for itself. As the men rose up from the waves and took their first steps back onto dry sand, a very decomposed, ugly-looking human head popped up from the water below about a hundred yards from shore. 

Not only was Rhett ill-equipped for this sort of fight, he couldn’t remember exactly what this type of undead fed on. It wasn’t always flesh and bone, he knew, and the undead often required more robust methods of killing than his typical fare. Damnit, he wished Emilio were here. He’d know. 

His van wasn’t parked too far from here, and they could probably beat the creature there if they started moving now. At least in the van, he had more weapons besides his hunting knife. While reliable, it wasn’t always the best option, and he didn’t think he wanted to get too close to this one. Looked bitey. 

Ushering Gael down the beach after grabbing the shirt he’d left on the sand, Rhett kept stealing backwards glances as they walked. Wouldn’t be long, now, before a corpse was on their tails. “Tell me, mate… how ready are ya feelin’ t’see an actual underwater monster today, eh?” There it was, stumbling out of the surf. “‘Cause we got one breathin’ down our necks.”

— Gael’s brow furrowed as he tread water, regarding the pirate when the latter surfaced. “Uh, okay.” He agreed without asking for clarification - even if he hadn’t seen any and from what Prisca told him, sharks didn’t attack people on purpose (unless they were bull or tiger sharks, the little menaces), he still trusted Rhett over his own incredibly limited experiences… and even if it WASN’T actually a shark, surely there was good reason for the older man to want them to get to shore. As they made their way to shore, wading into knee-deep water, Gael started to tousle his hair but it subconsciously turned into him shaking his body loose of excess water. It was brief, however, and soon enough he was back to wringing out his shirt and shorts. “Well, at least that was fun!” He said lightly, immediately before wondering if Rhett even did things like “have fun” but the professor had already said it and he probably would’ve followed it up had a harsh stench not been carried on the salty breeze, meeting his nose and instinctively causing him to press a wrist to it suddenly. Then Rhett mentioned something about an actual underwater monster and Gael gave him a brief look. “What, like an eel or–” His sentence was cut short as he looked over his shoulder and his brown eyes caught what seemed to be a bloated, slimy body of a male, obviously decomposed, shuffling out of the water and towards them. “NO?” He yelled, confusion and horror making itself very clear in his tone. “Rhett, what is THAT??”

— “It’s a dead guy,” Rhett responded matter-of-factly, glancing sideways at Gael. He reached for the bucket of sea urchins, not wanting the other to drop it in his panic, because apparently he’d never seen a mobile corpse before. Funny, that, since they were everywhere. Some hid better than others, though. This one was pretty obvious, all bloated and shuffling and brainless as it was, lurching out of the surf and pivoting in their direction. Its skin hung loose in some places and was stretched thin in others from the gasses that were trapped inside of it, contributing to that horrible stench on the wind.

The beach ahead of them wound around a steep cliff, and just beyond that was the access road Rhett had used to get down here.  “Come on. Van ain’t far. Got a weapon or two in there.” Not giving his afternoon companion much time to argue, the hunter struck off at steady trot, figuring Gael would probably follow closely rather than be left behind with the corpse that was tripping through the sand to get to them. 

— “It’s a dead–” Gael faltered, tearing his gaze off the foul-smelling shambler, working hard to keep himself from falling into a complete panic and quickly turning on a heel to follow behind the pirate at a brisk pace. “Okay I’m sorry but did you say that was a dead guy?” He called as he decided to keep his dark eyes on Rhett instead of look behind them at the foul-smelling, shambling figure. The hand that wasn’t tightly clenched to the strap on Gael’s messenger bag that hung over his damp frame flew up and pressed itself against his nose with fervor. “Rhett why are you so casual about a dead body that’s just… walking towards us? Do you know how utterly insane that sounds?” He asked urgently, his voice definitely carrying a tone of fear and concern to it - had he just gone searching for sea urchins with someone who just… shared in his hallucinations?

—

“Yeah. Cuz it is. Not much to not understand!” He could only laugh at the following question, glancing back at Gael. “Aye, well, the world’s an insane place, innit?” Gesturing at the thing that was tailing them, trying to hurry itself along and kicking around a lot of sand in the process, Rhett raised his brows. “I mean, what else woulda ya call that other than a dead guy?” 

Sure, it had some kind of ‘real’ name, but that was Emilio’s wheelhouse. Speaking of… as they hurried around the bend of the cliff that reached into the sky above them, Rhett tried to remember where exactly he’d left his phone in the vehicle. Cup holder? Yeah, that sounded right. 

The pair closed in on the van and Rhett threw open the door, setting the bucket of urchins in the seat and grabbing his phone. “Do me a favor, young man—find ‘Milio in my contacts n’ call him up for me. As what to do about a… fuck, what’re they called… eh, just tell ‘im it’s a dead guy what came outta the ocean, aye? He’ll have an idea how tah kill it.” Meanwhile, the warden circled to the back of the van, passing Gael the phone before opening those doors as well and reaching in to retrieve a black duffel bag. And from there, his favorite cutlass. Turning it in his hand and beaming at Gael, the warden poked his head out to check on the dead guy—closing in. He could hear the phone ringing, and just hoped that Emilio would have a clue about dispatching these. — “Yeah… I guess it must be.” Rhett didn’t seem worried about it and even though the smell wanted to make Gael gag and he didn’t want to think about what would’ve happened if the thing caught up to him, whatever was happening didn’t phase the older man so the professor himself wanted to reflect that, too. The duo approached the van, which was rather stylish as Gael thought so himself - the mushrooms were a nice touch - and Rhett pulled open the door, thrusting a phone at Gael to call someone named ‘Milio’ followed by what he needed to ask him as he made his way around to the back of the van. Immediately, Gael’s mind had questions - did he mean ‘Emilio’ as the man was looking through his contacts (few as there were) and didn’t see anyone named ‘Milio’? And if it was Emilio, why would he know about how to kill water corpses - he was just a PI, right? Nonetheless, Gael caught the vaguely-unhinged smile that Rhett offered him as he pulled a cutlass from the back of his van and he got to work dialing Emilio; hopefully this was the right person. “Hey Emilio, I need– No, it’s Gael, look– Okay look I don’t have time for this, Rhett needs to know how to kill a corpse that came from the ocean.” Gael’s voice displayed impatience as he prattled to Emilio in Spanish and he urgently cast a gaze from the side of the van over his shoulder to the corpse that got ever closer, the water-slicked skin making him shudder. “Okay. Thanks, bye.” Without waiting for anything else, figuring Emilio wasn’t going to be happy about him after this, he hung up the call. “He says ‘aim for the head, cutting the head off works best and to set it on fire if it’s not too wet’??” He repeated most of what Emilio said, looking at Rhett once more.

— “Aye, well it’s pretty fuckin wet—” Rhett complained, growling in annoyance as he faced off the creature. What he didn’t know, and what had been lost in translation, was that this wasn’t just a reanimated corpse, but a drowngr, which meant it was decidedly more challenging to kill. In fact, it meant that most hunters that encountered it would simply try to trap the thing underwater where it couldn’t hurt anyone, because they all seemed to have an immensely powerful healing factor and destroying the body quickly and completely was… hard. Unless one had a wood chipper on hand, which Rhett did not. Sadly. 

With a shrug, the warden readied himself as the barnacle-covered body shuffled closer, arms outstretched. Sidestepping to avoid the creature’s grasp, Rhett gave a hefty swipe of his sword, burying it deep in the undead thing’s throat. Didn’t cut clean, of course, thanks to the elasticity of this soggy fuck’s skin, so he was left to wrench it back free, which gave the drowngr an opportunity to grab onto him. 

The freezing cold was almost immediate and very intense, and the fact that the thing’s head was mostly severed didn’t seem to deter it in the slightest. Rhett gasped involuntarily, every muscle in his body tightening against the sudden chill as the creature sapped his body heat. It drove him to one knee, which was when his gaze jumped to Gael. “Knock it over!” he yelled through gritted teeth, feeling his heartbeat begin to slow. “Ger’roff’me…!” _ One moment, he was relaying information and then the next Rhett was taking a sword to a corpse and Gael was admittedly dumbstruck as the two got into what he roughly called ‘a scene from a movie’ - that was to say, it was difficult for him to fully wrap his head around what had decided to transpire over the past fifteen minutes. They went from sea urchin searching to running from a bloated corpse and now Rhett was taking a SWORD to it– So instead of contributing anything to the squabble, at least at first, Gael just stood there dumbly as he watched the fight, wondering if he should be doing anything to assist. Maybe call Emilio again and see if he could… the professor didn’t even know, what did Emilio know about how to get rid of corpses? Then again, the question seemed to answer itself. He was shaken out of his thoughts, however, as he heard Rhett yell and his attention was abruptly pulled to the sight of the older man on a knee with the shambling, nearly-decapitated corpse looming over him like a blobfish depressurized from the deep sea, hands on the man’s arms and flesh around its sagging neck starting to knit back together as though a sword wasn’t going through it. For a second, Gael was frozen, a deer in the headlights unable to perceive anything or move. It was only a second though, and in his fashion, he sprinted forward in a burst of speed without thinking, holding his breath and rammed into the bloated body with his shoulder with all the strength he could muster and sending the three of them toppling over while he rolled on the sand. Shaking his head to recover, he glanced up to see what else he could do. “You okay?” He called, worry evident in his tone. “How else can I help?” He asked, his fear being overshadowed by his need to assist, make sure Rhett was okay.

—

Okay, so he knew zombies healed fast, but that was next level. Fuck. Needed a new plan, n’ setting the thing on fire wasn’t going to be feasible. Not with how waterlogged it was. 

“Fine,” he bit out in response, trying to shake away the sensation of slowly freezing to death in spite of the hot temperature of the day. The drowngr was a bit like a turtle stuck on its back, he realized as he got back to his feet—rolling to and fro, not posing an immediate threat. Rhett ducked around the thing’s waving arms and grabbed the hilt of his cutlass, ripping it out of the monster’s neck before handing it to Gael. “Ya wanna help? Run that fucker through n’ pin it to the ground,” he instructed. “Gonna get some rope.” Just beneath the thin layer of beach sand was dirt, warmed by the spring and summer sun and easy enough to drive a blade into. Or so he figured. 

Turning away to leave Gael to it, Rhett added a quick, “Oh, n’ don’t let it touch ya!” as he rummaged around in the van for the aforementioned rope… and something heavy to tie it to. 

— The professor scrambled to his feet as the reality of what he just did sank in, suppressing a shudder as he felt the residual slime from connecting with the corpse lingering on his shoulder like the rotten fish it seemed reminiscent of. Not considering what he would’ve done if Rhett hadn’t, in fact, been okay, Gael carefully but quickly gave the corpse who was now on its back a wide berth, almost like a dog curious about something it wasn’t sure was dangerous. Which was ridiculous. Of course Gael knew it was dangerous but while it was flipped over, waving its arms uselessly as a baby that couldn’t prop itself up yet, the thought ebbed and flowed, almost as though he was wondering why they were so afraid to begin with. … Okay, obviously his brain was mixed up about how much fear it should feel and for a moment, he subconsciously rubbed his forearms, trying to get hair that hadn’t accumulated on them off desperately. There was no fur on his arms. No aspect of the disorder had made itself present but the motion was there, fervent and almost panicked but gone soon enough. Gael arrived next to the pirate in time for the cutlass to be thrust into his hands and he cast Rhett a quick glance, his expression asking if he was serious when Gael knew the answer to that question. “Oh sure. Pin it to the ground with a sword from the back of my van while I get some rope and also don’t let it touch me.” More coping mechanisms. When faced with something Gael didn’t understand, for some strange reason, his first thought was to diffuse his own anxiety with a joke - he did it with Regan, he did it with the boys that visited him in the hospital after the attack, he’d do it now. Despite the sarcasm, he looked up and down the length of the blade with a concerned look and with a grimace, he peered down at the flopping mass. Like a band-aid. Holding his breath again and with the forward thought that he was about to plunge a sword into a man, he did so quickly, clumsily and looking like a reverse of the King Arthur myth, trying to force the sword as far down into the sword as he could while avoiding the creature’s grasp. Gael managed to do so and he staggered back in surprise and relief at his success. 

—

The sarcasm couldn’t really be held against him, and Rhett only smiled as Gael worked himself through the situation in whatever way he had to. Humans. He fought to keep them safe, and it had always been a part of his training to keep them from knowing as much as possible, which… he wasn’t great at that part. Obviously, or he wouldn’t have the guy skewering the drowngr for him like a kebab. Oh well. 

Finding a coil of rope, Rhett let out a celebratory cheer. “All right, mate—oh. Good job!” he praised, turning around to see the cutlass was buried deeply in the undead’s chest. That would be handy for what they were going to have to do next. Which was to bind the thing’s feet together. Now that it was stuck in place and unable to roll about, it’d be a lot easier to do without getting slapped by cold, dead hands. But, to make it even easier for them to avoid the thing’s chilling touch, Rhett passed a pair of gloves to Gael before putting on his own. 

“Can’t kill it, not easily. So we’re gonna make sure it stays underwater, aye?” Gloves donned, the warden grabbed one leg and motioned for Gael to grab the other, then began to loop the rope around the creature’s ankles. Next would be the hands (arms above its head was fine, comfort wasn’t the concern here), and lastly, the two ends would be connected by a rope that looped around its neck and ran up and down the length of its body. 

Then came the weight.

Rhett had, for whatever reason, an old tractor tire in the rear of his van. It was a recent road-side acquisition, and he’d give a haughty I told you so to anyone who tried to tell him that collecting other people’s garbage was a useless hobby. 

“Right. We tie the fucker t’this, then roll ‘er back into the sea. There’s a drop off not fair from here. Perfect place to sink it.” 

—

He was handed gloves and at this point Gael wasn’t even asking questions anymore even though he probably should’ve, such as ‘what the hell IS this thing’ and ‘how the hell does Emilio know how to take care of it’. So instead, he slipped the gloves on and he nodded in affirmation that he was listening to the old pirate, dark eyes observing Rhett’s movements closely so he could imitate them to the best of his abilities. And suddenly he felt like he was plunged into some unholy combination of a buddy comedy, mobster and pirate movie all at once as he helped restrain the grotesque mass of jiggling skin, swollen tissue and abhorrent stench. The good news was that he was getting his gag reflex under control, breathing out of his mouth. The bad news was literally the rest of it as he pushed the thought that he stabbed a bloated corpse to the beach and was now helping tie it together to put it back where it came from. Rhett had said that it wasn’t easy to kill and going by Emilio’s suggestion that fire would be best, the professor could see why but still. The deed was done easily enough though - at least as far as “tying someone up” went - and Gael sat back for a moment, not wanting to look at the residue on his chilled hands from touching the corpse. Instead, his gaze followed Rhett as the latter went back to his van and managed to procure a tractor tire from it. Gael didn’t even want to ask what he was doing with it and instead just gave an uncertain nod. “Okay.” He exhaled, raising his eyebrows before he shook his head and got to his feet. “Okay wait. What the hell is this?” He asked, gesturing to the wriggling body. “It’s a dead guy but like what IS it?” He asked.

—

“Don’t remember the name, lad. Somethin’ ‘bout… drownin’. On account’ah that’s how they’re made.” He grabbed some additional rope and used it to lash the creature to the tire, which the two of them then heaved up onto its side. The body dragged along in the sand behind them as they rolled the wheel back into the water, the waves lapping higher and higher at their legs and waists. The tire, heavy as it was, did not float. 

It was not a quick process, especially once they got into deeper water and had to keep making trips back to the surface for air and avoiding the trashing monster that bobbed about, suspended in the water like a balloon that was losing air. Still, they managed all right, and eventually the drop off that Rhett had mentioned appeared before them. After one last trip to the surface, the pair pushed and kicked with all their might until the tire rolled over the edge, dragging the abomination down into freezing, murky depths. 

Once they had emerged, the task complete and the beach once again safe(ish), Rhett led the way back to the van. 

“Anyway… still want those urchins?” 

— Oh gee, Gael wondered why he never thought to just call it ‘a drowned corpse’. Okay, it was fine. It was fine, they were just… tying up a bloated mass of rot and flesh to a tire then putting the tire in the ocean and just gonna leave it there where hopefully the ropes wouldn’t rot away too fast and it’d be everyone’s problem again. This was fine. He definitely didn’t feel like a re-murderer.

Maybe if they got caught and sent to prison he’d room with Rhett and they could engage in a Shawshank Redemption-like prison break thriller. These were all thoughts that flitted through Gael’s mind as he participated in the act. The effort was there, as was the tedium, but at this juncture he supposed he was just filling the time with fun things, trying to distract from the ever-present stench the corpse provided them with. Once the trio were in the water, things got a little more difficult as the dead man seemed to get more restless.

Then somehow, with a last bit of strain and a healthy kick or a few from the two of them, the corpse was sent over a drop-off in the water where it plummeted out of sight. The two surfaced and headed back to Rhett’s fan, though not without the professor suddenly nervously looking around, almost as though another undead was just waiting to materialize out of nowhere to add more onto his already-struggling plate.

The other man’s question punctured his thoughts and Gael’s dark gaze slowly drifted over to the pirate, his expression half-lidded with raised eyebrows as though to say ‘you can’t be serious right now’. A pause with the man glancing between the old sea dog, the van and the beach, he scoffed and gave a small shrug. Mama didn’t raise a quitter or a coward.

“Sure.”

[ggcampbellgrad604]

DRAFT -

I sat down and just started writing as much as I could get it all out on the paper. Very rough draft and no real theme yet. May change title and direction. Will slowly figure out as I do more work. feels all over the place but there is something at least. Bottom half is more just notes and things I want to include. Need to take out the swearing just need to find better words for them.

Repetition, Recycling, Family, Friends, Mental Health, Self-Expression and Repetition. Influences that project my creative voice. 

This report will discuss my journey as a creative. It will provide insights that have helped me understand myself as a creative and as a person in today's world. I will analyse myself as a creative, my process/creation and creatives that inspire me. I have always been encouraged to express myself freely by my parents, whether it be through dance, art or music. I have always been given space to be as creative as I like. I use art and design as a way to manage my anxiety that has been around since a young age. I use art and design as a way to bring joy to others. It’s a tool that is flexible and can be applied to anything. I want to show the beauty of art and design and how I have started to fall in love with it again through this paper. 

At the start of this paper I was less sure of this practice and if it’s something I want to do lifelong. It still interested me but I felt creatively exhausted. It felt like more of a chore than it used to. But going through this paper I have noticed I am beginning to push back at it, making it a priority. Releasing that if I don’t put some solid thinking or effort into my work I will continually feel like I am falling short of my potential. I know I am capable and need some gentle self discipline which I am aware of and working on. If it does not interest me I do not want to do it as easily, I am aiming to hone in on what I like and go from there. Make briefs fit my interests and not someone else's. I am doing my best to reignite the spark with art and design and am putting effort into making things more fun with my work. I feel this paper has made me realise things about my creative process and given me kick up the arse to sort my shit out a bit which is an uncomfortable and lengthy process but will be worth it. I also relasied that one of the reasons I wasn’t as interested in design at the start of semster and semster 1 was because I was in a long distance relationship which was very hard to maintain with school work. I realised that it wasn’t going to work out with him because of our stressful work loads. After a healthy break up I felt free to throw myself into design and not have to worry about anyone else but myself. 

Currently as a creative I let myself do the work first then refine. I create several versions of the same thing, an experiment test. Re-start continuously. I have re-started this report 4 times now. I have interests in illustration, collage, photo-montage and painting. Anything that scratches the itch in my brain and stops me from scrolling on my phone. Let the pen drive itself on the paper and see what I come up with. There is a chaotic energy to my work or explosiveness. Ragged and worn. Mixing old with new. A mesh and recycling of previous works with other previous works. I also collect through photography. Taking images of anything that inspires me from type to texture. I keep banks of things that I know I will use in the future. I have started collecting and organising all my inspirations this year which has made a huge difference in efficiently finding my inspiration. I value self-expression in my work. I value randomness and letting the pen drive itself on the paper. I believe that is more than enough for art and design to exist for my own and other peoples visual pleasure. 

This semester in particular has unleashed a world of creatives to me. I found a string and it unravelled into this overwhelming world of creatives. Going to the AGI Open boosted my motivation for design. Astrid Strava was a speaker that resonated with me. She says that doubt is the catalyst of growth. To keep doubting to keep learning. I had doubts about if design is what I wnat to do and from that I have discovered that is most definitely is, but how I apply yit to the world is what I am yet to discover. Strava also says to ‘keep it simple stupid.’ I could go on all these tangents about the philosophy of art and design but in the end keep it simple. Curisotiy is key ask some questions. I felt like I was listening t the same music over and over scared to find new music since me and my boyfriend broke up and make new memories. Ew sappy but whatever. I found songs I liked by certain artists on my playlist. I found I had one or two from the same artist but hadn’t taken the time to get to know more of their music. I stumbled upon some amazing people because I took the time to question what else they had. I stumbled upon Joey valance and Brae. Who are a mash up of hioip hop and beatsie boys remisnicint. They have fucking fun with their music. They say stupid hsit they make it funny, they take the piss and in my eyes they are so talented because they are just themselves. I have a playlist on spotify that is my flow state playlist. I protect it with my life. I do not listen to it at any other times only when I am creating. I don’t know why but it works it’s music for me and no one else. The music on there is mostly from my childhood so maybe that has something to do with it. I don’t want to tarnish the memories those songs hold with new ones. Art something have done since a young age and so that music correlates with it. Another creative who inspired me from AGI is Ahn Sang-Soo. I resonated with his approach to life. His life peace symbol is that connected the sky, the sea, the land and humans. How we are all connected. He runs a school in Korea called Pati. Where they meditate and it’s more individual based. I am a bit of a spiritual person when it comes to mediation and I find interest in the mind. He said ‘competition suppresses creativity.’ Which I think is true. When we try be the best at everything and constantly comapre outslevs to others our work is not a true reflection of who we are. That why I believe that you should make whatever you want hwo ever you want then refine. Because your pen wil not even hit the paper if you stress and fumble around too scared to place anhting because of what others will think or what others have done. He also said ‘authority makes real and humane communication difficult.’ I also think this is true because I have seen it and felt it. In class when the lecturer is up talking and asking questions to people it can be a stressful environment. Talking to authority such as a lecturer. But when we have a break we separate into groups with our peers so much more work and productive work is done. One on one with elctueres brings them to teh same playing field. There is more genuineness. They are less distant and scary. Having everyone doing the same things including teh lecturers is what develops teh best ideas. 

Paul Boudens. Anoteh from AGI. He is my sprit animal. If I was a middle aged man I would be exactly him. All over the show and I love it. He gets up tehre is himself and makes some cool work. How we look our bodies are just vessels. Art is teh expression we give to the things inside of us eager to get out. Our presonailites are intangible and the way wwe presnet and certae work is what makes them seen. The temporary of us can be express semi permanently thorugh art and diesng. Leaving behdin somehting that will stay a little longer than us. He still feels lost and that made me feel better about myself. Nobody knows what teh fuck tehy are doing and why we are here. He’s been a designer for decades and he still feels lost. He’s made some awesome shit and he stil feels lost and thats ok. 

The creative community. Everyone is trying to find their people. It is constantly an elveoling journey. You may specialise in something but that can change and develop as life happens. I thought design was this big scary thing when you go out into the ‘real world’ that it’s these scary looking business people and these strict studios who will barley acknowledge your existence. AGI and finding people on instagram have proved me worng. That there are designer out there that have the same goal as you. To create some cool stuff and have fun while they do it. To have that balance of professionalism and play a true skill I want to master. These doubts and fears were just a lack of information. Deisgenrs arent scary. Design icons are normal people. I thought of it like a crush can sometimes be a lack of information. You obese oevr them and put them on a pedestal and when you get to know them it’s not so overwhelming. You relasie they are a person liek you. It sounds kind of depresisng but I find in comforting and the fact that we are all equal some have more knowledge about certain things and there is no reason as to hwy you cannot eventually get there one day. The deisgn icons have poele they look up to too. They have isnopration they aren’t this crazy genius who has everything sussed out. People I want to work with are Jao Incerti. Dylan Pritchard a young vdieogroaher of our time. People in our course. Because we are teh future. I want to gain insight and knowledge form olde rgenerations but people around me already I want to work with because I love them. 

My poster is based around music. Music si my love although I cannot olay a single intrsutment expect for a few cords on the ukulele. But it has so much depth and sensation to it. In highscool I based lots of my aart h

Taking how I am feeling at that time and putting on paper or on the computer in a visual way.

Repetition and re-starting is my method. I start painting multiple times becaus eI just have to do rather htan plan I find that’s hwo I get the best outcomes. 

I like to try capture a temporary emotion in a more semi-permant way that is art or design

I value the analogue process as nothing can quite replicate a human form. Incorporating that as much as I can into design.

[asamiontop]

“Lena, you can’t.”

Lena stopped. Her whole body went eerily still as tension coiled out of sight in her shoulders, her neck, her back. Even her ponytail seemed to tighten as the words echoed in her head, Kara’s normally gentle, indulgent voice taking on that glint of steel that Lena, until recently, had associated exclusively with a completely different person.

She whirled and took two threateningly sharp steps towards the reporter. Her pursed lips, the twitch of a perfectly manicured brow, the subtle flexing of her jaw… it landed perfectly. Lena’s expression of barely concealed ire was a blade honed to perfection, designed to make men wither before the look alone lest she unleash something far more terrifying. Kara shrank beneath it like everybody else. Maybe more.

“What do you mean, I can’t?” Lena spat.  Most people who had ever insinuated that Lena Luthor could not do something wound up finding themselves frighteningly wrong, frighteningly quickly. Kara knew that.

“It’s just—it’s dangerous.” Kara entreated, sufficiently cowed by the wrath radiating off of Lena in waves.

“I’m perfectly aware of the risks associated with the misdeeds of my own family, Supergirl,” Lena stated coolly, her voice snagging on the name that contrasted so nauseatingly with the nondescript cardigan and slacks and glasses standing in front of her. “It has never stopped me before. This time is no different. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

She spun on the ball of one stiletto and made to stride towards the door. A hand caught her around the wrist. Warm, dry, careful, even as it caged her as unmovably as iron.

“Lena, please.”

Once more, Lena turned to face her intruder, or guest or whatever. She knew fury was alight in her eyes, knew she couldn’t hide it from the gently beseeching blue that met her. So she let it simmer and dared Kara to look, to face it directly.

“Please,” Kara repeated, just above a whisper. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

In a most un-Luthor-like show of weakness, Lena snorted. She glared at the place where Kara’s fingertips seared like brands on her skin, setting her veins aflame with equal parts rage and longing. She had a facade of loathing to maintain, so she allowed poison to spill from her lips. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

Kara should have released her. Lena had meant for the comment to burn, to make Kara feel the touch the same way she did. But Kara merely followed her gaze, forlorn and regretful. Then she loosened her grip and shifted it with a slow, devastating slide to rest neatly around Lena’s hand. On the way, the pads of fingers traced featherlight paths of fire down the inside of her wrist, tripped over the tendons at the base of her palm, and lingered on her rapidly heightening pulse.

Mortifyingly, all Lena could do was struggle to keep breathing and control the traitorous sigh that wanted to jump from her mouth to land encouragingly against the shell of Kara’s ear. Just as she was about to succeed in wrangling her body’s inconvenient reactions, Kara mirrored the motion with her other hand, reaching for the wrist that had been free from her grasp.

Lena swallowed hard, kept her throat from whimpering and her knees from wobbling, and raised her chin defiantly.

“Lena…” Kara’s eyes were so stupidly, frustratingly earnest. All misty and clear and pointedly difficult to ignore. “I never want to see you hurt. I never wanted to hurt you. I know that I did and I know that it’s unforgivable, but that doesn’t mean you should throw yourself into danger now.”

“Like I said, Kara,” Lena pretended to struggle against the Super’s grip, a little white lie to convince herself she’d put up a fight as Kara besieged her defenses with nothing but gentleness. “I’ve been walking into danger for years now. Because of you and despite you. This is no differ—”

“It is different!” Kara’s volume rose on a cry and her fingertips tightened around Lena’s hands. The Luthor could do nothing but blink at the crystalline fire blazing back at her, the fingertips pressing desperately into her palms.

Kara turned her face away, viciously worrying her bottom lip, sucking in watery breaths and blinking so hard that those crocodile tears Lena had sworn to hate tumbled haphazardly down her cheeks. Lena’s chest shuddered painfully and she watched mutely as Kara fought to regain control after her outburst.

When she turned back, her eyes were red-rimmed and bluer, somehow. Lashes wet, her eternally light mascara just barely smudged. “It’s different, now,” Kara admitted feebly, staring at their semi-joined hands. “Everything is different.”

“Yes, well,” Lena sniffed haughtily, prepared to deliver a dark ‘who’s fault is that,’ and yet her unruly mouth changed course at the last second and she muttered instead, “things may be different between us, but the threats we have to face have not changed. Neither can we.”

She’d sounded much more placating than she’d meant to. Much kinder, as well. It was embarrassingly damning but, miracle of miracles, the kink in her armor seemed to have gotten through to the Kryptonian. Kara looked back up at her, an endearingly persistent tear dangling from her eyelashes. Lena’s fingers twitched with the urge to wipe it away and she almost snatched one of her hands out of Kara’s grip so she could smack it across the back of her own offending digits.

“I can’t,” Kara blinked mournfully and the tear dropped away. She shook her head, pitiful as Lena had ever seen her. “I can’t.”

Well. At least it was a better tune than you can’t.

“You can,” Lena urged, exceedingly gently. She lured Kara’s eyes to hers with the pretense of kindness, pinned her with an almost tender gaze for a fleeting second—a manipulation, Lena reminded herself, not an indulgence—then let her eyes harden. “You can and you will.”

With that demand she jerked her hands in the direction Kara was pulling her, an old self-defense trick, and then away. Some self-assured part of her knew the Kryptonian would release her before ever physically causing any pain. (The cognitive dissonance of that certainty with the barbs she’d thrown at Kara and the heartbreak she’d experienced by her hand was something Lena had become practiced at ignoring.)

But Kara didn’t let go. She followed Lena’s movements to minimize the forcefulness of her decision, but kept her in an iron grip. For a nanosecond, Lena experienced something akin to fear. Kara hadn’t even flinched. It had taken her more conscious effort to make sure Lena wasn’t harmed than to keep her rooted in place.

It was extra embarrassing then, that after the spike of cold dread that shot down her spine, a soft swipe of Kara’s thumbs across the back of Lena’s hands was all it took to soothe her. Even more mortifying that when Kara’s voice lowered and she declared, gravelly and rough, “I won’t,” that Lena felt the assurance somewhere distinctly inappropriate and south of her stomach. “I won’t let you go, Lena.”

Indignant, exhausted, and now decidedly late to her engagement with her villainous brother, Lena lost her patience. “And why the hell not?”

“Be-because…” Kara faltered. Her brow crinkled and her mouth opened and closed blankly and she bit her lip again, turned it vibrantly pinker. “Because it’s different no—”

“Yes, yes, Kara.” Lena’s eyes rolled. She was beginning to lose her grip on the finer points of her Luthor upbringing but what the hell, Lillian wasn’t here to see it. “We’ve established that things are ‘different’ as you say.”

Lena leaned forward into Kara’s space, glaring up at her too-blue eyes and spun gold hair and offensively perfect face. “But let me make something very clear. Nothing has changed for you.” She paused to let Kara choke on that for a second, resumed just as the Kryptonian was about to protest.

“You’ve known who I am this entire time. Known more about me than most, I might add. You knew, every time I stepped in to help Supergirl and the DEO, exactly who it was that was standing in the line of fire to save your sorry ass. And all of this time it never bothered you, not once, that I was putting myself in danger.”

Kara pursed her lips, her eyes wide and panicked, and swallowed dramatically.

“What is different,” Lena continued, willing herself to stay cold, “is that now I know who you are.” She imagined herself stabbing an accusatory finger in the center of Kara’s chest. “I know now that the person who went behind my back, who mistrusted me for no other reason than my name, who enlisted the people I cared about to betray me was also the person who once made me feel the safest I’d ever felt.”

Hm. That wasn’t supposed to have slipped out that vulnerably. Lena shouldered past it.

“I know now that the person who believed in me, who I’d grown to care for, to lo—” she halted abruptly. Evidently this was the time many of her little boxes decided to eagerly try to slam themselves open. Lena needed to get a hold of herself. She cleared her throat. “The person I loved as a dear friend, was the same one that Reign almost killed. The same one that risks her own life day in and day out for the people of this city.”

If anything, Kara only looked more confused now. Lena was, admittedly, confusing herself a little bit, letting unmoored and unresolved feelings get the best of her. She had to haul her small tirade back into control.

“Surprisingly, that was one of the most difficult parts of your little revelation,” she sneered, “realizing that someone I lo—” damnit Luthor, get a grip, “that someone important to me, had been on the brink of death so many times and I hadn’t even known. I hadn’t even been given the chance to care.”

Lena shook her head, shrugged as if that fact hadn’t gutted her repeatedly and left her in a drunken stupor for days. “What really helped me overcome that hiccup was you,” she added, sickeningly sweet. “When I realized that you, Kara, were watching me do the same without batting an eye. Without caring at all.” Lena snarled, refused to let Kara eke out her adamant refusal. “I figured, if Kara can do it, then so can I. Why should I care when she doesn’t?”

Lena chuckled darkly. “You see, Supergirl… you—as the ultimate role model for how indifferently you and I should treat one another—have absolutely no excuse to flutter in here and tell me what I can and cannot do. Nothing has changed for you.”

She made to pull her hands away once more, with measured, deliberate finality. This time, Kara allowed her to slip through her fingers. One inch, two… a few more and Lena would be free to go handle the latest crisis and then hide away in the bottom of a bottle after this soul-crushing conversation.

At the very last second, Kara latched back on. She closed her hands around Lena’s fingertips and, with barely any pressure, froze her to her spot.

“That’s not true,” Kara argued weakly. “It’s… it’s not true. I always cared Lena.”

“Well,” the young Luthor huffed, “regardless of whether or not I believe you. If you cared then and you claim to care now, still nothing has changed. Let me go.”

“No,” Kara persisted. “It’s a trap, Lena. You’re going to get hurt. Or worse, he’ll take you or, or, kill you—”

“And why do you care?!” Lena finally broke. Her voice cracked on her yell and her eyes began to burn. “You never stopped me before, never hesitated to come ask me to intervene or—”

“Because I didn’t know what it was like to lose you!” Kara snapped back and Lena’s mouth snapped shut. Kara blinked intently at her for a few moments, shocked into silence at her own admission, long enough for it to settle heavily over them both.

When she spoke again her voice was soft, broken. “I… I was awful. And selfish. And a lot of things I will regret for the rest of my life. And I told myself it was all for the best, because I was scared of losing you. There was this vague idea in my head of how horrible it would be to not… to not be a part of your life anymore.”

Lena scoffed. She’d heard this before. Kara only squeezed her fingertips entreatingly and continued.

“But then… then you found out and we fought and I… Lena, I had no idea. I had no idea how much—how much it could hurt. When Mon-El left Earth I… I was sad but I wasn’t devastated. Losing you, hurting you, broke me in a way I’ve never felt before.”

Lena tensed all over, bracing herself against the confession. Her jaw went tight, her nostrils flared, her chest shook but her heart, traitor that it was, slammed hard against her ribcage trying, against her best efforts, to get to Kara.

“I can’t begin to imagine what I would do if I lost you for good,” Kara added miserably. “I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself… or the world… if I lost you before I got the chance to… to try to fix this.” She stepped forward and looked imploringly into Lena’s eyes.

“I want to fix this, Lena. Us. Whatever it takes.” Kara’s hands grew bolder, wriggled up to fully envelop Lena’s once more. “I’ve never felt this way about another person. And maybe that’s why it took me so long to recognize it. Maybe that’s why it took losing you for me to really understand how much you mean to me.”

Shakily, Kara released one of Lena’s hands. Then, achingly slowly, she raised her fingertips—up, up, up until they hovered a breath away from Lena’s jaw. She paused, giving Lena a chance to retreat from the touch. Hopeless as she was, Lena didn’t budge.

Hopeless as she was, Lena leaned weakly into the cradle of Kara’s palm when it curled delicately around her cheek.

Kara’s thumb traced a wet arc over her cheekbone and Lena’s eyes fluttered closed. She felt the gentle, damp press of its pad at the quivering corner of her mouth. Still, she didn’t recoil. Still, all her heart screamed for was more.

Kara puffed out a breath cracked with relief and disbelief. “I love you, Lena.”

Piece by piece, Lena crumbled. The kinks in her armor became chips, became fissures and rent her into pieces. She had so much vitriol stored up to launch at Kara in response to that confession. So much hurt, turbulent and vengeful, roiling in her gut and so much anger, lack of understanding, disbelief.

But all she could muster was a defeated “damnit, Kara” and a watery sob before collapsing into the safety of the blonde’s arms. Because what’s a soul to do when it hears the siren call it’s been yearning for from the person who unwittingly brought it to life?

Kara caught Lena against her chest, shifted to ease the blow and enveloped her instantly. She cupped the back of Lena’s head, tucked her other arm around her shoulders and held as tight as she probably dared.

As she stained Kara’s cardigan dark with her breakdown, Lena became aware of a cheek pressed into her temple, tender fingers stroking her hair, and a gentle shuddering of Kara’s shoulders as the reporter, too, lost her composure.

Lena lost track of how long they stayed that way, how long it took for the feeling of imprisonment to fade beside the blinding relief she felt within Kara’s embrace. She cried and cried and wrinkled Kara’s clothes in her fists and, damn everything, felt like she’d come home.

“This doesn’t fix anything,” she hiccuped.

“I know,” Kara murmured into her hair.

“‘I love you’ doesn’t fix anything,” Lena insisted, still indignant.

“I know, I know,” Kara keened mournfully, “and I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for saying it, I’m sorry for not saying it, I’m sorry for everything, Lena. I love you so much. I want to stop hurting you. I want to put the pieces back together, however you’ll let me. Please, Lena. Please let me.”

Kara was sobbing now, begging and pleading into Lena’s hair and for all intents and purposes, on her knees for the young Luthor.

And Lena could cite Kara’s weakness, her prostrating herself at Lena’s mercy, for what she did next. She could cite it, but she’d be lying. Because it was the confession that dislodged something jagged and bleeding from Lena’s heart. Three basic, overused words that cut through all the gnarled twists and turns of her and bared the knotted, aching, nerve that held the truth of it all.

“I love you too, Kara,” Lena mumbled near inaudibly into the soft wool. Near inaudible was plenty audible for a Kryptonian.

Kara reared back, wild-eyed and stunned. She stared at Lena intently, shocked and speechless and heartbreakingly hopeful. Her mouth twitched silently around a ‘what’ of impossibility, so Lena beat her to the punch.

“I love you, too,” Lena repeated, watching the blue of Kara’s eyes illuminate with the words. She opened one of her hands and set it to rest over the thundering in Kara’s chest with a faint, blooming smile. “‘I love you’ doesn’t fix anything, but it’s a start.”

[dorkydiaz]

STITCH BY STITCH [1.1k | future fic | established relationship] {ao3} a/n: @djdangerlove made this post and well, you all should know how i feel about sewing, so i typed this thing entirely on my phone. it turned soft and gooey established relationship sweetness. oh! and i gave buck a dog, she’s a golden retriever puppy named bailey (i don’t know how old, i don’t know anything. about dogs other than they are soft and cute). anywho enjoy :)

“Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that – one stitch at a time taken patiently and the pattern will come out all right like the embroidery.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

when eddie looks up from the couch as the door swings open and buck makes his way around the door, he didn’t expect for his eyes to fall on buck’s face with a harried look in his eye, his curls free and wild the way he leaves them on their days off, his worn shorts that live at the bottom of his dresser as a last resort, and a well loved sweatshirt he swore he lost to the wiles of the station lost and found ages ago- the cuffs torn and unraveling, the hood trying to escape the confines of being attached to the rest. finally his eyes land on the teddy bear clutched in buck’s hand, it looks tiny in his hand, trembling a little.

“buck, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” he asks gently as he gets up to make his way to where buck has frozen in place.

the tears are just about to fill over the brim and buck just lifts the bear further up. there’s a tear in the red sweater and a small hole threatening the integrity of one of its limbs.

“bailey got a hold of it when i wasn’t looking. jee is going to shun me forever,” buck finally says voice raw. “and i, i didn’t know what else to do.”

“okay, well first- this is fixable. go sit and i’ll grab my emergency sewing kit and get you some water. i’ll be right back,” eddie says squeezing bucks empty hand, bring buck’s knuckles to his lips lightly.

he finds the comprehensive sewing kit that abuela had triple checked he had before she moved to texas, and always asks about at least every other phone call.

as his hands wrap around the little hand made bag he remembers the days he would sit next to abuela carefully studying her hand movements, eventually helping her with small repairs, reattaching buttons and the sort. how adriana and sophia started bringing him their barbie clothes that they ripped when they inevitably were too forceful trying to pull the delicate clothes over the hard plastic of their doll’s bodies. how he would tell his dad that it was all in the name of someday being a doctor. and he had perfected those tiny sutures, leaving the tiny clothes looking nearly as good as new. how eventually his mom would bring him a shirt and a button every few weeks until he left home.

he’s back in the living room, buck ending up on the floor, back against the couch like he sometimes did. the floor being superior for some reason that he didn’t quite all the way understand. he’s holding the teddy in both his hands, staring down at it.

he remembers sitting on their couch in el paso, patching a pair of jeans, sewing a few buttons. chris sitting next him watching him more than the children’s tv show dancing across the screen.

eddie settles in, carefully threads a needle and gently takes the bear from bucks hands, and removes the small sweater and sets it aside. buck hooks his chin over his knee and watches with a familiar intention, following each hand movement with intense focus, his tongue poking out in concentration. eddie imagines if he had a notebook and a pen he would be writing it all down.

he finishes the half dozen stitches, knots off the thread, and clips the tail with the small stork scissors, and hands it back to buck, who holds it like it’s glass, thumb hovering over the nearly invisible seam. the awe written across his face looking from the bear to eddie. his eyes settle on eddie’s hands again as he holds the small sweater in his hands.

“i remember when she was barely bigger than that,” he says softly, “she was so tiny. now she’s almost four.”

“imagine how i feel about chris,” eddie replies, his voice pensive as he studies the small sleeve, pinching the seam together again.

buck’s hand drifts to eddie’s other knee, his thumb ghosting over his knee cap.

the unsaid question floating like a cloud between them.

eddie carefully stitches the seam. his mind wandering to the tiny clothes that filled a tiny dresser in el paso what feels like a lifetime ago.

he finishes fixing the small hole. and just stares at the tiny clothing.

“you think it’ll be weird for chris? being so much older than a sibling?” the question slips out softly before he can capture it.

buck freezes, places the bear on the floor carefully, stands on his knees, his hands resting on eddie’s thighs.

“fuck, i’m sorry i just dropped that on you when it’s barely been 6 months. god i’m-“

“eddie, eddie, honey,” buck rushes gently moving a hand to eddie’s cheek, “it’s okay. i was thinking the same thing.”

“you were?

“yeah, i figure we just ask him ya know? he’s a teenager. besides, i think he’d be all for it. and i mean maddie’s much older than me, and we are close, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“i’m not worried about any of it really.”

“not about us?” he ducks his head a little, “about me?”

“buck, baby. never has there been a day since i told you about our son’s existence that i have questioned your ability to love and cherish every child in your life, and i have witnessed you grow into being a wonderful father to chris, and a partner to me. evan,” and he looks as small and as young as he did the day he first called him by his name, “you have grown into your own beyond your wildest dreams i’m sure- you are good enough.”

“you are one of the reasons that’s true. and eddie, so are you. so are you.”

“but we’re a couple years away from all that.”

“yeah. yeah we are.”

a soft silence wraps around them for a moment, forehead to forehead, just breathing.

“give me the bear. you take this to maddie and chim’s, pick up bailey, while i pick chris up from school, and meet us at the park. then we will have our usual movie night okay?”

“yeah, okay. that sounds good.”

eddie finished buttoning the tiny sweater on to the bear, patting its chest carefully. he runs a hand through buck’ curls and places the bear back in his hands.

p.s. why i included the tidbit about the stork scissors

[starlitangels]

Worth the Effort

Heal what has been hurt... 2.4k words (on the dot!)

—

Geordi kissed me on the cheek—sort of. It was more like he intended to, but only bumped his cheek against mine. “Working late tonight?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, see you when you get home tonight.” He moved toward the door.

“Tomorrow night,” I said quickly.

He froze with his hand on the doorknob and slowly turned to face me again. “What?”

“I’m not coming home tonight,” I said. “I’m spending the night at my parents’ house.”

“Why? Are your parents okay?”

“They’re fine. I’m going for me.”

“Why?” he repeated.

I sucked in a deep breath. “Because you’re right. You were right about everything last night. You were right to be hurt and you were right to be upset. I haven’t been the partner you deserve. I’ve been pushy and it’s not fair to you. I’ve been… trying to do better. Trying to get over all the habits that I’ve instilled in myself for this last half of my life—”

“Baby, trying is enough. You don’t have to go.”

“No, Geordi, it’s not. Trying is not enough. You set a boundary months ago and I’ve done nothing but push against it ever since. I’ve tried not to—and I’ve been doing better than even I expected at not reading your mind without permission—but at this point trying isn’t enough. I should be doing. Because you deserve someone who makes you comfortable. And I haven’t… I haven’t been that for you. I love you, Geordi. So, so much. And I’ve been terrible at showing that in a way that makes you comfortable.

“I don’t want to go to my parents’ house tonight. But I think I need to. Because I need to figure myself out. I need to ask my parents for help and… I’m reaching out to an old school friend.”

“A school friend?”

I nodded. “We went through the full certification program at the academy together. He’s a Telepath, like me. But he’s humanborn.” I caught myself. “Uh—he’s from a family without magic. His powers manifested randomly. And… as such… he knows how to navigate relationships with unempowered people a little better than I do. He… he also has an unempowered partner. At least… he did when we were at the academy. It’s been a bit since I checked up on him but I imagine they’re still together.

“And if they can make it work for as long as they have, then I can figure this out. I don’t want to break up—and I don’t want to take a break from our relationship either. But you’ve always deserved someone better than me. And I haven’t been good at living up to that.”

Geordi looked away, then back to me. “Baby, that’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself.”

“You’re worth it.” I got up from the table where I’d been eating breakfast and moved toward our room. “See you tomorrow night, baby.”

“Cutie, you look like hell—”

“I didn’t sleep last night. Stayed up all night thinking.”

With that, I shut the door behind me.

—

Sitting on the floor of my old bedroom after a long, tumultuous day at work, I leaned back against my old bed. My phone sat in one hand, an album of all the pictures Geordi and I had taken together open and casting a bluish glow on the ceiling. I’d been scrolling through them, back and forth, restlessly waiting for James to call me back.

Pictures of us on dates—a little video from my Snapchat of Geordi singing karaoke in my old apartment—just random candids of him doing mundane things like washing dishes or napping on the sofa with a blanket sprawled haphazardly over his torso, completely missing his legs or tangled up in a headphone cord he’d been trying to unravel. I stared at all of them fondly. God, I loved Geordi so much. I wanted to do right by him. I just wished it was easier to figure out how.

My phone started ringing. “Finally,” I muttered, looking at the caller ID and seeing a familiar name. I slid the answer option. “James!”

“Hey. I got your texts. Sorry it took so long—I was working late.”

“It’s fine.”

“So… struggling with your partner?” he asked.

“Struggling with myself, more like. I don’t… I don’t know how to be the partner he deserves. I don’t know how to… not use my powers,” I said. “And he’s… understandably put off by it. And I haven’t been good at minding his boundaries. I want to, but my habits… get the better of me sometimes. How do you do it? I mean, you and your partner are still together, aren’t you?”

“Yup. Still going strong.”

“How do you do it?”

I heard James take a deep breath on the other end of the call. “I… never got into the habit as deeply as you did. I’m humanborn. I didn’t grow up in a whole family of Telepaths constantly presenting their unfiltered thoughts to one another. When my partner and I got together… we’d been friends since childhood. We knew each other well. We knew each other before I got my powers. I wish I could help you better but… I don’t know the right advice to give. I usually only pry into people’s minds without asking when I’m at work. Because it’s part of my job. I can’t say to just cut off your magic cold turkey until you’ve worked yourself out of the habit. That wouldn’t be fair to who you are. You helped me so much when I came to the academy. When I didn’t know anything about the magical world. I wish I could repay you now with sound advice but… I don’t know if I can.”

I rubbed my eyes. They were tired. I’d been awake for a solid thirty-eight hours and it was hitting me hard.

“I appreciate you even trying, James, really,” I said.

“Hey,” he said gently. “You sound tired.”

“Didn’t sleep last night. I stayed up all night thinking. Trying to… I don’t know. Figure things out. I’m at my parents’ house right now. Told Geordi I wasn’t coming home tonight. That I was gonna reach out to you and try and get myself together before going home.”

“Listen,” James began, sounding a bit hesitant. “Tell me a little bit more. I know you explained most of the situation in your texts but tell me with your voice. I’d say tell me mind-to-mind but I’m not in Dahlia at the moment and I don’t think even your range is that good.”

I snorted. “Rude, but true,” I said. Good to know that time and distance hadn’t changed the way James and I had always been sarcastic with each other. “I… I know Geordi isn’t asking me to not be who I am. What I am. I can’t help that I’m a Telepath. It’s not like I had a choice anymore than he chose to have that curly hair. I know the boundary he set is reasonable for someone who didn’t grow up the way I did. He… he asked me, last night, if I’d ever felt vulnerable before I got my powers growing up in a family of Telepaths.

“But… I didn’t. I didn’t know anything else. Even if I ever did feel vulnerable… it wasn’t significant enough for me to remember it. I know he’s not asking me not to use my magic at all anymore—but my stupid brain and stupid cognitive distortions react like that’s what he’s asking for. And then I push back and he gets hurt and then we both get hurt.

“It just… it feels like it’s always my fault when we get into arguments. Because something I did hurt him. And I hate that.” I sniffed and wiped my eyes. “I hate hurting him. I hate being the reason he’s upset.”

“That just means you love him, right?”

“I hope so. But I’m still not the partner he deserves.”

“Neither am I for mine,” James said. “They and I have a standing agreement that I’m allowed in their mind whenever I wish to be, unless they specifically ask otherwise, but that’s a boundary that we set up when we were… much younger. They were the only person I told about my powers, after I manifested, for a long time. I manifested the year before we went to high school together, and I finally told them about me two years into high school. Because I couldn’t keep lying. And we worked out a system, over the years. But I never got into the habit of just… being in people’s minds all the time. I did when you and I were at the academy. I mean, you and I trolled each other all the time with bad music in the middle of lectures—”

“I still haven’t forgiven you for Rickrolling me in the middle of a final exam, by the way,” I put in with a smile. James chuckled.

“Can’t say I blame you.”

“Dude—we would have gotten our exams voided if they’d heard me laugh and realized we were using Telepathy in the middle of an exam!”

“But they didn’t.”

“Technicality.”

“I’m not above embracing technicalities,” he reasoned.

“Shut up and let me be mad at you for that.”

He chuckled softly. “Nevertheless,” he continued, measured and even, “your partner. Remind me his name?”

“Geordi.”

“Cute name.”

“I know right?” I chuckled. “I love him so much.” I took a deep breath. “But loving him so much isn’t enough. Trying to be better isn’t enough. He asked for that boundary months ago and I’ve done nothing but push against it ever since. And it’s not fair to him. I just… I don’t know how to not. I don’t know how to not use my powers all the time anymore.”

“Well… make it a discipline you set for yourself—rather than one that you’re minding for your partner. Do you think that would work?”

“I don’t know. Apart from Geordi… I really don’t have a reason to impose that on myself and I think my brain would figure that out and never actually remind me that it’s a personal self-discipline.”

James hummed in thought. Then was quiet. He sighed. “I wish I wasn’t away from home so I could ask my partner if they have any advice from the… impartial unempowered side of the situation. They’re so much smarter than me anyway.” I caught a single chuckle over the line. “But… I’m away for work. So all you get is me.”

“But you’re the one I want advice from,” I said. “Another Telepath in a relationship with a non-magic partner.”

“A non-magic partner I’ve had the benefit of knowing since we were both children. Whom I love and trust more than anyone else in the world,” James pointed out. I made a face and grunted. “And we’ve had our ups and downs, don’t get me wrong. I’m still not perfect at their boundaries either. I’ve read their mind when they specifically asked me not to more than once and tried to justify it to myself. I don’t make a point of always being in their head, though, and never have. My habits are different from yours because of my background. You grew up in a family of Telepaths—constantly in each other’s heads. I’m humanborn. I was frightened of my powers, initially, and tried really hard not to use them much. Which never got me into the habits your family history imposed on you.”

“So you don’t have any advice?”

“Apart from telling you to let go of your need to always know everything by being in everyone’s heads all the time—which is unreasonable and unrealistic—I really don’t know if any advice I have to give would be applicable.”

I sighed and closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Well… thanks anyway. I know you’re busy and I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.”

“Hey,” James said softly, catching my attention before I could hang up. “Geordi’s worth the effort.”

“What?”

“It’s going to be hard to change your habits. And you’re not going to always like the amount of effort it takes. But the way you talk about him… it’s clear that you love and care for him deeply. And he’s worth all the effort it’s going to take to adjust. It sounds like he trusts you and you trust him. That’s the best thing to ask for in any relationship. He’s worth it, I promise.”

I wiped the tear that had welled up and spilled over off my face. “Thank you, James. I think that’s what I needed to hear.”

“Well, if I could help out, I’m glad to do it.”

“You have a good night, now.”

“You too. Go get your boy.”

I smiled softly. “I will. Bye.”

“Bye.”

He hung up.

—

I knocked on the door to our house, even though I could have just used my key. I figured this was better.

After a pause, the door opened. Geordi’s eyes—bright blue and warm—widened. “You’re here,” he said. “I thought you said you were spending the night at your parents’—”

“I was,” I said quickly. “But I called my friend and he and I talked and… I needed to come home.”

Geordi let go of the door and slammed me into a hug. I clung to him, tears falling out of my eyes and onto the shoulder of his shirt. He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I missed you,” he whispered.

“I missed you too. And James—my school friend—really helped me.” I inhaled and pulled back from the hug just enough to meet Geordi’s eyes, still holding onto him. “I’m not going to be perfect. It’ll probably still take me time to be the partner that you deserve. But it’s time to stop trying and start doing. I want you to be comfortable with me. I’ll make mistakes and I’ll stumble—and I can’t just stop being what I am. But—” I made sure to hold Geordi’s gaze. “—I can be better for you. And I will. Because I love you more than anything. And you are worth it.”

Geordi broke my gaze and looked away, shifting back and forth on his feet. I pulled him back into the hug and buried my face in his neck.

“I love you,” Geordi whispered.

“I love you too,” I breathed.

[sirthisisa-wendys]

Conviction: Ken Ryuguji / Ran Haitani x Fem!Reader

synopsis: the richest man in the city has a daughter. And his daughter has a secret. (@thehypestdeano for her great song suggestions that just put me in the mood)

wc: 1.4k

tw: NSFW

masterlist

song recommendation:

Ran Haitani

"You're always kissing me as if your dad won't walk in on us one day," the man beneath you chuckles, eyes fluttering open as you tug on his bottom lip gently.

"But you let me do it anyway."

Ran smiles at you tenderly, his mouth normally pressed into a thin, disapproving line when he's around anyone but you. He has to admit - with his hands in your hair - that it's true. He's never been one to deny you the pleasure of being with him and in his space, nor the pleasure of sneaking around your mansion while your father is at work.

Ran leans forward for another kiss, then smirks. You're already prepared for his lips, mouth slightly parted, hands tugging your strands ever so slightly. You're ready, eager for him. A delinquent. Who would've thought an Ivy League-educated woman like you would be wanton, waiting, and wet for him: a man who barely finished high school?

Your pastels, your plush lips, your polished manicure... you wanted him: a black and blonde-haired, bloody-lipped, blunt-edged scoundrel.

Ran gets hard thinking about all the nights he watched you attend the same parties, get drunk off the same punch, dance your way around his heart in the same room... and you never noticed him. Not until he practically saved your ass from being extorted in a dark alley after a night of clubbing.

That's when you thanked him for his service, and he asked if he could perform one more for you, on the house... sort of. Ran only charged one orgasm from you as his payment before he licked his lips and left, leaving his phone number on the marble dresser in case you needed the service again.

And you called.

Maybe it had been a week later. But you called.

And now you're in his lap, your tongue playing games with his, darting around like they were tangling for the top spot.

"Y/n," Ran breathes, retracting his tongue and sighing. "I need you."

"Ditto."

The word puts the braided man in auto-pilot, and he carries you to the bed to perform his duty. It's only when he's balls-deep inside of your warm cunt that his word become muddled, and he stops whispering the dirty things you like to hear, exchanging them for what he really wants to say.

"You're so beautiful," he purrs, kissing down your neck and holding one of your breasts in his hand. "I can't get enough of you." And Ran notices that you moan just an octave higher, legs tightening around his waist.

"Ran..." you huff, and he nuzzles your other breast, running his teeth over your nipple.

"God, I love it when you say my name."

"Ran," you repeat, and he thrusts a little deeper, trying his best to reach that sweet spot. The last time he did it, it made you wetter than any of the girls he'd fucked before. It's part of what sealed the deal for him.

"Gonna cum for me, sweetheart?" You nod slowly, your face scrunched up in focus, focus, focus. You were trying to focus on the pleasure, the sensations, the deep rocking that set your soul on fire. Ran could tell all of that just by hearing your hitching breath, balls-deep in you or not. His urge to speed up quickens his hips, and the thrusts become shaky and less sure as time wears on.

You want to cum, you want to shudder around the veiny cock inside of you, but something in you wants to prolong this moment, these sensations. Something in you wants Ran to keep your body like this for hours.

"I'm gonna cum soon," Ran whispers, sweat rolling down from his forehead. "Tell me if you want me to--"

"I want to cum with you," you respond, eyes staring at Ran's. "Cum with me."

"Are you close?" he grunts, braids swinging in your face.

"Yeah..."

You tense up around Ran, praying to god that you'd unravel the right way, that you'd do it with him. Ran curses, then his hips stutter, just as you cum, walls fluttering rapidly. You both reach your climax in each other's arms, coming down at the same time as well.

Ran exhales deeply, resting his hips on yours and kissing your lips tenderly.

"Can you stay for a little while longer?" you inquire, wrapping your arms around his neck.

"Your dad is coming home soon," he answers gently, stroking your cheek. "Don't want you to get in trouble." You're the only person - beside Rindou - that he doesn't want to bring down with him. Not yet.

"But you the good kind of trouble," you counter, pouting. "Please?"

"Maybe when you're free you can spend the night at my place."

"Promise?" Ran looks at you, a wide smile tugging at his lips.

"Promise."

Ken Ryuguji

You met Draken three years ago, a Slurpee in one hand and your cellphone in the other.

He was doing tricks in the back lot of the mall, his motorcycle buzzing over and over and over again with life as he revved it. It was stupid, delinquent shit. But you took one look at the dragon tattoo on the side of his head and knew he was the one for you.

Now, you're in his apartment (which is less lavish than your apartment - paid for by the Bank of D.A.D), feet in his lap as you watch some cartoon about a grandpa and his grandson. Draken has your toes in his hands cracking them and then massaging the soles, staring at the TV absentmindedly.

"When's the pizza coming?" you wonder, and Draken shrugs.

"Told the guy to come as soon as he could, but he might be stuck in traffic." You take this opportunity to scoot closer, and Draken's hands go from our feet to your thighs, which are barely covered by one of his long t-shirts. "What are you doing?" he chuckles as your fingers crawl up his chest, pulling him closer.

"Kiss me." Your order is met with immediate obedience, fingers grasping the back of your (his) shirt to lean you on top of him. You make out furiously on the couch, ignoring the show on the television in favor of feasting on his mouth, neck, and chest.

"Spread your legs wide," Draken orders, and you do as he asks, feeling his fingers pull your underwear to the side and then slide into you up to the joints of his fingers. "That's it..."

You are instantly transported into another world, one behind your eyelids. There, all you can do is feel and experience. Nothing but sensations, from your waist down. That, and the sound of your slick noisily overshadowing the voices on the TV.

"That's it..." Draken coos again, and you open your eyes to see him watching your expression with a small smile. You remove your hands from his shoulders to take off your shirt, baring your unclothed breasts for him to eye while you ride his fingers. A harsh smack echoes off the walls when Draken slaps the exposed patch of your ass, biting his lip at the whimper it elicits.

You know what's coming next when he fishes his cock out of his sweatpants, pulling the waistband down only enough to free it.

"Come on," Draken murmurs, sticking his slick-covered digits in his mouth. "Ride me, pretty girl."

The pizza man knocks when Draken is mid-stroke, his hand pressing your back down so you're chest to chest.

"Shit." The blonde man beneath you sobers up and pulls himself out of you, pulls his pants up, pulls a blanket over your bare body, then walks to the front door. "Thanks." Money changes hands, and the door shuts, Draken coming around the corner after dropping the pizza off on the kitchen counter. He's fisting his cock, his sweatpants sliding down his legs as he walks.

The blanket is snatched off of you and your hips are propped up, legs spreading automatically so he can enter you. And Draken does, proceeding to do what he did best, which is blow your back out.

Your asscheeks snap against his hips, flesh smacking in the light of the TV, but neither of you cares.

"Cumming," is all you can choke out before your legs shake, giving way to the intense sensations of an orgasm that rocks your fucking world.

"Right behind you," Draken affirms, grunting loudly and spasming as he cums inside of you. You slump against the couch, spent, and Draken pulls out when he's flaccid, tucking your body in with the blanket. "do you need to be back at a certain time?"

The whispered words no longer make sense now that you have your own place.

"I live alone, 'ken."

"Right," Draken laughs, placing a hand on his forehead. "I guess old habits die hard, huh?" You stare at your old habit lovingly, chuckling.

"I suppose so."

[yuzukult]

acquitted love || sjn & reader

title: acquitted love pairing: johnny suh x reader genre: fluff, angst, co-workers!au, lawyer!au, one-sided enemies to lovers word count: 8.7k warnings: some language/cursing, brief mentions of sex but there's no actual discussions or explicit conversations of the topic, but generally pg-13 prompt: you absolutely hate johnny suh. but when your boss pairs you two up together for one of the highest profile cases, you’re left working close with your enemy but he doesn’t seem to think that way of you. a/n: tada!! i wrote this for the @/ficscafe fic exchange event!! so @urlocalnctstan​ , hope you enjoy this !! i tried to write it according to what you put as your preferences, but honestly T_T it was so hard bc i was just not getting any ideas!! hopefully this is something you’d like :D enjoy !!

“God, isn’t he just… so attractive?”

Along with a click on your tongue, you feign a hit in Hyeri’s direction, whose reflexes have gotten so much faster in the past couple years of knowing you and it shows when she cowers underneath your arm. She gifts you that not-so-apologetic smile, full of mischievousness because she knows no matter how annoying she can be, you’ll still love her nonetheless.

“Why do you keep talking about Johnny? You know he’s banned as a topic of our conversations.”

Hyeri rolls her eyes, crossing her arms over her white frilled blouse. You know that she doesn’t actually inhabit any romantic feelings for Johnny, but she has a problem of thinking without the usage of her brain when she sees a hot guy.

Not that you think Johnny is hot.

No.

“Come on, you can’t tell me you don’t think he’s at least an ounce of smokin’ hot.” She’s unraveled her arms by now, poking your shoulder incessantly to grasp onto your attention as you're tapping on the buttons of the copier machine. “I bet if you asked him out, he’d say yes.”

You briefly glare at Hyeri. “You realize that he and I don’t get along, right? He keeps finding stupid loopholes in the system to win his cases. He thinks with his heart, not his head, and sometimes, with whatever that thing was in his pants.” And, not to mention that he walks out the court with that big grin stretched from cheek to cheek, giving the ‘good news’ to your well-respected boss (who you desperately seek the approval of but that’s a different story for another time). And every single time, she gives him that nod of appreciation, that ‘nod of approval’ if you will, when it should be given to you and not to some asshole who fucks his way to victory.

“But he’s so hot—”

You narrow your eyes at your friend, and with a stern voice, you call out, “Hyeri.”

She shrugs. “Honestly, though, he’s hella smart. He’s got a job here, and works under your boss. It’s Park, Kim & Associates—notice how Park is first, because she’s a fucking genius. She only picks the intelligent ones to work under her. Why do you think I’m still working for Mr. Kim?”

Park Seohyun and Kim Gonghyun—one of the biggest lawyers in the region, decided to join together to build their own law firm from the ground up. They were both highly respected in their field; Kim Gonghyun spent years of his life being mentored by one of the most famous judges, and as for Park Seohyun, she was, simply put, admirable because of the obstacles she has overcome to make her dreams of working in law to be real. Being a woman, young, and beautiful, she’s had her fair share of encounters with people who disregard her potential, that is until she met Gonghyun—who, admittingly is an old man who seems like he’d be traditional, sexist, even, but he proves to also make people realize how wrong they are with their impression of him.

But, as Mr. Kim is getting older, he’s gotten a bit… lazy.

In fact, he’s been slacking so much that he’s gotten a new rep in the office—if he was your direct supervisor, or your supervisor was under him, you were on the side of the office where all the easier, uncomplicated cases were assigned. Which meant that there was a slight possibility that your talents and skills weren’t as sharp and exceptional as you thought they were.

And well, Hyeri works directly underneath Mr. Kim.

Hyeri doesn’t want a heavy workload, despite the fact that there’s a plethora of files on her desk, stacked up one onto another as tall as her PC tower, and they were all open and closed cases—needless to say that she didn’t mind it.

“Okay, but you got offered a position under Seohyun. Do you really think you’re not wasting your potential?”

Hyeri scoffs. “Never. At least, not now. I’m still in my twenties, I’d like to enjoy my youth while I can, for your information.”

You quirk a brow. “And does any of that pertain fucking Johnny? The hot guy, so you claim?”

She immediately has her hand covering your mouth and you scowl. “Shhhhh, he works here!”

You bite the flesh of her hand and Hyeri instantly retracts. “You think I don’t know my archenemy works here? He sits directly across from my office—I get the best view of the guy and I’m not even one of his fangirls.”

“You’re not gonna be one of those girls who claim they’re different because they don’t like him but then end up falling for him anyway… are you?”

Your hand goes up and Hyeri crouches down.

“Stop it.”

“Seriously though! It’s the classic e2l love story,” she has her hands gesturing in front of her like she’s making an imaginary rainbow, “Two lawyers, constantly butting heads, accept each other’s differences and learn to love—“

“The fuck is an ‘e2l’?”

“Enemies to lovers.”

“Are you high? Stop spitting nonsense.” This time, you’re waving the stack of papers that finish printing in front of her face. “Meet me for lunch later. But if you keep talking about my archenemy and I falling in love, you can kiss a free meal goodbye.”

Hyeri gasps.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Maybe. Just maybe, Hyeri might be a tiny smidge right when she says Johnny is handsome. Just a bit though, because she can’t get credit for something like that.

He’s dyed his hair this shade of brunette that sort of reminds you of roasted chestnuts on a cold, winter day, sitting inside of a cooker outside of your childhood home, baking along with some sweet potatoes your mom had gotten from a farmer’s market nearby. Johnny has this focused gaze attached to the screen of his monitor; there’s a dip in the fronts of his brows, lips tightened into a straight line, and constant switching back and forth from the computer while taking notes down in a book that’s laid open in front of him.

You wonder what’s running through his mind, or well, you’re more interested in what files he has sprawled out on top of his desk.

Truthfully, if it hadn’t been obvious enough, you weren’t quite a fan of Johnny Suh and it’s mostly due to his work ethic. He’d been notorious for his reputation of sleeping around—especially with the opposing side—so it’s hard to convince yourself that he didn’t win the case because of his actual capabilities, but it’s because he pulled some strings.

And Johnny doesn’t put much effort into denying it either.

Albeit deep down, you were a teeny bit envious of his confidence. He struts around the courtroom with ease, and when he presents his position, there’s no staggering in his voice—it’s always crisp and clean, weighted with nothing but credence, and never straying from his initial perspective. It’s never a lack of poise, it’s consistently the look he goes for; from the hand gestures and the furrowed brows, to the rhetorical questions in the end of certain statements that has the speculators and jury sitting at the edge of their seat, Johnny had a talent for performing in the courtroom, but that doesn’t mean anything when the way he gets to the success isn’t ethical.

Just at that moment, his eyes lift from the screen and meet yours.

There isn’t any hesitation when you scramble to grab the remote controller, and the shades drop over the windows instantaneously.

“Fuck,” you mutter underneath your breath, tossing the remote onto your desk and shaking your hands after. What if he thought you were admiring him? Maybe he didn’t see. Yeah. It was for a brief second, and with how close your offices were to each other, it would be common to accidentally lock eyes… right?

Interrupting your thoughts, the office phone rings and it nearly startles the living soul out of you. But before you reach for it, your head tilts to the side curiously because the extension number is familiar—it’s Park Seohyun’s, your boss.

What could she be calling for?

You don’t remember fucking something up—but to be fair, half the times, you never really know if you’ve actually fucked up until someone with steaming ears and a crimson face comes storming in. So… did you do something good? Again, you don’t think that’s right either, because other people would’ve made comments about it.

Deciding to swallow your nerves, you pick up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey!” Seohyun never fails to be bubbly, and you could never mimic her energy. You definitely had to be born with that kind of enthusiasm. “I have a favor. Hop into my office.”

Leaned back in her leather swivel chair, she had her fingers laced with each other while resting over her stomach. Johnny stands beside you (and you do your best to not look directly at him, especially after that weird staring thing), and you both feel like kids being lectured by parents from how still you are. Her office is huge, probably the size of both yours and Johnny’s combined; with ceiling to floor windows, cases of books that line the perimeter, not to mention the humongous ass couch that practically covers the other half of the room, and her desk was so wide, you estimate about four monitors would fit on there with still additional space for work. That wasn’t even the best part—the view of the city looks almost like a generic lockscreen of a Windows computer, and you’re not even sure why she goes home at night when she basically has a penthouse here.

“As you know, I have a favor.”

“Right,” Johnny retorts, mostly as a filler in the awkward silence. “So… what’s the favor?”

She pulls a box from her purse; square, black and made from a leather material with a lock pad stitched into it, something you’ve never seen before, and she slides the passcode in, then it pops the lid open. A key (a… very small one) sits in the velvety cushion, with nothing else occupying the space with it, and it looks comical. She uses this to open the very top drawer of her desk, and as she pulls using the handle, there’s another box inside, but this time, metal instead of leather, but still black.

What the fuck?

It seems Johnny shares the same thoughts, because he sneaks a glance over at you.

“You see,” Seohyun begins, pressing on the digital keys of the box until there’s a beep at the end and the case hisses open. “There’s a lot of security for this. Which means you understand the importance of it.”

Then, she picks up four manila envelopes and lies on the surface of her wooden top desk. “I have a family emergency to attend to this upcoming week. I’m boarding a flight tonight. So I’m leaving the Hwang v. Yoon case to the two of you.”

“Fuck—”

“The what?”

You and Johnny are sputtering out of shock. The Hwang v. Yoon case is the biggest case that the firm is involved in currently, and the only people involved in it have been Seohyun and Gonghyun. It’s been on every social media platform you could think of; from Facebook to Twitter, TikTok to Instagram—there’s even this weird website for emo/grunge teens or strange kids that like writing fanfic called Tumblr, and whatever that is, it’s discussed on there too.

“What about Gonghyun?”

Seohyun scoffs, closing the drawer and dropping the key back into her special box. Where do you even get a box like that? “He can’t handle this alone. So I’m kicking him off until I come back. I thought about letting the two of you work with him, but his ego is so inflated, it’ll get in the way of our chances of winning. It’s easier if it was just me and him, but seeing that things at home aren’t well, I’m going to need you two to step up to the plate.”

The room goes quiet. The only sounds you hear are the muffled noises of a typical bustling office outside the thick walls of Seohyun’s office, and at first, excitement rushes through your blood because Seohyun thought of you taking over a special, high profile case.

Albeit, another realization gets soaked up, and it’s that Johnny also came to mind, and that because it’s such an important case, the two of you would be… working… many… hours… together.

Maybe you should back out of it—but then again, this is such a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Imagine winning this— it wouldn’t be good for just the law firm, it’d be good for you too. Your name, in articles on these big fancy news websites, perhaps even on new channels, talking about how you, this amazing lawyer, won the Hwang v. Yoon case.

But then you’re snapped back into reality when Johnny leans over to take the envelopes from Seohyun.

If your name is on those platforms, so is Johnny’s.

God, this guy just ruins everything, doesn’t he?

“We’ll take care of it, Seohyun. You can trust us,” he says assuringly, a smile tugging on each corner of his lips with that dazzling gaze. “We’ll be at our best.”

Kiss ass.

If you had the option, you wouldn’t be spending your Saturday night here at work, in one of those conference rooms with a long table in the middle, a big projector that displays on the wall, and a random black leather loveseat couch that lines the one corner in case there’s too many occupants.

Especially since the person who’s accompanying you is Johnny Suh.

There’s probably a lot of people who would kill to be in your position (Hyeri being one of them), but you dread it. Not to be that person, but what’s so special about him anyway? What? He’s tall, has some muscles, long luscious hair that he can slick back with that sultry stare—wait, what?

“Alright, moving on…” From what? You guys just started? It’d been clear with Seohyun that the mornings would be dedicated to other cases, but nights would be considered overtime and where you’d zoom in your focus on Ms. Hwang’s justice. “Let’s take a look at the facts here.”

Johnny slips off his blazer, hanging it on the back of one of the chairs as you’re seated in another, leaning back comfortably with an arm resting on the table. He loosens the first few buttons of his dress shirt before folding up the sleeves, and that’s when you notice a little thing in the inner crook of his elbow—is that a fucking sunflower? Is that what he uses to reel girls in? That he’s soft enough to have a pretty little flower etched onto his gentle, silky and supple—

“Okay,” he says, interjecting into your thoughts with a laser pointer in his hand. He taps on the space bar of his laptop that mirrors what’s on his screen, but then, that’s when you realize what’s on the slides.

There’s a collage of pictures, mostly street, casually walking themed ones, but the common factor was that they were of Yoon Changmin, the man you guys were up against. They were all paparazzi-like photos, which begs the question, how did he get pics like this, and why did he get them?

“What’s the point of this?” you ask, voice laced with nothing but suspicion.

“We gotta get into the mind of the enemy.” You wanna get into the mind of your enemy, too.

You gesture to the one image of Changmin with an arm around his girlfriend and a finger up his nose. “Seems like he’s trying to reach inside of his head instead of us. These are just everyday pictures, Johnny. What’s that going to do for us?”

“Well,” he begins, turning to look at the wall of ‘evidence’. “You see—wait, holy shit.”

Freezing in the midst of reaching for your coffee, your head jolts in the direction of your partner. “What? What is it?”

“Holy shit,” he exclaims, “Hoooooooooly shit. Why didn’t I see this before? This changes everything.”

Furrowing your brows, you’ve given up getting your drink and dropped your hands onto the table. “Tell me, what is it?”

“This is a game changer.”

“Johnny,” you call out sternly, and his eyes link with yours before he instantly points to a particular picture with his red laser pointer.

“Look at that.” There’s pride saturated in his words, but when you look at what he’s indicating, your body slouches in disappointment.

Why the hell was he directing your attention onto Changmin’s thighs? Surely, there’s no denying that they were attractive—you recall that his alibi was at the gym that very night of the crime.

“What? He’s guilty for showing off his toothpick legs?” They were lean, you never said they were muscular.

“No,” he retorts, slightly irritated by your response as he rolls his eyes. “Look at his pants.”

“Okay…”

“They’re jean shorts.”

There’s a pregnant pause, but the expression on your face is so loud it can’t be hidden.

Johnny continues, “That’s a fashion crime.” He says it as if it’s an obvious fact known by many. “Not to mention that it’s fucking raw hem. He should be arrested.”

Suddenly, your opinion of him thinking too much with his heart dissipates because it seems like he’s thinking out of his ass instead. Did he win those cases out of pity? How did this guy even pass the bar? How about law school? How the hell did he even get into law school?

“I don’t think—”

“Listen, alright, just hear me out,” he’s got the palms of his hands resting flat on the surface of the table, doing his best to gain your full undivided attention. “Only assholes wear jean shorts. They flaunt that shit around like they own the place, but they’re horrendous pieces of clothing that should not be on a male’s body. I don’t care what you say, what your opinion is, because that is a fact.”

Puffing your cheeks, you feel at a loss. If Johnny is who you had to get this done, it feels like you’re not going to be finding much evidence any time soon.

“Okay, if… if that’s how you want to play it, then show me the evidence—other than those 2012 cut off denim shorts.”

He reaches over to hit his space bar again, then with a wink and a slide change, he leans closer to you and says with that deep, honeyed voice, “Gladly.”

You hate admitting when you’re wrong.

Ironically, you concede and will confess when you actually are, but it doesn’t mean that you enjoy it. For example, when Hyeri claims that the intern Mark had a crush on you, you quickly waved her off, stating something along the lines of, “I’m too intimidating; there’s better chances of him being scared of me than ever finding me attractive.” And then a week later, you owed Hyeri free lunch at that hip ramen place downtown because Mark had approached your desk that very morning with a bouquet of red roses flowers for you, a cheeky grin glued to his face with pools of hearts in his eyes, and ready to ask you on a date because it was the day after his internship had ended. Naturally, it wasn’t fun rejecting that poor college boy.

But, you won’t say you find Johnny interesting or handsome. Or that there’s potential when it came to possibly (just barely the slightest smidge) that you’d ever consider asking Johnny out. He’s your enemy here, you’ve mentioned that a multitude of times, and you stand firm on that very declaration, despite the fact that sometimes when he gets too close, your breath gets caught in your throat and you feel like you can’t get whatever’s lodged in out.

Albeit it’s not the whole “you guys are gonna end up together” comment that Hyeri makes and resulting in you denying it afterwards, it’s that Johnny might… be a decent lawyer.

He’s not the best one you’ve seen; the stupid revelation he had on the first day working on the case about the jean shorts is evidence for it, but it’s the days following that were slowly changing your perspective on him.

When you said, “He thinks too much with his heart more than with his head,” it was 100% correct.

When meeting with potential witnesses, you recognized that Johnny empathizes with people often; when they cry and start panicking from being overwhelmed, he's quick on his feet to put an arm around them, share reassuring words, and have them back to normal in record’s time.

And, well… you? You’re the one making them cry in the first place.

You don’t want to fully take the blame for being the cause of their tears, but people need to hear what’s happening, and the very detail that they can’t even handle this information probably means they’re not worthwhile as a key witness.

Johnny, of course, thinks otherwise.

He believes that these people should have a voice (although you’ve alluded that they might be more useless than helpful), and putting them on the stand with Yoon Changmin there would change the view of the jury to supporting Hwang Naeri.

“Listen, if we get these people to sign the form, we’d get witnesses and it’ll help Naeri,” Johnny claims, frantically moving his arms annoyingly as he talks, trying his best to express the gravity of the situation, “and maybe, maybe, money wouldn’t be how Changmin wins, but how he loses. We can’t have another person with jean shorts walking on the streets of our city like this—they deserve to go to prison.”

You scrunch up your nose. “Why does this always revert back to the jean shorts?”

“It always has to do with jean shorts,” he snaps back matter-of-factly. “Any straight guy wearing jean shorts with that much goddamn confidence has done some wrong in their lives.”

“Right, but I’m pretty sure that the crimes he did are mainly the reason why he’s being prosecuted against.”

“Jean shorts are the windows to the soul.”

“I’m almost 100% sure that eyes are the windows to the soul, but whatever. If you genuinely believe that the women we met today would benefit our case, then… okay. Let’s bring them to the stand.”

On the contrary to you, Johnny doesn’t have a hard time convincing witnesses to testify. You see the way that he works; those kind eyes directed at the participants, the pools of chocolate were sweet, saturated in nothing but tenderness and warmth, then he does that weird thing where he reaches for their hands and cups them before the words that escapes from his lips are enough to swoon them to stand in front of a courtroom.

Maybe, just maybe, there’s a method to his so-called madness.

Aggression and bluntness don’t work, it seems, because when you’re the one attempting to convince these people to go against the man that had done them wrong, they’re less willing to do it. Something about ‘moving on,’ and ‘not wanting to relive those memories again,’ but if it was you, you’d want justice. Then again, not everyone is like you, and not everyone thinks like you, and spending this abundance of time with Johnny is slowly getting you to ease into that perspective.

So… the initial impression you had of him may have been wrong.

And maybe, just maybe, you’re developing some feelings for him, just as Hyeri predicted.

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

His abrupt personal question is enough to have the coffee spill into your mouth to slide down the ‘wrong throat’ because you’re choking, hand on your chest as you’re tackling to regain your breath again and Johnny only stares in disbelief, blinking blankly. “Are… are you okay?”

You glare at him through a hooded gaze. “Well,” you clear your throat once more. “Now, I am.”

“Cool.” He nods, retracting his hand so he could rub your back soothingly, deciding it’s best to stay away. “Are you going to answer my question?”

Quirking a brow, your head tilts slightly in puzzlement. “Why are you asking this?”

Johnny shrugs. “Isn’t it weird that we’ve hung out with each other for a whole week—stayed here for nights and we both don’t know anything about each other?”

Tapping your fingers against the wooden top table, you sigh. Maybe he’s got a point; after all, “Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer,” right?

“No, I’m single.”

Johnny’s face suddenly brightens, ears perked, and his body straightens its posture in his seat at this revelation. “Oh, uh, I didn’t know that. You seemed busy in your personal life, so I, uh… was just wondering.” He looked anxious, but you couldn’t pinpoint why. “I, um, I’m single too, by the way, in case you’re wondering.” You weren’t.

The plethora of cardboard and plastic boxes scattered across the table was a representation of the night. It’s been long, exhausting, and messy, mostly because it’s a Friday night, the hearing was on Monday, and the two of you were nowhere near close to having enough to present to the court. In fear of disappointing Seohyun, the two of you agreed to stay over the office for the weekend to cram work for the case. There’s no denying that the atmosphere is weirder on the weekends, especially since, well, no one really comes here on the weekends. Johnny had to use the bathroom earlier and ran into the cleaning lady and she nearly shit her pants because she didn’t think anyone was here, so she had music blasting in her headphones.

Johnny is… interesting. He makes you laugh—or well, want to laugh, but you don’t give him that sense of satisfaction—and he’s smart but in his own weird way. He’s not like the other lawyers you’ve met, or any of the law students you attended University with because he’s more lighthearted and free-spirited than the rest, taking life in strides instead of just overwhelming himself in the abundance of stress that work brings.

He’s entirely the opposite of you.

And maybe you could learn something from the guy, but there’s something in you that brews hatred toward him. Possibility that you resent how easy he makes being a lawyer seem when you’re struggling in your day-to-day life to make things work.

But it’s way too fucking hard when he’s just… like that.

Despite all of that, he’s very generous and kind toward you. On rough days, he delivers your coffee order, the one you always get because he remembers what you asked the intern to get for you the last time, and he’s good at identifying when you’re just having that kind of day. You eventually learn he has a photographic memory (fucking show off), so when he saw that crumpled napkin with scribbles of what you want in that dumb intern’s hand, it wasn’t hard to remember. Which, by the way, is how he’s able to get into the most prestigious school for undergrad, manage to pass the bar so easily, and get into law school effortlessly.

And knowing this information sort of angers you more.

You know this isn’t his fault—he’s been blessed with a trait that people desire, one that you also yearn for, but the lucky ones get handed a lot of things in life. You wonder if he’s the type of guy who wins girls easily after matching with them on dating sites because of this stupid ass ‘photographic memory.’ Does he sleep with them right after? Does it ever get serious?

You shrug your shoulders and shake your head. You shouldn’t even let these strange thoughts haunt you, especially when you don’t even like him.

He’s a spoiled brat who gets everything handed to him on a silver platter.

So you’re left counting the remaining days until the trial so you don’t ever have to work with Johnny Suh this closely again.

Okay, well, it’s evident that bad luck is glued to your side because after you win the Hwang v. Yoon case for your law firm with that asshole, Seohyun is so impressed. So goddamn impressed that she insists that all the high profile cases are to be given to both you and Johnny.

To work as a team.

Together.

Jesus, this is Hell for you.

Surely, the promotion and raise that came along with it was definitely a plus, but it has you wondering if it’s even worth it. He’s been your unspoken enemy since the first day, and although you think you’re pretty forthright about your hatred for this guy, he can’t seem to read social cues.

When you’re pushing the double doors into the conference room the two of you often spend working on cases in, you expect Johnny to be ready for another day. But strangely enough, Johnny doesn’t have his laptop out or any of the notebooks sprawled across the table.

“Um,” you slide the strap of your bag off your shoulder and onto the spare chair. “Did you come late or something?”

He takes in a deep breath like he’s been holding back something. “We need to talk.”

There’s worry inscribed into his features; from the crease in between his brows, to his pursed lips, and eyes soaked in concern, almost like he’s got bad news to share and it has your stomach in knots. Was it that the case was thrown out? It couldn’t be, right? You both worked hard, presented your stance to the point that the jury and the judge were in awe with your findings. Sure, you had to cover Johnny’s mouth right before he was about to go off in a tangent about jean shorts, but overall, it was a good win, a hard one to go back on and pull out the wrongs of it. So what was it?

“I’m quitting our partnership.”

You blink. “What?”

He gestures to the room with his hands as if there’s anything out to reference. “This thing. Our work. The big profile cases. The famous stuff. I told Seohyun that I won’t be doing it anymore and she can revoke the promotion and the raise.”

You’re still not catching on. “… Why?” Was it something you did? Yeah, you weren’t a big fan of Johnny either, but were you so bad that he decided to not go through with the raise because of you?

“Because,” he pushes his blazer back, hands sliding into the front pockets of his navy blue trousers. “There’s a policy put into place. Those who are on the same cases cannot have any personal relations with each other that extend past friendships.”

“We’re not even friends?” With confusion written across your face, your head tilts to the side. “I’m not… I’m not catching on here.”

“I like you.”

Startled, the words you want to say are stolen out of your mouth. You’re left with a mixture of perturbation and bewilderment, uncertain where to go from there because Johnny asked for the removal of both a promotion and additional money that could be so good for his career… and it’s all because he has a crush on you?

“You quit the best thing that could’ve happened to you because you like me?”

“Yeah,” Johnny states calmly, sucking in his cheeks for a brief moment. “Ain’t that romantic?”

You scoff. “No. Absolutely not. You’re insane! Why would you do yourself dirty like that? Use your head, Johnny, you’re constantly thinking with that stupid heart of yours, and hate to break it to you, but it won’t get you anywhere.” Combing your hair with your fingers, you let out a sigh. “Go ask Seohyun for the position back. Say you made a mistake and—”

“I’m not asking her for the position back.”

Johnny doesn’t make any sense to you. “What? Why wouldn’t you do that?

“Because,” he laughs in disbelief, not because he thinks you’re funny. “I’m not going to force myself to work with a girl that I keep falling for. That’s self-inflicting, you realize that, right? You’re amazing, but you can seriously be so dense sometimes.”

“I’m dense? You just told one of the best law firms in the city that you don’t want to work on the important cases anymore because you have a stupid crush on your partner!”

“If we were on a team with more people, maybe it’d be different. But it’s just us two. You think I won’t fall any harder? That’s not easy. Every time I see you working, I swear I could be hopelessly in love with you one day.”

Your heart stops for a second.

This is Johnny Suh you were talking about here. One of the claimed best lawyers in your office, one of the most intelligent people that Hyeri has ever met, and Seohyun evidently backs this up because she’s given him so much recognition for his work. He’s the guy who worked with you to win the Hwang v. Yoon case, he’s the one who brought up the stupid jean shorts that seemed so far-fetched at the time, but they were a crucial detail everyone missed—it so happened that when Changmin bought those dumb shorts, there was evidence of at least one of his crimes in that store from the security cameras.

Any cis-gendered male who wears jean shorts can’t be trusted, according to Johnny.

And candidly speaking? You couldn’t even deny that. Your past two ex-boyfriends both wore jean shorts and the one cheated on you and the other one was caught money laundering.

“Listen,” he begins, interrupting your foggy thoughts. “I’m not asking you to tell me you like me back. I’m telling you because you should know, and that I can’t go on any further without letting you know. I’ll, uh, be in my office. Seohyun said she’d find a replacement for me.”

Hyeri is his replacement.

She’s great company and does a good job of helping you with whatever you need, but that was just it. Hyeri followed you, she never led with you, just as Johnny does. Agreeing with everything you say, mindlessly trailing behind everything you do—Hyeri was smart, but she couldn’t figure out how to think for herself when it came to these bigger cases because she’s never been given such a responsibility. But you couldn’t even blame her because it’s what she was told to do under Gonghyun.

“You said that you think Maeri snatched the bracelet?”

“No, I said if you watched the security video that the jewelry store submitted, it clearly shows that Maeri snatched the bracelet. Not that I ‘think.’ The proof is right there, Hyeri.”

She nods, resuming back to her work on the computer. Truthfully, Hyeri felt more like an assistant than a co-worker, someone to bounce ideas off of and to see from a different perspective. And as much as you hated Johnny, he had decent points. He had ways of making you put yourself into the shoes of people you never thought you were; although the guy was obnoxious, at least he actually was… good at his job.

Deciding you can’t take it anymore when Hyeri asks for the tenth time that hour about your beliefs rather than her own, you abruptly stand from your seat.

“Where are you going?”

“Out,” you reply shortly. “I’ll be back.”

It was just a spontaneous thought. It’s after hours, and although there are some people who stay behind to get some work done, you had your doubts that Johnny would still be here. He seems to have a better grip on that work/life balance thing people talked about (unlike yourself), but it didn’t hurt to check his office, right?

It’s a good thing you went with it. Because right across from yours, there’s Johnny.

There’s one single lamp that shines over the tabletop of his desk, and the other sources of light in his office are from his computer screen and the ones from the city skyline from behind him. It has him seemingly angelic like this, so serene, calm, and collected, only focused on what’s laid out in front of him. The sun has gone down, people have gone home, but Johnny remains, hardworking as always, despite your previous observations that he’s a lazy, unprofessional guy who gets everything handed down to him.

With a knock on his glass door, he flinches, head raising up and eyes meeting yours.

Were his eyes always this sparkly?

Opening the door, Johnny drops the pen in his hand and crosses his arms before leaning back in his seat. “What’s up?”

“You’re here late,” you state the obvious, and Johnny only nods in return, without a rebuttal in sight. “You aren’t normally here late. At least, before the Hwang v. Yoon case.”

“Yeah, you’re right. But Seohyun dropped something on my desk this morning. Wanted to work on it. What brings you here?”

Inhaling in a deep breath of courage, your hands bundle up into a fist by your side. “Please come back.”

Johnny raises a brow. “What?”

“Come back,” you reiterate, this time, it’s less tense and releases with ease. Caving in isn’t usually this effortless to you, but something about Johnny makes you feel… comfortable enough.“Come back and work with me again. Yes, I’m not supportive of how you do things—”

“Then let’s go out on a date.”

You freeze. Legs rooted into the floors of Johnny’s office, you’re left immobile and diffident on how to react next. It wasn’t what you were expecting, although you weren’t quite sure what you were hoping to anticipate, but it most definitely was not this.

“I—”

“I said my terms,” he retorts, shutting the book in front of him before shuffling up from his seat. He’s leaving, you realize, and Johnny’s ready to head home for the night and you’re not sure if you could handle an entire weekend with Hyeri here. “And, I meant what I said. One date, and if it really doesn’t work out, I’ll stay on the case.”

Chewing on your bottom lip anxiously, the next words that come out are out of character for you. “And… what if it does?”

A soft smile tugs from each corner of his mouth. “Then we’ll figure it out from there. Promise.”

This is… awkward. It shouldn’t be, but yet somehow, it remains awkward.

You’ve spent weeks with Johnny before, and those moments were in a room, in the middle of the night, and alone. Hours and hours were dedicated to work, yes, but it was just the two of you and nobody else.

So why is it so weird being in a five Michelin star restaurant with him?

Maybe it’s the atmosphere. The dim lights, the white clothed tables in lieu of the scratched up wooden one back at the law firm, and instead of leather seats, there’s a neutral beige chaise cushion for the dining chair, slightly less comfortable because it doesn’t recline like the one in your office. Instead of an array of photos and evidence disseminated in front of you, there’s a laminated menu with a multitude of options of what to have for dinner.

Johnny gets the steak with mashed potatoes and string beans, and you order something similar but seared salmon for the main protein. The waitress offers wine, babbling on about the age of the red, where the vineyard is located, and the dryness to sweetness—to be honest, you could care less; you’d rather have gin and sprite with a squirt of lime. A couple glasses of that and you can almost guarantee that the night would end with a deep slumber.

Oddly enough, Johnny seems nervous. Ever since he pulled up in his midnight black Audi in front of your apartment complex, he’s been acting strange. He keeps wiping his sweaty palms off the material of his trousers, occasionally swiping off the droplets that fall on the side of his face.

“Are you… okay?” you suddenly ask, adjusting your dress in your seat. Deciding to go with a black silk dress with a slit up the leg and your hair let down, it’s not a look you often sport but since you’re going on a date (one you haven’t been on in quite some time), you figured it would be nice to at least play the part.

“I’m, uh, honestly, I’ve never really asked a girl out before.”

You quirk a brow curiously. “What? You’re telling me you never asked a girl out before?”

He lets out a bashful laugh with a faint nod, making an attempt to swallow his nerves after. “Honestly, I’ve always been asked out and not the other way around. Not to sound like that guy, but I never really had to put effort into trying for girls. They kind of just…”

“—Throw themselves at you?”

He beams. “Yeah! Like that. I don’t really know how to react half the time, but it makes the whole dating scene a little bit easier.” Geez, he called you dense, but he’s over here acting clueless.

Either way, it feels like whatever opinion you had about Johnny remained true. He never had to try when it came to the dating scene, and you could only imagine what that means for work and the relationships he has with the women in your career field.

“Mm, does that usually happen with work too?”

Befuddled, Johnny leans back in his chair. “What do you mean by that?”

With a shrug of your shoulders, you’re poking the meat of your salmon that falls off easily. After the first initial bite, the fish practically melts on impact when it touches the tip of your tongue, smooth like butter and bursting with flavor that couldn’t be described by any common person because it wouldn’t do the salmon justice. Johnny seemed to put a lot into this date, and you’re left pondering what the point of this was. Did he actually like you, or was he trying to get into your head? “Just seems like you get a lot of special treatment.”

“Are you jealous?”

“In what way?” you snap back.

“Are you jealous of me because I’m getting this so-called special treatment that you think I’ve always had, or were you jealous of the girls that seemingly got my attention?”

You’re left without anything to say.

It was a good observation he made because truthfully, you never saw it like that.

In actuality, you often saw Johnny as your rival. He climbed the ladder in the field with ease, and it wasn’t hard to quickly blame his success on the fact that he was a guy in a male dominated industry, but the fact that there’s a possible interpretation for your hatred may be from these feelings you might’ve been harboring for him this entire time… that can’t be it… right?

“I mean, look at where you are now,” you begin, trying to defend yourself. It can’t be true that the reason you’ve been bitter about Johnny was because of the girls that got his attention, and one of them not being you. “You got a high position from—”

“—From hard work,” Johnny interjects with his brows furrowed. “I didn’t get to where I was because I slept around, if that’s what you’re insinuating. I knew you sort of always hated me, but I’ve always admired you. I like your work ethic, I like your style, even though we’re both on opposite spectrums, I like the way you think and I wanted to know what it was like being partners with you. Getting to be on that case with you showed me more than just who you were as a lawyer, but who you were as a person. I like you, but I’m trying to put my finger on why you hate me so much.”

“So you noticed.” Sucking in your cheeks, your eyes trail elsewhere—from the fork that lays beside your plate, to the glass filled halfway with wine, to the little candle that sits in between the two of you that flickers the way he has your heart when he expresses once more how he feels about you.

“Yeah, of course I noticed. If you like someone, it’s kind to miss details like that about them. So… you really hated me because you thought I slept my way to the top, huh?”

“I mean…” shoulders dropping in exasperation, you run your fingers through your disheveled hair. “All those rumors—”

“Again, they’re just rumors. I worked hard to get here, you know. And I’m kind of offended that you thought of me that way.”

You scoff. “They’re rumors, Johnny, it’s kind of hard to ignore all the office gossip when that’s all you hear. Plus, it wasn’t hard to believe either, with the whole flirtatious act whenever you encounter anyone who’s breathing and has a vagina.”

“I wasn’t flirting.”

“You need a book for dummies that elaborates on what’s flirting or not, because Johnny Suh, whatever it is you do with your body language in front of that chick who sits by the front door.”

“You mean Siwoo? The pregnant one who’s married to her highschool sweetheart? Also, how do you not know our receptionist’s name?”

You throw your arms into the air. “How am I supposed to know her name?”

He tilts his head to the side, genuinely baffled. “Do you… not talk to anyone outside of Hyeri?”

Your silence answers his question.

“I… honestly, I don’t know if I should be offended or if I should be honored. You think I didn’t earn anything that I have now, you think that everything I have was handed to me. On one hand, it’s flattering that you think my looks and my bedroom skills could do that but at the same time… I’m offended because you think I’m incapable.”

“I never said you were incapable—”

“But you implied it.”

Hands falling onto your lap, it’s your turn to gulp. His words come shooting at you, but you’re without a shield to protect yourself, and with the new experience of working with Johnny, there comes the realization at times that Johnny is a hard worker. There are some things that he says and does that aren’t like the people you’ve encountered, and being put on new cases with Hyeri only proved it. He’s thoughtful in the sense that whenever you’d bring up your stance on something, he challenges you with what the defense might counter.

Johnny makes you want to be better. Not just against him, but to brush off the dust on your skills and enter into the battlefield of a courtroom to showcase them.

“Well, if you’re staying silent, I just want to say that I tried,” the crinkle in between your brows makes another appearance because Johnny is great at leaving you stunned and confused. “I really like you. I love how your head works, and I wanna be with someone like that but I also can’t be with someone who doesn’t respect me.”

Why is it that when you’re in that conference room with him, you’re not afraid and never running out of things to say, but now you’re empty handed?

“I’ll pay for dinner. Grab you an Uber. I honestly thought I could overlook those things, and maybe your perspective for me has changed, but I could see it on your face. It’s the same.”

After that date with Johnny, his life turns back to normal.

Yours? Not so much.

Candidly speaking, part of you missed working with Johnny. You were wrong about him, so wrong, and even when you wanted to apologize at the dinner for what you thought of him, the pride in you was like a vicious plague that blackened your insides, preventing you from ever saying those words.

Oftentimes, you’d still be able to sneak a glimpse of him in his office with that same look on his face—full of concentration and nothing else in his mind other than the task at hand.

The cases you have with Hyeri entail a head like Johnny’s. Someone who could question you, to protest against your stance when there could be flaws in it. It feels like deja vu each time you think about it, each time you open a new case file and Hyeri sits there, perched in that seat beside yours, eyes sparkling with what you have in mind next, instead of what she has going on in hers.

Although you’ve tried convincing yourself that maybe, just maybe, what you feel for Johnny is purely professional but when you see him standing by the water cooler with a couple of your coworkers, eyes mimicking the moon crescents in the skies, replicating the ways his lips curl in elation—it was beginning hard to believe that it was all platonic feelings.

So maybe you should be bold for once. Pull off that exterior that displays you as someone who isn’t just independent and assiduous, but someone who’s stubborn and aggressive in getting what they want—and not in a good way.

This time, you’ll show it in a good way.

Or at least, you’ll try.

Johnny is a routine kind-of-guy—he grabs an iced americano every morning at the coffee shop downstairs at the edge of the street, he does his daily 11:00AM drop-by at the water cooler to refill his Hydroflask (which was his prized possession, by the way), and parked in the same exact spot in the parking garage of your building, despite there being an abundance of places he could choose.

That’s why you decide to stand by his car after work that day. Bouncing on the balls of your feet, hands shaking because it’s your turn to feel anxious. That blazer that once fit so comfortably in the morning suddenly feels tight and hot in the afternoon, and the weather hasn’t even changed. Your bag slung over your shoulder weighs ten times heavier than an hour ago, and you can’t stop your jaw from tightening.

Before your thoughts could spiral off all the possibilities of what the outcome may be when you tell Johnny how you feel, he’s already standing there, feet away from you with that dip in the fronts of his brows that you want to smoothen out the crinkles of with the pad of your thumb.

“Hi,” you greet, faint and peculiarly different from your other approaches. “Um, I just… was waiting for you.”

“Hey,” Johnny says back, the first few buttons of his shirt already unraveled, his blazer hung over his forearm and the sleeves are rolled up. “I see that. What’s up with you?”

“Um,” your leg was jittery, hard to control so you spat everything you had to say out as fast as you could before he could see right through you. “I just wanted to apologize. For everything. You’re admirable, kind, and I wish I inhabited those same characteristics you have. I think professionally, you’ve got great ideas, one that could be implemented into mine and what we did together for that case was just… yeah. We could do something big if we put our heads together.”

Johnny nods in agreement. The relationship between you two work-wise was obvious, he knew that much. “And what about… outside of that?”

“I like you,” you choked, barely getting the words out. “More than just coworkers, um, I guess, more than friends but I’m not really sure since you walked out on our first date,” inhaling in a deep breath of courage, you continue on, “and I don’t know how you feel now after I’m standing before you like this, asking for another chance and that I’m sorry.”

He stares at you blankly, and it leaves you unsure whether or not he accepts your apology. “You know why we ended that date early.”

“Well,” you start again, “can we… start over and try again? I promise I won’t tempt you to end the date early this time.”

And with that, there’s the signature smile that Johnny sports that swoons girls, makes their knees weak, and heart clench but this time… it’s just for you.

“I’d really like that.”

[s-brant]

The Endless Summer (2/?)

(gif: @beccs) (PART ONE) (SERIES MASTERLIST)

Summary: A day out on the water goes awry and puts JJ, John B, and Y/N in danger. With tensions rising and the stakes higher than ever, JJ finds it difficult to control his feelings.

Word Count: 9.1k

Warnings: Angst, implied sexual content, strong language, graphic violence, and JJ being an emotionally confused asshat.

A/N: Welcome back! Thanks for the love on this series, I’m so glad you guys like it and I hope this part is just as good. Things get a little heated in this chapter, so buckle up. Let me know if you enjoyed this. Have fun!

JJ isn't sure why she did it.

He wasn't sure then and he isn't sure now, but he knows one thing for certain: there isn't any going back to how things once were now that the barrier between them came crashing down.

Sweat drips off of his skin from the relentless heat of the Caribbean that has made their recent lives hell with the painful tinge of sunburn atop their tans and heat exhaustion they must be careful to avoid at all costs. They were educated on both topics by Pope, their godsend of a survival encyclopedia in human form, who advised them to spend most of their day outside of necessary tasks like fishing and constructing stable shelter under the shady cover of the treetops.

The sole reason he and John B aren't hiding in the safety of the shade is that it's their day to fish, but he's not thinking about the sun. In fact, neither of them is. They're both wondering where their third fishing buddy is.

It took roughly ten minutes of spearfishing with him in comfortable silence for JJ to finally break and spill his guts about what happened last night. Though there was an unspoken agreement to never tell anyone that their hatred has turned into desire, he couldn't help it. He was going mad trying to unravel it in his head.

After all, he already had a conversation with JB about the recent shift in their behavior with each other by the ocean last night, so it seems fitting to pick up where they left off with the calm and clear blue water in front of them again.

He walks on the jagged outcropping of rock that serves as their perch to observe the fish without disturbing the pattern of the current they swim through with John B closely behind.

"One second she's pissed at me, the next she's all over me. It makes no sense. Then, she didn’t say anything to me after it happened," JJ says with his face hardened into a look of concentration at the fish he squints against the sun to aim at, "Not even "Fuck you, Maybank" or one of her weirdly creative threats. She just sat there all night and talked to everyone but me."

His gaze slips away from the water as his chosen fish disappears from sight before he can bother to throw the spear, eyeing up his friend's reaction to the news.

John B doesn't seem that surprised by it, because who else, aside from everyone else in Kildare who knows of their "hatred" for one another, could've seen it coming as much as he did? He considers it for a second, then props his arm up on the handle side of the spear he digs into the rock to lean against.

"I'm pretty sure that means she likes you."

JJ retorts, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard you say."

Why would anyone ignore a person they like? It makes no sense to him. Every time he wanted a person, he'd simply walk over and make it happen. It's never been difficult for him to pursue the people he finds himself attracted to...Well, except for her. For a guy that also ignored her for the rest of the night and pretended their moment in the woods didn't happen, he has some balls of steel to be chastising her for the same things he did.

John B shrugs and says, "I'm being serious, dude. Sarah wouldn't even acknowledge my existence when I worked on the Druthers, and I thought it was some stuck-up rich person thing but it wasn't."

They shouldn't be talking at all right now as to not scare away the fish, but they do it anyway. They both know he won't let it go until it's out of his system for good. He wouldn't allow himself to forget it if he wanted to, so its better to talk it out than turn stir crazy from ruminating over it 24/7.

Though it's, as he worded it yesterday, hot as balls out, being by the sea lessens the feeling of it by a landslide.

The breeze they crave whenever they work on their huts or forage through the forest for wild berries, coconuts, or potential building supplies blows on them without pause for the time they spend here, which almost makes it more dangerous. They stand under the direct harm of the UV rays frying them without truly feeling it burn yet, and he dreads the next few days in anticipation of the returning sunburn he just peeled off of his shoulders the other day.

JJ walks down the side to get a better view of the water, balancing precariously on the sharpened edge with the spear clenched tightly in one hand. The breeze is strong enough to threaten his balance, but he holds firm and digs his toes into the sedimentary rock for traction. His body sways in the midday sun with the struggle for stability, or, at least he suspects its midday.

Since being stranded here, time is a foreign concept to them. With no phones, clocks, or any guide to go off of other that the position of the sun above to display the hours that pass, they've lost complete track of what day it is, let alone how long minutes or hours truly are in comparison to the endless summer they live within. They suspect it's been a month since they were left here, but, in all honesty, it could be two. None of them had the sense to mark the days in a tally until it was too late.

He says, lifting his arm to throw the spear, "Well, she is a stuck up rich person, so maybe it's just—"

"You know I'm right here, don't you?"

The sound of her voice from a few feet behind them startles JJ into turning around to look at her right when he lets go of the spear.

Unfortunately for him, the jerking movement throws off his carefully distributed weight and skews his balance, making the feet placed on the edge slip from underneath him and send him slipping down into the water. His calf is the first body part to hit the rocks, and the groan of pain he lets out at the feeling of the jagged rock slicing through his skin could make her heart stop mid-beat. But what truly scares her is seeing the back of his head hit the ground too.

Before he can slide the rest of the way into the water, two pairs of hands are grabbing onto his arms and heaving him up with all of their strength. She and John B grit their teeth with the effort it takes to pull him back up, their muscles burning from the strain, and once his feet are over the ledge, he pushes off the rock to help them the rest of the way. Drops of his blood disperse into the water off the edge from where he cut himself, dripping until there's hardly any left.

Once he's safely laid back down a few feet from where he slipped, Y/N is kneeling in front of him in a matter of seconds. The rock beneath her knees opens small cuts into her skin, but she doesn't pay it any heed. She sits on her heels to lessen the minor pain and lean forward to inspect the damage he took with nothing on her mind other than worry.

Soon enough, John B joins her to kneel at his feet as he sits up and watches them eye up his injury as though it’s some sort of ghastly, life threatening thing instead of a gash that won't need stitches. He watches them against the glittering ocean, waves washing up on the rocks around them to sting his wound with saltwater.

"It's a scratch, not an amputation," JJ says.

She ignores him with a frown lining her pretty features and twists his leg by the ankle to get a better view of the wound in the sunlight. It extends up the entire length of his calf, almost from ankle to knee, and dribbles fresh blood onto her hands as well as the ground beneath them. From what he can tell, it doesn't look all too severe. No muscle or bone can be seen, so it's a simple, superficial scratch.

When he doesn't get a response from either her or John B while they're too busy checking out his leg, he says again, "Guys, I'm serious, it's fine."

This time, she doesn't hesitate to answer.

"Yeah, well you may not need stitches but you still have infection to worry about. This wilderness isn't exactly the cleanliest place," she says retorts with as much snark as usual, and he quietly rejoices in the fact that she's finally acting normal after what happened last night, "Not to mention, you hit your head pretty hard. There's no need to act all tough."

He shrugs.

"It's not an act, it really doesn't hurt that bad."

John B stands and smears the blood on his hands off on the front of his shorts.

"I'll be right back, guys, I'm gonna go get stuff to patch him up."

Just like that, they are left plunging into silence as he is running away down the peninsula back to the beach they've claimed as their own.

Silence has always been her least favorite thing to share with JJ. She'd rather anything over it—screaming, fighting, joking, friendly conversation, or even what they did together yesterday night. Anything is preferable over the tense and insufferable feeling of silence when they're alone together with none of their friends, or their playful hatred, between them as a barrier between them.

Instead of seeing the same pestering jerk she always used to when she looks at him, she sees the memory of how he looked at her in the woods. He didn't look at her like she was the worst person to ever walk the planet, or like she was his least favorite Kook "Princess", he looked at her like she meant something to him.

They sit together in uncomfortable silence in the time it takes John B to rush to the beach and back, careful not to slip on the rocks the way JJ did, with the supplies from the dinghy in his arms. It isn't much to work with, but at least it's something to keep the nasty wound on his leg protected from dirt and germs. She's sure he'd leave it uncovered and up to fate if he had it his way.

Before he can set them down on the wet rocks, thus ruining the gauze and bandages in craters filled with ocean water, she gestures at JJ with a stern command, "Take off your shirt."

His brows raise.

"Shit, Princess, take me out to dinner first."

She groans in frustration, "Can you be quiet for a second and actually listen to me for once?"

He catches John B's gaze with wide eyes, but complies nonetheless, reaching down to tug the tank off of his torso by the frayed hem until it's balled up in his closed fist to hand off to her. Her eyes only linger on his body for a quick second on accident before snatching it from him.

Her bloodstained palms lay the shirt out on the flattest stretch of rock she can find to act as a barrier from the small puddles of water to protect the supplies. One nod at John B has him setting them down atop the navy fabric as she glances up at JJ with a smug smile.

"Believe it or not," she taunts, unscrewing the cap to the disinfectant, "I didn't ask for it so you could sit there and look pretty."

The words throw him back in time to their conversation on the beach while they thatched the roof to their hut, and he wonders how long she's been waiting to throw that back in his face since he first said it.

He grins at her as he asks, "You think I'm pretty?" but before he can say more, she's pouring a generous amount of the hydrogen peroxide along the length of his cut without a warning for him to prepare himself. His leg jerks away on instinct to save himself from the burning sensation, but she grips his ankle tightly enough to force him to stay still.

His nose scrunches up with the urge to groan in pain, and he does a little. Through grinding teeth, he winces in response to the peroxide slipping into every cell of open skin and bubbling up like the white water of the waves as it kills the bacteria lingering in the gash.

"Does it hurt now?" Y/N asks.

She's looking up at him through her lashes with her lips curled into a smirk as she packs gauze onto the wound until it's covered to her satisfaction. And it should be the last thing he's thinking about right now after cutting up his leg and hitting his head hard enough to worry her about concussions, but he can't help it. Looking down at her like this, it's impossible for him to not think about the unfinished business they have.

Everything is the same as it was yesterday—the tattered white top, the red panties in place of a bikini, sunburnt cheeks, and a taunting look that he'll never get tired of seeing. But that's precisely why he's reminded of it. She's wearing the same clothes and looking at him the way she did on the beach before any of last night's antics occurred, and he can't keep himself from wondering if it'll happen again.

"Yeah," he finally responds.

Her smirk grows for a second before she gets back to work.

"Good."

JJ subtly eyes her up from where she shifts on her knees to set the open gauze wrappers under the peroxide bottle in exchange for the bandage wrap, but he isn't as subtle as he thinks. She can feel his stare no matter how sneaky he attempts to be. He may be able to evade John B's attention, since he dove into the ocean to retrieve the wooden spear that began to float out in the tide, but she never misses a thing. Not when it comes to him.

When he looks at her, he finds memories.

Her legs folded up beneath her bring him back to how smooth they felt on his palms when he lifted them up around his hips. Her rosy lips pressing into a line in concentration bring him back to the coconut flavor he tasted on them. Her nipples poking against the fabric of her shirt bring him back to when he lifted it up over her breasts to suck at the sensitive skin until he got a moan from her—There isn't a place he can stare without going back to last night.

Part of him hates that.

He can't stand that a girl who he spent the last five years hating has found a way into his daydreams. Why couldn't it have been anyone else? Why did she have to lure him into her trap? He supposes there's nothing he can do about it now, though. After hours of stewing over it, he's reached the conclusion that it was likely a one-time thing, a mistake made in the heat of the moment that she won't make again, and he should get the idea of it out of his head.

When she has to adjust her grip to hold the gauze in place while she wraps the bandage around his leg, he sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth and jerks away again. She glances up at him with her best, "Are you kidding me?" face. Didn't he say he was tough?

"I'm starting to think you're a sadist, 'cause it's like you're trying to make it hurt," he says.

She gasps, feigning offense.

"Me? Enjoying this? It's not like we've hated each other for years or anything."

And though he may not realize it, this is her way of distracting him from the pain of having her apply added pressure to his cut while she wraps the bandage into place. It has to be tight enough to keep water and sand out, but not so tight that it cuts off circulation, and while it may have been tolerable without her touching it, the contact is enough to make it worse for him.

He asks, "Uh, speaking of, why are you the one doing this? Isn't it some kind of HIPAA thing to treat patients you've threatened to violate with tree branches before?"

The sound of her laughter makes his stomach flutter with butterflies, and he wonders what the hell is wrong with him.

"That's not what HIPAA is, genius"—her eyes crinkle at the sides with her wide smile while she wraps his leg—"and I'm the one doing this because I know way more medical shit than the rest of you."

Even Pope.

"Ohhh right, I forgot. Your dad is this hotshot surgeon and that makes you think you know everything," he taunts.

The casual mention of her father makes her chest ache with something not many of the Pogues, excluding Pope, have felt since being stranded on this island. With their parents either disowning them, absent, abusive, or dead, they have no reason to resist the allure of living here for the months or years it may take to be rescued, but she does.

She misses him.

For the longest time since her mom died, it was her and her dad versus the world. In everything they did, they did it together, and before she met Sarah, he was the closest she had to a best friend. Since they had no other family to help watch her as a child, she grew up in the hospital with him, drawing with crayons on his office’s printer paper with her babysitter and picking up small things along the way from watching him for so long.

He could've chosen to leave her at home, sure, but he didn't want to miss out on seeing her more than he already did, so she spent the majority of her childhood in offices, waiting rooms, and the indoor playground of the PEDs wing.

She takes a deep breath to steady herself after the sucker punch of being reminded of her dad and says, "Well, I know enough and, thankfully for you, I'm the one doing this instead of John B."

From far away, twenty or so feet offshore where their friend is paddling through the water with the lost spear held in one hand, they hear John B shouting an offended, "I heard that!" back at her. It draws a soft chuckle from them both, and she silently thanks him for distracting JJ one last time as she finishes and secures the bandage so it won't unravel.

She wipes her hands off on her water-soaked thighs one more time to get as much of his blood off of her fingers as possible before she reaches out with both arms extended to offer him help to stand. He takes them with a murmured, "Thanks," as they both try not to show how affected they are by the casual touch.

It makes them feel pathetic that something as small as holding each other's hands makes them remember what they did and desperately wish to continue it. Her throat bobs with how she must swallow the lump in her throat at their close proximity, barely breathing now that he's standing close to her with less than a few inches between them.

For a second, they don't move away. They stay face to face, and all she can think of is how badly she wants to kiss him again. But she can't do anything yet, not when she hears someone screaming from the water.

"There's a shark!" John B screams as he paddles back faster than he's ever swam in his life, already close enough to the peninsula that they can see the terror in his eyes when they turn to look.

Surely enough, there a tip of a fin too pointed to pass off as a dolphin cutting through the surface of the water to alert them of the fish's presence, but if that weren't enough, the water is clear enough for them to see its outline.

Thankfully for him, it isn't huge. It looks about as long as he is tall, but that doesn't change the degree of danger. Just because it isn't as big as other sharks doesn't make a bite any less lethal, especially when their only form of medical attention rests on her knowledgeable yet inexperienced shoulders.

For once in his life, JJ is frozen with no clue of what to do.

He's always the man with the plan, the one who jumps into action when others choke up and sit on the sidelines, but this makes him falter. What can he do to help other than stand here and pray John B can out-swim a shark? He's helpless, and now that he's faced with the prospect of losing his best friend for a second time, he doesn't know what to do.

It was his blood in the water that must have attracted the shark, and he was so caught up in his own drama with her and the pain of his cut that he didn't consider the danger of John B jumping in to retrieve the spear he dropped. It's his fault. His best friend is about to be eaten by a shark and it's his fault—

The blurred image of her rushing past in his peripheral vision rips him from his stormy thoughts, and right when he thought it couldn't get worse, it does. Water splashes up around her body and swallows her under the surface after she leaps off the edge of the rock with the aluminum spear from the dinghy raised in her dominant arm.

"Y/N!"

Before he even realizes what he's doing, JJ is screaming out her name, screaming it like he cares, and damns the consequences to dive in after her.

While he was frozen, she sprung into action without thinking of her own life first. She knew he was close to the rock, but not close enough to swim faster than a predator designed for the conditions of the ocean. It took one glance at the spear resting to the side for her to lean down, scoop it up, and get a running start to jump out as far as humanly possible. Various joints and muscles ached from how she strained to push herself far off the rock, taking flight with nothing but their survival in mind.

She sucks in a heaving breath upon breaking the surface, but she doesn't take a second to pause with John B paddling up to her so soon.

"Go back!"

The only answer she gives him is, "Use your spear!" before she brings hers out of the water in anticipation of the grey figure bolting straight for them.

It's a stupid plan, but it's the only one she has, and if one of them is in danger, they'd all risk everything they have to protect them. After all, they're already trapped here with the threat of death every day. Is there anything more worthy of dying for than your friends?

Neither of them is necessarily trying to kill it yet either, they're trying to keep it at a safe distance or hurt it enough so it swims away from them, but she puts all of her strength into spearing the fish between the eyes anyway. Her legs kick tirelessly to keep her afloat while she and John B stab as accurately as they can, choking down a mouthful of salty ocean water from how her head sinks at the surface without the help of her arms to keep her up.

Blood stains the water with a crimson hue spreading out around their bodies—whether it's theirs or the shark's, she doesn't know—and she must keep her lips clamped shut to prevent it from spilling into her mouth, breathing solely through her nose. She can tell her legs are soon to give out on her, but then a pair of hands latch onto her body. Call her irrational or stupid, but even with the clear distinction of human hands on her waist, her mind reacts in instinctual fear.

The touch makes her jolt mid-stab and sobers her feral mind back to reality for a moment until she realizes it's a human touching her, not the shark.

It's JJ.

His arms wrap around her thighs and hoist her up out of the water as much as he can while still swimming, effectively pushing himself underwater with one last gasp for air.

The sudden shift in view has her gaze shifting around to take in the new sights with a gush of red water rushing off of her onto the splashing surface: a light grey tail whips around in the chaos, the shark's head oozes blood from the multiple puncture wounds that didn't push quite deep enough, and its jaws snap right where John B's arm is before he yanks it back.

After a fraction of a second, it clicks with her that there's no time to waste watching her friend almost get his arm chomped off while she takes in the unbelievable sight. Her slippery grip on the handle remains as firm as possible, and she raises the spear over her head with an improved accuracy she never could've had from where she previously aimed it before. All of their shots landed well enough, but with the height advantage, she won't allow herself to fuck it up this time with her friend's life hanging in the balance.

She hardly recognizes her own frantic voice shouting at him, "Spear it in the gills!"

Her hands bring the razor-sharp tip of the spear down into its head repeatedly, and she isn't sure whether it's the splashing water or tears wetting her face when she buries the weapon down into it for a final time right when John B lodges his wooden spear in its gills.

Whatever she did, it must've hit its brain, because the animal halts its thrashing. Its teeth no longer snap at her friend, nor does its tail whip around in the water as violently as it did a moment ago.

As quickly as it started, it drops off into a sickening calm that leaves the white bubbles dissolving into a puddle of bloody water surrounding the trio and the fish that dies with no small amount of guilt on her part. There was no choice but to kill it. It makes her ache on the inside, but how could she regret it if she knows it saved them? The guilt might ravage her for the upcoming days, but she can't bring herself to regret jumping in after him.

She hardly has the chance to process it before she's being pulled away by both of the boys, her view of the scene shifting drastically once more with the abrupt drop of JJ letting her down in favor of guiding her through the gentle waves. His calloused hand squeezes her arm enough to cut circulation off on their journey back.

Time rushes past her in the next thirty seconds or so it takes them to reach the peninsula again in a paranoid sprint away from where the dead fish floats. One of them, John B she thinks, tosses the aluminum spear he dislodged from the shark's head up onto the rocks and clambers his way back up on his own. The waves closer to land grow rougher than the tender current out where they killed the shark, and she grunts in pain as one sends her and JJ straight into the rocks. His body hits her back with a solid ‘thump’ and forces her to wheeze with the wind getting knocked from her lungs upon impact, nails cracking on the black rock from the desperate grip she uses in an attempt to lift herself.

Meanwhile, JJ can't seem to catch his breath either, nor can he think of anything other than her once he sees that John B isn’t injured.

As soon as he sees his friend is unmarked from the teeth of the shark after he's out of the water, he positions himself behind Y/N to help her out first. He places his hands on her backside to push her up as quickly as he can. Knowing that the carcass in the water will soon attract more sharks in the surrounding area into a feeding frenzy, he'd rather it be him than her. It's a thought that shoots by too fast for him to fully acknowledge the meaning or weight of it at a time like this.

Somehow within his adrenaline-crazed mind, he is careful not to push her onto the jagged edge that sliced his leg open earlier, then climbs after her with little space left between them.

She's coughing up saltwater onto the rocks as he scrambles over to her, eyes wild with the petrifying worry of anything bad happening to her. They scan over her arms, legs, stomach, and back, and he doesn't even realize his hands are reaching out to inspect her as frantically as she had with him when he got hurt.

His hands cup her face, petting over her dripping hair and forcing her to look up so he can see if she somehow got hit in the face. Never has his mind been so void of rational thought, and, knowing him and his impulsive tendencies, that's saying a lot. The confusion of his contradictory feelings for her muddle his mind. Worry and hatred, attraction and anger—they battle it out, but only two manage to reach him externally.

Worry and anger it is. Worry for obvious reasons. Anger because—

"What the fuck were you thinking?"

She has never heard him sound so vicious since the start of whatever odd relationship/friendship/enemy-ship they have. With his worried expression and how he checked her entire body for injury after helping her out of the water, the last thing she would've anticipated from him was anger. Especially not after she saved his best friend's life. Considering what she just did for him, she thinks he should be thanking her, not chastising her.

Behind her back, she can hear a collection of yelling voices and splashing footsteps over the water dripping from them. It can only be the rest of their friends racing up the peninsula to them, but she can't turn around.

She stares at him with utter confusion flooding her at his unexpected outburst. Speechless.

"What was I thinking?" she asks incredulously with her face still cradled between his hands, "I was saving John B's life!"

Their emotional distance and disagreement are made up for in abundance by how physically entangled they've become. It wasn't intentional. It was a result of him needing to get close enough to scour her exposed skin for any bites, but now that they're sitting so near to each other, they forget to back away.

John B is too busy to engage with them.

He's doubled over on the ground with the compulsion to vomit the contents of his stomach into the ocean, but he doesn't dare get close to the edge again after what they went through. Instead, he positions himself away from them and their approaching friends until the half-digested food is forced back through his mouth. The acidic bile scorches his throat and nostrils on the way out.

JJ doesn't have the opportunity to retort back something about her being stupid, because Pope is the first person to reach them and ask, "What the hell happened?"

The rest of the group isn't far behind. It's Kie who asks the next question, then Sarah, then Cleo. They all pop off in rapid succession before either of the three of them can answer.

"Are any of you hurt?"

"Why is he throwing up?"

"Is that a shark?"

The last question draws everyone's attention over to the half-sunken mass of fish bobbing up and down on the breaths of the sea with a wooden spear sticking straight out of its gills. Though it isn't the biggest, most intimidating shark to roam the ocean, its presence doesn't fail to make everyone who looks at it shudder with the realization of what must have happened.

John B wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and points over at her with his trembling arm outstretched.

"She killed it."

The four of them whip their heads in her direction, jaws nearly falling off their faces in disbelief, but she doesn't say anything yet. Because as soon as they feel the eyes of their friends burning into them, she and JJ realize, as though they're returning to reality from the hazy layers of a dreamscape, that they're still holding each other.

She's slumped halfway onto him from when he hauled her body closer to inspect her, so she's essentially sitting on top of him at this point. Her legs, bruised and scratched up from when the waves crested to send them crashing into the rocks, are entangled around his enough that they look back and forth between them and where his hands cup her face in surprise.

JJ doesn't know what came over him.

Now that he snaps out of it at the same time as her, both of them separating and nudging each other away until their bodies are no longer entwined, he feels his cheeks flush in embarrassment.

When he saw her leaping past him to jump into the water, his mind shut off. He wasn't thinking about himself, or the possibility of getting killed, or anything at all. He was only thinking of the danger she put herself in, then he dove in and the rest of his conscious mind faded away into pure survival instinct. Yet, even after he knew the immediate danger was gone, the adrenaline kept him on edge, desperate to get her back to land and pray none of them were hurt.

"It was trying to attack him," she rasps. Her throat is raw from the saltwater she choked on, and every word burns. "But we did it together."

She pushes herself off the ground with an exhausted sigh.

Muscles spent from the struggle in the water, her legs wobble beneath the weight of her upper body as she takes a few steps to help John B up from his position on his hands and knees. From what she heard, he has thrown up all he has left in his stomach and hasn't gagged again in a minute or so, so attempting to stand again shouldn't be too strenuous for him.

His hand is cold in her grasp from the water soaking their bodies, but it holds firmly enough for her to help him into his feet without their palms slipping apart. No patches of blood are visible on his shorts, nor are there any puncture wounds on him from the sharp teeth that snapped at his arm in the quick but vigorous fight.

They were very, very fortunate to have made it out alive, and when he looks down at her face, he feels nothing but gratitude for the girl he previously saw as nothing more than his girlfriend's best friend. They went into the water as casual acquaintances, companions of convenience and the happenstance of being forced onto this island together, but they've come out of it differently. Now, they're friends.

Now, she's a Pogue.

He smiles at her, glancing up at their friends as their questions die down at the sight of his crazy grin, and says, "That was some real Pogue shit right there, Y/N." His eyes come back to meet hers. "I think it's about time we officially make you one of us. What do you think?"

She's opening her mouth to respond when Kiara cuts her off. The rest of them are staring at the trio as if they have ten heads sprouting from their bodies for not immediately surrendering more details of their near-death encounter other than saying she killed it.

"I'm sorry, can we please rewind to the part where you got attacked by a shark first?"

"Ladies and gentlemen, can I get a drumroll please for..."

The campfire is roaring with the abundance of sticks, leaves, and branches thrown onto the pile to fuel it as she feels a strong pair of arms looping around her thighs to lift her into the expansive, star-flecked sky.

In a flash of haunting memory, she relives the moment where JJ dove into the water after her and lifted her body above the surface to give her the high ground over the shark. She relives its thrashing hunger, the water splashing on her, and the cloudy hue of blood around them that she hoped wasn't either of the boys. For a second, as the world grows taller with her new perspective, she is brought back to the sudden shift she felt then and feels her stomach drop in panic, anticipating the danger.

But then the sound of her friends laughing, as well as the surging fire and crashing waves, comes back to her and forces the frightful flashback away. Her hip fits perfectly in the curve of John B's shoulder, and she lets her head fall back in giggling laughter at how he hoists her up in the air as though she's a holy figure of worship for the Pogues to kneel to.

His voice can likely be heard across the entire island when he shouts, "The Shark Conqueror!"

The group erupts into a triumphant mixture of cheers and laughter that fills the beach, everyone celebrating in their narrow escape earlier today...everyone except JJ.

After John B divulged the gory details of what happened, from JJ's fall to her picking up the spear and jumping in to save him from the shark, they made their way back with enough conversation to last the month. They all asked questions and took peeks back at where it happened in morbid curiosity, wondering how on earth they managed to come out of the situation without a scratch.

The rest of the afternoon continued on with the same buzzing energy that can only be created from the thrill of being alive. She's felt it many times since joining Sarah's group of friends that seem to find trouble wherever they go, but she has never felt it as vehemently as she does tonight. It's a mixture of euphoria, shock, and soul-crushing guilt for having to hurt another living creature, even one that was intending to make a meal of her friend.

No matter how much she grows up or discovers more about herself as a person, feelings never stop being as frustrating as they were to her as a child. You can get better at processing and hindering explosive reactions to them, but they never simplify. She doesn't know why she feels so much at once. She doesn't know why she feels simultaneously on top of the world and thrown off the edge of a cliff, but she thinks it has to do with him.

Since they walked back to the beach and talked about what happened until the day withered into night, which led them here to the “official” ceremony of her being named a Pogue for life, JJ hasn't spoken to her once.

Suddenly, the shoe is on the other foot.

Much like how she avoided him all night last night leading into this morning, he doesn't talk to her. He tries not to look at her too from where he sits on the log of driftwood across the fire, but it's somewhat inevitable with the spectacle John B is making of her at the moment.

Painted in the warm tones of the firelight like a goddess in her own right, Y/N is impossible to look away from, and it makes him angrier than he already is. A handwoven circlet crafted from the hibiscus and hippeastrum flowers growing in the forest around their camp sits atop her head. It doesn't fall to the ground with the movement of her throwing her head back in laughter. It stays in its rightful place against the rule of gravity until her face comes back into view for him to quickly look away from.

It dampers her laughter to see him avoiding her gaze so adamantly, taking a swig of water from one of the small cups they carved from wood and turning to talk to Kie to keep himself busy. The distinct sensation of being on top of the world slips away with the feeling of his cold avoidance and John B lowering her back to the ground until her bare feet sink into the soft sand.

Before she can start sulking about it for the foreseeable future, Sarah steps up beside her.

The familiar touch of a hand on her shoulder brings her comfort amidst her confusion and hurt over the way JJ is acting, and when she turns to see a pretty face looking fondly at her, a warm smile finds her lips.

"Pogue for life?" Sarah asks.

The three words bring make her smile grow the same way it had when she was talking to JJ on the peninsula. It crinkles the skin around her eyes with its unrestrained happiness to hear them because, as much as she pretends to let JJ's comments roll off of her, tonight marks one of the first times she's felt at home with them.

That's not to say they haven't made her feel welcome in the past, they did, but this isn’t the same. This is closer, this is the type of bond that's forged in situations like these where people have no choice but to rely on each other or let their worlds collectively fall apart, and she thinks, for the first time, that she could live here with them forever if she must.

None of them know how much time has passed since they arrived here, least of all her, but it sure as hell feels like an eternity. At first, she could barely withstand the idea of living here for months with the intention of being rescued as soon as possible, but now...

She brings Sarah into an embrace tight enough to force the air from their lungs.

"Pogue for life," she echoes back with her face buried into the salt-scented tresses of dirty blonde hair cascading over her tan shoulders.

Would it be crazy of her to think that this is where they're meant to be? That they're her family and this place she has fantasized about escaping is now their home?

After all, the lush island provides everything they need to sustain themselves with the rationing, scavenging, and hunting routines they adhere themselves to. Freshwater runs down the land in a stream from a water source uphill, plenty of different edible plants grow in the forest, and there's so much left of the expansive land to explore; it's perfect. Everything here is perfect for them, calling out to them to make it their home, but there's one little problem as of right now, and he's sitting across the fire behind her back.

Sarah's arms squeeze around her shoulders once to bring her in even closer.

"Thank you for saving him," her voice is so hushed, Y/N can hardly hear it with her lips brushing the shell of her ear to whisper into it, "I'm not gonna get all mushy with you right now, but I don't know what I would've done if"—Sarah's breath hitches in her throat, and she shakes her head—"I just wanted to thank you."

When they pull apart, Y/N is looking back at her with a knowing expression, one that says everything she can't in the presence of the others, and Sarah can't help but mirror it.

It isn't long before the blonde-haired beauty is whisked away by her boyfriend to help him cook the crabs they caught closer to shore after their encounter with the shark. Not wanting to swim out or risk slipping off the rocks again with the dead fish promising to lure more predators to their area for the next week or so, they settled for hunting for shellfish and making good use of the fruits they find growing in wild abundance in the forest.

The night ticks away in swiftly passing minutes thanks to the humorous company of the people around her.

She nearly chokes on a mouthful of banana as Cleo tells a story from before she met them, when she used to live in Nassau and work jobs with Terence and Stubbs on ships. For such new additions to the group, they both fit surprisingly well with the lifelong childhood friends that sit around and banter with such ease together.

They talk, laugh, dance, and eat together, and there are moments when she feels happier than ever. There are moments exactly like when John B lifted her up and made her giggle at how their friends cheered on her behalf in indulgence of the silly "ceremony" they did, half out of boredom and half out of gratitude for what she did. But then she is reminded of the man sitting on the outskirts of the group with his features hardened into an expression of contemplation she wishes she could decode.

The night breeze feels heavenly on her perpetually overexposed skin. It blows into the fire and allows it to swell from the oxygen supply, crackling and popping embers out every so often like the spark of the zippo lighter JJ fidgets with in his restless hands. The movement attracts her wandering eyes while they should be focused on Cleo and Kie dancing around the fire with boisterous laughter while Sarah and Pope sing for them.

She keeps herself honed in on the opening and closing of the lighter under the guidance of his ring-clad fingers for the next minute or so.

They may have been pitting themselves against each other since they met, but that doesn't mean she doesn't know him well. If anything, the keen attention that her old hatred for him forced her to keep on him made her memorize everything there is to know. And she surely has picked up on the nervous habit of him playing with the lighter whenever he's thinking, whenever there's something crawling under his skin that he can't piece together.

He sits with his back to her, facing out toward the ocean so all she can see is the hand he uses to flick the lighter open and shut with. With a quick glance at the rest of their friends to see if any of them are watching or wanting to speak with her, she pushes herself up from the log and dusts her sandy palms on her shirt.

The tracks of her footsteps lead around the corner of the driftwood he rests against until her feet appear, sunken into the sand in front of him. It takes a lot of control to not allow himself to follow up the length of her body, panning up along her legs until he sees that infuriatingly tenderhearted set of eyes looking down at him.

However, he doesn't have a choice in looking when her hand outstretches in a silent invitation. His first glimpse of her in the last half-hour shows her jerking her chin in the direction of the beach curving around the bend of the island.

This morning, he probably would've taken her up on the offer. He would've done anything to get a few minutes alone with her, but now he can't see past his anger and doesn't know why. He doesn't know why it hasn't calmed yet, but, in truth, it has more to do with him than it does her idiotic yet brave decision to fight off a shark today. Trust him, it still has a lot to do with the idiotic shark thing, but the rest is lost in translation for him.

"Not in the mood," he dismisses her.

Her brows furrow and form a crease between them as she tries to find something to say but comes up with nothing. At least not until it clicks with her what he thought she was trying to do by inviting him to walk with her.

The last time they went off on their own together, it ended in an explosive encounter they have yet to erase from their minds. It's what greets them whenever they close their eyes for a second too long, existing in their wildest daydreams and fantasies whenever they have a spare moment to themselves. Hell, he can't stop thinking about it even when he's already occupied. It was the reason why he didn't catch any fish this morning before the incident that made him pissed at her in the first place. He couldn't stop thinking of her.

"Oh," she murmurs and starts to kneel down until her knees are sinking into the sand the same way she did when patching up his leg. Her eyes peek over his shoulder to ensure the others didn't hear them—"That wasn't what I meant...I was just wondering if you wanted to talk about today. It must have been a lot to process, since he's your best friend and all, and—"

JJ snaps, unable to tolerate it anymore, and stands up from his spot on the sand to move away from her.

"You don't need act all therapist with me, okay? I'm fine, and I don't need you to fix me if that's what you wanted. Today was fine. Everything's fine, so let it go."

Her mouth opens and closes like a fish with a loss for words. For the second time in the span of a minute, she is grasping blindly for something to say in the wake of him shocking her to silence. He's starting to walk past her but she doesn't let him. Her hand shoots out to stop him and holds onto his arm to turn him back despite his rudeness.

Underneath it all, her concern touches him deeply. It shouldn't trigger a reaction like this in him, so why does it? What about today set him off? He hasn't been this genuinely angry with her since before the hunt for the gold began, before she started to blend into their friend group and establish herself as one of them.

"Woah, woah, woah," she says, "I never said that. I thought that you needed someone to talk to. You know, as a friend."

Their friends start to notice their interaction tensing up now. Before, they didn't pick up on her stepping away for a second to check on him. Now, it's impossible to ignore what unfolds hardly six steps from where they watch as slyly as they can. The two of them haven't had a conversation as cold as this one in months, and what he says next takes it to a place that freezes over the connection they made last night and shatters the warm place it held in her heart.

He scoffs.

"We're not friends. If you think you gotta act different 'cause you threw yourself at me last night, don't bother. You hate me and I hate you. That's how it is."

No nicknames, jokes, or anything to act as a buffer, just cruelty. Rejection.

Though they truly were trying to pretend like they weren't paying attention, every single one of their friends stops and stares. A chorus of hushed reactions sound off from across the fire, and the faint sound of Kie muttering, "Oh shit," is the first thing to reach their ears. It's needless to say that none of them could've expected something so callous to come from him, not after what they saw when they ran up to them on the peninsula this morning.

With the way he was holding her then, doting on her and cradling her face between his hands even in the midst of his anger at what she did, they sooner expected the pair to admit they're dating than have a blowout like this.

In the delayed seconds it takes for her to realize what the fuck he just said to her, he watches her face shift from a look of concern to sadness, to flush-faced embarrassment, then finally to anger. Her teeth grind together, nostrils flaring on her inhale, and in one quick moment, she comes to a conclusion within herself.

She reaches up to rip the handmade crown of vibrant flowers off her head with flames to match the camp fire flaring up in her eyes for him. Before she can do anything, he already knows he crossed a line, if not multiple lines. It's evident in everything he sees, from the hurt look on her face to the force with which she shoves the crown into the center of his chest to send him stumbling back a few steps. Just like yesterday, except it couldn't be any more different.

"Fuck. You." She spits the words as though they're venomous, and he almost shrinks away under the intensity of her stare, “Go find somewhere else to sleep tonight, 'cause it sure as hell isn't gonna be with me."

Petals flutter out upon impact against his solid chest and float peacefully to the sand around his feet as he watches her turn on her heels and storm off toward their hut. Though, after what he did and what she said to him as a goodbye, it isn't really theirs anymore, is it? At least not for tonight, tomorrow, or the next day until he finds a way to make her hear him out for an apology.

He stands there, frozen, the entire time he watches her leave. Nothing can move him from the spot, not even Sarah knocking her shoulder against his with a pointed glare on her way past to follow her into the moonlit darkness.

He doesn't even resist the disappointed looks he gets, or the shoulder check from Sarah. This time, he deserves it. He deserves every ounce of their judgment. All she was trying to do was make sure he was okay and he was too consumed in his unreleased frustration from today to see it. And, in a way, he's still frustrated over it, but it's greatly overshadowed by the guilt seeping through him.

The shadowy shapes of the two girls disappear into the small hut further down the beach, and JJ is left with nothing to do but look down at the flower crown clutched to his chest in regret.

Tag List: @gabiatthedisco, @fangirlvoice, @black-syren, @apparrio, @particularcth, @planetdemon, @idk-ijustworkhere, @krisphann, @astrydis, @k-k0129, @zarahsloves, and @stilesflannels.

[starryevermore]

come and trim my christmas tree ✧ bucky barnes

twelve days of christmas | angst city™ library

request: 😂 is it bad imma request another ransom. Nah I’m not. But Bucky 😏 if your comfortable with this. Teasing bucky with the high thighs and all that stuff. Sexy Santa stuff. You can go into detail if they do the special cuddle or not i don’t mind. Just Bucky being teased.

pairing: bucky barnes x fem!reader

summary: you take great pleasure in teasing bucky. 

word count: 728

warnings?: implied smut, strip tease, pet name (sugar) not proofread

note: this was written between november 8-20, 2021.

“Santa baby, just slip a Sable under the tree for me. Been an awful good girl,” you sang, your hands running down your body until they reached the pretty bow you had tied around your waist. You slowly tugged on the end of it, letting it unravel, your robe falling open. Bucky let out a quiet gasp, blue eyes blown wide as he took in the red, lacy lingerie you wore underneath. “Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight.”

It had been Bucky’s idea. Well, sort of. He’d mentioned in passing, months ago, about how he wondered what it would be like to go to a strip club. Said he’d never go to one, that he didn’t want to see any half-naked woman who wasn’t you, but that he was interested in seeing someone perform something so sensual, so sexy for him. And, well, your Christmas present for him was born. One of your friends was a stripper back when she was in med school, and offered to teach you how to give the best damn strip tease in your life. 

“Sugar, please, just let me touch—”

You shook your head. “Nuh uh, you know the rules baby. You only get to touch when I let you touch.”

“You’re gonna be the death of me.”

“And what a sweet death it shall be.” You began to shrug off your robe, letting it slip down your arms while you sang, “Santa baby, a '54 convertible too, light blue. I'll wait up for you, dear. Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight.”

A pool of red velvet sank around your feet.

“Think of all the fun I've missed. Think of all the fellas that I haven't kissed.” You winked at Bucky, smirking as he let out a low growl. “Next year, I could be just as good if you check off my Christmas list.” 

“You better not be thinking about kissing other fellas,” Bucky said. 

You could only giggle, swinging your hips as you took slow steps toward him. “Santa baby, I want a yacht, and really, that's not a lot. Been an angel all year. Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight.”

“You’re makin’ it real hard, sugar,” he groaned, eyes raking up and down your body. “Makin’ me real hard. C’mon, please, let me just touch you, please—”

You reached him, nudging his legs apart. 

“Santa honey, one little thing I really need.” You sat on one of his thighs, reaching up to touch him. The tips of your fingers grazed his jaw, turning his face towards yours. You leaned in, whispering in his ear, “The deed to a platinum mine.” 

Bucky groaned, his hands coming to rest on your hips, but you only swatted him away. 

“Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight.” You peppered kisses down his jaw, down his neck, before looking up and singing, “Santa cutie, and fill my stocking with a duplex and checks. Sign your ‘x’ on the line. Santa cutie, and hurry down the chimney tonight.”

“Oh, I’ll stuff your stocking—”

“Come and trim my Christmas tree,” you sang, shifting so you were straddling him. Your hands run down his chest. “With some decorations bought at Tiffany's.”

“Fuck, sugar, I’ll get you anything you want if you just let me—”

“I really do believe in you. Let's see if you believe in me,” you sang, tapping the tip of his nose. You said, “Don’t forget who’s in charge right now, baby. Hate to see you end up on the naughty list.” 

Bucky let out a shuddering breath, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he gulped, but held his tongue.

“Santa baby, forgot to mention one little thing.” You held up your left hand, and used your right hand to point at your left ring finger. “A ring, I don't mean on the phone.” 

“I’ll marry you right now, swear to God—”

“Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight. Hurry down the chimney tonight. Hurry, tonight.” You grabbed his hands, guiding them so that he could finally touch you. “Such a good boy. Now’s time for your real present.”

“That wasn’t my present?”

“Nah, baby, you got a lil bit unwrapping to do before you get your real present.”

His pretty blue eyes lit up. “Say no more.”

And, well, let’s just say he really loved his present.  

[cartierbin]

hello! can i request 4+24 with jisung? ❤️

『 4. “you asked for it now take it” + 24. “count to ten for me”

pairing — jisung x reader

genre — smut + jisung eating pussy for pornhub

word count — 1.324k 』

smut under the cut !

for the most part, jisung liked to keep things private between the two of you. the sexual things at least. he never told a soul about the sinful things you guys did behind closed doors just because he truly believed what happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom. plus, he’d rather not expose you for the nasty slut you really were to him—no— that was a part of you he kept for himself.

but you once you saw an ad go around on your favorite porn site, you had other plans. they were offering a stipend for their new challenge. $3000 for whoever sent in the best pussy eating video. and with the way jisung ate you, you knew this would an easy win. you begged him for days on end, bribing him by naming a list of things the both of you could do with the money. but jisung liked to be private with things and he didn’t know if he’d win anyway, since some people were actually pornstars for a living.

after getting your fifth no from jisung you finally gave up asking. it was a real loss since you knew he had the potential to win. but you weren’t going to force him to do something that he didn’t want to do. well, you thought he didn’t want to do. his mind quickly changed when he woke up in the middle of the night from a wet dream with an aching boner that could cut glass. his chest heaved and he stared at the ceiling with the dirtiest of thoughts flooding his mind. and with you next to him wearing nothing but panties and a tank top, it only made it worse. he needed something. he remembered the challenge and his mouth watered at the thought of tasting you. he never thought he’d give in but he needed his fix.

he set his phone camera up against the lamp on the nightstand beside you, angling it at the bed so he could be seen. luckily it was angled perfectly at your legs and that was all the focus he needed. he breathed prior to shifting the blankets off your legs and clutching your thighs, spreading your legs wide pulling you down closer to his face. he pulled the middle part of your panties so far to the side he practically ripped the seams that held them in place. but he didn’t care. he laid his warm tongue flat against your pussy, swiping it between your slit coating it with nothing but his saliva. he felt himself get harder if that was even possible, just sitting there tasting you.

he roped his arms around your thighs and closed his eyes, circling his tongue over the bud beneath your hood and inched it into his mouth bit by bit, sucking it ever so softly. pleasure shot up the length of your spine and you reach down to snake your fingers in his hair, thinking you were in a wet dream of some sort. your soft muffled moans spurred him onwards and he flicked his tongue repeatedly, up and down the hood. he enjoyed this. he enjoyed how soft and wet you were becoming on his tongue. he enjoyed your whines and he enjoyed how quiet your bedroom was, meaning that nothing else could be heard, only the wet sounds of his mouth on your pussy.

he starts to grip your waist and your eyes shot open realizing that the dream you thought you were having wasn’t so vivid and that it was jisung really eating you. you looked below at the subtle movement of his head, sucking your clit between his lips before releasing it with saliva to follow. you pushed your pussy up into his mouth and created a makeshift ponytail out of the top of his hair. you could already feel yourself throbbing on his tongue and to make things worse, you were barely awake. you squeeze your eyes together tight as you felt his tongue giving teasing cat licks to your glistening folds. “jisung fuckk you couldn’t have waited?”.

he spit on two of his fingers and shoved them deep inside your waiting hole and you gripped the bedsheets at the sudden feeling. “no. you asked for this shit. now take it”. you half lidded your eyes to the ceiling chanting his name underneath your breath. the wet sounds of his fingers sinking in and out of your pussy resounded against the bedroom walls. he moaned while he ate you, talking every time he finishing sucking your pulsating clit. “your pussy tastes so fucking good right now baby”. he looked down to watch how much slick coated his fingers every time he pulled them out of you. “fuckk do you hear this shit?”. he questions in a daze. every time he spoke you felt slick cascading down your folds. he made sure you made eye contact with him while he shoved his fingers into his mouth just to get another taste of your pussy on his tastebuds. you painfully watched his tongue swirl around his finger tips just before he sucked them, further tantalizing you and making you throb harder in the process.

“oh god put your mouth back on me jisung please”. he smirks, wriggling his tongue through the middle of his fingers creating a spit string with his efforts. “you want my mouth back on you?”. your hips began bucking in need. “yes please”. he grins and teases you a bit longer, enough to where you gasped when he finally wriggled his tongue against your clit again and continued finger fucking you at a rapid pace. your pussy jerked against his mouth becoming eager. A mewl leaves your mouth and you try to clench your weak thighs around Jisung’s head but he holds them open and pins them down to the bed. your vision was becoming blurry and you felt the fiery knot in your gut desperately wanting to unravel. “you’re shaking are you going to cum on my tongue baby?”. damn it the more he talked the wetter you became. you felt your head pounding in need. “please stop talking like that ji”.

“count to ten for me. I bet you’ll be cumming at the end of these ten seconds”. you wished you could count aloud but jisung was finger fucking the breath out of your lungs forcing you to do it all in your head. each time you tried to open your mouth jisung did something new with his tongue which left you emitting nothing but gaspy chuffs of breath. you pushed down on his face just about to shout out the number one but you were already cumming, your fluids covering his lips and the area around his mouth. you were still spasming when jisung finally stopped recording, placing his phone on your billowing chest.

“I hope I ate your pussy good enough to win”.