#I want to live alone and decorate my own place the way I like it

[spacebell]

I do love my brother but I just don’t love living with him

[mcflymemes]

PROMPTS FOR FOUND FAMILIES / ADOPTED FAMILIES *  assorted dialogue, adjust as necessary, suggested by anonymous

you're the first person to ever take me seriously.

you understand me better than anyone else.

i don't know what i'd do without you.

just wanted to remind you that i care about you.

the last thing i want is to see you get hurt.

i feel like i belong here.

did you just call this a family?

this is the kind of life i always dreamed about.

thank you for taking me in.

i could get used to living in a place like this.

you feel more like family to me.

thank you for listening to me when no one else would.

should i call you mom?

should i call you dad?

i didn't really have a father figure growing up.

this is your room. you can decorate it however you'd like.

you're always welcome in my home.

no matter what, you can always count on me.

i'm grateful you found me when you did.

i've spent too much of my life alone.

you're part of this family now.

this is my home now.

i won't let anything happen to my family.

i'm going to take care of you.

no one's ever listened to me before.

is this what a family looks like?

you're the best friend i've ever had.

i'm your family now.

if they want to get to you, they have to go through me first.

is this what it feels like to belong?

maybe you should stick around for a while.

we'd take care of you, you know.

you don't have to go through this alone.

promise me you'll call.

you will always be welcome here.

this is your house, too.

i got this for you. it's yours.

keep it. i have more where that came from.

you make me feel special.

i've been alone for so many years.

i'm not used to being treated this way.

you can stay the night if you want.

we'll protect you with our lives.

you're like a brother to me.

you're like a sister to me.

you're the sibling i never had.

you took me in when no one else would.

i will never forget the sacrifices you made for me.

i've never had a room of my own. i always had to share.

i like this little family we've created.

[vanteguccir]

── ୨୧ !　𝗔 𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗘 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗜𝗗𝗔𝗬𝗦

　　　　　　　　𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒕 𝒔𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒐𝒍𝒐 x reader

SUMMARY: Where Y/N, estranged from her parents, hasn’t celebrated holidays with family in years. Until her boyfriend, Matt, invites her to spend Christmas with him and his family in Boston for the first time.

WARNING: Bad childhood, christmas trauma, anxiety. Angst to comfort/fluff!

REQUESTED?: Yes, by anon

AUTHOR'S NOTE: That is my work, I DON'T authorize any plagiarism, copy, or "inspiration"! | English isn't my first language, so I'm sorry if there's any grammar error.

A/N²: I was inspired by Moly from the books when writing Mary Lou so fucking much (hp fans will understand) 🥹

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The snow fell softly outside of Y/N's window, coating the streets of Los Angeles in a pristine white blanket that shimmered under the glow of the streetlights. The flickering lights of the Christmas tree cast a warm, golden glow around the room, but the festive decorations only served to accentuate the emptiness Y/N felt inside.

The memories of her childhood were bittersweet. Christmas had once been her favorite time of year, filled with laughter, warmth, and love. The smell of pine from the freshly cut tree, the twinkling lights, and the sound of carols playing softly in the background had created a magical atmosphere. Her parents had always made sure that the holiday was special, filling the house with decorations and baking delicious cookies and treats.

But those days were long gone. When Y/N was just sixteen, a series of painful events led to her moving out. Her parents' constant arguments, their acts of blaming her, the financial struggles, and the emotional strain had become too much to bear. She had left to find peace, but in doing so, she had also left behind the traditions and celebrations she had once cherished.

Now, Christmas was just another day. Y/N spent the holiday alone, watching Christmas movies and gazing out of her window at the festive that always seemed to happen on her street - a consequence of living in the middle of the city. She saw families walking together, their faces lit up with joy, and couples holding hands, whispering sweet nothings to each other. It was a beautiful sight, but it also served as a stark contrast to her solitude.

But not this year.

As Christmas approached, Matt, her boyfriend of less than a year, had invited her to join him and his brothers in Boston for the holidays. They were planning to spend Christmas with their family, a tradition they cherished. Matt had insisted that she come along, his eyes shining with excitement at the prospect of sharing the holiday with her. But Y/N had hesitated, the familiar doubts creeping in.

"I don't want to be a burden." She had confessed, her voice tinged with uncertainty. "Your family has their own traditions, and I don't want to intrude."

Matt had taken her hands in his, his gaze unwavering. "Y/N, you're not a burden. You're a part of my life, and my parents would love to meet you. Besides, you shouldn't have to spend Christmas alone. You've been through that enough, and I am not gonna let you stay in that place again."

His words had touched her deeply, but the fear of being an outsider lingered. She had spent so many holidays alone, and the thought of integrating into someone else's family felt daunting. But Matt was persistent, his love and reassurance slowly melting away her reservations. He had promised her that she would be welcomed with open arms, that his family would treat her like one of their own.

After much contemplation, Y/N had finally agreed. She couldn't deny the excitement that fluttered in her chest at the thought of spending Christmas with Matt and his family. It was a chance to create new memories to experience the joy and warmth of the holiday season in a way she had never known.

The days leading up to their departure were a whirlwind of preparations. Matt had helped her pack, his enthusiasm infectious as he chattered about all the things they would do in Boston. He told her stories of past Christmases, painting vivid pictures of snowy landscapes, festive decorations, the good food, and the moment of opening presents, which always used to lead to childish discussions between him, Chris and Nick. Y/N found herself getting caught up in his excitement, her initial apprehension giving way to anticipation.

On the day of their flight, Matt, Nick, and Chris picked her up early in the morning. The triplets were a lively bunch, their energy filling the car with a sense of camaraderie and fun.

Chris, always the most childish and carefree, kept the air calm with his witty remarks and playful banter, receiving disbelieving looks from Nick, along with insults, which led to small stupid fights - as usual. Matt, the one with the most "mature" posture, made sure everything was in order while yelling to them to calm down from time to time.

As they boarded the plane, Y/N's nerves resurfaced. She clutched Matt's hand tightly, seeking comfort in his touch while leaning against his left shoulder, her eyes fixed on the walkway the plane would soon pass.

Matt, who was asking Chris to send a text to Mary Lou to let her know that they were about to take off, soon noticed the drop in her mood, turning his eyes towards her and watching her momentarily with eyebrows furrowed in concern before bringing his face closer to the top of her head, sealing his lips over her hair for long seconds.

"It's going to be great, petal. Trust me." He whispered against her strands, dragging the tip of his nose in a light caress, exhaling the fresh scent of her shampoo.

Y/N nodded, taking a deep breath and letting the excitement override her fears. She lifted her face, her eyes meeting the blue ones that so calmed her, the beginning of a smile appearing on the corner of her lips almost automatically.

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The plane touched down in Boston almost six hours later, the city blanketed in a fresh layer of snow. As Y/N disembarked with Matt, Nick, and Chris, her heart raced with anticipation. The terminal buzzed with holiday travelers, their excited chatter blending with the festive decorations that adorned the airport.

Y/N felt a mixture of excitement and anxiety as they made their way to the baggage claim area, where they spotted Justin waiting for them next to his car.

Justin stood out with his tall, broad-shouldered frame and a warm smile that reached his eyes. He waved enthusiastically as they approached.

"Hey, guys! Over here!" He called, his voice cutting through the crowd.

Matt squeezed Y/N's hand, increasing his steps significantly, pulling his girlfriend behind him, ignoring the small stumbles she gave due to his sudden movements, leading her toward his older brother.

"Justin!" Chrid greeted excitedly from their side, the tone of his voice gradually rising. His body was pulled by his brother into a tight hug, his figure momentarily disappearing into Justin's arms.

Justin grinned, stepping away from Chris before turning to Y/N.

"Y/N, it's great to see you again!" He said, pulling her into a friendly embrace. She smiled, feeling a bit of her nervousness melt away in his welcoming presence, her fingers squeezing Matt's tightly, not letting go of his hand.

After retrieving their luggage, they made their way to the brother's parents' van, the cold Boston air biting at their faces. Justin quickly loaded their bags into the trunk, and they all piled into the vehicle, Matt and Y/N, taking the backseat.

As they settled in, all buckled up, Justin started the car, and the warm air from the heater filled the cabin almost instantly, gradually warming the bodies covered in cold hoodies and transforming the environment into something more cozy.

"Are yall ready?" Justin asked, glancing at Chris beside him momentarily before lifting his eyes to the rearview mirror, traveling his orbs over Nick to the love birds with a grin. His right hand flew to the radio, turning it on in a low volume, and soft Christmas music filled the car.

Y/N nestled into her seat, the soothing melodies of holiday classics surrounding her like magic, but despite the warmth, good vibe and the familiar presence of Matt beside her, she couldn't shake her nerves. Her hands trembled slightly as she fidgeted with the zipper on her pink coat, the tips of her fingers twisting the small metal object as her teeth worked to trap her lower lip, nibbling at the sensitive skin in an act of anxiety.

Matt noticed immediately, his eyes softening with concern. He moved slowly so as not to startle her, bringing his body closer to hers - if that was even possible, and raised his left hand to her face, using the tip of his thumb to gently pull her lip from its prison, stroking the red and slightly irritated skin.

"Hey." He whispered, his voice a soothing balm. "You're gonna hurt your pretty lips if you keep doing that, 'hon." He tapped his thumb lightly against her lip before lowering his hand, his eyes searching hers. "You're going to love it. I promise."

She nodded, trying to steady her breathing, her hot tongue escaping between her lips, wetting them.

"I know. It's just... a lot."

Matt leaned in closer, his breath warm against her ear.

"Just focus on me, okay?" He reached for her, gluing her hands in a sign of prayer and closing them with his own, creating a small cocoon, caressing the soft skin with his fingers, his touch light and comforting. "Remember Vegas? You were nervous to meet Justin, too, but everything turned out great."

Y/N smiled at the memory of their trip to Las Vegas in July. It had been a whirlwind of fun and excitement, and it was the first time she had met Justin. The trip had strengthened her bond with Matt and his brothers, making her feel like part of their tight-knit group.

"So, Y/N, how have you been since Vegas? Anything new and exciting?" Justin glanced in the rearview mirror momentarily, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

"I've been great, thanks. Just busy with work and getting ready for Christmas." She appreciated his attempt to include her in the conversation, opening a gentle smile when her eyes met his.

Nick, sitting in the seat in front of hers, turned side ways to join in the conversation, resting his left arm above the back of the seat.

"You should see her house. She's got the cutest decorations, almost everything is pink!" He smiled in excitement, his eyes darting from Y/N to Justin, who was listening to him with his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

"Thank you, Nick, you're too sweet. I love decorating for the holidays." Y/N blushed, lowering her eyes, feeling the warmth of his gentleness.

She leaned into Matt after noticing Chris start another topic, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat below her ear. His right hand moved from hers to her back, tracing gentle circles above her clothed skin that eased her tension.

"You're amazing, babe. My family is going to adore you." He whispered sweet nothings, his lips brushing against her ear.

The drive through Boston was enchanting, the city aglow with holiday lights. They passed through charming neighborhoods, each house adorned with festive decorations. Y/N's anxiety began to ebb, replaced by a sense of wonder at the beauty of the season.

As they turned onto the street leading to Matt's childhood home, Y/N's heart began to race again. She peered out the window, taking in the picturesque scene, recognizing the house from their pictures from when they were children. The house was a two-story colonial, its exterior beautifully decorated with twinkling lights, wreaths, and garlands. A large Christmas tree stood proudly in the front window, its branches heavy with ornaments.

Justin parked the car, and the boys quickly got out to unload the luggage. Y/N took her time to get out of her seat, her heart pounding as she shuffled her feet over the snow-covered gravel, pressing her lips into a thin line.

She watched as Matt, Nick, and Chris laughed and joked, their breath visible in the cold air. A pang of longing and fear filling her heart - longing to belong and fear of not fitting in.

The soft sound of the front door opening echoed through the open air, and Mary Lou, Matt's mother, stepped out, her face lighting up with joy at the sight of her sons.

"Matt! Nick! Chris!" She called, rushing down the steps carefully to envelop each of them in a warm hug, receiving hugs back just as strong. Her laughter was infectious, filling the air with a sense of home and love.

Y/N hesitated, her nerves threatening to overwhelm her. She watched as Mary Lou's eyes scanned the group, finally landing on her. Mary Lou's expression softened, and she walked around her son's, starting her steps toward Y/N with open arms.

"And you must be Y/N." She said warmly, her voice filled with genuine affection, a big smile resting on her face.

Y/N's heart fluttered as Mary Lou enveloped her in a hug, her smaller body surprisingly covering hers completely like a big blanket, the warmth of her embrace chasing away the cold.

"It's so wonderful to finally meet you." Mary Lou whispered against her ears, her hands gently rubbing Y/N's back. "Matt has told us so much about you."

Y/N felt tears prick at her eyes, the kindness in Mary Lou's voice touching her deeply, her heart squeezing slightly.

"It's so nice to meet you too." She managed to say, her voice trembling slightly, tightening her arms lightly around the older woman.

Mary Lou pulled back seconds after, holding Y/N at arm's length and studying her with a motherly and very attentive gaze.

"Oh my, you're freezing, dear. Let's get you inside and warm you up." She ran the palms of her hands from Y/N's shoulders to her wrists and back up again in an attempt to warm her before taking her hands, her touch gentle and reassuring. "Come on, boys, bring the luggage in. Let's get everyone settled."

As they stepped into the house, Y/N was enveloped by the warmth and coziness of the interior. The smell of freshly baked cookies wafted through the air, mingling with the scent of pine from the Christmas tree and cinnamon from the candles. The living room was a festive wonderland, with stockings hung by the fireplace and twinkling lights casting a soft glow.

Mary Lou led Y/N to the living room, where a fire crackled in the hearth.

"Sit here, dear." She said, guiding Y/N to a plush armchair, smiling warmly. "I'll get you something warm to drink."

Matt joined Y/N seconds after, appearing from behind her and sitting on the armrest of the chair, raising his right arm and wrapping it around her shoulders.

"See? It's not so bad." He murmured close to her ears, his eyes filled with love and pride staring at hers as if she was his world - and in every way, she was.

Y/N leaned into him, her heart swelling with gratitude.

"It's perfect." She whispered, feeling the warmth of the fire and Matt's body enveloping her, a permanent smile spreading across her lips.

Mary Lou returned with a christmas mug - in the shape of Santa Claus, full of fresh hot cocoa, the steam rising in delicate tendrils.

"Here you go, sweetie. This will warm you right up." She handed the pottery into Y/N's hands gently so as not to burn her fingers.

Y/N took the mug, the heat seeping into her cold hands.

"Thank you, Mrs. Sturniolo." She said softly, her voice filled with gratitude.

"Oh no, dear, just call me Mary Lou!"

Nick and Chris brought in the luggage, their cheerful banter filling the room. Justin joined them, his laughter a deep, resonant sound that added to the festive atmosphere.

Mary Lou looked around at her family, her eyes shining with happiness.

"Oh, I'm so glad you're all here." She said cheerfully, her voice choked with emotion, clasping her hands over her own heart. "This is what Christmas is all about, right? I was so excited for this year! Your father will be here soon, I asked him to buy some ingredients that I needed for our pumpkin pie."

Y/N felt a lump in her throat as she looked around the room. The decorations, the warmth of the fire, the laughter of the people she had come to care for - it was everything she had ever dreamed of. For the first time in years, she felt truly at home.

Matt leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to her temple for long seconds, opening a smile.

"Welcome to the family, sweetheart." He whispered against her skin, his voice filled with promise.

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Y/N was starting to feel at ease, wrapped in the embrace of Matt’s family. She sat comfortably on the plush couch, sipping her hot cocoa and watching the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree. The room was filled with laughter and conversation as Mary Lou moved about the kitchen, preparing dinner.

The front door creaked open, and a gust of cold air swept through the hallway.

"I'm back!" Came a cheerful voice from the entrance, echoing between the warm walls.

"Jimmy! The boys are here, and Y/N too!" Mary Lou’s face lit up as she called out, her voice louder with excitement.

Matt’s father, Jimmy, stepped into the living room carrying several grocery bags. He was a tall man with a kind face, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled.

"Well, look at this gathering!" He exclaimed, setting the bags down on the floor and brushing the snow from his coat. "It’s good to see you boys."

Matt, Nick, and Chris hurried to greet their father, exchanging hugs and hearty handshakes, talking excitedly over each other.

"And you must be Y/N." Jimmy's eyes twinkled with joy as he turned his attention to Y/N, his voice warm and inviting.

Y/N stood, feeling a mix of nervousness and excitement, her hands smoothing down her hoodie anxiously.

"Yes, it’s nice to meet you, Mr. Sturniolo." She said softly, smiling nervously, offering her hand.

Jimmy chuckled after noticing her tension, enveloping her hand in both of his, the cold of his skin bringing goosebumps to Y/N's warm ones.

"Call me Jimmy. We’re all family here." He said genuinely, his grip firm but gentle. "I’ve heard so much about you."

"All good things, I hope." Y/N felt her cheeks flush as she smiled, her eyes meeting Matt's over Jimmy's shoulder momentarily, watching as her boyfriend smiled shyly, lowering his gaze.

Jimmy’s laugh was deep and resonant, filling the room with a sense of ease, taking her attention back to him.

"All very good things." He assured her. "Matt hasn’t stopped talking about you for even a minute during our meetings or our calls."

Matt grinned, shaking his head while approaching the two with light steps and positioning himself next to his girl, wrapping an arm around Y/N's shoulders.

"I can’t help it, dad. She’s pretty amazing."

Jimmy’s eyes softened as he looked at them together, seeing a glimpse of him and their mother.

"I can see that." He said warmly. "Welcome to our home, Y/N. We’re so glad you could join us for Christmas."

Mary Lou bustled in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel before throwing it over her shoulder.

"Jimmy, why don’t you take a break and get to know Y/N a bit better while I finish up dinner?" She suggested.

"Oh, I can help in the kitchen, Mrs- I mean, Mary Lou." Y/N quickly proposed, not wanting to just sit and "be served".

"Oh no, darling. Please enjoy your evening with everyone. During Christmas, the kitchen is mine alone." Mary Lou raised her right hand in the air in a "stop" gesture, throwing a wink in her direction before turning around and heading back.

"That's right. Every time I tried to help, she almost killed me." Jimmy joked, taking a seat across from Y/N. "So, Y/N, tell me about yourself. How did you and Matt meet?"

Y/N relaxed into the conversation, her nervousness fading under Jimmy’s kind gaze. She shared the story of how she and Matt had met at a random corner coffee shop in Los Angeles, their friendship blossoming over shared interests and late-night talking sessions. Jimmy listened intently, nodding and smiling as she spoke.

"It sounds like you two have a special bond." He said thoughtfully, leaning against the back of the chair he sat in, crossing his arms. "Friendship is a strong foundation for a relationship."

"It really is. Matt’s been my everything." Y/N nodded, glancing at Matt with a smile, watching him show Justin a video from his phone, his eyes sparkling with the way his smile grew.

"I’m glad he has someone like you in his life." Jimmy’s expression grew tender, bringing her attention back to him. "Family is everything, and I can see that you’re already part of ours."

Y/N felt a lump form in her throat at Jimmy’s words. She had always longed for a sense of belonging, and in this moment, she felt truly accepted.

The evening continued with laughter and storytelling, the warmth of the Sturniolo home wrapping around Y/N like a comforting blanket. Jimmy’s kindness and fatherly presence made her feel at ease, and by the time dinner was served, she felt like she had known the family for years.

As they gathered around the dining table, Y/N couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of gratitude. She had found not only a loving partner in Matt but also a family that welcomed her with open arms.

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After dinner, as they sat around the fireplace once more, Jimmy leaned back in his chair, a contented smile on his face.

"This is what Christmas is all about." He started with a small sight, his voice filled with warmth. "Family, love, and making new memories. Merry Christmas, everyone."

Y/N, from her place standing against the door frame that separated the kitchen from the living room, looked around the room at the faces of the people who had become so dear to her. She felt a swell of emotion, knowing that this was just the beginning of many happy holidays to come.

The sound of soft footsteps behind her sounded mute to her ears, her body jumping slightly in fright as she felt Matt's presence so close, wrapping his arms around her, his touch warm and reassuring.

"How are you feeling?" He asked in a whisper, as if he didn't want to break the little and imaginary bubble that surrounded them, his voice a gentle murmur in the quiet room.

Y/N leaned into him, her hands finding his above her stomach, her fingers wandering over his milky skin until they met his, intertwining perfectly, her heart full.

"I feel... happy. Really happy."

Matt smiled openly, lowering his head, resting his chin on her shoulder, sealing his lips on the soft, warm skin of her cheek.

"I’m glad." He whispered. "You deserve all the happiness in the world."

"Thank you, Matt." She mumbled after some seconds of silence, her voice filled with gratitude while her eyes glowed brightly at the image in front of Chris, Nick and Justin playing video games on the big television while Mary Lou and Jimmy watched them with smiles on their faces, whispering sweet nothings to each other every now and then.

"For what?" Matt asked against her skin, feeling like he could stay in that position for all eternity.

"For bringing me here. For giving me this."

"You're my everything, Y/N. I want you to have the world."

He followed her line of sight momentarily, observing his family until his eyes met Nick's, who looked at them with a comical smile on his lips, pointing above their heads.

"What-?" He lifts his head, looking up, feeling Y/N's body move between his arms as she tries to see what he sees, a confused expression on her face turning into one of surprise.

Mistletoe hangs above their head, the prettiest they've ever seen.

Matt slowly lowers his head, meeting Y/N's eyes, who were still looking up - now into his. A shy smile stretches across his lips, his arms tightening around his girlfriend's body, bringing her closer.

Their gaze keeps connect when Matt gently places his right hand on her cheek, his thumb caressing the soft and warm skin.

"Merry Christmas, beautiful." He whispers softly before leaning closer, kissing Y/N.

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[stevehours]

drinking game

steve harrington x fem!reader

18+ minors dni, drinking, smut

wc: 4.4k

As far as first dates go, this is the lamest one you’ve been on. Which you’d somewhat anticipated when you agreed to it. Steve Harrington is a couple years younger than you. The kid’s barely twenty. But he is incredibly handsome and well, it’s been awhile for you. Steve’s wooing skills haven’t graduated high school, like he has. He insists on picking you up, gets to show off the car his daddy bought him. It is nice. Must’ve cost a fortune when he was gifted it on his sixteenth birthday. The damn thing has a telephone in it. Power seats and windows. And the seats heat up, he tells you. Though in the middle of August, it’s not really necessary. It has great speakers, proven by the cheesy, 70’s baby making music he’s blasting from them. You can’t imagine Steve actually listens to this, but that it’s an attempt to get you in the mood.

He brings you to a diner for dinner where he tries to share a milkshake with you and then it’s a trip to the drive-in movies. It’s ripped out of the 50’s. Especially the part where he tries to make out with you, which okay, yes you indulge in until he grabs a handful of your breast.

“Alright, Romeo,” you laugh, pushing him back, “Cool it down a little.”

“Sorry,” he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and settles back into the driver's seat. His cheeks are ruddy, either with embarrassment or arousal, you aren’t sure.

“It’s fine—“ you tell him and adjust your blouse, “It’s kind of cute.”

“You’re really pretty,” he blurts out, smiling and it does make you giggle. But you feel a little childish right after, so you shove his head and tell him to keep watching the movie.

Must be a win for Steve because that saccharine smile doesn’t leave his face.

After the movie, he starts driving but not in the direction of your apartment. He glances at you, “I’m having a really good time. Would you be up for maybe coming back to my place? For a drink or something?”

“Your place?” you snort, crossing your arms but you’re already convinced.

Steve blushes again, “Well, I live there. My parents are like, barely home. Business trips and stuff.”

“Alright, Harrington,” you shrug, “It’s early. Let’s do it.”

—

“It’s called Flip, Sip or Strip,” he says, holding up a quarter and looking at you under hooded eyes.

You cackle, fingers delicately holding the crystal wine glass that’s definitely worth more than anything you own. You didn’t know Steve’s parents were so loaded, though the car should’ve been the indicator. The pair of you are sitting in the living room of the Harrington home. It’s so intricately designed, the entire house following the same decorative theme. And it’s remarkably clean for a place a young man lives alone 75% of the time. You wonder if there’s a housekeeper that comes and cleans up after Steve.

“You want to play a drinking game?” you scoff, crossing your legs and you don’t miss the way Steve’s eyes follow the movement.

“You’ve heard of it, then?”

“Not since freshman year of college but, sure, let’s play,” you placate him, leaning back in the chaise lounge. In the back of your mind you’re wondering why expensive furniture is so uncomfortable. Steve scrambles from the equally looking stiff couch, opening what you can assume is his parents liquor cabinet. Under the record player that plays that same cheesy, romantic 70’s R&B he was blasting in the BMW.

He sets two glasses and a bottle of tequila on the coffee table and then pats the cushion next to him on the couch.

You raise an eyebrow, “Wouldn’t it be better to stay here? So you can actually see me?”

“Good point,” he grins excitedly and then says, “You first. Call it.”

“Heads,” you slur in a sultry voice, smirking at the way he looks back at you all slack-jawed.

Then Steve flips the coin in the air, catches it in his palm and slaps it on his forearm. He uncovers it and gets this real mischievous smile on his face. He doesn’t even have to announce it, you know the coin is tails up. You laugh and lean forward to grab the bottle of tequila, pouring yourself a small shot and downing it with ease. Then you extend your palm out and Steve hands you the coin. You watch him expectantly until he says, “Tails.”

You flip it, catching it in your hand and flipping it onto your arm. You giggle as you uncover it, wiggling your eyebrows at Steve when you tell him, “Heads.”

He shucks off his coat, tossing it behind him and making grabby hands for the quarter. You roll your eyes as you drop it into his hand and tell him, “Heads.”

Steve flips the coin and then his face scrunches up in disdain, “Heads.”

You snatch the coin from his hand as you cackle triumphantly. A few more rounds go on, you take off your heels with Steve’s eyes glued to your feet and he takes a shot. Then you’re challenged again to either take a drink or remove another bit of clothing. And you’re honestly feeling that shot of tequila so you’d rather not take another so quick. Hence, your tights come off. Steve watches the motion and chews on his bottom lip.

“You a virgin, Harrington?” you ask, eyebrows knitting together.

He laughs, almost offended as he shakes his head, “Far from it. You’re just too good to look at. Anyone tell you that you could be a model?”

“Flattery will get you almost anywhere. Heads or tails, big boy?” you smooth your thumb against the warm quarter.

He guesses correctly, but you don’t on your turn. And so off comes your blouse. Steve spreads his legs across from you, hands smoothing down his jeans as he grins salaciously at you. He incorrectly guesses tails and then pulls off his polo, exposing this jungle of chest hair you’re shocked by. A smug smirk spreads across his lips as your mouth hangs open. And he’s got all these moles decorating his gorgeous skin like constellations. He combs his own fingers through his chest hair and leans back on the couch, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table. Still has his Nikes on.

You scowl as you throw the quarter at him, “Heads.”

And you lose, but you opt for another shot as you feel far more exposed than Harrington is.

A few more rounds leads to you both pleasantly buzzed and in your underwear.

“This game is stupid,” you decide when you incorrectly guess again.

Steve giggles and tosses the coin on the coffee table, “That’s okay. I’d rather take those off myself anyways.”

You hate that it works, makes your thighs warm up with dull arousal as you take your eyes over Steve’s body. He’s lean, soft but very faintly muscular. And those moles go all over him. All the way down to his feet. You heave a sigh and stand from the chaise lounge, stepping in between Steve’s legs and grabbing a hole of his square jaw. He blinks up at you, mouth ajar with fucking stars in those round, brown eyes.

“You have a really stupid, cute face,” you tell him, pushing his thick hair off his forehead.

“Uh, thanks?” he replies and you straddle his lap, pushing both hands into the waves of chestnut hair. You look at it, eyes narrowing.

“Do you have highlights?” you ask.

“Naturally— from the sun and—“ he starts but you interrupt him.

“Bullshit,” you grab onto his jaw again, “You get highlights in your hair.”

“No, I don’t,” he narrows his eyes and you completely seat yourself on his lap, feeling his erection press against your ass. You grind down on it and he lets out a gargled moan, his eyelids fluttering shut.

“You do,” you tell him and then get your lips on his jaw, feeling the subtle stubble against your face. You lick against his jawline, pushing your fingers in his hair and pulling his head back to give you more room. You begin kissing down his neck and his hands grab onto your hips, guiding you up and down against his strained, hard cock. The whole hair argument is completely forgotten by Steve, his hips jerk weakly as he leans his head back and lets out these pretty, soft sounds. The kind of sounds that make your stomach fill with excited, horny butterflies.

You mark up his neck, the skin purpling from your pleasurable abuse. Suck and bite until bruises form and Steve’s whimpering underneath you. You relent on his neck, pulling his head back to look at you as you writhe against him. His hands skate up your sides and back down, landing on your ass and pushing you harder against his erection. And you get a real good look at his pretty face. His eyes tilt down slightly at the ends and they’re so full of desire. Wonderfully expressive and beautiful. You look up at his brows, smiling to yourself as you notice they’re manicured, just ever so slightly. This man takes care of himself. More than most. His complexion is remarkably smooth. You drag your fingertip down the bridge of his nose to the tip, smiling at the sharpness of it. Then you settle your eyes on his lips as they quirk up into a smile, he likes how you’re looking at him. Admiring him. His lips are plump, pink from the way he’s been biting at them all night.

“You’re pretty,” you whisper, dragging your thumb across his bottom lip and he kisses the pad of it. Sending your stomach ablaze as you roll down on him a little firmer.

“You’re prettier,” he replies, voice husky.

“How come you don’t have a girlfriend?” you ask, tangling your fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck.

“I haven’t asked you, yet,” he tells you, smirking as he smooths his hand up your back to your bra. Unclasps it with two fingers, impressing a gasp from you and he smiles, straight and white teeth on display.

You help pull the straps from your arms and discard the lacy fabric aside, wrapping your arms around his neck again and then leaning down to capture his lips in a kiss. You don’t think too much about what he’d just said, this is fun and you’ve just met. This is the first date, you barely know each other. But while this started out as a lame date, you feel uncharacteristically smitten at this point.

Steve kisses like he needs it. Hungry. Like his oxygen supply comes from your lungs and he’s been suffocating all night. Makes you breathless and dizzy. You whimper into each desperate exchange, sucking on his tongue whenever he slips it past your lips. His arms wrap around your middle, pulling you completely flush against him. Your hands get tangled in his hair yet again, a little obsessed with the way it feels between your fingers. Your noses keep bumping into each other and his pokes your eye a handful of times but it doesn’t slow either of you down.

You lift yourself up and Steve offers a whine until he sees you’re moving to take off your underwear, then he’s helping get them off and you’re situating yourself between his legs on the floor. Hooking your fingers into the waistband of his briefs and peeling them down his thighs, gasping when his impressive length pops out and slaps against his abdomen. You give yourself a beat to look at it as Steve spreads his legs and writhes against the couch. Chewing on your bottom lip, you wrap your hands around the base of him. Your fingers don’t even meet when they’re circled around his girth.

“Christ,” you mutter and he laughs, a soft and almost insecure sound.

“I- I know, it’s kind of—“

“Huge?”

“Scary?” he asks, tilting his head as he gazes down at you.

It’s your turn to laugh, wondering how many girls have told him that. You’re not scared, no, the opposite.

“Not scary,” you tell him, “I’m thoroughly impressed.”

“Yeah? I’ve… I’ve been told it’s too—“ he swallows and his eyes squeeze shut as you stroke his length firmly.

“Too big?” you offer and work your hand up and down his gargantuan cock slowly, “I like a challenge, Stevie.”

He laughs again, but it’s a breathless laugh. He opens his eyes again and watches as you lick a broad stripe up the underside of his cock. His eyebrows furrow, lips parting with a sweet whine. You wrap your lips around the head of him, tasting the salty precum leaking from his slit. As you grip onto the base of him and attempt to take him into your mouth, you can feel just how hard he is. You lock your eyes on his, slowly sinking down on his cock. Drool slips past your lips and down the rest of his length, your hand slides up and smears the natural lube over him. You continue like that, fingers moving up and down where you can’t fit him in your mouth. You make a conscious effort to breathe out of your nose and use your tongue while you bob up and down on his cock.

Steve watches intently, thighs shaking as he tries his hardest not to buck his hips up. Just the size of him has spit pooling in your mouth and seeping down his length all the way to his heavy balls. His face looks extra pretty right now. Dazed and drunk on the pleasure, perhaps some of the tequila too.

His hands tangle into your hair, holding it out of the way as you continue your way up and down his cock.

“That’s it,” he breathes out, chest heaving as he praises you, “Doing so good for me.”

Those words hit you, make you moan on his length and wiggle your hips. You try to take him as deep as you can before pulling off, working your fist over his cock as you catch your breath. Once he’s not in your mouth, he bucks his hips and moans out shakily.

“Oh, fuck…” he seethes, his toes curling into the carpet.

You move your mouth to his balls then, still working his shaft in your hand and you start licking at his sack. Keeping your eyes trained on his gorgeous face. Steve blinks rapidly, rolling his hips up and spewing the prettiest little moans. And you’re kind of obsessed with his face at this moment, the absolute pleasure painted on it.

“So fucking pretty,” you tell him because you really can’t help yourself and Steve seems to like it, tugging on your hair and whining.

“C’mere… wanna kiss you,” he babbles out and you stand on shaky legs before crawling back into his lap and kissing him sloppily. He wraps his arms around your middle and thrusts his hips up, the side of his cock gliding through your folds and punching a surprised moan from you, which he swallows. Then his hands move down and firmly plant on your asscheeks. At first you assumed Steve was close to coming but the way he’s grinding you down on his cock tells you otherwise— he just really wanted to kiss you.

Then Steve pulls away, “Can I taste you? Please?”

You’re not inclined to say no to that, nodding your head emphatically and standing up from his lap again. You make a move to lay down on the couch, but Steve’s laying down first and grabbing at you.

“Sit on my face, please,” he whines and you flush, but do as he asks. Maneuvering your leg over his shoulders, you hover and look down at him. As if to ask if he’s sure. Which he answers by pulling you down on him, his warm and wet mouth meeting your dripping cunt. You moan out, hands grabbing onto the armrest to keep yourself upright as Steve devours your aching pussy. He’s moaning into you, seemingly loving the taste as he sucks and licks at your folds. Once you’re comfortable and downright desperate, you begin riding Steve’s gorgeous face. His hands are planted firm on your ass, guiding you through it.

“I’ve been dying to taste you all night,” he manages to tell you, pulling you off of him just the smallest inch before he’s dragging your pussy back down against his eager mouth.

“Fuck, baby,” you mutter out, “You’re so good at that…”

He really is, uses his whole face to do it. Nose rubbing against your clit, tongue teasing your hole while you drip all over his chin. You try to look down at him, lock eyes with his dazed, pussy-drunk ones but the pleasure gets overwhelming and your eyes start to flutter shut as you grind down on his expert tongue and really use his nose to get off. Your stomach fills with fire, your release gaining in ok you quickly. And once Steve’s tongue penetrates you, you’re a goner. Crying out his name in desperate pleas as you ride your orgasm out. You’re shaking when you pull off of him abruptly, worried that you’re about to suffocate him. And as you stand, looking down at him, you can’t help but giggle at the look on his face. Steve looks like he just came. Blinking slowly, a pleased smile plastered on his pink lips.

He stands with you, laces your fingers and kisses you softly. You can taste yourself on his lips but you don’t mind, giggling into it.

“Can I take you to my bedroom?” he asks once he pulls away.

You nod, shyly and looking up at him with stars in your eyes. He guides you up the stairs, stopping along the way to steal kisses. You’re not sure the last time you felt so much romance tangled in with sex. He presses you to the wall next to his bedroom door, swoops his mouth down to capture yours in a disproportionate chaste kiss. Again, linking your fingers and holding them above your head as he connects his forehead to yours.

“Don’t laugh— okay?”

You giggle, gazing up at him curiously, “Sorry. I won’t.” It’s unclear exactly what Steve’s asking you not to laugh at, but once he opens his bedroom door, you get it. It’s the ugliest bedroom you’ve ever seen. Everything is drenched in plaid, the wallpaper, the curtains, the bedspread. All so offensive. You bite your lip to stifle the laugh, but it all dissolves when you turn to watch Steve close the door and get a glimpse at his cock which is very much still hard. Then his bedroom doesn’t seem so silly anymore. Your hand wraps around his length as you press him against the door, kissing him filthy all over again.

Steve whimpers from the touch, muffled against your tongue as he places his hand on your face and holds you while he kisses back.

“I need you,” he slurs into your mouth and you nod, kissing him before you walk towards his bed. You lay yourself on it, head on his pillows as you bring your hands up to fondle your own tits. Watching as Steve’s hand falls down to his cock, stroking himself slowly. He then climbs on top of you, kissing you tenderly before he’s reaching over to his nightstand but something tells you to stop him, so you do. Hand on his wrist.

“No… I,” you swallow, lust driving this decision completely, “I wanna feel you… just you.”

Steve inhales sharply, moves his hand to push his cock down for some relief as he says to you, “Fuck… are you sure?”

You wrap your arms around his neck as you nod slowly at him, spreading your legs for him. He drops his head down to kiss you, all slow and gentle. His hand slips between your bodies, grabbing his cock and teasing the head of it against your aching center. You gasp softly, hands tangled in his hair as your hips roll, causing the tip of his cock to catch on your dripping hole. Steve sinks in slowly, inch by inch. It’s quite the stretch, has your jaw dropping as you adjust. His cock is hot and thick, you can feel it pulsing as it drags against your walls. It’s so delicious and heady, your legs instinctively wrap around his waist and your hips roll up until he’s completely sheathed inside you. And Steve’s gentle, doesn’t jack hammer into you immediately like most men would. He stays still and lets you get used to the feeling, kissing you softly and tenderly between needy moans and gasps.

“Feel so full,” you confess in a whisper and that gets Steve thrusting into you, groaning lowly against your lips.

“Yeah?” he asks, “You’re so fucking wet and tight… squeezing my cock so good.”

“Oh, Steve,” you moan, tugging his hair while he slowly builds a steady and deep rhythm. His hand moves to grab your thigh, squeezing it while he grinds down into you. The tip of his cock prods against that spongy, sweet spot inside you. Punches a yelp out of you to which he looks down at you, panicked.

“You okay?” he asks, blinking rapidly.

You nod, scratching down his back as you plead, “Fuck, yes… right there, do it again.”

A smile spreads across his lips, pretty teeth showing as he thrusts into you again. And again. Your back arches with it, pressing your tits to his chest as your legs spread further on their own volition. You place your hand on his cheek, watching his stunning face as he sinks in and out of your pussy, the filthiest sounds echoing in the room. He licks his lips, brow furrowing as his thrusts get harder and faster. Each time, he rubs against that bundle of nerves deep inside you. Dragging the most pornographic sounds you’ve ever made from your throat. You’re not sure you could recover from this, suddenly really hoping he does ask you to be his girlfriend. The two of you have barely even started and it’s the best you’ve ever felt in your life. His cock filling you in a way that makes you want to cry, in a good way.

“Steeeeeve…” you moan out, low and uncontrollably. “Fuck… that’s so good. Just like that, baby… yes…”

His lips are on your ear now, lowly telling you, “Taking me so well… such a good girl…”

Your cunt clenches around him, little desperate and pleasure filled pants and moans pouring out of you. “Steve, Steve… oh, Steve!” you chant, scratching down his back a second time.

His hips still and he laughs, burying his face in your neck as he mumbles, “Fuck- fuck, don’t wanna cum yet.”

You grab his face and pull his lips to yours, unhooking your legs from his waist as you kiss him deeply. Tongues lazily curling together, panting into each other's open mouths. You give him a beat to come back down, then you’re flipping the pair of you. Get Steve on his back and you on top of him, without disconnecting where you two meet. You place your hands on his furry chest, feeling the jungle of hair you’ve been staring at since he took his shirt off that night. His hands grip onto your hips, gasping and panting as he stares up at you, awestruck look on his beautiful face.

“You’re so pretty,” you tell him again and he laughs, that wonderful breathless sound you’re starting to fall in love with. Which is dangerous but right now, you don’t care.

“I’ve got the prettiest girl on top of me… and she’s telling me I’m pretty,” he mumbles out, dazed smile on his face.

“You are,” you assure him just as you start to rock your hips, face confronting as you feel his cock prod at that sweet spot deep inside you again. Your eyes cross from it, eyebrows knitting together as you bite your lip and you begin riding him steadily. Slow and gentle at first but soon enough, you’re bouncing up and down on his cock.

“Fuck, that’s it, baby… just like that…” Steve babbles out, snaking his hand around and his thumb finds your clit easily. Works in quick, firm circles. Has you riding him even faster and harder as your climax threatens to rush over you. Building and building so quickly.

“Steve…. Steve?” you whimper.

Sweet, lopsided smile on his face when he asks, “Yeah, baby?”

“I’m gonna fucking cum,” you confess, scratching your nails against his chest as you grind down on his length.

Steve keeps up his ministrations on your clit, doesn’t switch anything up. But he heaves this happy, aroused laugh and tells you, “Cum for me, cum all over my cock. Use me.”

Your body tenses when it hits you, sending you over the edge and you collapse on top of him. Face buried in his neck as you spew cries and moans. He grabs your hips, holds you steady and plants his feet on the mattress. That’s when he lets loose, thrusts into you with everything he’s worth. Mouthing praise against your ear as he fucks you silly.

Your eyes roll back, his thrusts punching repetitive and loud moans from your lungs.

“Fuck— I’m gonna— fuck, I’m gonna cum,” he warns and squirms underneath you but you make no attempt to move.

“Fill me up, Steve,” you whisper against his ear, kissing under it and then telling him, “Wanna feel it. Cum inside me, baby.”

He lets out a gargled moan, arms wrapping around you firmly as he thrusts one last time and releases inside you, coating your walls with his spend. Your lips meet again, lazily and spent kisses as you both come down.

Steve strokes your hair, holds you close and kisses your cheek before he asks, “You wanna stay the night?”

“Yeah.. yeah, I do,” you reply, pushing his hair off his sweaty forehead. “As long as you make you breakfast.”

“I’ll make you anything you want,” he says with a smile before flipping you over and kissing you deeply.

And okay… maybe it wasn’t such a lame date.

[myfictionaldreams]

Day 11: Exhibitionism/Voyeurism - Winter Soldier

Summary: Home alone, you think it's safe to have some 'special time', but unbeknown to you, he's there, always watching and admiring.

Tags: 18+ readers only, smut, dubious content, stalker!winter soldier, masturbation, sex toys, loneliness, exhibitionism, voyeurism

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kinktober masterlist😈 

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Being the adoptive daughter of the infamous Alexander Pierce wasn’t always as exciting and full of potential danger as you’d expect. For the most part, you are confined to your heavily guarded home 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Despite being an adult and wanting to live your own life, your father deemed it too dangerous that you could be captured and used for ransom.

Throughout your life, you’d never even seen one second of action or risk, and some would say that just means your father has protected you to the best of his abilities. There is a point, however, where you need something exciting in your life even though there are only limited ways to get any thrill.

This usually occurred when you were home alone, like tonight. Bored out of your mind whilst watching the TV attached to the wall in the living room, your dad walked past, clicking a button on his phone before tying his show lace. Glancing at the time on your phone, you assumed he was going to work, considering it was so late; you knew better than to ask him what was wrong to demand his time.

Walking over, your dad briefly paused to lean down and kiss your forehead, pretending he cared, but there was nothing Alexander Pierce truly loved more than Hydra. He didn’t even need to say that he was leaving as your dad prepared to leave, assuming you had caught on to his gathering of stuff that he would be going, but before he could step out of the door, you shouted in his direction, “Am I expecting company tonight?”

Your Dad knew who you were referring to. The Winter Soldier. The assassin whom you’d met on numerous occasions tended to turn up unannounced to your home in search of your father to debrief or receive new orders, so you made sure to ask regarding his whereabouts so that you could be prepared for a midnight visit.

“No, he’s a couple of states away on a mission and not due to be back for another few days. I’ll lock up on my way out; don’t wait up for me”. Without another look or even an ‘I love you’, Alexander Pierce left out of the front door, and the sound of the shutters around the windows started to descend, and the thick locks on all doors clicked into place.

You were locked in, and as soon as the metal stopped creaking and you knew your dad’s car had driven off, you sighed in sweet relief at finally being home alone. It was almost like an automatic reaction for your body to become horny as soon as you were locked in, knowing that no one would interrupt and you had free reign to do whatever you pleased, which would always be masturbation.

Turning up the TV loud so you could hear it from your bedroom and not feel as alone, you changed your clothing to just an oversized shirt and nothing more, selecting which vibrator you wanted from the box beneath your bed. Today was going to be the purple bullet vibrator and then returned to the living room.

This was one of the only places where you could feel any sort of rebellion or thrill. Yes, you could and do masturbate in your bedroom just like anyone else would, but being able to do it in technically a public space gave you little bursts of adrenaline. If your father returned home, you’d be able to hear the security system unlocking, but it was also an area that was supposed to be where everyone gathered and had family time. This didn’t refer to your home, though, as you were the only person to use the living area as your father was either in his office, the gym or not home at all.

Lying down on the soft couch, your head nestling into the decorative pillow, you tried to focus your mind into the horny zone. The excitement you anticipated hit you in your gut as you lifted your shirt until it rested over your collarbones to reveal your nude body.

As the chilled breeze ghosted over your skin, it caused a ripple effect of goosebumps to shiver over you, nipples hardening, which sparked pleasure to build in your abdomen and moisture to slick at your entrance. Closing your eyes, your fingers teased over your breasts, imagining they were someone else's hands, exploring the fresh and finding where you were most sensitive.

Pinching your nipples gently, you released a soft sigh as another hand drifted down to the sensitive skin of your inner thigh. Biting your lip, your knees separated to allow your fingers to collect some of the juices that had leaked from your hole and then spread it over your clit, massaging the bundle of nerves in circles.

You were entirely in the zone, feeling increasingly more aroused with breathy moans and whimpers escaping your open mouth each second. This was your favourite place to be, hot and bothered, getting yourself off to feel your cunt pulsing around two of your fingers.

Then you were pressing the vibrator against your clit with two fingers delved into your warmth, curling and pressing on the spot that had your back arching and breaths hitching.

Everything was building, like an orchestra reaching its crescendo, approaching the peak of no return and complete euphoria. Then, the sensation rushed over you. Not the pleasant orgasmic blissful shiver but a haunting, the hairs standing on end over your arms and the back of your neck with unease. It felt like someone was watching you, but that wasn’t the case; the building was locked down, and the security cameras didn't point in this direction.

Your eyes opened on instinct, and fear, horror and dread pulsed through your stomach as you screamed, closing your legs and rushing to stand and cover your body with your shirt. Your knees buckled from the lasting effects of getting yourself off, but you clung to the arm of the couch whilst trying to turn off the vibrator.

It felt like your heart had moved to your throat, with the fear of throwing up and passing out at the same time taking over as you stared unblinking at the man currently sitting in the armchair next to the couch you’d been masturbating on. He was sitting as still as a statute, head to toe, in his tactical gear, even the mask.

“Soldier?” your voice reverberates off the walls you’ve shouted that loud. All it earned you was a tilt of his head to the side, but he didn’t say a single word, so you continued to shout, even though you knew you should have remained calm around someone as dangerous as him. “What the fuck are you doing here? You should have knocked or- something! How did you even get in here?!”

He simply sat there, staring at you with deep blue eyes, his long hair framing his face, his deadly hands resting on the arms of the chair, acting casually like he hadn’t just been sitting there as you feverishly masturbated naked in front of him. The more time passed, the worse your tremors became, almost like you were vibrating with anxiety.

It wasn’t uncommon for the Winter Soldier to not knock when he came to the house however usually your father was present or he’d been anticipated but for him to somehow get in when the house was on lockdown and not be expected, it had you on edge.

“Why didn’t you announce yourself, Soldier?” you tried to sound confident and not fearful, but your voice cracked on the last word, which gave away your anxiety. Your thoughts were going around and around in your head; how long had he been there? How did you not even hear him walking into the room?

The Assets head tilted to the other right, his eyes remaining focused only on your face as he finally began to talk in his low, drawled voice, “Why did you stop?”

Your eyes widened in shock briefly before trying to regain control, “What did you say?”

“You don’t usually stop. Why did you stop now?”

Your heart seemed to stop at this question. Swallowing the thick glob of spit in your mouth, you asked, “What do you mean usually? Have... have you seen me doing this before?”

He nods slowly, and you want to vomit immediately. Closing your eyes briefly, you tried to take a deep breath, hoping it would give you some composure. Maybe this was karma working her evil magic on you, you had decided, for having a kink with being caught, which is why you masturbated in the living room. Why on earth were you now upset when you’d actually been caught?

Sighing and rubbing both hands over your face, ignoring that they were still slightly wet from earlier, you tried to explain to the assassin, “You know, it’s not normal to watch people during intimate times like this. You’re supposed to announce yourself or something”.

“But you look at peace when you do it”, he says in the same emotionless voice. His words catch you off guard, but he continues, “You didn’t finish today like you usually do”.

The way he spoke about what you were doing, you weren’t even sure he knew what it was or the consequences of your actions. You knew his history, who he was and how they controlled him. Did he even know what sex was with all the times his mind had been wiped? He wasn’t acting like a creep, even if he had snuck in to watch you masturbate and clearly had watched it several times before. If he was going to hurt you, he would have done so by now, so tentatively, you sat back onto the couch, still pulling the bottom of your shirt lower over your legs and hiding the vibrator beneath your thigh.

“I didn’t finish like the other times because I didn’t know you were watching; it can make people uncomfortable knowing someone is watching them”.

“Does it make you uncomfortable that you know I’m watching?” his tone lowered with the question he was asking.

“Yes! I don’t want people to watch me do this, and what if my Dad finds out? What if you tell him what I’ve been doing?”

Bucky finally showed some emotion as he frowned in confusion, “Why would I tell your father about this? It has nothing to do with the mission? I like watching you because you seem to enjoy it; isn’t that a good thing?”

He seemed so innocent in his questioning. “Just so I’m getting this right, are you expecting me to continue?” The soldier nods yes in an answer as you release a long breath. “If I say no, will you kill me?” This time, he shakes his head, giving you the answer no, which did little to alleviate the nerves catapulting through you.

Standing up from the couch whilst clutching the vibrator, you rushed towards your bedroom, intending to hide the sex toy and lock yourself in so that you didn’t have to sit looking at the soldier anymore. However, as you stood before the door, you thought it over more. If he’d been watching you all of this time, then what’s the difference with him being here now? He could overpower you any time he wanted, and he didn't want any pleasure back; otherwise, he would have made advances before.

This whole situation came about because you liked the thought of being watched or caught, so why were you running away from that scenario? Having made up your mind, you returned to the living room, where the Soldier hadn’t moved even a strand of hair since you’d left in a hurry.

Sitting back on the couch, your eyes remained everywhere but on him. In fact, as you led back down, you closed your eyes with the hopes that not being able to see him would help to calm the pounding of your nervous heart.

Your nipples were still hard, so you pressed on them through your shirt with trembling fingers, not quite believing you were in this situation. The wetness from your earlier escapades was still evident over your thighs, which you sept firmly closed. Biting your lower lip until it hurt, you kept stimulating your nipples by rubbing the peaks around in circles before pinching them to elicit more of a reaction between your legs.

It worked after a couple of minutes as your muscles lost the tension and melted into the cushions further. Eventually, your thighs were spreading as you tried to only think about that orgasm that had been so very close to pleasuring your body but had quickly disappeared from the soldier's appearance.

With your legs now parted and cunt on full displaying, facing the Asset at the end of the couch, you turned the vibrator on, deciding to go straight for the toy this time rather than playing around first. Pressing the device just above your clit, you released a breathy moan, thighs shaking with the increased delight.

This time, your body heated to the point of sweat, and your face hot to the touch because no matter how much you tried to think of anything else, it always came back to the man sitting near you. With your hips jolting and rolling to push against the vibrator, your fingers moved the shirt further up your stomach, revealing your navel and breasts so you could rub and play with them without restriction.

Then, to both your horror and delight, the Winter Solider flashed into your mind, but this time, it was him hovering above you, using his gloved hands to press against your nipples. Your moans increased in volume, back arching with this thought as you begged your mind to continue this naughty thought.

Releasing your breast, your hand trailed down your body, tickling the delicate skin before dipping past your clit and two fingers into your drenched cunt. You were sure he had thicker fingers than you, but the thought of him between your legs, curling them right into that beautiful spot, his other hand holding the vibrator to your clit, had you whithering around on the couch.

Your pussy clenched harshly around your fingers, trying to draw them deeper, needing their fullness. You weren’t sure when it was, but at some point, your eyes opened so that you could look directly at the man in question, who still had failed to move from his seat in the armchair. You weren’t looking at his body thought; you were looking at those sparking blue eyes partially hidden beneath his hair as they continued to look at just your face like he only wanted to see the pleasure you displayed rather than just touching yourself.

“Oh god”, you groan aloud to these thoughts, legs spreading further open and half-flopping off the couch as you curl your fingers faster and harder. You wished it was his fingers touching you, getting you off and bringing you close to the point of orgasming. The vibrator stroked back and forth against your throbbing clit, and that was all the additional stimulation you needed to reach your peak.

Your eyes finally closed once more as you came hard, body shaking and curling in on yourself with each pulse of your pussy around your fingers. You hadn’t orgasmed that hard in months, so it took you a couple of minutes to try and catch your breath and come out of the buzzing created by the euphoria. 

Now what? You thought whilst turning off the vibrator entirely and leaving the two of you in complete silence. The assassins still hadn’t moved, and for a brief second, you thought of his arousal. Could he even be turned on? Was that a function the scientists allowed him to keep while brainwashed? Was he watching you enough to turn him on?

The thought was swiftly pushed out of your mind as you realised he was the fucking Winter Soldier, the highest-trained assassin who was also 70+ years old; this was probably last on his list of things to be worried about. Sitting up whilst covering your body with your t-shirt once more, you struggled to think what to say or do.

“Do you want me to call my Dad to tell him you’re here for a debrief?” From the corner of your eye, the Asset nodded. You stood to take the call in your bedroom, but as you stood, your eyes briefly looked at him more clearly and noticed that he very evidently had an erection with the way his tactical gear was tented at the crotch. For some reason, this made you feel relieved that he had been turned on by what you saw, and it wasn’t just a one-way situation.

Standing and walking into your bedroom, you collapsed onto the bed with your phone raised to your ear.

Your dad answered immediately with a stern tone, “Yes?”

“Uh hey, Dad, just to let you know, the Soldier’s here”.

“What?” came Alexander Pierces’ concerned voice through the mobile.

“Yeah, he just turned up a couple of minutes ago in the living room”.

“Well, tell him to get back to the compound. I won’t be home tonight, so he needs to come here”.

Finishing the conversation with him, you stood to tell the Soldier his orders but found him nowhere in the building, not in the living room, kitchen or even by the front door. He had simply vanished, and what's more, the alarm was still in place, which meant he had a way of getting in and out of your home without triggering the alarm, which you were sure if it terrified or excited you.

[jiminrings]

fail-safe (3)

pairing: yoongi x reader

wordcount: 14k

glimpse: you hear everything you've ever wanted, but you don't know if it's too late.

alternatively, yoongi is consumingly yours all the time.

[ part one, intermission, part two, intermission 02, finale ]

[ still angst (but u can breathe now bc it’s the finale), brother’s best friend AND single dad au, jealousy, yearning from all angles, did i say angst alr (mom-wise and brother-wise), fluff, redemption ]

notes: this is it for the chronological series of fail-safe :-) from the bottom of my heart thank you so sooooo much for reading n loving!!! sharing fs with the lot of u is an experience (and era) i'll never forget!!!

as always, lmk what you think <3 send in feedback n love to my askbox anytime!! | series masterlist

Your trip back home isn’t as rough as you expected it to be. 

Somehow, there’s a huge difference between coming home alone and coming home with Jungkook. There’s an irreplaceable weight in your chest that still flares even at the mention of Yoongi, the anger you have towards him mixing with the trepidation of holding everything in you, not just him, for another three days. There’s an angry rash around your fingertips just waiting for you to pick on your nails until they’re raw because atleast in that way, you get to forget the way Yoongi’s hand picked up yours in the dark.

There’s an ache in you that not even Yoongi and Hyewon could undo by never having met in the first place. It’s long been there, perhaps even older than Haneul. The ache of unfulfillment in you is bred by everything significant in your life — all from your first argument with your mom because of your lack of direction in life, to your latest heartbreak that keeps manifesting into your first ever.

You're no longer angry recounting the fact that you weren't destined for greatness. Namjoon turned out beyond great, world-renowned even, despite living in the same home that you did. Maybe it's not your environment or your lack of a passion that hindered you — maybe, it's just you alone.

Maybe, some part of you had ached too much from reaching (read: loving) too far up, you're doomed to live the rest of your life unfulfilled. Yoongi's never been yours, but the way your heart withdraws from him is as if he's always been.

You've done your share. You've completed your fill. You've worked yourself to the bone to make anything (not something, and certainly not everything) out of yourself that even if you're not decorated in sports like Namjoon nor celebrated in music like Yoongi, you have a fail-safe to fall back on.

You're earning more than the white collars you could recognize from your old yearbook and even if it's to look after someone, to look after Jungkook and his craft, and neither use your actual degree nor make a name out of yourself — a part of you feels fulfilled.

If being fulfilled meant being in the shadows as a manager; if it meant caring for someone in a professional context yet in a way you've always known with practice, with love, through the years– you'll take it.

You'll take the peace of being fulfilled without a trophy than to be listless trying to compete for first place.

You're fulfilled now to be sitting at the passenger seat of your own car because despite having never been to your place anymore, Jungkook fought with you in order to get his hands on the wheel.

You're fulfilled now, even if you only took Jungkook's silly suggestion (read: insistence) of fake-dating him just so you wouldn't have to face your family and Yoongi alone. You're fulfilled despite having no real place in neither men's lives.

Oddly enough, Jungkook wants to be both. He wants to be fulfilled and compete for first  place in a position in your life that he can't even say to your face.

Jungkook holds you right in the middle of the living room, his eyes wide and grin sparkling as if the director had already said action! and the task for him was to act out what being in love looked like, right in front of his female lead's family in her childhood home. (Read: he isn't acting at all.)

“And he’s…?” your mom lets the question hang in the air, eyes trailing from Jungkook’s face, to his bicep, to how his forearm fits snugly against your back and his hand curls around your waist. Your mom visibly looks surprised, although you don’t know if it’s about the fact that you actually came back despite everything, or if it’s because her favorite actor is in her kitchen while she’s sweaty in an apron, or if it’s because said favorite actor leaves no space between the two of you.

“Jeon Jungkook, ma’am. It’s nice to finally meet you,” he greets politely, a little jittery now that he’s face-to-face with her. He’s only heard of the woman she is from you and as much as he tried to picture her from memory, your stories don’t do her much justice. Jungkook’s always loved your kind eyes and your sweet smile, but he knows now where you’ve got it from; in fact, if he turns around right now right after shaking her hand and bowing profusely, you’re showing exactly those to him — that, along with a pair of gazes he can’t place.

Those gazes aren’t kind at all. One is confused and dumbfounded, and the other harbors nothing but hostility and anger.

“Sweetheart, I know you. Who doesn’t?” your mom’s at a loss for breath, mouth still agape as she keeps flickering her eyes between the two of you. She knows that you’re his manager, but what she doesn’t know is why the Jeon Jungkook is in her humble kitchen of all places. He has the most expressive and sincere eyes ever — he can’t possibly mistake your childhood home as a filming set and your waist as a hand rest.

You finally placate her thoughts when you speak, the loaded silence between the three of you (it’s buzzing with tension if you account for the other two) breaking. You actually giggle, your laughter taking the load off her shoulders because you’re happy; you don’t feel an ounce of guilt even if you’re lying to her face. 

“We’re dating, mom,” you grin. “Jungkook’s my boyfriend.”

Jungkook smiles automatically, feeling your hand snake towards his own. His palm’s much bigger than yours yet it’s warmer than you’ve ever imagined, the envelope both of your hands make putting you at ease.

Your mom’s gasp bounces across the walls. Namjoon’s head that’s only been lowered the entire time you’ve been back suddenly whips to look at you and Jungkook. The fridge even lowers its hum to make way for the theatrics aimed at you, yet your eyes are fixed on your mom’s and Jungkook’s alone.

You came home for her and with him. You’re not here for anyone nor anything else because it’s merely a play for your survival, only this time, Jungkook’s hellbent on increasing your odds.

Yoongi freezes evidently, hand tightening around Haneul’s bottle as if it would do anything to release the red from his vision. He staggers silently, breathing suddenly ragged as he stares down at the offending steel cylinder. It’s small. Compact. If anything, he figures it would hurt if he were to throw it at anything. Anyone. Someone, even.

“Wow, that’s.. that’s amazing!” she embraces the both of you, making you and Jungkook share a gaze you only laugh through because he actually looks honored.

“Thank you, ma’am. I’m sorry I haven’t had the time to let you know personally,” he apologizes meekly for a mistake that isn’t even one in the first place, the humility in his tone making your ears perk. It’s Jungkook onceagain with the apologies towards you that he shouldn’t be making at all, and yet, even in front of your family, he persists.

Jungkook apologizes even for the things he hasn’t done, not because he plans on doing them, but because a large part of him wants to be in the actual situation wherein those mistakes were merely possibilities.

“It’s no problem at all. You’re busy getting all these awards, I know how that’s like,” she jokes, unable to stop smiling. “I’m just glad someone’s taking care of my baby.”

“And I don’t plan on missing a single day, ma’am.”

“Stop that,” she chides, shaking her head eagerly. “You can call me mom.”

Yoongi lets the bottle clatter to the sink.

( ♡ ) 

Yoongi hadn’t been able to sleep last night.

He’d woken up in a cold sweat hours before his alarm was supposed to go off to cook dinner for everyone, even if it was only yourfavorite. The anxiousness that bubbled in his veins when he was asleep was going to burst and while Yoongi thought nothing of it initially, he realizes in panic that it was actually pointing to something. 

He woke up next to Haneul and he was placated momentarily, but the knot tied around his heart tightens twofold when he sees Hyewon on the same bed.

On your bed.

The guilt that filled Yoongi then was enough for the bile to creep up into his throat, making him stagger outside to find Namjoon pacing right outside of his own bedroom. His personal phone’s tucked in between his ear and his shoulder, his hands preoccupied scrolling through whatever it is on his work phone. Yoongi momentarily stops his panic to inquire why the hell Namjoon’s panicking and why did he just see a glimpse of your social media accounts pulled up to the screen, your following list staring your brother in the eyes.

“What? What happened? Is it Y/N?”

Namjoon only looked at him with nothing but pity and guilt, the resentment he had for himself bleeding through the way he shifted his gaze to him.

“She saw you and Hyewon.”

Yoongi hadn’t been able to sleep since.  

He didn’t even blink when Hyewon thanked him and said her goodbyes. He wasn’t even fazed when his ex-wife kissed Haneul goodbye and his son only resumed playing with his blocks. Yoongi hadn’t even tended to himself throughout the entire night, surrendering himself to be awake in your couch in the far event that you’d come home.

Yoongi wanted to follow you home, except almost exactly similar to the past, he had chased you out of what’s supposed to be your own home in the first place. The difference now was that he didn’t mean for Hyewon to be on your bed at all, let alone your room, but in the back of Yoongi’s thick skull — he figures that it won’t be enough for you.

Yoongi waits for you all night throughout the morning like a loyal dog waiting for its master, his chest rising up and down in hope yet his chin down in despondence. You do end up coming back home though, but your presence is neither unaccompanied nor for him.

With you is Jeon Jungkook, your boyfriend.

If only Haneul hadn’t asked for his bottle to be brought upstairs because he’s watching cartoons on Yoongi’s laptop, he would’ve collapsed on the floor then and there, uncaring of the way everyone else would be looking down on him.

If only Namjoon’s gaze wasn’t flitting to him to gauge his reaction because it’s the first time he’s, or by everyone else rather, hearing that you have a boyfriend, Yoongi would put his hands on his head and curse until his piercing migraine suddenly disappears.

If only your mother wasn’t here, frozen in the kitchen mostly because of what you just revealed and who you came home with, and partly because she’s waiting for him to finish washing Haneul’s bottle, he would’ve thrown up right in the sink.

Yoongi gathers all his pain and keeps it shut within himself until he gets you alone, catching you by the staircase when everyone else has dispersed.

“I’m sorry. Namjoon told me what you saw and-…” he stops himself when you look up at him with an innocent yet empty gaze, the weight of it (or lack thereof) startling him. “Let me explain why Hyewon was there in your bed.”

“I don’t want to listen,” you enunciate clearly, keeping your voice down because both Jungkook and Haneul are a few steps away. You do it for their sake and not for Yoongi’s, the bitterness in your chest physically restricting you to think about his state.

Yoongi pushes on, breath already catching in his throat when you’re still stiff as a stone. You haven’t even made a break for it yet; he only unconsciously held onto you out of fear that you’ll be out of his sight. “She was in the area because her parents are old and they don’t know much about selling their house here a-and well, she knows that I did the same for my parents when they sold ours. Nothing happened. I just helped her with the sale! S-she was playing with Haneul in the living room while I napped a-and, I just… when I woke up, they were right next to me. Y/N, I swear, nothing-…”

You shake your head fervently, the innocence of his reason doing little to break the seal in your stomach. You feel it dropping once again and even if Yoongi’s right, even if he’s saying the truth, the sight alone of him appearing to be a part of a happy family jogs up all the pain.

“I don’t want to listen and you don’t have to explain either.”

“But I hurt you. That’s why I want to explain,” he stutters. Yoongi’s eyes are so glassy, you could see your reflection in them.

“Oh. So you know,” you whisper, teeth harshly digging into your bottom lip. “I hate Hyewon for a lot of things but not for being the mother of your child. That’s out of my reach. I get it. She’s his mom and that’s that,” you admit, the vacancy in your chest and on your ring finger reminding you what Yoongi had never given you the chance for. “What I hate is that you let her sleep in my room. Seeing Haneul in there is good. You and him? That’s okay because I let you sleep in there,” you heave, voice close to breaking because of how you force it to be tamped down. “I hate how you let her sleep in my room, Yoongi. I-I, I fucking hate it because it’s just like that time I caught you practically fucking her in my room.”

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t-…” Yoongi sniffles, tears already pouring. The staircase in your house is far too narrow to hold the both of you, let alone your history. “I didn’t think. I didn’t notice, a-and, I didn’t think. I didn’t think at all, Y/N. I thought it was okay for a split second because we looked like-…”

“A family,” you finish for him. “I get it. I do,” you nod your head fervently, your own hand snaking to your lips to stop the sharp inhale that pains you from the inside. “Almost everyone loses their sense of reason when it comes to family.”

“I didn’t notice she already entered the room. But I-I woke up,” Yoongi still swears up and down, adamant on his truth that you aren’t open to entertaining because he’s hurt you far too many times before. “Hyewon and I… we’re not. We’re co-parenting.”

“Still a family.”

“But-…”

“What the hell do you want to hear from me, Yoongi?” you snap, voice finally toning down when you notice faint footsteps coming from the second floor. “Do you— do you want me to agree with you and say that the three of you aren’t a family? And for what, s-so that could somehow excuse you for everything you’ve done? I don’t even know what family’s supposed to mean at this point!”

From upstairs, Namjoon suppresses a sob.

“My mom doesn’t know a single thing about all of this. I-I can’t even cry to her because I’m thinking of you. I’m thinking of protecting you, your son that she looks to as a grandson, a-and even your mom who’s her best friend,” you break into tears, ignoring the baby towel that Yoongi keeps on his person all the time that he offers to you. You sound far too defeated, and maybe you actually are, that Yoongi lets you push past him. “Meanwhile, my own brother probably knows everything but his first instinct is to protect you. Not me, his actual sibling. You.”

.

.

.

Namjoon had been waiting for you upstairs. He’s been barricading the door to the bathroom because he knows you can’t go to bed without your nightly shower, and because he knows that out of every space in the house, it must be the only one left wherein you can be truly alone with no hint of Yoongi.

“We have to talk,” he gets out as soon as you make eye contact with him, the towel that’s slung on your shoulder almost falling at the urgency to which he pulls you aside.

“It can wait.”

“I need to apologize,” he pleads once again, gripping your wrist gently like he had always done when you were kids to get you to listen to him.

“And I said it can wait. I can’t stand you right now,” you grit, the tears on your cheeks barely being dried up when Namjoon, unsurprisingly, decides to apologize to you within the same timeframe as Yoongi. They hadn’t planned it at all — the guilt and remorse weighed far too heavy for them to actually communicate.

“Where will you sleep?” he asks instead, exhaling heavily because you’re insistent on not crying again in barely your first night back, again. “Where will Jungkook sleep?”

“We’ll sleep together in a hotel.”

“Hotel?” Namjoon asks loudly, eyes bulging in shock. His voice is far too loud that everyone in the house (and maybe even your neighbors) must have heard him. “That’s nonsense. This is home, Y/N. You don’t have to book a hotel.”

“It is?” you seethe, your closed fists tightening on themselves painfully. “Did you also say the same thing to Hyewon? To Yoongi in the first place?”

“It’s my fault for-…”

You’re unaware that you and Namjoon are neck to neck until your mom chimes in out of nowhere, her gentle eyes asking more questions than she’s actually uttering. “What’s going on?” she switches her gaze between you and him. “Are the two of you fighting?”

“No,” you answer in unison, unable to fit a relieved sigh in between the terse silence.

“It’s nothing, mom,” Namjoon puts a hand on your shoulder, his smile tight and tense. “I was just telling Y/N that she doesn’t have to book a hotel.”

“Why would you book a hotel?” she gasps incredulously, her tone being the exact copy of Namjoon’s just a second ago.

“It’s just crowded in here, mom. That’s all,” you muster a sheepish smile, your posture slouching the more you realize that there’s no way out.

“I can ask Yoongi and Haneul to transfer to Namjoon’s so you can-..”

“No-!” you interrupt her in a hurry, breath hitching at the mention of him. “No, no. That’s unnecessary. I don’t want to sleep in my room.”

There’s a loaded pause between all of you, even between the door that Yoongi has his back on as he listens in.

“You and Jungkook can take my room instead,” Namjoon insists, his offer only barely scratching the surface of the apology that you truly deserve.

“Great. Thanks,” you conclude, already halfway into the bathroom when the sudden thought strikes you, your curiosity (and limit, by extension) getting the best of you to ask Namjoon while your mom’s still here. “How… how much longer are they gonna stay here?”

“I… haven’t asked yet,” Namjoon admits, the animosity you have towards Yoongi not going unnoticed by your mother.

“You need to ask then,” you quip. “This house is too small to have everyone and anyone.”

( ♡ ) 

Jungkook woke up in peace from sleeping in a bed that isn’t his.

Even before you actually got to shower (and not just sit on the toilet seat whilst trying to compose yourself) since you forgot to retrieve your clothes from your suitcase, Jungkook was already starfished in the middle of Namjoon’s bed. It’s a touching sight atop your own blanket and bug spray that your brother put in for you.

The two of you are far from okay. As a matter of fact, the only people you’re truly okay with in the house is your mom and Haneul; despite knowing that fully, Jungkook still dived in head-first in the middle of your situation. You’ve tried to dissuade him all throughout the five-hour long car ride, and not once did he even budge.

He’s here for you and no one else. He’s snoring in the middle of your sibling’s bed whom you aren’t in good terms with. He’s at ease with you in a province that he’s never stepped foot in, all because he felt compelled to protect you somehow and wouldn’t take no for an answer. 

Jungkook cares for you, enough to write a note and place it beside him just before he went to sleep, telling you that he’s a messy sleeper and to either jolt him awake to move or just manhandle him to the side so you could also sleep on the bed.

You go for the latter, trying to pry him as gently as you could (but even if you just hauled him like a sack of potatoes, he still wouldn’t wake up because he’s at ease too much; it’s you, of course) before finally calling it a night.

You may have lied awake mulling over the perpetual ache in your chest, but you didn’t cry at all.

Eventually, you fall asleep to the sound of Jungkook snoring.

.

.

.

Jungkook may have slept earlier than you, but he makes sure that you stay in late. (read: he physically tucked you into bed so snugly, you probably can’t even shift your shoulders by a centimeter). He wants to pull his weight around a house he hasn’t even been in, even if you hadn’t asked him to — you’d never do, because even as a manager and not as a fake-girlfriend, you don’t let him lift a single finger. Simply put, Jungkook feels this massive pull, not to perform for you, but serve you.

He finds himself quietly going down the stairs, still in his socks because you had stolen his house slippers just last night and he doesn’t have the heart to ask you to give them back. He’s quickly figured out the kitchen, getting a soup started before he allows himself to sit on the dining table by himself.

It turns out that Jungkook’s not alone at all.

“Hi.”

His ears perk at the soft voice that comes from the side of him, eyes immediately setting on the toddler who’s still dressed in his pajamas and has a similar case of bedhead to him.

“Hey buddy. Nice bangs,” Jungkook chuckles invitingly, pulling out a chair for Haneul to which he gets up on easily by himself. 

“My appa cut them for me,” he answers with a smile, shyly pointing to Jungkook’s forehead with an eager finger. “You have bangs too. Who cut yours?”

“My girlfriend. I think she can be a hairstylist one day,” he hums, not feeling guilty over lying to him when it’s only a half, easily-corrected lie. You may not be Jungkook’s actual, real girlfriend, but you did cut his bangs when he asked you to. He couldn’t be bothered going to the salon and you didn’t have the energy to argue with him otherwise, so that’s how he ended up with choppy, viral (it only became viral because he has them) bangs that gained him a few dozen articles or so.

Jungkook doesn’t have kids of his own, but what he does have are several nephews and nieces. He’s the youngest of four children, and that’s perhaps the reason why he could empathize with you. He’s never been through what you have, and although you would never wish for him to do so, a part of him wants to know what it’s like — not because he seeks the pain, but because he wants to know how he could empathize with you better

With Jungkook being Jungkook, it’s perhaps the reason why he’s one of the gifted few people who could strike up a sensible conversation with a toddler and make them laugh without doing anything at all.

Something about Jungkook makes Haneul laugh so loudly, he wakes up almost everyone in the house in peace. Even Jungkook’s attempt at lame jokes tickle Haneul more than the way Namjoon’s ever tried in earnest to make him laugh.

You’ve already slinked past the two of them on the dining table, tending to the soup and the few hundred side dishes Jungkook started on but paused just to talk to Haneul.

“Haneul, don’t believe your uncle-…” you chime over a playful dig that Jungkook makes in your expense, the giggles that had only been filling your ears just seconds ago instantly ceasing when you notice Yoongi standing near you.

“Uncle?” he raises his brow at you, turning his attention to his son. “Haneul, what did I say about talking to strangers?”

“But he’s not a stranger. I saw him in that movie!” he frowns, the immediate awe that slips out of Jungkook’s lips not helping his case in the slightest.

“Still a stranger,” Yoongi smiles tightly, his exhale dragging out as he mulls over the eerily domestic sight of the three of you.

“But he’s Uncle Kook,” Haneul reasons with him, pointing his finger at you. “He’s auntie’s boyfriend.”

.

.

.

Yoongi’s softened a little bit since breakfast.

He was never mad at Haneul in the first place (more like halfhearted because he still stands by his lesson of not teaching him to talk to strangers, even if they’re a worldwide-famous actor, but those are not his words at all) but what he is annoyed about is the scene that he walked into.

It looked far too natural for you to look like Haneul’s mom and for Jungkook to look like him, maybe even better as a dad despite not having children at all, that he thought he was seeing red.

Haneul’s lying on his shoulder as they rewatch Bluey for the second time in the living room, the shadow of your alleged boyfriend walking past him until he registers the accent, later doing a quick turnaround that makes Yoongi ultimately irritated and Haneul more than happy.

“Oh cool. I love Bluey!” Jungkook says sincerely, inviting himself to sit on the lone sofa chair to watch the episode.

“Wow, you’re just so… quirky,” Yoongi mutters under his breath with a roll of his eyes, his snarky remark making Jungkook’s ears tingle. The latter scoffs slyly, making him finally acknowledge Jungkook, albeit sarcastically. “So what do you do, Jungkook?”

Even before he could answer though, Haneul does it for him with an excitement that only comes out whenever he’s talking about his favorites.

“We watched his movies in the cinema, appa! Remember?”

“Did we?” Yoongi narrows his eyes, playing his huff into a cough. He repurposes the tinge of embarrassment that he feels into snark, running a hand through his hair cockily. “I’d for sure remember an actor if they were good.”

( ♡ ) 

“Where’s your brother? I need him to do the heavy lifting.”

Your mom asks you with an urgency that parents only past the age of forty could possess, her lips already parted awaiting your response towards a question she asked just two seconds ago. 

Even if you weren’t engrossed on an episode of Bluey (Jungkook and Haneul put you into it and you get their laser focus now) just now, you still wouldn’t know about your brother’s whereabouts. Yoongi saves you this time, his response piquing both yours and Jungkook’s interest.

“He’s in practice. Joon took Haneul with him so he could learn too.”

Jungkook looks up from his phone sharply, eyes wide in eagerness. He and Yoongi haven’t even looked at each other since yesterday yet their coordination (read: competitiveness) syncs with the other at the exact second, their insistence on tagging along a menial task making you jolt.

“I’ll come with, mom!”

“I’ll come with, auntie.”

It’s not a competition, yet Jungkook jumps up to stand so quickly, his head almost brushed the ceiling. “Let’s go, babe,” he holds out a hand for you, making you clear your throat as you’re still trying to gauge the situation.

“But what about Yoongi? Poor thing, he’ll be left alone,” your mom awes, her pout only deepening when Yoongi pretends to look crestfallen at being overlooked. He doesn’t have to pretend that much because despite not being the biggest fan of grocery-shopping, especially in your area because it always smelled of eggs despite barely carrying any eggs, he’ll jump at any task to impress your mom, and you by extension.

“I don’t think you should worry-…” you start, already being interrupted in an instant.

“Oh come on, Y/N. Two pairs of hands are better than one! They really have to do some heavy lifting because I forget to tell you about that one time your aunts hounded me for-…” she trails off while telling you a story about your supposedly huge extended family, blissfully unaware that there’s two men fighting to open the door for the both of you.

Yoongi’s driving his car as the most spacious option, making Jungkook snicker under his breath as he blames himself for not bringing his SUV which is clearly more expensive than whatever Yoongi’s driving, even if you elbow him lightly by the ribs because you didn’t ask him to do that.

“Mom, what are you doing here? Go sit in the front,” you nudge her, unwilling to sit next to Yoongi in an enclosed space.

“Oh, right! Sorry, I was just used to you always taking shotgun whenever Yoongi’s driving,” she squeals, fondly clapping to herself as she revisits the memory. “Do you remember that, sweetheart? You’d always fight with Namjoon because Yoongi got his license first.”

It may only be your mom who’s leaning against the center console to look at you in the back, but it doesn’t mean that Yoongi’s ever taken off his attention from you.

“I remember,” Yoongi smiles, looking at you from the rearview mirror. “I never forget.”

.

.

.

The grocery store hasn’t changed one bit. 

It still smelled of eggs, the lights still aren’t as bright as they should be, and there’s still trinkets that you’ve always been swayed by being displayed near the register.

You’re taking it all in after not having been back for five years, whereas Yoongi strolls right in, but never ahead of you, as if he’s visited multiple times already since he left your town. 

Your mom and Jungkook are side by side as he asks her a question you can’t even discern, only getting to know his actual agenda when you hear his sneakers skidding against the floor as he runs towards the pushcarts. 

Yoongi, without even knowing the full context, runs after him because he didn’t want to come in second place for whatever it is that Jungkook’s challenging him to.

“I’ll steer the cart,” Jungkook presents definitively, his hand raised mid-air as if he’s being graded for eagerness alone. He looks like he wants to prove himself even if it’s only you and your mom present; no director, no producer in sight who sizes him up. 

“No. I’ll do it,” Yoongi argues out of nowhere, his bruised hands reclaiming the cart under Jungkook’s grasp. He’s not even looking at your mom because his gaze is only fixed on Jungkook who’s just two tugs away from actually spitting at him.

“I said it first,” your pretend-boyfriend forcefully pulls the hunk of metal away from Yoongi, the latter coming along with it for the briefest of seconds before he does the same, this time with Jungkook gasping.

“What, are you method-acting for your next role as a cart-steerer?” 

Your mom’s a little perplexed at the scene before her, lips parting in both concern and amusement because for a pair of people who haven’t met each other before, Yoongi and Jungkook are oddly competitive. They want to provesomething, anything, and maybe everything so bad, they neglect the fact that they look ridiculous fighting over a pushcart. 

“We actually need two,“ she says to no one in particular, thinking out loud as she goes through her grocery list. “I think maybe even three because-…”

“I’ll get it,” Jungkook rushes out in panic, almost bumping into you in the process. You were only gone for a minute to retrieve your phone from the car and yet he already looks breathless, the knot between his eyebrows untangling when he realizes that it’s you. “Oh. Sorry, babe.”

“I’ll get it, Koo,” you murmur, catching the tail end of what your mom said about the pushcarts. Jungkook’s cheeks are tainted pink in frustration and you can’t help but to be concerned, the back of your hand already flitting against his forehead before you know it. “Are you okay? Sorry, the AC in here is not like the AC in the city.”

“Huh, what? Oh no, it’s okay. I just got into this heated cart argument,” he waves you off, eyes rapidly moving between you, your mom, and Yoongi who’s mirroring his exact actions, except for the glaring hint of annoyance with the way he’s standing so close to you.

“Cart argument? What’s-…”

“We need meat.” 

You barely even have a chance to digest what Jungkook’s saying to you before you see him glitch right in front of you in a hurry, the only words to register clearly in your mind being your mom’s. She’s absent-mindedly talking herself through her grocery list (as she always does) and yet the two men right next to her hang onto her every word, the speed they take off on giving you no clue to why they’re acting as such.

“I’ll get it, auntie!” Yoongi gets out even before the wheels of his cart could cooperate, momentarily tripping over himself. Jungkook sputters at that, the laughter that builds in his throat being interrupted because he realizes that the other guy is ahead of him and he simply cannot bear that. 

“Beef. We need beef, right, mom? How many kilos. Like… ten? Okay. I’ll get it!” Jungkook dashes even if he’s never been in this grocery store before; even if your mom hasn’t said a single word to either of them.

You’re left dumbfounded in the middle of the store, your gaze unable to locate the distinct sounds of both of their sneakers skidding against the floor. 

“I didn’t even say anything,” your mom mutters in confusion, eyes flitting to you with a wonder you can’t place because even if the both of you are lost, she seems to have a better idea than you do. “Are they… competing over you, sweetie?”

“Competing? Me? Why would you even say that, mom?” you huff, leaning against the cart as you snatch her list to get the things she’s actually looking for.

“I don’t know,” she lulls, shrugging carelessly before nudging you. “Jungkook’s your boyfriend and well, I assume Yoongi’s always wanted to be in his position.”

“How did you even come to that conclusion?”

“Small town. Few people. Cute girl, cute guy,” she places, the end of her hypothesis being accompanied by a chuckle. When she says it like that, it sounds far too easy — it sounds far too seamless, you almost wish it was exactly that. “I didn’t even take the news that Yoongi was going abroad seriously because I thought it was a joke. I thought he could never move on from here or Namjoon,” your mom pouts, tilting her head when you freeze. “Much more, he could never move on from you.”

“He did,” you answer through gritted teeth, the grip you have on her list making the paper crumple underneath your hold.

Your mom doesn’t know everything. In fact, you don’t even know if she knows anything at all. You don’t despise her for her lack of involvement because you want to keep her from the chaos of your burdens, and you’ve always wanted to keep it that way.

But the way she speaks now, so full of conviction and faith, you find yourself despising it. She speaks as surely as the way Yoongi speeds past the both of you, weaving through aisles to get items she didn’t ask for, competing for and against a higher power (read: you) that Jungkook himself seeks. 

She says it so surely, it’s as if she knows about every waking thought that Yoongi’s ever had in your absence.

“It doesn’t look like he did.”

You ponder over your mom’s adoration for Yoongi, most of which you can’t decipher if it’s misplaced or not. You know he’ll always have a special place in her heart and in her home because she’s known him even before he was born because she’s best friends with Mrs. Min. 

Yoongi has a place in your life, no matter if it’s in your own or in the lives of the people you love. He probably has a modern penthouse in Namjoon’s life, the decoration in it improving over time. On the other hand, Yoongi probably occupies an ancestral cabin in your mom’s life that’s been well-maintained for longer than he’s ever been alive, the decor in it being handmade and resilient through the years. 

In your life, however, you can’t tell how and if Yoongi occupies it in the first place. For the longest time, his place in your life had come in the form of a mansion that not even a single architect nor engineer could ever think of. For a moment too, Yoongi’s place in your heart came in the form of a little house on a vast farm overlooking the mountains and the sea. Throughout all the houses that Yoongi’s shape-shifted to in your life, you doubt now if he could ever turn into them again.

When you think of Yoongi, all you see is your room. 

When you see Yoongi, all you could remember is your childhood house and its shortcomings in your life, especially when you needed to come home to it— to him, the most.

“I’ll pay, mom,” Jungkook snaps you out of your reverie, his whine making your ears ring.

“What? No, Jungkook. This is all too much,” you refuse vehemently, trying to fight him from extending his black card any further.

“It’s not. This is for your family anyway. I, I might have even grabbed extra portions for myself because mom said she’ll repeat tomorrow what she did for lunch today,” he grins, momentarily losing himself to the sight of you that he doesn’t even notice he’s in the process of being one-upped by Yoongi.

“Jungkook, baby, I’ll feel-…”

“I paid for it, auntie,” Yoongi announces, making your lips part and Jungkook’s jaw drop.

“You shouldn’t have, Yoongi,” you scold him softly, a whine already building at the back of your throat but he waves you off easily. Your mom’s thanking him profusely in the background, and while Yoongi’s pleased with the attention, his gaze remains on you.

“But I wanted to,” he insists, pursing his lips. “I should.”

“You’re not family,” is what you want to say.

“But I want to be,” is what he wants to scream.

Wordlessly, Yoongi puts a plastic toy ring he bought from the register into your bag. It’s pink and it’s star-shaped, its mold still the same from all those years ago.

.

.

.

You barrel into your mom’s room just to see Namjoon.

You bit at the chance of giving him the stuff he’s asked for from the grocery as per your mom, taking advantage of her focus on organizing the groceries downstairs to have a one-on-one with your brother.

“You have to make Yoongi drive into the city tonight. Either that or he flies to the US. The reunion is already tomorrow,” you seethe, crossing your arms as he sighs in defeat.

“It’s already late. Yoongi’s driving with Haneul, a kid, alone,” he emphasizes, running a hand through his hair as he himself is troubled by you being in a bind over everything. “And he can’t book a flight back on such short notice.”

“Short notice? What, did he just happen to book a one-way flight and not a round trip one?” you snort in amusement, shaking your head in disbelief. The thought actually cracks you up because out of the three of you, Yoongi happened to be the one more adept to websites despite your limited materials back then. Namjoon remains silent, and with how serious he looks, your face falls.

You can’t believe Yoongi at all.

“He did? You’ve gotta be kidding me, Joon,” you groan, throwing your head back. “What, does that mean Yoongi gets to stay in our home while we’re in this godforsaken family reunion?”

Namjoon delivers yet another blow, his revelation making you more enraged than the last.

“Mom invited them.”

“What? Why?!” you exclaim, chest rising in frustration. “Yoongi’s not family, Namjoon. Atleast not for me.”

He doesn’t miss your added remark at the end of your sentence, the underhandedness of it making him look down on the floor. 

Namjoon feels guilty, he really does, but he can’t seem to make it right. He couldn’t even fight you in insisting to apologize that night.

For each day that you try to delay the inevitable of confronting him and letting him taking the fall, of letting him apologize, Namjoon feels more like a big failure for an older brother than he already is. 

“But he used to be,” he says under his breath, looking up at you with a stubbornness you can’t place. “Your lifetime versus those five years — which one amounts to more?”

( ♡ ) 

Everyone gushes over Jungkook.

In an altitude higher than the mountainside that you’re in now, the aunts, uncles, and cousins you didn’t even know you have squeal over your fake boyfriend. By the fifth relative, you’ve already got your routine down of letting them hug you and kiss your cheek before holding Jungkook’s bicep, acting as his bodyguard to make sure they don’t squeeze him too hard or not at all.

“Oh my god, Y/N. Jeon Jungkook is your boyfriend?!”

“I knew it, I knew you were gonna have a partner who’s famous! I dreamed about it when you were-…”

“If that’s your boyfriend, then who’s he?” your cousin (?) whispers to you, cutting himself off as he turns his gaze to Yoongi and Haneul. They’re most certainly not your family, meaning that they’re unrelated to everyone present, so what your relatives (some more nosy than others) can’t wrap their heads around is the fact that there are strangers in your family reunion.

It takes one, two times for your mom and Namjoon to explain who they are and what they’re doing here in the first place, the chorus of nods eventually signaling that they’ve moved on. Some of them could even recall Mr. and Mrs. Min from the neighborhood, and Yoongi could only nod.

It’s not that he doesn’t belong right now — he actually feels the opposite. Yoongi feels that he has a place amongst a barrage of relatives he’s not affiliated to by neither blood nor paper, and it pains him; not because he’s scared of belonging, but because you probably don’t think the same way.

Haneul runs to him underneath the umbrella he’s isolated himself at, his son grasping an assortment of cash, food, and juiceboxes Yoongi most certainly did not pack in Haneul’s backpack from the night before.

“Auntie’s family is really nice, appa. Look what they gave me,” he shows everything that his hands could carry, breathing heavily in excitement as he explains that your relatives told him to come back once his hands are empty.

“Oh dear. They really think you’re adorable,” he laughs, pocketing Haneul’s cash (he swears he’ll give it back) and hiding some of the snacks he’s been given so he wouldn’t give himself heartburn eating too many at once.

Yoongi’s smiling from ear to ear, sitting Haneul in his lap as he overlooks the view of your town from above. Everything looks so small and delicate, you’d almost think none of what laid downhill ever even mattered. He didn’t get views like these in New York. 

Yoongi didn’t get people like you in New York.

“Mama’s family isn’t this nice,” Haneul speaks out of nowhere, his thoughts uttered out loud directed more-on to himself than it is for his dad. Yoongi stops in his tracks in trepidation, shoulders tensing over what his son just said. “They never play with me like this. Not like auntie.”

He knows Hyewon’s relatives, albeit not that well. Her family members in the US were not this kind, not this warm, even to a child who’s actually related to them.

Yoongi’s stuck in his thoughts the whole time Haneul sips on his juice, finally being snapped into his reality nowwhen you approach their direction. His son waves at you excitedly even if you’ve just crossed paths minutes ago.

“Here, Haneul,” you hold out a container to him, the gentle smile on your face limited to only him yet Yoongi, for a lack of grace, pretends it’s also for him. “I tried my best to make it look like Bluey,” you chuckle, pointing to the mini sculpture made out of the marshmallows and blueberries that your relatives set aside for him.

Haneul beams at you, thanking you profusely. If only he wasn’t sat on Yoongi’s lap and therefore grounded, he would’ve launched himself at you to hug your legs.

Yoongi takes the hat right off his head, putting it on you while you’re crouched next to his son.

“It’s hot,” he explains, his heart continuously speaking beats the longer that you linger beside Haneul and the longer that he giggles in excitement. “I know you get headaches easily.”

( ♡ ) 

Despite being reachable, Yoongi still yearns for you.

He yearns for you even if you’re only within arm’s reach, sitting near you but never close enough at the long table because with you, he feels safe. He laughs in the background like it’s a sitcom to every joke and every episode of banter thrown around him. He doesn’t feel out of place with your family — he feels out of place with you.

He’s never been a wickedly jealous type. Even when he and Hyewon were still together and she cheated on him, Yoongi felt more resentful than he was jealous. He didn’t feel this type of way; he didn’t feel inferior. He didn’t feel like he was nursing a loss in his life because he has no choice but to. Yoongi had managed to divorce Hyewon because it didn’t work out between them, and that was that.

Yoongi can neither divorce you nor pull away from you because you’ve never been with each other. He harbors no resentment for you and that scares him, not because he wants to hate you so badly, but because he feels as if everything you’ll do to him, he’ll take it.

Yoongi will take it even if you set a plate for Jungkook despite unconsciously forgetting what he’s always disliked eating when you were still kids. He’ll take the serving tray from your hands still, uncaring if eating the tiniest bite of the food you’ve passed gives him an allergic reaction because you were the one who offered.

He’ll take it even if you hold Jungkook’s bicep in a hurry when there’s a bug that’s getting awfully close to your drink. Yoongi would walk to where you sit and dispose of it wordlessly because even Jungkook himself is scared of bugs. He doesn’t mind if you don’t thank him, because atleast now when he looks at you from a distance, you’re sitting in relaxation and you no longer have to hold your boyfriend.

He’ll endure the jealousy that burns through his throat more than the poorly-made, highly-alcoholic vodka your uncle made himself. He’ll hold onto the poison that is yearning and how he’ll feel like his throat would close up because if you were still young, in this setting of free rein, except you were still in love him like you used to be and he’s in love with you like he is now, neither you and Yoongi would be hurting.

Yoongi will take it. He’ll take the nothing that you give him and give you the everything that you don’t ask for anymore.

Five years versus the rest of your lifetime that you spent being in love with him is only miniscule. The suffering that he’s going through now is only a speck of the years you’ve spent in an unrequited love.

Unlike you, Yoongi’s weak. If he were to say it outloud to you, you’ll never agree because you’ve never regarded yourself otherwise. You’ll go on this tangent that you’ve always been weak, influenced by the times that Yoongi had chastised you for your lack of a passion. 

To you, Yoongi had been right in a way.

To Yoongi, he’s always been in the wrong.

He’s crying to you now that the both of you are alone, overlooking the small town he used to be keen on getting out of. Now, more than ever, Yoongi wants to stay in it. He wants to stay with you.

“Why is everything with you so hard?” Yoongi whispers, his tears stinging badly from the corner of his eyes to the point that he can only make out shapes. He’s unkempt and frantic as if his life flashed before his eyes and there’s nothing he could do about it, voice strained like much of the times he’s drank himself to sleep.

He resembles Haneul at the moment. He’s always had because there’s not one bit of Hyewon in his son’s features or personality, but he looks especially like him now that he’s crying. The back of his hands harshly dig into his face, sobs bursting right from his throat. “Why do I make everything so hard for us? Why can’t I— w-why can’t I make it right for once?”

There’s a tremble to your chest that you ignore earnestly, the presence of it enough to scare you because it’s familiar; too familiar. Seeing your past play out in front of you in the form of a seemingly content family sleeping on your bed is one thing, but it’s another to see its patriarch crumble in front of you. It’s different to see your past pleading in front of you for just the slightest bit of your attention.

As a matter of fact, it’s different now because you resemble Yoongi the most. 

“You never tried,” you seethe, jumping the gun before you even try to decipher what’s in the barrel. It’s a bullet you fire haphazardly that comes from your pocket that you’ve always held onto. It’s a misplaced, misshapen, old bullet that you force into a gun that Yoongi passed onto you.

Right now, Yoongi doesn’t resemble Haneul, and neither does he resemble his ex-wife. 

He resembles you with the way his eyes are clearly swimming in hurt while you avoid looking at his, just to relieve the painstaking feeling of guilt and longing compacted into a sob.

“I never tried?” Yoongi exhales shakily, his quivering hands running through his hair to tug on them.“I never tried?”

You hear yourself clearly even if it’s his voice. The tremble and the anger, even all the way to the blind hope.

“I kept trying to reach out to you every single time. Every single birthday, every single Christmas, every insignificant holiday I could search up!” Yoongi cries — he actually thrashes with the way he sobs, shoulders shaking violently. “I didn’t try? If I didn’t try, try looking at every page of my passport to see all the stamps there are whenever fucking Jungkook was reported to be in another country,” he spits his name like poison, the vitriol behind it, however, never catching up to what he feels about himself.

You resemble Yoongi the most because you stand untethered, eyes blurring and lips quivering, yet you only watch him lose himself before thinking of uttering a single word.

“I’m selfish, I’m an asshole, and I’m fucking insufferable. I can’t even apologize to you correctly,” Yoongi lists, chest rising up and down too heavily, he feels like it’ll give out. “But I love you, Y/N. I-I might be every bad thing in your life right now and I own up to that. I’m still trying to be the best for you.”

Not only does Yoongi resemble you — he’s actually become you.

“You can call me the vilest names ever but you can’t say that,” he grits, teeth chattering not from the cold he’s put himself in, but because he can’t stop mentioning your name in between. “You can’t say I never tried because I always have. I’ll never stop becausethat’s what it takes,” Yoongi mutters; because, he says, not if.

“I love you,” he says it far too clearly for someone who’s drunk; far too sincerely for someone who had spent the better part of his life putting it through your head that he can’t return your affection. “I’ve always loved you.”

( ♡ ) 

You don’t feel good.

There’s a fever that’s starting to bloom from the base of your skull all the way to your toes, the abnormal warmth you feel in your chest making you unable to interact with everyone else outside of your room. Jungkook had left with your uncles before dawn to go fishing in the nearby lake and never would you think to inconvenience him; to tend to someone like you for something as minor as a fever, or for anything at all.

You already have a system down for taking care of yourself when you’re ill. It started when neither your mom nor your brother were home with you, and it was finally perfected when you had to live completely alone in the big city. All you had to do was gather all the energy you have, spend it at the start to get everything you could possibly need and put them all at the side of your bed, and rest until everything no longer hurts.

The major flaw with your system now is that you don’t have the energy at all. You can’t build up the strength to get up, walk across the hall and interact with your relatives, and rummage through groceries to get what you need without being questioned; you can’t build up the sense of importance you have for yourself to ask for help.

Namjoon comes into your room before you could dance around the idea of asking him to get you water, all because he has this innate sense of guilt in him and you could utilize it to your advantage. Your brother gets ahead of you before you could even register that he’s here with you, his eyes sullen and pleading.

“Can we talk?”

“I can’t exactly storm off right now,” you rasp, your voice fading out into a low chuckle.

“Do you want to talk when you’re able to storm off?” he asks sincerely with a small smile, his hand fixing your hair as gently as he could without making your migraine ring further. “If you do though, then you probably might never hear me out again.”

You stay silent because he is right, but Namjoon feels otherwise. He feels as if he hasn’t been doing anything right at all and you existing separate from him is a constant reminder. His career is at its peak but he thinks he could go higher; his relationship with you is deteriorating and he doesn’t think it could possibly be worse.

“I’m sorry for being a shitty brother,” he apologizes, the first thing out of his mouth being the last thing that floods his mind before he goes to sleep at night. “I should’ve never defended Yoongi, even Hyewon by extension.”

The heat behind your eyes isn’t all from your fever. The tears that prick your eyes aren’t because of the pressure in your head, but because of the fact that you haven’t heard Namjoon apologize to you in a long time; you haven’t talked this sincerely for even longer

“I should’ve put you first,” he sniffles, muttering apologies in between his pauses for finding the right words that would make it okay; that would somehow undo all that he’s been an accomplice to. “I should’ve been this reliable, sturdy man of the house. I-I should’ve been more of a father figure to you-…”

“Don’t,” you interject sternly. “You never filled in his shoes and you should never will. You’re only mom’s son and my brother, Namjoon. It’s never been your job to raise me.”

Even after everything, there’s a gentleness to you that Namjoon’s always loved but hate the most now. He hates that even if he’s the one who’s apologizing, you’re the one who’s saying sorry for the things you didn’t even inflict on him. Neither of you wanted to be raised by only a single parent, yet you absolve him of the guilt he’s always felt.

“But I could’ve been better. I wish I was already better from the start.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think how hard life was for you growing up. I-I would’ve given up football if only-…” he trembles, unable to get the last of his sentence out because you shake your head in earnest.

“Stop.”

“But I mean it. If only I-I didn’t get into football, I could’ve been there for you and mom much often. I could’ve been better and-...”

“But I grew up to be okay, didn’t I? You’re the best at what you do. We’ve managed to retire mom early because we put in the work,” you whisper, the shrug of your shoulders feeling more heavy that it should feel because the words don’t come out easily from you. 

“But okay shouldn’t have been enough for you,” Namjoon tears up, bottom lip trembling as you try to take in his words that you’ve always wanted to hear at the back of your mind; you hear them now when you’ve already grown up. You hear them now after you’ve already endured the grief. “I— we should’ve given you the fighting chance to grow up more than okay.”

.

.

.

It’s not Jungkook who comes to visit you while you’re nursing a fever, because you’ve temporarily banned him from the bedroom. He only pouted in complaint when you called him, but he didn’t fight you that much either because you’ve called him out for the excitement in his voice to go hiking for the first time.

It’s not Yoongi who comes to visit you while you’re nursing a fever, because Haneul asked him to teach him Go (he’s not even that good at it and being the ever unable to show incompetence and have pride especially when Jungkook’s watching father, he discreetly asked lessons from your mom) so he’ll be able to play with your cousins.

Instead, it’s your mom who visits you. Even if Namjoon hadn’t tipped her off that you were feeling under the weather, she’s already had a feeling this morning.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” she asks, her hands full of everything you could possibly need and more before plopping them at your side. She makes you sit up even before you could complain, handing you a drink with some medicine you didn’t even know she carried

“Just a little fever,” you answer, getting back into your cocoon. 

You don’t even attempt to make conversation because you fear that you don’t have it in you to have a heart-to-heart talk with your mom just minutes after you’ve had one with Namjoon.

You don’t even say anything to her except your thanks. Namjoon didn’t even tell her about your conversation, even if he approached her with tear-stained cheeks and bloodshot eyes while saying that it was just allergies.

Your mom feels the guilt spring to her chest even if you don’t utter a single word. She feels the remorse in her eyes when you don’t ask her for anything more. She feels the guilt the most in her hands when you don’t ask her to stay.

“I’m sorry if I made you feel like there wasn’t enough space for your burdens growing up.”

“What?”you scramble to get up in a seated position, eyes hazy from how quick you do it. “Mom, you scared me. Where’s this coming from?” 

She shakes her head at your cluelessness, eyes stinging when you genuinely look at her innocently. You don’t know what she’s talking about, even if the thought has plagued her for so long.

“You’re not really okay, are you?”

“It’s… just a fever,” you mumble, your breathing already trembling at the way she looks at you.

She’s looking at you like you’re still a kid; ever so fragile and innocent, it’s as if she wouldn’t let a single thing in this world harm you. She doesn’t know a single thing about your feud with Namjoon and your long drawn-out conflict with Yoongi. What your mom does know is that she doesn’t know a single thing about the heartbreak you suppress, and that thought alone makes her hiccup in tears.

“You’re right, you know? Our house is small,” she says, distinctly recalling the tensioned conversation you had with Namjoon back at home. “It’s tiny but it was far too big for you growing up alone,” she inhales sharply, trying not to sob in front of you. “He wasn’t in the picture. I was working a hundred jobs left and right. Namjoon was trying to make a name for himself,” she shakes her head, so much so that the necklace she’s had since you were children, the same one with yours and Namjoon’s birthstones on it, rattles. “I’m sorry for making you feel that you can’t come to me.”

In just a full day, you’ve heard everything that you’ve ever wanted. It’s everything you’ve ever wanted during the school plays where you had no one from your family, except Yoongi, to watch you become an extra up on stage. He’d always deny that he did show up for you and just say that it’s because he was genuinely interested in a play about a poet he didn’t care about in reality, but you take it nonetheless.

It’s everything you’ve ever prayed for watching Yoongi live a life far too advanced for you as he held Hyewon’s hand after school. It’s what you wanted to hear when you begged him not to leave you behind.

“I-I’m okay. I’m really-…” you stutter, looking away before your tears fall in the fear that they’ll never stop.

Your mom only hugs you tighter.

“I’m here if you want someone else to carry your burdens,” she whispers. “I’m here now.”

( ♡ )

It’s the last day of the reunion when you fully recover, and it’s hours ahead of everyone when Jungkook has to leave by himself.

Without even asking for it, Jungkook grants you another week’s worth of break. You didn’t even plan on asking, yet Jungkook’s willing to give you a month if only you do. 

You’ve already arranged for his personal driver to pick him up and take him back to the city. You’ve already packed his bags, along with the multiple containers of food that your relatives (and especially your mom) insisted for him to take. You’ve arranged for your substitute to take care of him for his schedules throughout the week, along with the insistent reminder to call you whenever Jungkook needs you. (Read: he does, with or without a schedule.)

Everything is set for Jungkook to leave except for his driver who’d been roped by your mom to be filled with breakfast first, yet with the remaining minutes left, Jungkook’s still with you on your bed. 

He lies on your lap even if there’s plenty of space for him to lie parallel to you on a pillow — and you let him.

“Have you ever thought about kissing me?” he asks in the middle of you texting your substitute, the randomness of his thought already being familiar to you. This time, unlike the few thousand times he’s ever asked you something straight off his mind without refining them, is different.

It’s different now because your pretend-boyfriend asks you if you’ve ever thought about kissing him, while looking like he really wants to kiss you.

“Where’d that come from?” you giggle, looking down on him on your lap. 

Not once does Jungkook ever look away from you.

“Dunno,” he shrugs, pointing up at you. “Your lips are close to bleeding and it’s bothering me.”

“Sorry for turning you off,” you snort in laughter, wiping at the tiny specks of blood. Jungkook tuts when you rub at them, feeling for his lip balm out of his pocket.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he stresses, going a little cross-eyes when he applies them for you. His eyes keep goading you, the smile he has on his face widening the more that you look at him incredulously. “Sooo… have you?”

You don’t want to lie to him at all.

“If I answer yes, Jungkook,” you toy around with his hair, setting your phone face-down because you can’t focus on anything else now. “We can never come back from that.”

Jungkook laughs in glee so loudly, Yoongi (who was only passing by; he really, really swears he didn’t just happen to eavesdrop in your room because Jungkook’s driver is all done eating and wants to beat traffic) actually flinches.

Jungkook strains to be closer to you, unconsciously training you to lean down. His lips are far too soft — far too close to you, you could see every line and every nuance in them. He whispers, eyes practically crossing at your proximity.

“And is that such a bad thing?”

( ♡ ) 

You’re back at home when Jungkook texts you that he’s made it back safe, and that he wants to kiss you again.

You’re back at home when Yoongi asks you if he could use the bathroom first because Haneul spilled milk on him during the drive. You’re in your childhood bedroom when you let him clean up first, and you’re sitting on your childhood bed when you volunteer to put Haneul down because he’s cranky and for some reason, wants to be held by you.

You’re back at home too when Yoongi and Haneul are knocked out for the night, and your mom calls you and Namjoon down for all three of you to talk at the dining table.

You’re back at the home you were raised in, sitting on the dining table that’s creaky when more than two people lean their weight into it, in the space you’ve roamed around alone waiting for them to come home, when your mom talks about wanting to sell it.

“You want to sell?” Namjoon’s eyes widen, exchanging a glance with you who’s as equally surprised as he is.

“Yes. It’s under my name, y’know? Not that… man’s,” she snorts, the off-hand mention of your father making you and Namjoon laugh unexpectedly. Your mom looks at ease as she talks about selling your house, the smile she has one her face being shaped with experience and grace. “I doubt the both of you would want to keep this, and besides, the offers I’ve kept for years now are high. You already know that big-shot companies have been buying out houses here for years now because of the growth potential and whatnot. Who knows, maybe our block will be turned into a mall!” she shrugs, the happiness in her tone infectious. 

For someone who’s decided on letting go the house she’s both struggled and strived in, your mom’s beyond excited.

For two adults, who were once kids, who’ve seen the amount of sacrifices your mother’s put into the place by herself, you and Namjoon don’t have any objections.

“Also, consider this as me asking for permission to go on a vacation, even if I’m grown, because some people get so paranoid when I don’t answer calls,” she digs at you and your brother, immediately inciting coughs because you two, in fact, are guilty of worrying over your mom too much. “I’m going on this worldwide trip with Yoongi’s mom,” she grins, pulling out one last surprise. “We’ve talked about it since we were young. She’s earned her stripes working abroad, I managed to raise two amazing children as a single mom. We’ve earned it, I think.”

You and Namjoon share a glance once again, this time more definite than the last. You’ve made up already as far as your mom could tell, and that confirmation is what she needs before finally selling the house you all grew up in.

“You’ve earned it more than anyone.”

( ♡ ) 

Yoongi’s packing up for their flight tonight when you go into your room to pack up the life you’ve lived there.

“You’re coming with me and Haneul?” Yoongi jokes when he sees you pulling out your own luggage, the tone of his voice highly suggesting for you to become serious. He gets you to smile and that’s big enough of a win as is, the remainder of it more than substantial to hold onto when he’s away from you. Again.

“No, unfortunately. I’m packing up the room and eventually… the whole house,” you answer with a chuckle, voice trailing off when you see the crestfallen look on Yoongi’s face. He looks like someone who’s just absorbed the largest pain to man as he’s trying not to make it obvious. “We’re posting it for sale two weeks from now.”

Yoongi nods tightly, inhaling sharply as he tries to maintain his steady tone. “Then why are you packing up already?”

You could do this tomorrow. As a matter of fact, you could do it tonight because you don’t have to drive them to the airport. You have all the time in the world within two weeks to do this, yet you go into your room now when Yoongi’s still in it.

When Yoongi still hasn’t left, and neither of you know when you’re gonna see each other next.

“I have to get a move on. If I don’t move now,” you trail, voice close to trembling as you open cabinets you’ve never even given the time of day before. “I’m scared that I’ll keep holding onto this house.

Yoongi nods, even if he fully understands — even if he doesn’t want to swallow what you’re saying.

“You want out?”

“We want out — me, mom, Namjoon,” you explain, looking at him properly for the first time since he told you that he loved you. “For the longest time, we’ve held onto this place because we became this house at one point. Namjoon’s this world star, my mom’s traveling the world with your mom-…”

“Oh, they’re finally doing it?” Yoongi interrupts, a smile finally coming to his face at the news. He hasn’t talked to his mom in a month from how busy he’s been, and although he’s always missed her (even if they’re on much better terms than he and his dad could be), he’s happy knowing that your moms have each other atleast. “How about you? What will you be doing?”

“I’ll just be… living day-to-day. I’m not doing anything extremely special, but I’m happy and busy doing it,” you laugh, looking around your room that hasn’t appeared this clean, this warm, since you last stayed in it. “No one’s going to be around here anymore.”

As if on cue, Haneul runs to Yoongi’s arms to be picked up. He knows what the luggages mean and because he’s largely in denial that they have to leave later (as referenced by him crying to your mom and Namjoon), Haneul keeps pretending to sleep so that their trip gets delayed.

Yoongi’s about to put him on your bed even if he knows his son’s antics already, but in the fear that he’ll actually get to sleep and they don’t get to leave (which he isn’t opposed to at all), he keeps him in his arms.

You, on the other hand, take Haneul from him when his arms outstretch for you.

There’s the sentiment of you not having to do it that’s resting at the tip of Yoongi’s tongue but he holds himself back, the image of you and Haneul completely fitting one another, he wants to burn a copy of it to his retinas and designate it to be the last thing he’ll see if he ever goes blind.

Without putting Haneul to sleep on your bed, he goes to sleep in peace in your arms.

“Do you regret it?” Yoongi asks throughout the silence between you, sitting next to you at the edge of your bed. “Do you regret ever liking me?”

“I do,” you answer truthfully, rubbing circles at the Haneul’s back. “I regret knowing you.”

Yoongi takes the responsibility fully, even fuller than the way both your hurt and happiness could make or break him.

“I can’t take back all the hurt I’ve caused you,” he admits just as honestly, turning to look at you. He becomes surprised to learn that you’ve been looking at him the whole time. “But what I can promise you is that I’ll never do anything to hurt you again.”

“I have my share of faults too.”

“Eh. Mostly mine.”

“Mostly yours, yeah,” you laugh easily, nodding to yourself as you continue. “But I held onto you as much as you didn’t hold onto me. That’s my mistake.”

Yoongi stays silent at that, not because he agrees, but because the bias that you’ll never be wrong in his eyes overtakes your humbleness.

“Do you think he’ll remember the entirety of the trip?” you ask, gesturing to Haneul who’s already sleeping like a hibernating bear in your hold. “Or will Haneul just remember that time the power went out because he cried a lot?”

“Oh, he’ll remember everything alright. He’s good with retention and people in general,” Yoongi waves you off. “Even if he didn’t come along the trip— even if we didn’t crash the whole thing, Haneul would remember you.”

“Who am I to him?” you ask in curiosity, lips turning into a straight line before they curve in the slightest. “Appa’s friend, I bet.”

“Not really. You’re a lot of things to me,” Yoongi chuckles, looking at the way Haneul grips you as if you’ll float away if he lets go; he’d do the same too. “More like my first love.”

Yoongi loves you quietly.

He loves you quietly with the way he draws the curtains downstairs when you sleep on the couch, tired and stressed over a solution you couldn’t understand. He loves you with the way he’ll scoop the warmest, freshest, least-burnt portion of rice to your bowl without you even asking for it. He loves you with the way he’s willing to let you walk all over him.

He loves you quietly in the way that not even distance nor time could disrupt him.

Yoongi loves you quietly, it might have been too much.

“Is that a lottery ticket?” he asks suddenly as he spots the familiar face of it inside your luggage, tucked into the discreet pocket where your mother’s letters of encouragement when you went to the big city were also kept

“Oh, it’s still there,” you answer, in surprise yourself because even if this is the same luggage you use whenever you go out of the country with Jungkook, you’ve never noticed that it was still there. “I bought it when you left for the US.”

Yoongi stops in his tracks in retrieving the scratch ticket from the pocket, looking up at you in curiosity. “Why did you buy one that day?”

Haneul stirs in his sleep in your arms, waking up right at the middle of you and Yoongi being lost in each other. He mistakes the silence as a signal that they’ll be leaving already, making a mess of himself as he quickly goes down the stairs to look for your family there and cling to them instead.

You and Yoongi are alone again.

“I don’t know,” you answer honestly, grasping the scratch ticket you used to spend hours looking. “I guess I just needed some proof that fate was against me that day.”

“But how would you even know that?” Yoongi asks, pointing to the card that’s still covered. “You didn’t even scratch it.”

You answer honestly, the reason burnt to the back of his mind.

“Because I knew I would lose my mind if I actually lost.”

“Try,” Yoongi swallows, nudging the ticket closer to you with a gaze that mirrored yours when he left. “Try again. Please.”

You have nothing else to lose.

Yoongi isn’t yours to lose.

You retrieve the same old coin Yoongi gave to you on the same day that he bought you your first scratch ticket, the appearance of it from your luggage making his heart skip a beat.

He doesn’t speak and neither do you, gaze only fixed on the way you scratch the card almost hesitantly, as if you’re still scared of the results of something that you should’ve known five years ago. (Read: you still are.)

When you get to the last digit, you freeze. You comb through the pattern over and over again, yet you still can’t believe it.

You’ve won the highest possible prize.

“Oh.”

“Oh,” you parrot Yoongi, looking up at him as he can’t believe it either.

“You won.”

“I won,” you repeat, running a hand through your hair. You actually laugh, the lump in your throat subsiding. It’s a welcome, albeit loaded, feeling of happiness that comes in between the two of you. “I thought I would lose,” you mutter bitterly, shaking your head. 

You didn’t lose. Fate wasn’t against you that day, and yet you still lost yourself thinking subconsciously what the proof of it would’ve been.

“Who would’ve thought, right?” you sigh, eyes drifting to Yoongi. “If only I took that chance years ago, I would’ve won.”

Yoongi smiles tightly, breath faltering in recollection.

“I’m familiar with the feeling,”

Yoongi doesn’t get to finish packing for him and Haneul and neither do you with your whole room, the shift in the atmosphere suddenly making him stand.

He’s breathless and he doesn’t know what for, the rapid beating of his chest making his voice louder than necessary. “Hey, what do you say you take a break? I’ll pack up your room. I have to stay alert anyway for Haneul."

You thank him before leaving him alone in your room.

Yoongi can’t find the strength in him to pack. The only power he has left in him is for him to think of taking everything out from his luggages, the thought of leaving again, this time worlds different than the last when you were begging him not to — he feels like throwing up.

Yoongi’s merely an amalgamation of you. He’s only a compilation of your every word, every feeling you’ve implanted in his heart. He’s filled with nothing but your every triumph and shortcoming; every late night hanging out with you as you attempt to study while he keeps you company, every minute he spent going out of his mind trying to look for you when you ran away from home.

Yoongi loves you silently to the point that he gets out of your room without accomplishing a single thing he said he’ll do just awhile ago.

In the grand scheme of things, Yoongi realizes that he was wrong. He was as wrong as you were right that the moment he leaves home, he’ll spend the rest of his life looking for it. 

Even if you left your home like he did, even if neither of you could come home anymore the moment your childhood house gets sold, Yoongi would still search for it. He’ll still search for you. You’re no longer where you were, but you are everywhere that Yoongi is.

He looks for you in Namjoon’s room, to the dining table, and all the way outside, just to ask if he and Haneul could stay for dinner.

Yoongi finds you and Haneul eating sundaes on the pavement outside, with you on the ground and a scrap cardboard underneath Haneul so it wouldn’t be hot for him.

Fate hadn’t been against you five years ago. And even if he’s much too late, Yoongi could only pray that fate isn’t against him now.

He walks over to where you and Haneul are, grabbing another scrap of cardboard to put underneath you.

Yoongi is consumingly yours all the time.

[ddejavvu]

hello!! i hope you’re doing well ❤️ i just read your hotch fic where he sneaks his wife and jack into the hotel room and i was wondering if you’d write something similar where jack is with jess or something and someone from the team catches hotch and reader going into his room except they can’t tell it’s reader and think hotch is cheating and they love the reader and can’t stand the idea of letting them get cheated on so maybe they confront him or call reader while reader is with hotch to tell her or something funny, whatever you find fitting. thank you if you get to this ❤️

i actually fucking adored this idea thank you <333

--

Emily's always taken Hotch for an honorable man. He's chivalrous, opening doors for the ladies on the team and walking them to their cars to be sure that they're safe in parking lots. It's instilled in his very being to be kind to women, so when she sees him trying to cover up a head of blue-dyed hair as he fumbles with the lock on his hotel room, she's perplexed.

That's not you. You don't have blue hair. But Hotch's arm is around her waist, and she's leaning into his side. His hand is more than generous over her skin, even slipping into the hemline of her shorts, and Emily's blood boils.

Aaron's got a grin on his face that she can just barely see without being seen herself, and he sounds all-too-happy to be leading another woman into his hotel room after hours when he chuckles at her advances. She rushes for the bed and Emily has to duck back into her room so as not to be seen when the woman rights herself on the bed, and there's something sickly brewing in her gut as she shuts her door again. She no longer has an appetite to raid the vending machine like she'd planned, so she heads back to her twin bed, hand digging into her pajama pants to retrieve her phone.

Spencer' who's occupying the second bed in the room, looks up inquisitively from his book, "I thought you were going to the vending machine, what happened?"

"Hotch just let some girl into his room. I mean- like, he brought her in, he had his hands all over her and she ran to the bed."

Reid's brows rise towards his scruffy hairline, pink lips downturned, "It wasn't Y/N?"

"She had blue hair," Prentiss shakes her head, "I'm gonna tell her."

"I want to help," Spencer rises from his bed, quickly crossing the room to her own, "I don't want to make her sad, but we can't keep it from her."

Emily nods, but Spencer keeps talking, "I... I can't believe Hotch would do something like that."

"Neither can I." Emily admits, clicking on your text thread. It's heavily decorated with hearts both in the messages and your contact name, and she hopes yours doesn't break when you find out what your husband's been doing behind your back.

Y/N, she types, I don't know how to tell you this, and I wish someone else would, because I don't want to be the one to break your sweet heart. But I just saw Aaron bring some blue-haired girl into his room, and if I'm being honest with you, I think they're having sex. I'm SO sorry honey, I wish I could do something, but I couldn't live with myself if I didn't tell you. Please call me and tell me what's going on with you, I don't want you to be alone all night, and PLEASE don't slip away if you and Aaron don't work things out. For the record I'm rooting for you to dump his sorry ass, but I know you'll need time to work things out. All I ask is that you don't shut us out, honey, please don't let him change the way you feel about us.

P.S Reid is here too and we're both here if you want to talk. We can face-time and we'll be there for you as best we can, baby.

And also you can sleep at my place.

Or Spence's. He says he can sleep on the couch if you want his bed.

I'm so sorry, Y/N, we love you.

Emily can't have pressed send on the last text ten seconds ago before there's a series of urgent knocks on the door. Her guard is up immediately, and she almost considers ignoring it because she's sure it's Hotch coming to tell her off for exposing him. She figures you must have called him, upset, and he's here to ask her to lie for him.

The knocks don't stop, though, and Reid's the one that marches for the door, face set in a glare that's unusually menacing for him. He's deduced the same series of events, but when he swings the door open with as much sass as he can muster, his posture stiffens with shock.

Aaron is on the other side of the door, but you're standing in front of him, hair bright blue, face sheepish.

"Hi Em," You smile at her, then at Reid, "Spence. I was going to join you all for breakfast tomorrow and unveil it, but- um, I think now's a good time to tell you that I dyed my hair blue."

"Oh." Emily hums, mouth hung slightly open, "So it's- it was you."

"it was me," You nod, "But thank you for telling me. I'm glad I can count on you. Both of you," Your eyes flit to Spencer, who's equally astonished as he inspects your new hair dye.

"Oh, that means-" Emily's face wrinkles suddenly, looking at your waist that Aaron's got a hold of as he stands behind you, "Gross, you two were gonna- in the hotel!"

Spencer groans, rushing away from the door and retreating back to his bed where his novel lies.

"It's after hours!" You insist, "It's not like we were doing it in the precinct on government time. We're adults, Emily."

"We're adults too, y'know. With work in the morning. We can't be kept up all hours of the night by your racket! Just go get it over with," She grimaces, "And- hey! Try to get into your room this time before reaching your hand down her pants, perv!"

[cordeliawhohung]

i had posted this vent piece a few days ago but then deleted it because it had too much of me in it. but some people said they thought it was beautiful and i'm trying to get better about not being ashamed of my dark days so i guess i'll repost it on the off chance it helps someone else.

simon riley x reader; short drabble | hurt comfort, depression, dissociation

Idle hands are the devil’s playthings, and you’ve learned he really likes his games. 

They start as a gentle buzz. A whispering in the back of your skull that traverses down your spine until it takes root in the core of your being. Nothing makes sense at first. It never does. There’s only an insatiable need to destroy, and the object is usually yourself. It’s a fiend you attempt to fight off with deep breathing and good thoughts, but even that gets tainted. Everything born new and fresh eventually becomes stained. It is the cycle of life. Of all things. It haunts you every day. 

You gain this sudden sentience — the realization that you are. It hurts worse than anything, looking at yourself and seeing someone who could enjoy existence. Hope lives in the frayed edges of your jeans at the worn soles of your shoes and the worst part is, you can’t even remember taking the steps to make it that way. It just becomes. You step out of your body to enjoy experiences your mind refuses to remember and you’re only left with the rot and acrimony when it’s all over. 

Part of you hates it because it’s not really you. Can you truly be so soft? Sweet enough to partake in eating bread with a friend? This has to be a facade. You look around your carefully decorated living room and want to smash every object within sight because it’s you. The lovingly placed photos. The hand picked decor. Your favorite childhood movie playing on the TV. Everything drips with your mark, and it’s disgusting because it’s you. 

It’s always you. 

The one person you’re forever stuck with. An aberrant creature you can’t quite run away from. 

You’d snuff it out from the source if you were brave enough. Instead, you continue to curse this existence and apologize for being here all the same. 

The front door creaks open. It’s a long drawl. Nearly enough to perk your ears. You do not look to see who enters. You know him by footsteps alone; towering man lumbering across the living room with heavy weights snagging his shoulders. He says your name and you only hum as glossy eyes stare through the TV. If you look at him, you’ll only ruin him too. 

Work boots scraping across the floor, he flops on the couch next to you. Vibrations rock through you with the force of his body hitting the cushions, and still you’re hardly moved. Eyes forward. Hands tight. Idle. Waiting to rip flesh from bone. Waiting to exterminate the one thing that refuses to relinquish its ailing grasp. When he speaks again, you still don’t answer. 

Feeling you float away, he grounds you. Keeps your head above water as his own suddenly rests in your lap. The weight surprises you. So does the warmth. And for a moment, he is that flicker in the darkness. The sputtering flame that’s losing oil to burn. You stare at him, crooked nose pressed against your knee as he nuzzles into you like a well behaved beast. It’s enough to bring you out of that murk, even if only for a moment. 

“Simon?” 

“Right ‘ere with you, love.” 

The movie continues. Its soundtrack crackles and hums, luring you back into times too far out of your reach. The only thing within your grasp right now is Simon, and so you take what you can get. What you’ve always wanted. Fingers weaving through short chopped hair, he’s snoring in no time, and still you persist. Hands no longer idle. Moving. Flowing. Useful. 

There are some days when the world is too heavy to lift your body from your bed. Days when it seems the only thing you’re good at doing is bleeding. But if the only thing you’ve done today is revel in the feeling of your lover's hair between your fingers, and felt him rest upon your lap, then you know you have finally done enough. 

[buckysdollbarnes]

you are in love series - part one

one look, dark room

PAIRING: tfawts!bucky x grad student!reader

Summary: Moving to NYC to go to grad school, your friend's dad has a connection with the owner of a rental building in Brooklyn where you can live on your own, for cheaper than you could get anywhere else. On a student's budget, you strive to still make your place your own by thrifting as much decor as possible. Meeting your quiet and somewhat secretive neighbor, James, you gain some free labor to help you move the random stuff you buy, and with that he may be growing to love parts of the modern world he has been missing. With you in a big, new city feeling alone for the first time and Bucky wanting to make a connection with someone other than Sam and his therapist, maybe online marketplaces and a turntable will bring you both what you need most.

warnings: mild language

word count: 4.7k

a/n: this is my first time EVER writing fiction, usually I only ever write academic papers so this is fun. :) I read over and revised this chapter so many times, so I hope you enjoy it! Feedback is always welcomed and I'm excited to start on the next chapter.

a/n: also!! sorry for it being so long genuinely just so much had to happen in this chapter for it to be set up the way I wanted, which I think I did well enough. lmk what you think <3

Why did I think carrying this by myself was a good idea? It might be cute and a great deal, but I don’t think I'll be able to feel my arms tomorrow. I might need to hit the gym again before I find more bargains like this. Hell, maybe I'll even invest in a neck towel, because this heat is unbearable. I’ve been searching for some larger pieces to fill my apartment, and this vintage bar cart should fit perfectly. Just five more blocks to go.

Moving here alone has certainly come with its challenges: being on my own in such a big city, dealing with a lot of stress, and managing on a tight budget. But I’m determined to make it work though and prove everyone wrong. Growing up, you see so many romcoms where the heroine leaves everything behind to chase her dreams in NYC, landing a job at a magazine or fashion house, living in a gorgeous high-rise, and meeting the perfect guy. It’s a beautiful fantasy really, but the reality is much tougher. New York isn’t a movie set; it’s a real city with real people, and you have to work just as hard, if not harder, to be here. I know that, but it feels like a majority of my people back home DON’T know that I know that.

I came here for school. In about two months, I’ll be starting my Master’s program at NYU. I don’t think I’ve ever been as proud as when I received my acceptance email. I worked my ass off in undergrad to earn strong recommendations and good academic standing, and seeing it all come together was a huge relief—until the reality of the cost hit me.

Luckily, a friend's dad has a connection with a landlord in Brooklyn and got me a good deal on a place of my own. It’s incredible not to have a roommate in this market, especially in a place where your bed doesn’t touch your stove, though it can be a bit lonely.

Finally, reaching the stoop, out of breath, you set the cart down on the pavement. Wiping your brow, you notice the street is unusually quiet for this time of day. The city never truly sleeps, but the residential streets seem to take occasional naps. A little breath of air somewhere where it feels like oxygen is running out sometimes. Light filters through the trees, momentarily blinding you, and you turn back toward the building.

“How on earth am I going to get this up to my floor?”

Carrying it down the street was one thing, but hauling it up the stairs is a whole different challenge. Plus, who knows when the building's maintenance has last been here, the steps might not hold up under the cart’s weight. They usually feel like they could give away holding one person.

Deciding that falling to your death and being crushed isn’t really how you want to go, you open the double doors and drag the cart into the lobby, using the wheels on one side. Passing the main desk where the worker, who looks completely uninterested, engrossed in a crossword puzzle, you make your way to the end of the hall and start pulling the cart backwards up the incline of the stairwell.

“Nah, I can’t,” you say aloud, after struggling up two floors, letting the cart rest on the landing. There’s still three more floors to go, but your body is clearly telling you the cart belongs right here. Maybe the universe wants it to stay here—who knows, maybe the entire second floor needs a communal bar more than you do.

“Excuse me,” a quiet but rough male voice comes from behind me. You turn around to see him—a guy you’ve seen around your floor a few times, though you’ve never talked. One of the neighbors. You quickly realize you’re blocking the entire staircase.

“Sorry! Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I’ll move this um — just give me a second.”

You shove the cart closer to the wall to make some space for him to pass, but he stays put, his gloved hands in his pockets. He’s definitely handsome—tall and solid, but not intimidating. His furrowed brow and tight-lipped expression don’t exactly scream “welcome,” but he’s still got a certain charm.

He shifts a bit, clearly wanting to say something but hesitating. Feeling a bit awkward under his gaze, you decide to try talking to him again.

“You can just squeeze by if you want. It’s just really heavy, so I’m taking a quick break before I try lifting it up again.”

After a moment, he seems to make up his mind and asks, “Do you need help?”

Looking back at him, you consider saying no. You pride yourself on being independent and capable, and part of you wants to insist you can handle it. But then you think about the struggle of getting the cart up the last two flights of stairs—only this time, it's three—and decide against it.

“You wouldn’t mind? You’re headed down, I’m sure you’ve got somewhere else to be.”

He gives a little smirk that makes you feel a bit dizzy.

“Well, I’m already here so.”

You nod slowly, a small smile appearing on your face.

“Sure, you can take this end, and I’ll get this o—” you start to say, but before you can finish, he’s already in front of you, lifting the cart with ease and starting up the stairs without breaking a sweat.

“Hey! Be careful, uh—,” you pause, realizing you don’t know his name.

He picks up on your hesitation and hesitates himself, considering whether to give his name. He’s wary of how others might perceive him, potentially recognizing his name from past news broadcasts or papers, still dealing with the shadows of his past despite his efforts to make amends. Not wanting to be dishonest, he chooses the safe option.

“James.”

“Be careful, James. I don’t want you tripping and falling on my account.”

“Won’t happen, doll.”

“What-,” you start, caught off guard by the pet name, “what if it does?”

“It won’t, see?” With the last few steps, you and James arrive at your floor. “Already here.”

He must have seen you around before too, to know where you live.

He gives you a quick look and then carries the cart to your door.

“This is yours, right?” He turns and looks at you expectantly. You rush over, fumbling for your keys to unlock the door. If he’s willing to move it all the way, who are you to turn him down?

You lead James into your apartment, wondering if it looks anything like his. The layout can’t be that different; it’s not exactly a luxury building.

He strolls further into the room.

“You can set it right here,” you say quickly. “Thank you for bringing it up for me. I was honestly thinking about giving up when you showed up.”

Setting the cart where you indicated, he straightens up, rolls his shoulders back, and gives you a look that feels intense.

“It’s no problem.”

His gaze wanders around your apartment, taking in the mix of vintage furniture and eclectic decor. On a student’s budget, you’ve filled your space with secondhand finds. It’s more affordable and personal that way. The place might not be filled with new things, but it’s entirely curated by you. Finding beauty in the mix of old and new is something you do well, and now, thanks to James, you have one more piece to add.

James’s eyes land on your turntable setup. He seems intrigued by your collection of records but doesn’t say anything, turning his attention back to you.

“I have to go.”

Your eyebrows lift at his abruptness. Sensing your surprise, he quickly adds, “I’ve got an appointment.”

You nod vigorously, urging him to go and thanking him again for his kindness. Feeling a bit sad that this chance encounter with your new neighbor is ending so quickly, you call out as he heads for the door.

“I’ll see you around then? Since you live here too.”

He turns on his heel, giving you one last smirk.

“Yeah, you’ll see me.”

As he heads down the stairs, you shut your door and lock it behind you. Wandering over to where James’s gaze lingered, you pull an album from the shelf, lift the acrylic cover on your turntable, and set the record down. You close the cover, push play, and let the needle softly drop onto the vinyl. As the music starts, your mind drifts back to James.

Embarrassingly, you find yourself hoping this isn’t a one-time encounter. You don’t know much about him beyond his name, but there’s something about him that makes you want to see him again.

“Two hundred bucks for this is crazy,” you mutter to yourself, staring in disbelief at the sofa you’re eyeing on Facebook Marketplace.

“People are practically giving this stuff away.”

Not wanting to miss out on such a good deal, you message the seller to check if it’s still available.

Since you got the bar cart about a week and a half ago, you haven’t picked up anything else. With the July heat blasting, just thinking about moving a sofa in this weather makes you want to rip off your skin to cool down.

You can’t help but think of James, who you’ve seen briefly in the hallway since your last encounter. He just nodded as he passed by, and that was it.

Your phone dings, snapping you out of your thoughts. The seller confirms the sofa is still available and offers to deliver it since they have a truck.

Excited, you reply with a yes, and they let you know they’ll head your way soon.

You get up to rearrange your furniture, making space for the new sofa. You don’t have much to move since you’ve been slowly collecting things. As you shift the pieces around, your turntable stops, signaling it’s time to flip the record. After you do, you take a moment to picture how the sofa will fit in the space.

Then it hits you—moving a sofa is way heavier than the bar cart. If you struggled with that, how on earth will you manage this?

“Independent woman, my ass.”

With the delivery imminent, you decide on the only solution you can think of. Without hesitation, you head to the apartment across the hall and knock softly on the door. You wait, hoping James will answer. After a moment of shuffling and then silence, you start to wonder if you should just try something else.

Just then, the door cracks open, revealing half of James’s face. He looks curious but not annoyed—no one usually visits him.

“Hey! James! Great to see you again! I hope I’m not interrupting anything, but I was wondering if you could help me out a bit? I just bought a sofa from this marketplace deal, and the seller’s coming to drop it off right now. He said he’d deliver it, but didn’t offer to help get it up to my apartment. I realized a sofa is way heavier than a bar cart, and you saw me struggle with that, so I was kinda sorta hoping you could help me bring it up here?”

After your rambling, you offer him a hopeful smile, waiting for his response.

A few moments of silence later, that smirk you’ve been missing appears on his face. Opening the door wider, he comments with a grin.

“You bought another thing you knew you couldn’t get up the stairs?”

“I honestly didn’t think it through. The deal was too good to pass up. I’m really sorry for bothering you. I can try to find someone else if you’re busy.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t help, doll.”

The smile that blooms on your face is unavoidable.

As the delivery guy drives away, James shows you where to grab the sofa and effortlessly lifts the other end. He encourages you to take the lead, making sure the weight is on him as you both navigate the stairs. With minimal effort, you get the sofa up to your place.

After some awkward maneuvering, you finally get the sofa into your apartment through the thin door and set it down. You put your hands on your hips and exhale deeply, only to find James already looking at you with that same intense gaze from before. It makes you a little nervous.

You can’t help but feel grateful—there’s no way you would have managed this on your own.

“I could have handled the bar cart,” you say, nodding toward the cart now adorned with bottles in the corner, “but this? No chance. Thanks so much for your help.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he replies. “I wasn’t busy.”

As you look at him, you start to feel like you know him from somewhere beyond being just a neighbor. Maybe you’ve seen him around the city before you moved?

Brushing off the thought, you offer, “You’ve helped me out twice now, and it doesn’t feel right not to return the favor. If your whole evening consists of not being busy, why not stay for dinner? I promise I’ll cook something totally good and not poisonous.”

James looks surprised by your offer but quickly hides it.

“You don’t need to do that. You don’t owe me anything,” he says, not wanting you to feel obligated or uncomfortable. He worries that his presence might not be enjoyable.

He wishes he could be as charming as he was back in the 40s. Being friendly used to come easily, and if he were still the same person he was at 26, he wouldn’t have left so quickly after helping you on the stairs the first time. He wouldn’t have had a therapists appointment to go to and he wouldn’t have a hidden arm made of metal. He’d have asked you to dinner or for you to let him take you dancing instead in return for his brawn. Now, he struggles to make new connections beyond a few familiar faces, like Sam, and asking someone for a dance feels out of reach.

“No, no! Stay, I insist! It gets kind of lonely around here, doesn’t it? Why not have a friend dinner?” you press, hoping he’ll take you up on the offer.

Seeing your sincerity, though still feeling a bit miffed, he finally agrees.

“Yeah, sure. I can stay.”

James settles onto the sofa while you work in the kitchen. You’ve decided on making some stuffed ravioli and garlic bread—easy, delicious, hard to mess up.

Before getting into cooking, you switch out the record, letting new music drift softly through the space. Unbeknownst to you, James watches closely, paying attention to how you handle the records and the turntable. The care you take when putting a record back in its slip, taking a new one out of its dust cover, and gently putting it on.

Seeing you focused on cooking, James gets up and strolls over to your setup. He runs his fingers lightly across the spines of the record sleeves, feeling a surprising sense of comfort. He hadn’t realized people still used record players so often.

The setup looks quite familiar to him, with many aspects reminiscent of the record players he used back in his earlier days. In his life before this one.

As you finish preparing the pasta and pull the bread from the oven, you call out, “Hey, food’s ready!”

You glance back to see James hovering by the turntable. He quickly moves to the table and sits down.

Over dinner, the conversation flows comfortably. James seems to be relaxing a bit, his initial reserve fading. He’s still somewhat guarded, but what he does share is genuinely interesting. You sense that opening up is challenging for him, so you respect his pace and take whatever he is willing to give. Laughing with each other a few times and getting through some odd topics, he mentions that he hasn’t had a home-cooked meal in quite a while and thanks you with a smile.

After a pleasant dinner, you decide to bring up something you’d been curious about.

“You like records?”

Caught off guard by the question, James tries to answer without revealing too much about himself. It feels strange to be here, knowing you don’t really know who he is, but he worries that being too open might scare you away. He decides to keep his secrets for now, selfishly hoping to get to know you better before revealing more.

“Yeah, I used to have quite a few records as a kid. My ma would play them too, especially when she was cooking, just like you. I didn’t realize they were still so popular.”

Excited by this glimpse into his past, you push further.

“Oh, there’s definitely a huge market for vinyl. Lots of people who think it makes them superior, but also a lot who just love the physical aspect of it.”

��So which one are you?” he asks.

You laugh and reply, “Maybe a bit of both.”

You glance up at him from beneath your lashes, catching his rare smile.

“But really, I just like having it. There’s something different about the listening experience. It requires more effort than just hitting play on a playlist. It’s about choosing a full album and actually sitting down to listen. That feels more intentional to me, and that’s why I do it.”

James seems to ponder your answer, his expression softer than before. He then turns his gaze back to the turntable.

“So, since you mentioned you had records as a kid, do you not have any now?” you ask.

He shakes his head.

“Haven’t had any for a long time. Talking about it makes me miss them. Everything these days feels so complicated. I like simple things like that.”

Watching him as he looks away, you hesitate but notice the nostalgic shine in his eyes. You sense he might appreciate physical music even more than you do.

“If you ever get any and don’t have a place to play them, you’re welcome to use mine.”

He turns to face you, his expression unreadable.

“I mean, I know it’s not the most convenient offer, but it’s there. One record lover to another,” you add with a smile.

He returns your smile, saying, “Okay… thank you. I’ll keep that in mind, Doll.”

That night, Bucky lies on his makeshift bed on the floor, staring up at the ceiling and replaying the events of the day. You knocking on his door for help with the couch, inviting him over for dinner, and all the easygoing conversation you shared. It was such a stark contrast to his usual rigidity. He'd let his guard down just a little—letting himself smile or flirt ever so slightly.

He wishes he were better at this. It used to come so naturally. Hell, before he left for war, he’d gone dancing with both his own date and Steve’s at the same time. Now, he finds himself listening to you talk while struggling to share anything of his own.

He doesn’t want to pass up your invitation, especially since you’re inviting him into your space again. Clearly, his reserve hasn’t put you off too much.

“What would I even bring?” he wonders aloud.

All he’s ever listened to is 40’s music and big band. He doubts that’s readily available these days.

Rolling onto his side, he grabs the cell phone Steve had insisted he get before he went back in time to live his real life, without Bucky.

“You can do anything on here, Buck!”

Scrolling through the three contacts he has, he taps on the name of the guy who’s been trying to reach him for weeks.

“So, is there a valid reason why you haven’t picked up my damn calls?” Sam’s voice comes through.

“Sam, hi.”

“Did you finally learn how to click the screen? Is that why I’m hearing from you now, old man?”

“Look, I’m sorry. I just don’t like the thing. Too confusing,” Bucky says, grimacing as he fiddles with the phone.

“Okay, okay, what’s going on, man? You doing alright?”

“I’m fine. I just have a question and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t harass me about it.”

“Is it about wizards?”

“What?”

“Wizards. Is the question about wizards?”

“No, what the hell. Look, I had dinner with one of my neighbors tonight—”

“Was it a girl?”

“Does it matter?”

“Hell yes, it matters. And from that response, I KNOW it was a girl, so—”

“It doesn’t matter. She has a record player, which I didn’t know people still used, and she offered to let me use it, but I don’t have anything to play on it.”

“I’m not getting the problem.”

“I only like the stuff from the 40’s and—”

“Did you listen to that Marvin Gaye playlist I sent you?”

“Not interested.”

“C’mon, man, it’s good stuff. Give it a listen.”

“Not feeling it.”

“Alright, your loss, I guess. Still not seeing the problem though.”

“What do I bring? I can’t just bring around the stuff I know because where would I even get it?”

“Whoa, man, what do you mean, where would you get it? Just go to a record store and hit up the vintage section or something.”

Bucky pauses, mulling over Sam’s words.

“They have that?”

“Duh. You know, you could answer these questions a lot easier if you just looked them up on your phone—”

“Thanks, Sam. Talk to you later.”

Lying back down, Bucky decides that the next time he’s out to see his therapist, he’ll first stop by a record store to find something to bring over to your place.

Your easygoing presence was so comforting, and he found himself longing for it as he drifted off to sleep. He’d see you again soon enough.

Later in the week, as you wind down from a busy day, you focus on making your space as calming as possible.

You light some candles and turn on an orange floor lamp, the soft glow wrapping around you and setting the perfect mood to sink into your sofa with the book you’ve been neglecting.

You’ve just started settling into your reading when you’re jolted out of your half-nap by the sound of someone knocking on your door.

You get up and peer through the peephole, and there’s your dinner guest from earlier in the week.

Opening the door with a smile, you greet him.

“Hey James, unexpected visit! What’s up?”

His eyes linger on you for a moment before he speaks. You glance down and realize your outfit—shorts that really lived up to their name and a tank top—might not be the most guest-appropriate.

Brushing off your embarrassment, you look back up at him.

“I’ve got something I’d like to play, if that’s alright?”

Bucky’s mind races. Standing at your door, he worries maybe you only offered your place to be nice, and now he’s making a fool of himself. Of course, you didn’t want him there—he could barely talk.

Just as he’s about to get lost in his own head, your bright smile pulls him out of it.

“Oh my gosh, please, come in. What do you have?”

His doubt fades away as he sees your genuine excitement.

“Brought some Sinatra. Not sure if you’re into that, but I used to like his stuff when I was younger.”

You spin around abruptly, staring at him in disbelief.

“There’s no way you think I don’t know who Frank Sinatra is…”

Bucky stumbles over his words.

“Well, I mean, it’s not exactly new stuff so—”

“You think I wouldn’t know ‘Fly Me to the Moon’? ‘Singin’ in the Rain’? ‘New York, New York’? I mean, I even moved to New York—I had to get the romanticism from somewhere.”

“What are those?”

You pause, confused.

“Like, the most iconic Frank Sinatra songs. You are talking about Frank Sinatra, right? Not some other Sinatra I’ve never heard of?”

“No, you’re right, it’s Frank.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“I guess I don’t know those ones.” He admits.

“So, what era are we talking about?” You ask, reaching for the record.

As you grasp the sleeve, you notice a glint of light catching James’s bare hand. Realizing he’s not wearing gloves, confusion sets in before it clicks. You HAD seen James before.

Looking up at him, he seems frozen, obviously panicking. He planned to tell you eventually, but not like this. Not when you weren’t close enough yet.

He thought there is no way you are going to want anything to do with him now.

You thought there is no way was there's an actual Avenger in your apartment right now.

You’re frozen, just like him, but more in shock rather than fear.

“Do you… usually go by James?” you ask cautiously.

Hesitating, he shakes his head.

“What do you usually go by then?”

Bucky feels anxiety creeping up his back. You’re both still holding the record, and he can’t tell if you’re scared or just surprised.

“Bucky.”

You stay silent for a moment while Bucky’s nerves are on edge.

“So… metal hand…”

Clenching his jaw, he replies, “Arm.”

“You’re that Bucky.”

“Yes.”

After a long pause, you start again.

“You’re an Avenger and you didn’t tell me?”

Bucky hesitates, his discomfort visible. “I’m— I’m not an Avenger.”

“What do you mean? You’re totally an Avenger! Why wouldn’t you tell me? How did I not recognize you before?” you ask, laughing in disbelief.

Bucky’s taken aback. You really thought he was an Avenger? You’re not scared of him at all, which surprises him. You must not know much about his past if you’re still standing this close.

“No wonder you don’t know ‘New York, New York,’” you say, almost to yourself. “It’s from after your time! This is crazy, I—”

You’re interrupted by his response.

“Are you not scared?”

“Of course not.”

Bucky closes in on himself, panic evident. “If you really knew me, you’d want nothing to do with me. I’ve—”

“I might not know the version of you you’re talking about, but I’ve met James, who helped me not once, but twice  carry stuff he definitely didn’t have to up the stairs, stayed for dinner, has been very polite to me, and has given me zero reasons to be scared of him.”

He looks at you, his piercing blue eyes revealing an internal struggle. That one look holds more weight than his words. You can see the battle within him, torn between his past and the present moment.

“Listen,” you say, finally letting go of the record, “if you don’t want to stay, you don’t have to. But I’m not scared of you, and I actually like your company. So, regardless of whether you’re James, Bucky, or whoever, you’re still welcome here.”

You pause, adding, “And we can still play this if you’d like.”

Bucky struggles with his inner turmoil. The idea that you know who he is but still want him around is foreign to him. He doesn’t feel worthy of the kindness you’re offering, but it’s been so long since he’s received such warmth that it’s almost impossible to turn it down.

He’s not comfortable with his identity or his past, but in this moment, he wants to push it aside. If you don’t care, maybe he can allow himself not to care, even if just for a bit. Maybe he can prove something to himself, or even his therapist.

Handing you the record, he relaxes his face slightly. You’ve always thought him handsome, but in the dim light of the dark room, he looks almost ethereal.

You’re hoping he believes you because your excitement for his company tonight feels more significant than it probably should, but you’re okay with that.

“I’m Bucky.”

You smile warmly at this change. “Alright, Bucky. What do you want to do?”

He gazes at you deeply, his look sending a shiver down your spine and warming your chest. “Play it.”

a/n: well, hope this was alright. as I mentioned before, ive never wrote fiction before, but ive definitely read enough to get the gist.

[vampiretendencies]

JJ thinking about your future together - especially when he is drunk

he can handle his liquor to a certain extent, though when you’re near he loses half his brain.

so normal obsessive boyfriend jj times a thousand, because he sees double of you and that’s an epiphany all in one.

jj didn’t hone in on the future as of late, now it’s all ‘i want us to have two dogs when we get our own place’ and ‘when our kids this’ and ‘when our kids that’. truth be told, jj has a penciled in notebook in the drawer of his nightstand, labeled ‘if i’m lucky enough to keep her around’ and any minuscule detail you say pertaining to the future— he repeats it to himself until he’s alone and can get to that damn notebook.

from the paint that you mentioned you want on your ideal forever home, to the decorations he notices that you gravitate more towards.

he’s sat under a large unoccupied tree, the two of you escaping the boneyard party. especially upon the realization that he’s had one two many. but he’s got his girl cozied daintly between the comfort of his legs, arms meeting at the centre of your torso— so what more could he ask for ?

your head was on his broad chest, his chin fitting like a puzzle piece to your forehead. thumbs rubbing in circular motions at the skin of your torso for not only you but himself. it’s been silence for the past twenty minutes, yet neither of you seem to mind— it was the presence that mattered.

“when we get our own place…” he started, lips fumbling a bit as he licked them. you grinned knowing what was to come would be evident of his love for you. jj was referring to the home the two of you get after apartments, after rentals, the home the two of you will spend the rest of your life in making endless babies. “we will be married ideally right baby?”

“mhm.”

“s-so i was thinkin’— y’know how when we would do dishes or whatever we have to take our rings off yeah?”

“yes…” unsure of where he was going with it

“m’gonna put a little hook on one of the cabinets, so we can hang them there until we’re done. they’ll be together, and we won’t lose them … just like how i don’t lose my way when m’with you.”

you failed to comprehend how he aimlessly comes up with ways to make you become besotted with him. your heart seizes, fluttering tenfold. living inside his words, you forget to answer and when you don’t he overthinks it being the worse idea humanly possible.

“or maybe not, m’just spitballin’. if you don’t want that we’ll figure something else out, pretty girl.”

eyes averting to yours, you drown him in a kiss that says all that went unsaid.

[glitterjay]

🍒: THANKYOU SM LOVE FOR WELCOMING ME <33 I HOPE YOU'RE DOING AMAZING!!!

thoughts on sub virgin heeseung feeling nervous and insecure about his size for his first time with reader but as the reader comforts him throughout, turns out he's REALLY BIG??

⭒ sub!heeseung, virgin!heeseung, dom!reader, insecurities, riding, pet names (kind of), not very explicit, minors dni

⭒ c's note: you're very welcome ♡ and i hope YOU are doing fantastic

⭒ taglist (open): @hollyoongs @fertilizedtoesw

you loved him for who he was. yes. that was the only logical reason. heeseung was a very handsome and nice guy overall. he was also very cocked, or so, he wanted to seem that way.

he his his own insecurities by always having big talk about himself, but deep down he was scared he wouldnt be able to fulfill your needs sex wise.

he knew he was attractive and god did he live up to it, but the reason behind why he was still a virgin was because he didnt have fait in himself, or well, his dick.

when you found out about this, though, you made it your plan to ride him up until he gave into the idea of having sex. it was dirty play, sure, but you still wouldnt try anything too far unless heeseung himself gave you a green light.

-

it didnt take long for him to break, and that green light came faster than you expected. he was sitting on the couch watching something on the tv when you decided to join him. instead of sitting next to him, though, you sat on his lap, ass directly on top of crotch.

it was okay for the first few minutes until you started to get "excited" and you'd start to move a lot against his cock. it was only fair for him to get hard. heeseung was going to excuse himself to get rid of his boner alone like he had grown used to, but something in him felt like he was ready to let go of his insecurities.

when you pulled his sweatpants down just enough to reveal his dick, your mouth watered when you saw it. heeseung was looking everywhere in the room but you. suddenly he felt really shy.

"holy shit, heeseung you're huge!"

you had to get him inside you. there was no time to waste, so you aligned yourself with the tip of his dick with no prep beforehand.

he wasnt all the way in and heeseung was already a moaning mess. you couldnt blame him. all this time holding back because he was so scared and insecure, but you were there to make him feel better about himself.

you took a deep breath and sank all the way in. you let out a loud gas as your boyfriend let out a high pitched moan. you grabbed his hands and placed them on your hip as you started moving little by little.

"fuck babe, you feel so good- mhm! yeah, so big."

your words had him seeing shapes and rainbows. it was embarrassing how quick he was getting to his own finish, but seeing you enjoy it so much was exhilarating.

"is my sweet boy close? come on, baby. i'll let you cum inside me."

there was no way the sweetest and most beautiful voice was saying those filthy words right in front of him. he opened his eyes and moved his hands from your hip to ream your body. he had to make sure it wasnt a dream.

"gatekeeping this monstercock all to myself."

and with that, heeseung's hips were bucking up as he held your body down on him, releasing all his warm seeds in you. his face was red, already sweaty. his beautiful voice, the same one that would randomly sing so nicely was now decorating the air space in the living room with broken, high pitched moans.

you werent done yet, though, so you kissed the few tears that fell from his eyes away as a little gift for ruining him for the rest of the day.

© glitterjay | tumblr

[skzstannie]

“We’d never want you to struggle alone”

SKZ-> ot8 x 9th member! reader

genre: angst wc: ~2100 cw: mentions of depression and death of family members, hatred for the holidays

Hi guys! Here’s my attempt at some Christmas/holiday angst. The fluffy Part 2 is posted and linked at the bottom of this post!

Feedback and likes/reblogs are greatly appreciated! I haven't got the chance to interact with too many people on here yet, so reach out if you'd like!

Happy scrolling!

"Hey guys, I'm pretty tired. I think I'm gonna head to bed. Chan Oppa, I'm gonna go lay down in your room until everyone's ready to go back to our dorm," you wave off their comments asking you to stay with them and make your way to the leader's bedroom.

It's December 20th, and the guys are all gathered around the television in the 3Racha/Hyunjin dorm, binge watching Christmas movies. During a normal year, you'd all be at your own homes with your families, cozying up to the fireplaces and drinking hot chocolate with your siblings. However, this was no normal year, and your comeback ran too close to the holidays, not allowing you nor the boys to go home for Christmas. Not that you particularly minded; you hated the holidays.

You imagine what you'd be doing at home right now, no doubt curled up in your bed with an exciting romance novel, listening to some dark academia playlist you'd found on YouTube.

But you're not home, you're stuck here with a bunch of Christmas-crazed dorks who have spent the last few weeks decorating your dorms full of all things Santa Claus. You've been managing to sneak away whenever any holiday-esque activities are taking place. You've not told them of your hatred towards the holidays, and you're not really planning to, either, not wanting to be the reason their fun-filled nights are ruined; they're already sad enough about not being able to head home for the holidays, the last thing you want to do is be a scrooge. So, you’ve resorted to humbly excusing yourself, busying yourself with your own activities when the occasion arises.

As you walk into Chan's room, you take notice of all the little trees he has decorating his room. Cute. You pick up the picture of his family he has resting on his nightstand beside his bed. You stare at his mom, dad, siblings, and grandparents smiling faces, feeling the familiarly unavoidable pit in your stomach form.

Your parents and one set of your grandparents passed away in a car wreck about five years ago, before you debuted with the guys. Your other grandparents, your mother's parents, passed away before you were born, never getting the opportunity to meet them. So, that left just you and your brother. Your brother, being a few years older than you, started his own family the summer after your parents passed. He has a beautiful wife and two children now, one boy and one girl. They got right to baby-making after they got married, so excited to start a family of their own. Unfortunately, that family never included you. You only know of their children because you’re mutuals with your sister-in-law on social media.

Your brother essentially ghosted you after his first child was born. You two were never the closest sibling duo, but you never expected him to completely drop you and ignore your existence. But he did, and that's just something you have learned to live with.

You were not in a healthy place after all this happened. You had no one to go to when your heart was breaking, grieving the loss of both your dead and alive family members. You put all your focus into the trainee program, all your sadness and anger towards the world into your dance and song. Chan eventually found you on that one fateful day that you deemed saved your life. You were at the lowest of your low, and you thought you had finally reached your breaking point, but then walked in Christopher Bang Chan, all smiles and laughter. He recruited you to be in his group as one of the first, right after Han. From then on, you had another reason to keep going, to keep fighting.

You've never told the guys this. You have always been a more reserved member, keeping all of your personal life out of the spotlight. While the boys never heard you talk much about your family, really only knowing you have a brother, they always thought that, when you went home for the holidays, you went home to a nice big house filled with love. They thought when you walked in the doors to your childhood home, you were welcomed in by your parents with opened arms, beckoning you in. They thought you spent your Christmas mornings opening nicely wrapped presents, followed by a home-cooked breakfast that'd be shared amongst your family.

They didn't know of the single bedroom apartment you called yours. They didn't know of the bareness that captured your living room, baren of all things Christmas and the lack of Christmas cookies and presents on Christmas Day. They didn't know you've always spent your holidays alone.

Honestly, you were completely fine with their assumptions. You didn't need nor want their pity. Your family was still an incredibly sensitive topic to you. Before their passing, you were so very close. You'd spent every holiday together, enjoying your time as a family, doing all the cliche things. You'd even gone caroling a few times, walking around your childhood neighborhood singing the classic Christmas songs off-key to your friendly neighbors.

Afraid you'd spiral, leading you right back to how you'd been before Chan found you, you never brought it up, and the boys never pushed you to talk about your family. They figured you were normal with a mom, dad, and a loving brother-so what's to talk about?

The holidays have never felt the same; you knew they wouldn't. So why try? Why go through the effort of making yourself a nice Christmas dinner, attending church on Christmas eve and waking up early Christmas morning, when you knew your parents wouldn't be there to greet you. When you knew your grandmother wouldn't be there to give you the biggest hug she could muster in her old age. When your grandfather wouldn't be there to give you a hearty pat on the back, his only true form of physical affection you'd ever experienced in all your years with him.

A quiet knock pulls you out of your thoughts, and in walks Felix with a glass of milk in hand. You quickly set down the picture frame you didn't realize you were still holding and give him a warm smile.

"Hey, what's up?" you ask him, taking the glass from him and sipping on the cold beverage.

"I just wanted to make sure you were feeling alright. You've been pretty distant for a couple weeks now. Is everything ok?"

You're a little caught off guard, this being the first time anyone's noticed your pulling back since the beginning of December. You honesty didn't even realize anyone was paying attention to you, all of them too caught up in the festive activities and excitement of the season.

"Yea, I mean, I'm fine. Just a bit of seasonal depression," you write off his concerns.

"I didn't know you had that," Felix ponders his thoughts for a minute, giving you a loving look. "Is there anything I can do to help? Have you always had seasonal depression?"

While looking into Felix's warm, brown eyes, you decide that keeping all these things from them all these years has been unfair. They're never afraid of sharing their personal struggles with you. You think back to all the times Han's came to you with anxiety, and how you've wanted nothing more than to take away all his worry and pain. How Seungmin's came to you with his insecurities, and you always hyping him up, calling him the most beautiful boy. If any of them had kept their struggling to themselves, it'd crush you. How dare they feel like they couldn't come to you? Why would they want to struggle alone?

You realize that these feelings are most definitely reciprocated by the guys. Now, feeling vulnerable after being left alone with your thoughts for so long, you have the dire urge to come clean about your family.

"Actually Felix, I've been struggling with this for quite some time now. Can you, maybe just, listen? I've never talked to anyone about this, but I want to now. I want you guys to know," you fiddle with your hands, sliding one of your rings on and off your finger.

"Of course! You can always talk to me. Go ahead, I'm listening." He grabs your hand, halting your fidgeting. You look up at him, take a deep breath, and let it all out. Everything you've been holding onto these last few years. It probably sounds like word vomit, all your feelings and hardships falling out of your mouth at lightning speed. You finish your rambling, and you finally have the courage to look up at his face again.

He's crying. Equipped with all the theatrics, the wobbly lip and rosy cheeks. You made Felix cry with all your problems. You reach up to his cheek, wiping a few of his falling tears.

"Ok, I think I'm done," you freeze as Felix also brings his index finger up to your cheek. You flinch when he pulls away, seeing the dampness of it.

You're crying, too. You didn't even realize. I mean, it makes sense. You just trauma dumped all of your troubles onto Felix, the world's most renowned empath, of course you'd be crying.

You guys sit in silence for a minute, before Felix's whimpers become audible. He's so visibly distraught, and your heart breaks even more just at the mere sight of him.

He launches himself at you, clinging to you so tightly you think your ribs may crack. He tackles you back onto the bed, resting on top of you.

"Why did you never tell us this?" his sobs wreck through his body, his arms trembling around you, "We could've helped you."

"I was scared," you wriggle one of your arms free of his embrace, using it to affectionately run your hand through his hair. Your sobs join together as one, both of you a mess. "I was scared you guys would pity me, or look at me less. I was scared that I'd spiral again if I talked about it."

"Well, we're here now, Jagiya." He sits up after a few minutes. His cries have quieted, and so have yours. "We aren't going to let you continue going through this alone, ya know. We are one, and if one of us is hurting, we're all hurting. Please don't keep things like this from us anymore." He begs, standing from the bed. He grabs your hand and pulls you up, making his way towards the door.

"Where are we going?" your voice shakes and you pull away from Felix, standing in the middle of Chan's room. You wrap your arms around your middle, feeling more exposed than you ever have before.

"You know we have to tell the rest of them. They deserve to know, too."

"Felix, I don't think I can tell the story again. Once was enough for a lifetime."

"OK, do you feel comfortable with me telling them? I'll tell them exactly what you told me, no more, no less, ok?"

You frantically nod your head, grateful for Felix's suggestion.

He blows you a playful kiss, no doubt trying to make you feel better, and he leaves to go to the living room. You take your seat back down on the side of the bed and wait patiently for Felix to finish.

You don't hear much for the next few minutes, but you're startled by the swinging open of the door, the handle cracking against Chan's poor wall. Han stands there, a dazed look on his face. His glassy eyes meet yours, and you shriek when he takes off, leaping onto the bed onto your small frame. He wraps you up in a big hug, squeezing the life out of you.

"We love you, and we'd never want you to struggle alone. We're in this life together."

One by one, the rest of the guys make their way into the room onto the bed. We're haphazardly thrown into a cuddle pile of sorts. A cuddle pile filled with the love and adoration you've been missing during the holidays.

You all lay in each other's arms, and you feel incredibly comfortable and safe. Chan's the first to break the silence, "We have five days left until Christmas. What do you say we make some new Christmas traditions? We don't want to replace what you used to have, and you’re entitled to spend your Christmas season as you'd like. But, if you'll let us, we’ll give you something to look forward to about the holidays again. Please?" The guys are all looking at you now, each of them displaying a face that could rival a sad puppy.

You realize now that there's nothing to be scared of. These are your best friends you're talking about, who want nothing but to shower you in love and happiness.

"I'd love that."

Part 2

[mcflymemes]

PROMPTS FROM SHREK *  assorted dialogue from the 2001 film, adjust as necessary

two things, okay? shut... up.

you didn't slay the dragon?

some of you may die... but it's a sacrifice i am willing to make.

they judge me before they even know me. that's why i'm better off alone.

how will you kiss me?

that wasn't in the job description!

what is so funny?

let's just say... i'm not your type.

pick me! pick me!

i've got a dragon and i'm not afraid to use it!

now really, it's rude enough being alive when no one wants you, but showing up uninvited to a wedding?

it's a compliment! better out than in, i always say.

you can't tell me you're afraid of heights.

let's do that again!

what's that? it's hideous.

only a true friend would be that cruelly honest!

well, technically, you're not a king.

the battle is won.

so where is this fire-breathing pain in the neck, anyway?

hey, don't look at me. i didn't invite them.

it's on my to-do list!

you're meant to charge in, sword drawn, banners flying!

that's not the point!

huh, celebrity marriages. they never last, do they?

that'll do, [name]. that'll do.

you're going the right way for a smacked bottom.

well, that's not very nice. it's just a donkey.

where are you going? the exit's over there!

i have to save my ass.

what kind of a knight are you?

i was talking about the dragon.

man, this would be so much easier if i wasn't color-blind.

we can stay up late, swapping manly stories, and in the morning... i'm making waffles!

whoa, look at that. who'd wanna live in a place like that?

that... would be my home.

i think i need a hug.

you're a monster!

we were forced to come here!

you know, you're really quite a decorator!

it's amazing what you've done with such a modest budget!

i like that boulder. that is a nice boulder.

you know, not everybody likes onions.

everybody loves cake!

i don't care what everyone likes!

have you ever met a person, you say, "let's get some parfait," they say, "hell no, i don't like parfait."

end of story! bye bye! see ya later!

parfaits may be the most delicious thing on the whole damn planet!

it talks?

i'm not the monster here, you are!

now tell me, where are the others!

eat me!

i've tried to be fair to you creatures, but now my patience has reached its end.

all right then! who's hiding them?

oh you're going to love it there.

men of his stature are in short supply.

it's getting him to shut up that's the trick!

hey, what's your problem [name], what you got against the whole world anyway, huh?

i'll find those stairs.

look, i'm not the one with the problem, okay? it's the world that seems to have a problem with me.

do you think he's maybe compensating for something?

hey, where're you going?

oh man, i can't feel my toes!

take a look at me. what am i?

doesn't that bother you?

man, i like you. what's your name?

you're so wrapped up in layers, onion boy, you're afraid of your own feelings.

there you are, doing it again!

oh... oh this is all my fault.

you can't do this to me! i'm too young for you to die!

you gotta warn somebody before you just crack one off, my mouth was open and everything.

believe me, if it was me... you'd be dead.

i steal from the rich and give to the needy.

man, that was annoying.

i was sent to rescue you.

i'm supposed to be rescued by my true love!

your job is not my problem.

you love this woman, don't you?

i don't want to rush into a physical relationship.

like that's ever gonna happen!

why are you following me?

stop singing!

it's no wonder you don't have any friends!

[vilsoo]

𝐋𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐀𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐄 ⌇LEON KENNEDY

vampire!reader x prince!leon || WC: 3,626

𖤐 SYNOPSIS. you’ve had your eye on prince leon for a long time, impersonating as a sweet duchess developing an ardent relationship with him. but with your dark intentions, you crave for nothing but his blood and to corrupt him as a vampire…

𖤐 WARNINGS. historical royalty au, duchess!reader, coercion so dubcon warning, seduction, hypnosis, eventual smut, bathtub sex, marking, neck biting, blood drinking, mentions of killing, loss of innocence, kinda ooc leon, multiple orgasms.

HORRORLAND/KINKTOBER MASTERLIST

[HAUNTED HOUSE ANNOUNCER] You are now entering the Lust at First Bite live venue. This haunted house attraction depicts scenes of violence, intense loud audio, special effects, and content warnings posted. For a fun and safe experience, please follow our code of conduct: no touching live performers and decorations, no flash photography, and no eating. Do not block passageways, or this will result in expulsion. Smoking and drinking are permitted for our haunted houses only. We hope you enjoy.

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“Your grace. There is a nice, hot bath prepared just for you in the master bathroom.”

Your gaze settles onto Prince Leon as you were reading a book on your sofa, drinking in the very sight of him. He felt his own heartbeat stomp through his ribcage from how ravishing you looked under the pale moonlight radiating from your window, dressed in your nightgown and the enamoring glimmer in your eyes drizzling into his skin, buzzing in all directions of his soul. You see him with his embellished suit off and only his white dress shirt, a sign that he would be retiring back to his chambers soon for the night.

You’ve favored each other for the longest. You knew that Prince Leon had deep, incandescent feelings for you, the darling duchess of España, but was too abashed to confess. And even though there was a lingering part of you that shares the same feelings, your heart wasn’t in the right place. No desire for love, commitment, marriage, or even the title of queen in the kingdom once Leon inherits his title as king. Only a handsome man like him can writhe you into a carnal fervor, your dark desire growing stronger like a restless, insatiable hunger…

The forbidden lust and tension between you two was tormenting to even bear every second you spend time together; you wanted him in ways that he could never imagine, all those filthy, vivid dreams filling your mind. The passion, the roughness, the danger, the urge to corrupt that sweet, innocent soul… Moments in time when you’re both alone was like playing with fire and ice, aware that such ravenous desire and yearning for each other could be intoxicating…

Prince Leon lends a hand for you as you stand before him, your beautiful, genuine smile causing his heart to flutter. “Why, thank you, Your Highness. I’ll be on my way right now.”

“No need for formalities, remember?” Leon smiled back, still holding onto your hand that his thumb involuntarily grazes your fingers. Your gaze flickers down on his hands and then up into his face, fighting the urge to inch ever so closely to feel his lips on yours.

“Right. Well, are you retiring to bed for the night?”

“I was on my way, but… if you have any requests before I go, I’ll be of service.”

Slowly letting go of his hand, your longing gaze drifts to the bay windows, a silent statement that you didn’t want him to leave just yet. Coronation is just in three days and Leon will become king. Ever since you were inherited duchess, you’ve waited so long for this very moment… Not to celebrate Leon and partake in festivities, but to celebrate your own triumph...

The triumph of finally drinking his blood.

“Will you help me unlace my dress?” you requested ever so fondly. Leon looked as if every fiber of his being seized at the question, rendered motionless and his jaw slightly slackened.

“Uh, are you— are you sure, your grace?” he stammered. “You’re comfortable with me… touching you like that? Wouldn’t we be in some sort of trouble…?”

His innocence prompted a chuckle from you, coyly slanting your head at him with the right kind of heat and ardor pooling in your flaunting eyes. Immediately his mind is haunted by the hollow embrace of your gaze. Oh how you loved enticing the prince without lifting a finger, that he couldn’t help but to get lost in you, already undressing you with his eyes.

“Oh, Leon. You said you’d be of service for me tonight. Why would I get you into trouble?” You simpered, whirling your body around to reveal your delicate frill laced corset beautifully tied into a bow. Though the prince was hesitant to even lay a finger on your enamoring body, he would forever adorn your warming embrace, urging him to please you and surrender to your unfair seduction.

“Forgive me. You know how I tend to be… wary of your grace. I would do anything as you please.”

A smile stretches across your face, emitting soft sighs of relief as Leon loosens up your dress and the pressure finally lifted from your waist. The steady pace of beating hearts and slowed breathing, his calloused hands lightly brushing against your back, the shape of your body seeping into his mind… Your body has already succumbed to this desiring aroma, addicted to each other with such burning ecstasy.

“I worry that once you’re king, the circumstances between us may change,” you murmured as Leon loosened the last section of lace, whirling around to meet his eyes once again.

He held back the urge to lean forward, to finally taste those saccharine lips of yours bathed under the moonlight, to kiss you for reassurance; even though he knew that you did not belong to him...

“Y/N. You know how deeply I favor you. Being a king may have more responsibilities, but that doesn’t mean not spending time with you. Surely that is something I won’t ever miss out on,” the prince professes, ever so sweetly.

“Oh, Leon...” Another warm, genuine smile and a soft chuckle was all you replied with, clutching your loosened dress to cover your semi-exposed chest as you made your way to the master bathroom. “If your desire to spend more time alone with me is true, will you partake in more favors for me?”

“Of course, your grace. Anything.”

You hummed. “Will you light the candles in the bathroom, please? You know I love the ones you gave me.”

Leon scoffed softly, finding your demure request oddly adorable. “As you wish, your grace.”

As he lights a match from your fireplace to transfer to your bathroom, your dress had already pooled around your ankles, completely naked as Leon saunters back and flinched in shock from accidentally averting his eyes on your bare skin. “Your— your grace!” he stammers again, shielding his face away from your direction. “Forgive my eyes, I— I didn’t know you disrobed so quickly— I will be taking my leave—“

“Leon,” you assured, also piqued by how adorable he was. “There’s absolutely no need for that at all. I still require your presence.”

The prince cleared his throat, his head still turned away and eyes fixated onto the wall. “Oh, uh— of course. As long as you are comfortable, I won’t leave your side…”

“Will you look at me when I am speaking as well?”

As much as Prince Leon was flustered from your risqué behavior stemming from nowhere, he couldn’t bring himself to disobey your commands. And though he was of much higher status, being heir to the throne, while you were of a lower rank than him, he always felt rather inclined to serve and satisfy you. When his frantic eyes drifts ever so slowly onto your nude body, the depths of his blood rushed to meet the surface of his cheeks. A slow inhale he took as if he breathed the sight of you in, effortlessly seducing his thoughts…

“What’s the matter?” you spoke, his eyes never leaving the beguiling sight of your body as you dipped your feet in the bathtub.

“Um— nothing, nothing. It’s just… you may have stolen my breath away once again, your grace.”

“Once again?” you teased. “Ah, how could I forget your expression after seeing me in my gown during our tea party in the gardens a week ago...”

With the dandelion colored candlelight dancing off the rippling water, you submerged in the warm bath of rose petals and lavender, the sweet aroma of affection, serenity, and fondness filling the air. Leon was undeniably enticed. As if you wrapped him under a spell with such wanton lust, every soft whisper and every alluring gaze you give each other unleashing a storm of temptation. He felt inclined to feel closer to you as you washed yourself, right beside your grand bathtub, his shadow towering over you.

“Your grace. As honest as I am with you as you are with me... I believe we both know exactly why you require my presence tonight,” he mutters, beginning to unbutton his shirt.

Your eyes widened in utter shock, a facade of panic when deep down you were so close to getting exactly what you’ve wanted. “Leon? Are you— Are you disrobing?”

“Are you planning to make me beg for this? I can’t handle it any longer. And I know you can’t either,” he mutters passionately, lulling your heart from his poetic confession. “Just say the words, my dearest. Tell me what you want.”

Behind those mesmerizing shades in your eyes leave something much more desirable that Leon can sense. Your doe, heated eyes behind the blinds of time, slowly traveling up his chest and bare skin, lips parting like an invitation for him. You tried so hard maintaining your blood thirst that it took every fiber of your being to hold yourself back for years now. It was like a blaring siren overtaking your ears, your chest thundering and pounding erratically, and your gut screaming at you that it was finally time to feast on the man you’ve been keeping your eye on for so long…

“Leon… If we do this, we must—“

“—be discreet, yes. There was nobody around before I entered, your grace. Everybody else had retired to their chambers.”

You stammered on your own words as he undoes the rest of his undergarments, shielding your eyes and turning away as he dips into the rose petal bath. If only he knew your veneer bashfulness towards him, wickedly hypnotizing him with your sultry eyes and mind…

“Your grace. Is this alright with you?” he reassures. “You can, uh… turn around whenever you’re comfortable.”

Ever so slowly you face him, inhaling deeply and sighing softly at the sight of his flesh and body before you. His skin drizzled with drops of water was so beautiful, pale and mysterious, a man that walked straight out of your twisted fairytale. Your hands moved as if it possessed a mind of its own, delicately caressing him and ambling closer to the point he can breathe you in. Just how longer can you bear yourself around him?

“My prince,” you passionately whisper, inclining your neck to take in his warm bright blue eyes and the tingling feeling of his nose brushing against yours.

The bathroom was dimly lit, glinted in darker shades; somber, sultry, and sacred. All air had escaped your lungs, panting heavily and trembling lips parted like an invitation for each other. The gap between you was now inevitably thin. Leon’s hands slide down the slope of your ribs and the curves of your hip, a thrilling shiver coursing in your veins.

“Yes. I can’t begin to explain how much of a… wicked man I am for you,” he murmurs. “You effortlessly bewitch and beguile me. And I must—I must not only tell, but show these strong feelings I have for you. It torments my soul every morning and every night…”

“As does mine, Leon…”

“Tonight, right here in this bath we share… You’re my queen. I live to please and satisfy you, Y/N.”

He dips his head further, pulling you by the neck and settling onto his lips, smiling in between your passionate kiss. Hands wandering the perfect canvas of his skin, he was pressed against the walls of the bathtub as you melted into the kiss. Not only can you taste him, but you can smell his blood so up close, an inferno of passion which was also your tempestuous hell. Your heart became a cauldron, ablaze with yearning and maddening, pulsing blood lust. In a rapturous fervour, your body falls under your unquenched, carnal hunger for him.

“I love you, Y/N,” you hear him murmur. “I love you, I love you, I love you… Let us consume each other right here.”

Consume each other…

Your eyes were forced shut, concealing the wicked change of color in your eyes, emerging into your primal, vampire state. You enchant him with lips grazing against his neck, breathing slowly as his human scent invades you tremendously. He arches his neck with the back of his head resting on the bathtub’s edge, eyes closed in ecstasy from the way you drizzled his body with kisses that were soon to be your markings. Your rapacious desire, your dangerous craving and insatiable taste for blood that no one could ever know, not even the prince himself, has finally risen like the full moon. Terror was now your fine embodiment…

“Oh, Leon… I’ve always wondered what you taste like.”

You finally bared your fangs, its sharpness shining in the light of the moonshine peaking through the windows. Your piercing, cranberry-colored eyes flickered one last time onto Leon’s face like a predator feening on its prey that it just captured. His eyelids began to flutter as he gazed upon the ceiling like he was lost in his own world, somewhat contemplating the words you just spoke of. But as the candelight flickered and the air thickened, you were ready to feed.

“Taste like..?”

With no warning your fangs sink deep into his neck, draining him so harshly as you enthralled in your long-awaited bloodgasm and feral lust. His body beneath you squirmed and writhed, his eyes meeting your predatory, bone-chilling gaze as he was about to scream and shriek from the pain and terror. But you cover his mouth, hissing as he struggled to escape from your grasp until you feel his body going cold, his eyes falling heavy, his heart beating slowly, breath hitching, and his strength staggering. You kept marking him all over his neck and chest, robbing him of his delicious blood that you were sent into a frenzy, intoxicated state. A beautiful bloodgasm.

“Your grace, what— what are you…?” Leon groggily whispers, rendered numb and dazed from how much blood you drained out of him. “Are you— are you gonna kill me?!”

You may have felt a little remorseful for ruining him like this, but after all, this was your mission from the beginning. Nothing but an ardent relationship that arbitrarily developed into something much deeper, where you kept holding back on the days you were dutied to drink him then kill him. You can see the betrayal and longing behind his eyes. The fear staggering in his ribs that you can feel his heart thundering. He was still under your spell, hypnotized and mystified by your seduction, which was why he didn’t react so frantic or hostile. Perhaps he was riveted deep down, stupefied beyond belief of who you really are behind your lovely facade… The poor Prince Leon was a goddamn fool.

“I won’t... If you be obedient for me,” you reassured to him tantalizingly, noticing him quiver as you ran your sharpened lacquered almond nails down his chest.

“So this was your plan all along…? Reveal yourself to me before I’m crowned king?” Leon retaliates weakly. “How were… how were you able to live without… drinking blood?”

“What do you think happened to all our prisoners in the dungeons? All the innocent civilians going missing and found dead from loss of blood,” you smirked, Leon’s blood still draped all over your lips, teeth, and chin. “You should be grateful that you’re the only man I’ve shown mercy to. And with all my markings on your Heavenly body… you may be fatigued from how much I drank, but you’re still alive and useful. For now.”

Leon growled in frustration his nose flaring and his breath hitching, unable to fathom his demise. He still couldn’t move his arms, for all of his limbs remained numb and his strength rendered docile. “Damn you! What— what is it that you really want, Y/N? I know you’re not only thirsting after my blood— I demand an answer!”

“You… you will be my consort as we terrorize this kingdom and its people together, leaving us as the rightful vampire heirs,” you taunted, seizing every nerve in Leon’s modified body. “The night we have our dinner party, our guests will be treated with a special meal— paralyzing them just for us to feed on their blood and celebrate our triumph. The more we feed, the more we become powerful.”

“I— I would never!” the prince retorts, his voice suddenly cracking from his surge of emotions washing over him. “I loved you, Y/N! This wasn’t… this wasn’t the future I wanted with you…”

“That’s such a shame. With the changes going on in your body right now, our bloodlust future together is inevitable. You already belong to me, Prince Leon Kennedy.”

Moonlight washes over his face, eyes wincing from how rapid his heart was thundering in his chest. Every nerve in his body was on high-alert, tearing inside him in such agonizing, razor-sharp pain. In that fleeting moment, with every heavy breath he takes as his body surrenders to this brain-fazing sensation, he was no longer himself. Your daunting words and hypnotism dwells within his skull, corrupting him in vulgar, ravenous ways.

Not one word was spoken as he embraced the roaring pain slashing in his body like acid. He felt enraged. He felt animalistic. He felt thirsty. He felt… plagued by such a forbidden desire, your seduction like grotesque death to him. Corrupted by lust, he is now a dark incarnate. No longer a human. No longer a king.

He was a bloodlusted man that serves his only purpose of pleasuring you.

“I— I belong to you, Your Grace.”

You smiled a wicked smile, catching a glimpse of Leon’s new fangs as he parts his lips for you like an invitation. The innocence, purity, and humanity that would pool behind his beautiful eyes is now ravaged with salacious filth and hunger. His humanity and dignity will now forever remain unobtainable. With the man you loved and favored reborn as one of the most deadliest, sinister creatures to scorch the Earth, you were an indestructible pair…

Leon tossed away his chastity, his honor, his celibacy the moment your lips clashed together, savoring every bit of each other to engrave in your minds. His immoral lust was a feast of flavors that blazed wildly like an untamed flame. A low growl in his throat as he kissed you so hard and rough, wanting you to bite down on his lips with your sharp fangs. Sensations coursed through his body, transferring to your flesh. Water mixed with blood was splashing onto the floor as Leon tried to push you against the wall this time for control, but he your affect rendered the depraved man docile. He couldn’t win over you, no matter how physically capable he was.

“Your— Your grace,” he gasped, looking down at the water as your swollen cunt started grinding against his aching cock. “Please, I need to feel you… I’ve been waiting for so long to experience this ecstasy with you…”

“Oh, my poor prince,” you feigned a pout, planting kisses on neck and behind his earlobe. “Vampires don’t make love. Vampires don’t indulge in intimacy… We only consume. We ravage. Human blood and power is our lustful cravings for eternity, but you, Leon… Your love is the only lethal drug I can inject into my bloodstream to satiate me.”

“I don’t care what I am anymore, Y/N. As a human, as a king, as a vampire, as a dead man… I’ll always be a cruel, withered man crawling back to you with maddening hunger. My lustful craving was always you. You alone satiate me more than anything in this rotten world.”

You had no idea what took over you at that passionate, endearing moment shared with Leon… but everything fell foggy as you were sitting on top of his cock and kissing him at the same time, hearing the water sloshing around as you moved your hips on him with sultry rolls. He felt better than you had fantasized before; pinpricks of electricity and intensity blossoming inside you, hearing him whimper and groan in your ears as he fills you up so good. It was a whirlwind of pleasure and torture, carnality and filth, intimacy and immorality… Your body enthralled in the exquisite affection Leon has been longing for, causing you to betray your heartless nature.

Leon as a newborn didn’t get a chance to drink a human’s blood, but this fervent moment with you was saccharine of all things. Your pussy wrapped around his cock was like coveted treasure, his prized possession, pulsing erratically inside you that he wanted to release. Holding your waist in his large hands, he’d buck his hips and fuck into you as you held onto him. Such filthy, cloying sounds you made as you threw your head back, him holding your waist up and forcing you to take all of it. He adorned you, every inch of your crevice, every part of your wicked, corrupted soul.

Orgasm after orgasm, rippling waves after waves, crying the most beautiful hymn that Leon has ever heard. You’ve never been so defeated and plagued by tenderness, by passion, by several love confessions from Leon. But you were undeniably raptured from how hard you both kept coming and coming in the heat of the moment, clinging onto each other as you made love and recited your vows in the bathtub.

“Such an obedient man you are for me,” you praised. “As my consort in our new kingdom, what else can you do for me?”

Leon, smitten and trapped in a daze by you, no longer possessed humanity. No morality, no rectitude, no virtue. As long as he can thrive off pleasuring you, he will fall to his knees and always be at your command.

“I will kill for you, Your Grace...”

ALL WORKS BELONG TO VILSOO © 2023. do not steal, plagiarize, translate, or repost/share any of my works on any social media where minors have access. original art here (artist unknown)

inspired by the bathtub scene from Queen of the Damned (2002) and “Knight of Relaxation” by Naudio on Quinn.

𖤐 TAGS. @crysugu @rinshoe @cran-berry-vodka @daddyzzlittlewhore @kimekioo @strawberrymilk4k @maidenssymphony @willsdollface @zippertwat @strawstfu @migueloharacumslut @maddietries @milestacy @blackhoodlea @bru1sedclavicle @dollicries @hehehehesthings @dvafoxxystrashcan

[mariclerc]

Dad and daughter moment | pg10

Summary: You decide to leave your boyfriend at home with your little girl and they had a little adventure.

Warning: none. Dedicated to @martaaairwin1994-blog

a/n: this is like a part 2 of "family cuddles" I hope u like it <3

It was a sunny afternoon and you decide to go buy some things for the house and some things that both you and little Lucille need.

“I can go with you bebé?” Pierre asks behind you.

You deny. “Obviously not, silly... Also, who is going to stay with Lulu?”

When you go out alone to shop or do anything you always take Lucille with you, the times you leave her with Pierre have not been so... encouraging, let's put it that way.

One time they almost burned down the kitchen making cookies, or one time he fell asleep and left Lulu on her own. In the same way, you had to give even a vote of confidence to your boyfriend, maybe he is a little bit clueless, but that doesn't mean he does it on purpose.

“It's okay honey, I'll take care of her, I promise!” He says and you give him a kiss on the cheek.

“Good boy!” you giggle and you head out of the room.

“Mama!” Lucille says hugging you.

“My little flower! You're going to stay with papa today, is that right?” you said while giving her a little kiss on her cheek. “He's going to take good care of you today!”

She nods happily and smiled. “Okay mama!”

***

“Well little princess, what do you want to do today with papa?” Pierre asks Lulu. “We can do what you like.”

“Paints papa!” She says between giggles.

“Oh, so you want to paint with papa? Let's get to it then!” He says as he carries her in his arms and goes to look for the materials for their colorful adventure in one of the closets.

After a while they had paints, brushes and canvases for their painting.

“Bright! Bright!” says Lucille jumping while pointing at the bright pink color.

Pierre chuckles. “Do you like bright pink? What do you plan to paint today mon petit artiste?” He says while smiling. (my little artist.)

She starts making strokes on the canvas. “Draw!” smiled.

After a while, what started with simple strokes on the canvas continued with clothes and hands stained with paint. But they didn't care because they were both laughing out loud and having lots of fun, it was a nice moment between father and daughter that they will both always remember.

They are not aware of your arrival at the house, you enter the hallway, laden with shopping bags. You kick the door shut with your foot and head towards the living room, a wry smile on your face.

In the living room, chaos reigns... Paint splatters adorn the coffee table, the floor, and most alarmingly, the pristine white wall, in the center of it all, sits Pierre his face a canvas of vibrant colors, a look of pure joy on it. Lucille sits next to him, similarly decorated and equally delighted.

You take a moment to take in the scene, a rollercoaster of emotions flitting across your face - exasperation, amusement, and a touch of awe.

Feigning exasperation. “Oh my god Pierre, what have you done?”

Pierre looks up, a sheepish grin spreading across his paint-streaked face. Lucille lets out a gleeful squeal.

“Surprise amour! We were... expressing ourselves artistically.” He says with his voice thick with paint.

You walk towards them, placing the bags down. “Looks more like a warzone to me.”

Lucille reaches out for you, her tiny hand covered in a rainbow of colors.

“Papa! Paint!” Lucille giggles.

“Woah there, little Picasso. Let's get you cleaned up before mommy has a meltdown, alright?” you scoop her up.

Pierre chuckles, wiping a hand (mostly clean) across his forehead.

“Meltdown? That's a bit dramatic, don't you think love?”

”But look around you, Mr. artsy pants. This is gonna take some scrubbing!” You say raising an eyebrow.

“Hey, it was her idea! I was just, uh, facilitating her artistic vision, you know, that helps with kids creativity.” He stands up.

“Ah yes, the renowned Gasly School of Modern Toddler Art. I should've known.” You say sarcastically.

Despite your teasing words, there's a warmth in your voice. You glance at Lucille, who's now giggling uncontrollably.

“Alright, alright. I admit, it does look like you two had a lot of fun.” You say with a soft voice.

“We always do when you're not around to boss us around.” He says as he puts his arm around you.

“Hey! I'm not a boss, I just keep things from descending into complete chaos you know?” you playfully swat his arm.

“Seems like you failed today, love.” he smiles.

“Oh, shut up you colourful boy.” you laugh a little.

You lean in and kiss Pierre, a hint of paint transferring to your lips. He pulls away, grinning.

“So, how about we clean up this little art project and order some takeout? Celebrate our success in the realm of abstract expressionism?” He says in a soft voice.

”Sounds like a plan. Just promise me finger paints are off-limits next time, alright?” You smile at his proposal.

“No promises, but I'll try my best chérie.” He hold his hands up in mock surrender.

Lucille lets out another gurgle, her eyes sparkling with mischief. You can't help but laugh, knowing that with these two around, a little chaos is always guaranteed in your life.

[jmdbjk]

They take up a lot of space in my head sometimes...

I didn't want to dwell on this in the documentary posts but I know you guys will indulge me as I ramble a little bit.

I want to elaborate on some thoughts I had while watching the second half of Episode 7 when Jungkook went over to Jimin's.

I watched it several times. I made sure to watch it once with a very critical and skeptical eye to keep myself from straying too far...nothing serious but possibly delulu...

This part of the documentary inside Jimin's apartment was filmed on March 13, 2022 following the last PTD Seoul concert.

This was BEFORE PTD Las Vegas where Jimin has told us he talked to the members about his troubles and that's when he embarked on writing the songs that would end up on his album FACE which was released A YEAR after this interview.

It seems Jimin answers his phone in the car after the concert. Tells whoever to get ready and come over and asks what kind of chicken to order. The documentary camera person is already in the car with Jimin... who is he speaking to on the phone? When we eventually see Jungkook coming over later on in this episode, it's natural to assume he was speaking to Jungkook on the phone, who was probably in another car on his way home to his own apartment after the concert, or perhaps already home since his apartment is much closer to Jamsil Olympic Stadium where PTD Seoul was held.

Inside Jimin's residence, he talks about what he does there, basically not a whole lot: eats, sleeps, drinks, has friends over, plays on the computer, and from what we've seen since, he's not much of a decorator.

He wonders if he's revealed too much. I think this was a legitimate question for him, since idols typically do not divulge this sort of thing to the fans. It's plausible to me that Jimin has to unlearn all these preconceived ideas he's had about being an idol in order to forge ahead.

Delivery fried chicken arrives and he runs to get it and runs back to the dining table. Literally runs. The door chimes as it closes. I do love watching him eat. He surely loves his food. A man after my heart.

He talks about how it naturally came about that they needed to have their own spaces. They were maturing young men, they needed their own places even though they'd lived together for so many years. He said their place in Gangnam was so small they put up temporary walls. I believe he was speaking about the house that is now a cafe, Hyuga? He says it was scary living on his own, it was so quiet.

When Jungkook arrives, the door chime sound we hear was different from what it sounded like when Jimin went to the door to get the delivery chicken.

From this footage, we can't know if Jungkook punched in the code and let himself in. Maybe he did, but this footage does not show that. Unless someone is familiar with how that particular door chime sounds when it is unlocked, when it is locked, when it opens and when it closes, we can't know what that chime meant.

We see Jungkook after he's already inside the apartment. He was followed by a camera person. I am certain the camera-person does not have Jimin's apartment's door code. Make of that what you will...perhaps Jungkook came alone and they re-enacted him entering once he got there because it'd be weird if he was just there all of a sudden... we can't know.

Incidentally (fun fact) this is the same jacket Jungkook wore in the video of receiving the President's Award during his university graduation earlier that month (Mar. 2, 2022)... yes, Jeon Jungkook is a university graduate too. He wore a jacket with "QUIT YOUR JOB" across the back of it, to accept a graduation award.... 💀

Anyway back to my delulu...

Jimin and Jungkook are chatting at the table while eating and drinking and get on the topic of their sleeping habits when Jungkook says normally he would take a bath, drink a couple beers and go to sleep and even adds now he goes to sleep earlier. Such a grown up.

Jimin says he falls asleep at 1 a.m. so he must be getting old but it doesn't matter if he falls asleep at 1 a.m. or 6-7 a.m., he sleeps until 4 o'clock in the afternoon.

Jungkook says he decided not to live like that anymore... this the man who in early 2023 was staying up all night to do live broadcasts with us from his living room and waking up his neighbors belting out Unholy, etc... such a grown up.

And then Jungkook says 'oops, I sounded like Yoongi just then, never mind, live how what you want' and whoever that is off-camera wheezing... HAHAHAHAHAHA. Anyway. That whole exchange was... what is it with them? They ride the edge of smart-assy sarcasm and inside jokery with each other constantly. And this time at the expense of Yoongi! HAHAHAHA.

Jimin and Tae sometimes act similarly with each other but it is more role play and nothing like the long-running inside joke Jimin and Jungkook do all the time.

The vibe between them was identical to the one when they were sitting at the dining table that first night of In The Soop 2.

As episode 7 goes on, they show Jimin and Jungkook again, Jungkook is chopping mushrooms and Jimin says "You are doing so well on your own" and "Be careful" and the translation says Jungkook said "okay" but it sounds more to me like a "ayyy stop nagging" sound he made.

Jimin runs behind Jungkook again. Why does Jimin run so much? He's like a nervous, excited little mouse.

They're terrible Youtubers:

The ship wars and solo wars and stupid-things-you-could-ask-during-a-live wars over whether or not Jimin ever ate Jungkook's ramen... FINALLY, after posting all those recipes last year and Jimin saying he wants Jungkook to cook that for him, we see JUNGKOOK HAS COOKED RAMEN FOR JIMIN! Cooked it for him way before any of these wars began too... what a waste of energy.

No, Jimin didn't go over to Jungkook's to eat it, Jungkook came to Jimin and cooked it for him.

Ok, but this is the part that made me need to pause and rewind and write this long-ass post:

Jimin tells us that a friend of his helped him realize he needed to explore the possibility he was depressed.

He recounts the story as they were at Jimin's apartment drinking and they had a small argument. The next morning Jimin wakes up, has totally forgotten the argument and goes over to the friend's to help begin moving. They apologized to each other and the friend came over again that night and the friend said "I think you are severely depressed. You act like you aren't, but you've been acting strange. If you're having a hard time, tell me." Jimin said he didn't think he was having a hard time and the friend told Jimin to take some time to think about it. Jimin says a lot changed after that.

This moment when Jimin is retelling this story, "yet you act like you aren't, but you've been acting strange. If you're having a hard time, tell me." Jimin reaches over and actually touches Jungkook. Look at the way they are looking at each other?

The way Jungkook sat there, looking straight at Jimin while Jimin recounted that conversation/day/moment, chewing on his bottom lip as is his habit, Jungkook nodding during certain points that Jimin was retelling... very very brief moments where body language reveals a lot.

Maybe the "friend" Jimin was supposed to help move, the one who told Jimin he seemed severely depressed... was Jungkook?

You can call me delulu if you want. I see what I see and I hear what I hear.

They have not shown this type of closeness amongst the other members in this entire documentary. And here is Jungkook sitting in Jimin's home, while Jimin tells us this very intimate detail about himself.

If Jungkook was the one... it's plausible, the one who came over to drink, just like they were doing this evening... the one who was moving and Jimin was going to help him. The one who he can look in the eyes and recount this story and his friend can look him straight back in the eye and nod in agreement.

Why retell this story with Jungkook sitting next to him? There were other moments when we know Jungkook is there, he could have been off camera while Jimin told the staff about this intimate moment with his friend. No. He said it while they sat next to each other looking at each other.

It's possible. If not, it seems possible that Jungkook has already heard this story.

Jimin shares more than we've ever heard from him: that he falls into a labyrinth the moment he starts to ponder about what happiness is. He says of course their work and many other things require attention to detail but it's ok if there is vagueness (or imperfection) too. If you get too caught up in the meaning of things (in the importance of things), you feel like you have to risk it all to accomplish them and its ok to let some of it go, enjoy the simplicity of things and not get emotional over everything ... this sounds like Jimin has matured and has tried to push away perfectionism.

He believes he is in a very healthy place mentally right now (at the time of that interview, March 13, 2022) but can't say the same about his body, but he wants to stay healthy as he grows older together with the fans. And Jungkook is still there, but off camera.

This interview was almost two years ago. And now their first solo career endeavors have been accomplished and these two are doing their military obligation together. They've come a long way. We will see them again next year. It won't be as long as it feels.

Anyway, going back to my delulu cave now. Carry on.