#I was supposed to train to open yesterday with someone but now that person is gone

[torra-and-the-toons]

ready for death, but still chuggin’

[logansdoll]

thinking about logan x reader who’s literally the most introverted but bluntest person he’s ever met. that meet-cute (if it could be called that…?) would be entertaining as hell

cottontail

wolverines are known to prey on rabbits... which would explain why Logan was looking at you like that.

CW: fluffy fluff, heavily suggestive, profanity, i kinda changed it up a bit, takes place after X-Men (2000), reader is a bit of a personality, reader also has a bunny mutation, again kinda iffy on how this turned out, etc. (@OstarwomenO for the inspiration)

"And, finally, the gym," Ororo finished, motioning toward the door. "Much like the Danger Room, we use it to train or spar, but strictly without powers."

Logan cocked a brow, ears perking at the faint sound of music coming from the other side of the door, along with the rhythmic thuds of limbs slamming against a mat.

'Huh...'

Ororo insisted on giving him the official tour of the mansion now that he was back from his trip to Alkali, seeing as she never got the chance to when he first arrived.

And, of course—Logan being Logan—he waved her off, insisting he'd be able to figure it out.

But the woman did not take no for an answer.

"Someone in there?" he asked, shifting his cigar to the side of his mouth as his thumb jutted toward the door.

"Just (y/n)," she shrugged, an amused smile rising her to lips. "It's actually kinda ironic, she rolled in about an hour before you did yesterday."

That was the new smell he picked up on.

It was the same one the hallway was currently drowning in—not that he was complaining.

It was sweet and musky, with faint, floral notes and a smidgen bit of earth—like taking a breath of fresh air in the middle of a meadow.

"And I didn't run into her?" Logan raised a brow, feigning indifference.

Ororo let out a dry chuckle, as if she was in on a joke he wasn't, "(y/n)'s a... character. She kinda does her own thing around here."

Character?

Forget indifference, the man was intrigued.

"I can introduce you if you'd like," she nodded, her eyes widening slightly, remembering something. "Fair warning, she says whatever she wants. So just... don't be shocked when she says something appalling. She's a sweetheart once you get to know her."

'Jesus...'

She made it sound like he was about to meet some sort of feral grizzly bear.

Logan shrugged, and she let out a sigh, pressing the keypad and opening up the door to reveal you.

Grizzly?

No.

Feral?

Entirely possible.

With a wide grin, you weaved around, dodging jabs from the automated dummy before back-flipping onto the wall and pushing off like a spring.

Tackling the robot, you slammed its head into the ground, winding for a second blow when it suddenly bucked you off.

You recovered quickly, shifting in mid-air so you landed on your feet, before launching another attack.

Jumping high, you landed right on the dummy's shoulders, locking your thighs around its neck before effortlessly throwing around your body weight, sending it crashing to the ground

But that wasn't it.

With a soft grunt, and a small twist of your legs, you popped its head right off in a flourish of sparks and circuits—the action sending a warm tingle through Logan's stomach.

'Damn...'

You pulled yourself up off the ground with a laugh, grabbing the robot's body and tossing it in a pile in the corner—which consisted of at least twenty others.

"Finally," you sighed, jokingly, as the two entered further.

You sauntered over to your boombox and cut the music, dusting off your hands.

"This is a disgrace. How the hell are the kids supposed to learn from these things, 'Roro? They barely last two minutes."

She playfully rolled her eyes, fighting off her smile as she pulled you into a hug, "I hope you know you're paying for those."

You chuckled, giving her a loving pat on the back, "Put 'em on my tab."

Logan was still transfixed.

In all his years, he had never seen a mutant like you before.

(h/l), (h/c) hair, plump lips, heavenly curves, made evident by your workout clothes, or slight lack thereof, stark white bunny ears, equally white tail, paired with alluring (e/c) eyes.

You were dripping in beauty and confidence.

Logan, so mesmerized, didn't even realize that you'd already cruised your way over, and were now standing directly in front him.

"I take it you're Logan," you smiled, shamelessly staring at him. "If I knew you were this handsome, I woulda introduced myself sooner."

"(n/n)," Ororo scolded, pinching the bridge of her nose.

'Here we go...'

"Is that so?" Logan smirked, amused by your blunt start to the conversation.

"Hell yeah," you nodded, shifting you weight on your hips

You weren't stupid.

You saw the way he was staring at you, and you heard the way his heart frenzied when you walked over.

So what's to say you couldn't have a little fun?

After all, it wasn't every day you'd meet someone as sexy as Mr. Tall, Dark, and Brooding.

"Of course, I could always do that over a few rounds."

His brow quirked with interest, eyes slowly flitting over your body at the proposition.

"On the mat, that is..." you chuckled, reading him loud and clear as you turned to walk toward the sparring area, stretching out your arms.

"That works, too," he grinned, tugging off his leather jacket.

"You two are doing this? Really?" Ororo groaned, resting a hand on her hip.

"Yup."

"She asked for it."

Ororo sighed, deciding to check herself out for the day and head for the door.

"Y'know what? Knock yourselves out. I'm gonna take a nap," she waved, turning the corner. "Don't break anything."

Logan scoffed, cracking his neck as he stepped onto his side of the circle, "No promises..."

You grinned, pleasantly surprised by his seriousness.

Many assume that because of your mutation, you're just some helpless little rabbit—as kids, you and Scott got into a huge argument when you caught him pulling his punches.

But Logan seemed ready to throw down, a fact that not only excited you, but made the man move up a great many rungs in your respect ladder.

"You sure you want this?" you smirked, lowering yourself into a split, stretching your legs. "I don't go easy."

'Goddamn, how flexible is she—'

"Neither do I," he snapped himself back, playing it off with a chuckle. "Let's see how long you last."

You scoffed, tongue in cheek as you stood up, shifting into a defensive stance.

'I'm gonna kick your ass, mutton chops."

"I'd like to see ya try, cottontail."

[novemberheart]

{overview} you and John take another step in you relationship, the startling truth about how you see your pack comes to light

{warnings} fem reader, a/b/o dynamics, cursing

Chapter 14 <- Chapter 15 -> Chapter 16

The situation had been hard for you to rationalize. On one hand you spent the whole night curled into a ball sobbing your eyes out. A few knocks echoed throughout your room, and you politely requested some alone time. They obliged you. On the other hand, you had a hard time taking what Simon said completely to heart. His actions had always shown he had your best interest at heart. You had upset him and he was hurt. His hurt made him say things that may not entirely be true- but what he was trying to convince himself of.

You prayed it was the second hand.

Regardless, you had taken the words hard.

You have been causing a lot of crises this past week. You were attacked, you caused Johns’ rut, and now Simon was pissed.

At this point, it would be a mercy to send you back to where you came from.

Not even a month in and you had turned into a problem. Omegas weren't supposed to be problems. Problems were eliminated.

You whined curling yourself deeper into your mattress. The alarm on your bedside table went off, making you flinch. You pulled yourself out of bed with heavy limbs. You were exhausted. You didn't sleep a wink, you had hardly eaten any food the day before and you were more emotionally drained than you had been in years. You didn't bother changing out of your sleep shorts but threw on a consoling knitted sweater.

You looked at your closet wondering if you should begin shoving all your clothes bag into your duffle.

You were usually alone at this time. Unless one of them had night training and was just getting home. You took a deep breath, hoping that was the case today. You pushed open your door, it getting caught on Simon’s boot. You gasped staring up at him with wide eyes.

Was he still angry?

Was he going to be the one to tell you that you were being sent back?

He cleared his throat, standing up straight so he wasn't leaning against the door frame. He was uncomfortable.

“Hey, pup,” he greeted softly. Any words you could think of got caught in your throat. As you stared at him a conclusion popped into your head, one that hadn't before. He was fine. His eyes were not rubbed raw, his voice not cracking from hours of crying. He had been much meaner to you and it seemed to have no toll on him. He didn't lose an ounce of sleep over it. He probably just rolled over in his bed and decided to apologize to you tomorrow.

It made you mad. Typical alpha behavior. Causing hurt feelings and omegas to spiral without a second thought. You weren't sure you wanted to be around someone so…..so uncaring.

“Simon,” you greeted gently, still keeping the door partly shut. Would he lash out at you again for not being warm to him?

He sighed, clearing his throat.

“I need to apologize to you about yesterday,” He started, his eyes staring down at you. His eyes held no emotion, even though they were big and round. He smelled sincere. There were no warnings going off in your head that this was a trick. “I’m sorry I said those things, even if you hadn't heard them it was not appropriate or even the type of person I want to be. Especially to you.”

That softened you a bit.

“Thank you for apologizing,” you were able to grasp words finally. “I'm sorry I didn't list you as my alpha,” it was your turn.

“Not that I have earned the title,” he added. You remained silent. He cleared his throat again. Did he expect you to disagree? “I would like to work towards it- you seeing me as your Alpha.”

“Of course Simon,” you said quickly. “You have been very good to me in the past, don't think I have forgotten or hadn't noticed.”

He seemed to appreciate the sentiment. He excused himself after, saying he had to get to training. You were fine leaving it there and you felt better about the situation. There was still something that had bothered you, though. Why hadn't you written his name down in the first place?

There was only one reason you could truly think of. He didn't feel like an alpha towards you. That's not to say you hadn't bonded with him over time but he didn't have the same effect on you as John had. All John had to do was look at you and he had your omega belly up and your head tilting back, practically begging him to mark you.

Everyone knew there were different types of alphas in the world. Domineering ones. Modern ones who treated their omegas as equals. Traditional ones who treated them like they were servants. Soft and gentle ones who acted like betas.

John was a provider. He didn't treat you as his equal. He treated you like you were of higher status than him. He was at your service. When you were with him touching a door handle was beneath you. Yet there was that domineering side to him. The part that needed to have control- him needed to have you chipped for example. Yet you knew that was less about ego and more about making sure you were safe.

The truth was, when you thought about your alpha, the first thing that popped into your head was John.

That was why you wrote his name down.

The rest of the day had been a breeze. You decided maybe you should stay home for a few days to hopefully minimize the trouble you could cause.

You had just changed into your pajamas when there was a knock on your door.

“Hi,” you grinned at John.

“I want to show you something. Put your shoes on,” he smiled, his eyes crinkling. You quickly grabbed your shoes and he held up a coat for you to get into. You slipped your arms in, feeling warm and fuzzy from the gesture. It was one of his, the smell of campfire making your brain lull into a state of comfort. He zipped it up for you, grabbing your hand in his and leading you out the door.

“Where are we going?” you questioned in the elevator.

“It's a surprise, pretty girl,” he asserted, holding back a smirk. You ran your fingers over his knuckles. They were rough and a bit swollen. Years of hard work embedded in them.

He led you down a path you had never gone before, weaving past the training grounds and over to where the offices were.

“Now this is our little secret,” he reminded. You two strayed away from the path, walking towards the treeline. “Need to get you proper shoes.” he huffed, looking down at your flats. You giggled, remembering when Simon had said the same thing to you. You two walked for a while, the sounds of war slowly growing more and more distant. “You cold?” he checked. You quickly shook your head. Despite that, he ran his hands up and down your arms to heat you up. “Just a little further,” he assured. “Here we are,” he stopped suddenly, causing you to furrow your brows at him.

You were in the middle of a forest. What was so special? He put a finger under your chin, slowly tilting your head up.

You gasped, your hands gripping onto his jacket in awe.

A sky full of stars. They took up the parts of the sky that weren't covered by the treetops.

“It's beautiful,” you whispered.

“The base only gets dark enough one day a month to see them,” he explained quietly. You wished you could see this every night. But then, you might not appreciate them. You stared up until you got a neck ache, slowly pulling yourself back to earth. His eyes remained focused on you.

He regrets it. Deeply. Not allowing you into the pack sooner. Granted you had brought with you some challenges- but you were well worth it. You were quickly growing to be an indispensable part of the pack and you weren't even marked yet.

So when you looked up at him it was only natural for him to lean down. You nearly went cross-eyed trying to maintain eye contact. Your eyes fluttered closed and he sealed the distance. It was short and sweet.

A dream first kiss.

“This is beginning to feel personal,” you whined, causing them to chuckle.

“Not personal, peachy. Just the game,” Johnny smirked. He leaned over pressing a kiss against your temple. You growled at him playfully.

“Easy for you to say. You've plus-four-ed me twice in a row,” you exclaimed, waving your ridiculously large stack of Uno cards in his face. It was Kyle's idea and it started out with a few lighthearted games between the two of you and John. The addition of Simon and Johnny turned it into a full-on attack. After it was John's turn, he put down a reverse card sending the direction of the game back to you.

“Get him, honey.” He smirked at you, nodding his head towards Johnny. The only thing you had that could do any damage was a color changer- if you played it right. You leaned close to Johnny and he quickly reciprocated resting his forehead against yours.

“Interesting tactic,” Kyle chuckled, causing you to giggle.

“What’re we doing right now, Bonnie?” Johnny whispered, his pretty blue eyes lighting up in excitement (both kinds).

“I'm reading your mind,” you whispered back.

“Wanna read my mind in my room later?” he smirked, pressing his forehead against yours harder.

“I choose blue.” you smiled, waiting expectantly.

“Shite, only one I don't have.” he groaned, beginning to grab cards from the deck. You and Simon both celebrated. You for getting him back and Simon because now he was next in line to win.

Simon won, and you all moved into the next round. You crawled around the coffee table so you were sitting in between John and Kyle.

“I took a shower,” Johnny snorted as you moved away from him.

“I'm not being after you!” you explained, grabbing the cards that Simon dealt out. You couldn't stop a smile as you got two plus fours in your pile. You crawled back over to be in between John and Johnny.

“I changed my mind. Can we go this way?” you smirked, twirling your finger in a clockwise motion.

“I'm a bit frightened.” Johnny gulped.

“You've been giggly lately.” Kyle hummed, the feeling vibrating through your shoulder.

“That's because you keep tickling me,” you whined. As if on cue his lips skimmed over your shoulder and against your neck, causing you to erupt in laughter all over again. “Kyle,” you groaned playfully, pushing him away. “I'm not used to being touched so much,” you reminded. You had never been so physical with anyone before. Johnny and Kyle were always all over you, and John had been growing more and more affectionate. Even Simon had his claws in you when the two of you went out.

“Want me to stop?” he questioned, causing you to shiver.

“No,” you mumbled, burying yourself in his chest. He ended his attack and was content with having you rest on his chest. It was his “day off”- well as close to a day off as they get around here. You yawned, stretching out, your limbs popping back into place. He was tired, his eyes fluttering shut before he abruptly opened them again. “Sleep, Gazza,” you murmured, wrapping your arms around his middle.

“I have to get up soon,” he yawned, causing you to whine.

“Night training?” you mumbled. He nodded his head. The front door opened causing you to peek your head up from Kyle’s chest. In came Johnny, shirtless and dripping sweat. You gasped, eyes widening like saucers. “Kyle, your boyfriend is almost naked,” you whispered. Kyle leaned up with you, his cheek pressing against yours. You both stared at Johnny through the kitchen passthrough window, as he gulped down a large electrolyte drink.

“Wow,” you whispered in unison. Johnny's head snapped to where you two were lying and you both quickly shrunk back into the couch. You could feel your heart rate pick up as Johnny's footsteps got closer and closer and closer and……

A large, wet raspberry was blown against your cheek.

“Mac!” you shrieked, wiping his spit away. He chuckled, kissing the top of yours and Kyle's head before heading towards the bathroom. “Kyle, your boyfriend was flirting with me.” you poked.

“Can’t say I blame him, doll,” Kyle chuckled, getting the two of you comfortable on the couch again.

You could tell something was off the moment he walked in.

You already had a twisting gut feeling you knew what this was about.

“Hey, pretty girl,” he greeted. His large hand runs up and down your back. You leaned into him, your ear resting against the broad expansion of his chest.

“You're leaving aren't you?” you mumbled, your hand tangling itself in his shirt. John hummed in agreement, sitting in the stool next to you.

“Me and Johnny leave tomorrow. Then a few days later Simon and Kyle will have to head out too.”

“All of you?” you sputtered. You thought at the beginning they would take it slow. Not just leave you here by yourself. Especially after what happened last week.

“We should all wrap up fairly quickly, especially Simon and Kyle. Me and Johnny will be gone for at least two weeks, but when we come back we’ll get to go on leave. Think about where you want to go.”

It wasn't much consolation. You knew this was the agreement. You just wished you had more than a month to adjust. It had gone by so fast.

Hopefully, their being gone will go by just as fast.

Hello friends! Let me know how you feel about the way Simon and Omegas relationship is playing out so far. Or any other thoughts you have about the series. I love to hear what all of you think! See you in two days for chapter 16. 🧡

[threewaywithdelusion]

You Me Her

Since AO3 is down and I'm sure people are losing their minds looking for fics (I am people), I'm posting some of my fics over here. If you look in the tag "Mia writes fanfic" you can see all the fic I've posted on tumblr. If you prefer to read on AO3 now that it’s back up, you can find this fic here

Robin was the first person to notice something was wrong with Steve Harrington. 

By the end of the day, everyone had noticed. People were whispering up and down the halls, wondering what had happened to Steve since yesterday to make him act so drastically different. He hadn’t flirted with a single girl all day. He’d told Tommy Hagan to “knock it off” when Tommy had started tormenting a freshman. He’d treated his friends weirdly – avoiding Jason Carver, a sophomore on the basketball team who he’d been training, losing patience with Carol Perkins’s snappish remarks, freezing up when some cheerleaders talked to him. 

Robin heard all of this second-hand. King Steve was so notorious that even the band kids were gossiping about his personality transplant. Multiple people came up to Robin to share some tidbit of gossip that they insisted proved that Steve had been body-snatched. 

But Robin didn’t need rumors to know that Steve Harrington was different. She’d known since first period, when he’d walked into Ms. Click’s class on time and without a bagel. Steve had barely glanced at Tammy, even as she’d looked at him from under her lashes, beautiful and enticing. Instead, Steve had, for the first time in his entire life, looked at Robin. 

And he’d smiled at her. Not a polite acknowledgement of her existence – which still would have been more than Robin had ever gotten from him – but a huge, friendly smile. The kind that would have had most girls falling at his feet. 

Robin glanced behind her to see if Steve was smiling at someone else, but unless Steve was smiling like that at Fred Benson – even more unlikely – he was definitely directing that expression at her. 

Robin spun back to Steve, unsure what her face was communicating. Confusion, maybe, or wide-eyed shock. 

Steve didn’t look offended or surprised by her reaction, just gave her a dorky little wave and sat down. 

Robin stared at the back of his head, still trying to process what had just happened. Tammy turned to Robin, scanning her up and down. Robin knew she was just trying to figure out what about Robin had caught King Steve’s interest, but her scrutiny made Robin feel all hot anyway. It was Tammy, looking at Robin intently. With purpose. Taking in Robin’s stupid perm and her smudgy makeup and her layers of jewelry. 

Robin blushed. 

Tammy turned back around. 

Ms. Click began talking, but Robin didn’t hear a single word for the rest of class, lost in thought. She alternated between loud mental screaming about the fact that Tammy had looked at her and staring at Steve Harrington’s famous hair and wondering what the hell had inspired him to notice her existence. 

Robin was packing in a daze at the end of class when Steve gave her another smile before leaving. Robin accidentally met Tammy’s eyes, which were just as confused as Robin felt. 

Tammy bit her lip, which was pink and soft-looking. “Robin? Did you talk to Steve over the weekend?”

Oh my god. Tammy was talking to her. It wasn’t like Tammy never talked to her, but every single time it made Robin lose her mind and babble like a freak. 

Robin just shook her head instead of risking opening her mouth. 

“Oh,” Tammy said, looking disappointed. “But you like him?”

“No,” Robin said honestly. “I don’t even know him.”

“But you like him,” Tammy said, and this time it wasn’t a question. “I saw you blushing after he smiled at you.”

“I guess so,” Robin said. What else was she supposed to say? She couldn’t tell Tammy that she didn’t give a damn if Steve Harrington looked at her and that the blush had been all for Tammy. That would send Tammy running the other way.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” Tammy said. “A lot of girls like Steve.”

She didn’t mention that she was one of those girls, but she didn’t need to. Robin knew. 

Maybe it would be okay to pretend to like Steve. It would give her and Tammy something in common and it would help her hide in plain sight. Steve was the perfect fake crush for a lesbian, pretty and athletic enough to be an acceptable crush, but unattainable enough that she would never have to act on it. Robin had never faked a crush on him before because of the principle of the thing, but now that she’d accidentally already done it, she might as well keep up the pretense. 

“Today must have been a fluke,” Robin told Tammy, trying to sound both reassuring and lovelorn. She didn’t want Tammy to see her as a threat. She wanted her to see her as a friend. “I don’t think Steve even knows my name.”

***

But Steve kept smiling at her for the rest of the week and on Thursday, Tammy asked Robin if she wanted to hang out after school. 

“Really?” Robin asked. Then, “I mean, yeah, sure. Sounds fun.”

So Robin went to Tammy’s house with the rest of Tammy’s friends. Apparently they did this every Thursday — Friday and Saturday were date nights, which made Thursday the perfect girls’ night. 

They went up to Tammy’s room, which was like peeking into her mind. The other girls paid no attention to the room, probably having seen it a million times. They settled on the floor, spreading bowls of chips and chocolates around and pulling out magazines and nail polish. But Robin couldn’t help but try to take in every detail of the room. The walls were pink and the curtains and bedspread a gauzy white, giving everything a bit of a princess feel. But there were posters on the wall, and not the kind Robin had expected. There weren’t handsome movie stars — these were girls with guitars. 

“Who’s that?” Robin asked, pointing at a poster of a girl with long straight hair, standing over a microphone and holding a guitar. 

Tammy twisted to see who Robin was pointing to. “That’s Emmylou Harris. She’s incredible. She was one of the first women to really make it big in country music.”

“So you want to be like her?” Robin asked. 

Tammy blushed a little, playing with the end of her long blonde curls. “I mean, I don’t know if I’m as good as Emmylou Harris. But that’s the dream.”

“You’re really good,” Robin said sincerely. “I heard you singing Kiss On My List before class the other day and it was-“ captivating. life-changing. beautiful. “Really good,” Robin finished lamely. 

“Thank you,” Tammy said, looking touched. 

One of Tammy’s friends — Olivia? — rolled her eyes. “Tam, we didn’t invite Robin here to talk about your singing. We want to hear about Steve Harrington!”

The two other girls — Karen and Melissa — giggled and nodded their agreement. 

“What did you do to get his attention?” Olivia asked Robin. 

Robin tried not to obviously deflate. She wanted to talk to Tammy about her passions, see the way Tammy lit up when she smiled. She didn’t want to gossip about stupid boys, especially not Steve Harrington. 

But that was why they’d invited her over. Her fake crush on Steve was her in with these girls, with Tammy, and she had to make them believe her if she wanted to be invited to spend more time with him. 

“I don’t know,” Robin said honestly. “I’ve sat behind him all year and I didn’t think he knew I existed. And then all of a sudden on Monday — bam! — he’s acting like he knows me.”

Melissa hummed, passing around bottles of nail polish. “Maybe it’s your hair? Did you perm it recently? Cause Heather Holloway says Steve has a thing for girls with curly hair.”

Tammy frowned at her own hair and shook her head. “Robin’s hair has been like that all year.”

Tammy had watched Robin closely enough to notice what she did with her hair? Robin bit down on a smile, grabbing blue nail polish from Melissa. 

“Did you go to the party last weekend?” Karen asked. 

Robin shook her head. She’s actually spend last weekend reading a book, listening to her language tapes, and playing board games with her parents. Nothing that could be remotely considered cool. 

“Did you look particularly pretty on Monday?” Olivia asked. 

Robin shrugged. “I think I just looked how I always do.”

Tammy put on a Kris Kristofferson record then sat down beside Robin again. “I guess we’ll just have to watch what he does in class. Collect more information.”

“I guess so,” Robin said, hoping Steve forgot her existence soon for her own sake. She didn’t know what she would do if he actually asked her out. 

But maybe if he kept giving her attention she could keep this new friendship with Tammy, at least for a little while. 

Robin sighed, loud and long. 

“Don’t worry,” Tammy said, “We’ll figure it out.”

“And you don’t… mind?” Robin asked. “I know you like him too. I don’t want to break girl code or something.”

Robin had never worried about breaking girl code before, for obvious reasons, but she’d seen girls fall out over liking the same guy. 

Olivia snorted. “Please. Girl code doesn’t count when it comes to Steve Harrington. He’s slept with half the school.”

“Yeah, everyone knows he’s just a good time,” Karen added. “He doesn’t actually date girls for real.”

“I went out with him for two weeks in middle school,” Melissa said. “We made it to second base and then he dumped me for Erica Tanner.”

“You’re in good company here,” Olivia promised. 

Tammy still hadn’t spoken. Tammy was  focused on painting her nails bright pink, a color Robin would never choose for herself but that perfectly matched with Tammy’s pink cheeks and pink lips, which she was biting. 

Because Tammy cared, Robin realized. Steve might be the school slut, and he might never date a girl seriously, but Tammy liked him for real. 

Melissa, Olivia, and Karen were now arguing over whether Melissa’s two-week fling with Steve Harrington counted as a relationship. They seemed sufficiently distracted, so Robin dropped her voice low and leaned into Tammy’s space. 

“Do you mind?” she asked Tammy. “Because I can back off.”

“No,” Tammy said, smile pretty and entirely a lie. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

Robin didn’t know what to do with that. Was Tammy trying to save face by not admitting she had a real crush on Steve Harrington? Was this her way of testing if Robin was worthy friend-material? How was Steve fucking Harrington Robin’s key to getting to know Tammy and also the one who was mostly likely to ruin this new friendship?

“Okay,” Robin said, staring at her nails so she wouldn’t have to figure out what facial expression was appropriate. She cleared her throat. “So you were telling me about Emmylou Harris?”

***

Steve Harrington came up to Robin at her locker on Friday, when she was getting the books she needed to take home for the weekend. 

“Hey,” he said, like it wasn’t supremely weird that he was approaching Robin Buckley, band geek and wallflower and no one who ever should have caught his eye. 

“Hi?” Robin answered. 

Steve ran his fingers through his hair. “Do you want to go to the diner with me? We could get milkshakes.”

Robin stared at him. Was this a joke? A prank? Had one of his friends dared him to ask out the weird band kid?

“What?” Robin asked. 

Steve rubbed the back of his neck. He looked nervous, which was crazy. He was Steve Harrington and she was just Robin Buckley. 

“I can drive us,” Steve said. “And I’ll pay.”

“I’m not going on a date with you,” Robin said. It was a gut reaction, but a second later Robin couldn’t help but wonder if she should have said yes. What was she going to tell Tammy about why she’d turned down her supposed crush?

But why was Steve Harrington even asking her out in the first place?

Steve didn’t look offended at her rejection, but he did hurry to say, “I know. I didn’t mean as a date.”

Robin looked down the hall. A group of cheerleaders at one end was watching them, giggling and tittering. Had the cheerleaders put him up to this? Girls could be vicious, but trying to embarrass a girl by having a boy ask her out seemed like a more guy type of prank somehow. 

“You want to hang out with me just as friends,” Robin said skeptically. 

“Yeah,” Steve said. 

Robin rolled her eyes. “Right. Thanks, but no thanks.”

“I mean it,” Steve said. “I want to be friends.”

He was lying. Robin didn’t know why, but he was lying. Maybe he thought that if she hung out with him as “friends” she would eventually change her mind and agree to date him. 

“Why?” Robin demanded. “Why would you want to be friends with me?”

Steve opened his mouth, then paused. He thought for a few seconds before he said, “You seem cool.”

Robin snorted. “I’m the furthest thing from cool.”

“No, I know,” Steve said. “I mean you seem… interesting. Nice. Fun.”

“You don’t even know me,” Robin said. “We’ve never spoken, and now all of a sudden you’re interested in me? I don’t buy it.”

“It’s true,” Steve said. He jumped as a hand landed on his arm and then Carol Perkins was there, staring Robin down with disdain in her eyes. 

“What are you doing?” Carol asked. 

“I was asking Robin to milkshakes,” Steve said. 

Carol gave Robin an up-and-down and it didn’t feel good like when Tammy had done it. Carol wasn’t admiring her. She was looking at Robin like gum stuck to the bottom of her shoe. 

“Are you that bored of going out with pretty girls?” Carol asked, voice all fake-interested like it was a real question. 

Steve scowled, shaking Carol’s hand off his arm. “Robin’s pretty.”

Carol rolled her eyes. “She’s not terrible, I guess, under that bad perm, but she dresses like a dyke. If you want to rebel and date a freak or a charity case, you can do better.”

Robin flinched violently when Carol said the word dyke. She fought to keep her expression straight even as her heart raced and her lungs constricted. 

Did Carol Perkins know? Or had she blindly thrown out an insult, hoping it would hurt?

“Don’t call her that,” Steve snapped, his face dark and furious. He looked frightening enough that Robin skittered back half a step. 

Carol didn’t look scared of Steve, but her mouth did drop open in shock. 

That was fair. Robin was shocked too. 

Was Steve defending her?

Maybe this was what it meant to be a girl Steve Harrington liked. Maybe he didn’t like Carol calling Robin a dyke because that was an offense to his own masculinity. That was the only thing that made sense. Robin had heard Steve throw around gay slurs just last week, so it couldn’t be the word itself that he had a problem with.

“Seriously, Steve?” Carol asked, haughty and judgmental. “You can’t actually like her.”

“Robin is great,” Steve insisted. 

Carol rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I’ll remind you of this when you come to your senses.”

With that, Carol spun on her heels – red hair smacking Steve in the face – and walked away.

Steve’s posture loosened, like he had also perceived Carol as a threat. 

“I’m sorry,” he told Robin, looking sincere and apologetic. 

Robin hated him. 

“Stay the fuck away from me” Robin told Steve. 

She slammed her locker and walked away, clutching her books to her chest to hide her shaking hands. She kept her head up as she walked by the cheerleaders, who laughed loudly as she passed. 

***

Steve kept smiling at her whenever he walked into Click’s class, but he didn’t try to ask her out again. 

He looked a bit like a kicked puppy every time she glared back at him, but Robin didn’t care. 

“What are you doing?” Tammy asked one day after class. “He’s going to give up on you if you keep glaring at him like that.”

“He asked me out as a joke,” Robin told Tammy. 

Tammy frowned. “Are you sure it was a joke? I don’t think he would do that.”

“I’m sure,” Robin said darkly, thinking of Carol hovering and the cheerleaders watching. Did Steve believe what Carol had said? Was that the joke: to put Robin in a position where she had to either go on a date with a man she didn’t like or else turn him down and confirm she was a lesbian? What kind of girl said no to a date with Steve Harrington?

Tammy bit her lip. She had on bright pink lipstick today. It would have looked tacky on anyone else, but it made Tammy look like a pop star. Robin wondered if the lipstick was flavored. She wished she could kiss Tammy and find out.

“You don’t mind if I flirt with him, right?” Tammy asked, echoing Robin’s words at her house last week. So far, Robin hadn’t been invited to girls’ night again. 

Yes, Robin thought. Yes, I mind. I mind so much, but not for the reason that you think. 

“Not at all,” Robin said. “It’s like you said, girl code doesn’t apply to Steve Harrington. Go for it.”

So Tammy kept trying to get Steve’s attention. He was nice to her. He never outright ignored her when she talked to him, but he never talked to her for longer than politeness required. He would always turn away, missing the way Tammy’s face fell. 

And he kept fucking smiling at Robin. Picking up her books when she dropped them. Apologizing to her when he got bagel crumbs on the floor, even though she’d never mentioned how much it annoyed her. Turning to catch her eye when someone said something funny, like he thought she was someone he could share inside jokes with. 

Slowly, Tammy stopped smiling at Robin. She started flicking annoyed glances in Robin’s direction whenever Steve gave Robin attention. Started snapping at Robin whenever Robin tried to sympathize with her about how much of a douchebag Steve Harrington was. Started avoiding Robin unless Robin directly started conversation with her. 

Steve Harrington was ruining everything.

***

“What are you doing?” Robin demanded. She’d chased Steve after Ms. Click’s class, following him to the little alley out by the gym. She was going to be late for math, but she didn’t care. She needed to talk to him before he ruined everything. 

Steve frowned as he lit up a cigarette. “What do you mean?”

“In Click’s class,” Robin said. “Tammy is practically throwing herself at you but you never even look her way. And I don’t talk to you at all, but you keep trying to talk to me.”

A flash of something crossed Steve’s face, but Robin didn’t know him well enough to read his expressions and it was gone in a heartbeat anyway. 

“You don’t want me to talk to you?” Steve asked.

“Yes!” Robin said. “No. I don’t know. Why won’t you flirt with Tammy?”

Steve’s face scrunched up. It was a face Robin had seen before when they were taking tests in class – it meant Steve had no idea what was going on. “You’re upset because I’m not flirting with Tammy Thompson?”

“I don’t get it!” Robin said. “She’s really nice and she’s a good singer and she’s really pretty. Objectively. I mean, she seems like the Steve Harrington type.”

“Right,” Steve said, his lips twitching like she had said something funny. 

“So I don’t get it,” Robin said. “She’s right there, and I don’t even try, but you keep looking. What’s so special about me?”

“Oh,” Steve said, like he had just realized something. “She’s jealous of you.”

Robin shuffled but didn’t say anything. Of course Tammy was jealous. Steve sat next to her every day, did he really not see it?

“And you don’t like that,” Steve continued, like he was figuring something out. Unfortunately, he was figuring out entirely the wrong thing. Robin wasn’t here to talk to Steve about her friendship with Tammy, she was here to find out why Steve didn’t like Tammy and why he seemed to like her. 

“It’s not about me,” Robin said. 

“Right,” Steve said, inhaling his stupid carcinogens. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Robin asked. She was pretty sure she was smarter than Steve Harrington, so she didn’t know why she was the one feeling lost in this conversation. 

Steve stubbed out his cigarette against the wall. “I’ll fix it.”

The late bell rang. Robin wanted to ask Steve what he’d understood from this conversation, but she really did need to go to math class. Arriving late wasn’t a good way to fly under the radar. 

“Okay,” she told Steve, not quite sure what she was agreeing to. 

He gave her another one of those big smiles as she left the alleyway. It made something churn in her gut. 

She wanted to be the kind of girl who got excited when Steve Harrington smiled at her like that. She wanted Tammy Thompson to smile at her like that. She wanted to fall in love with someone who loved her back, and she wanted to not get chased out of town by an angry mob with pitchforks for it. 

***

The next time Robin walked into Ms. Click’s class, Steve was flirting with Tammy. 

Robin had to stop in the middle of the aisle, feeling like she’d just been punched in the gut. 

Tammy was leaning into Steve’s space, twirling her blonde curls around one finger. Steve was smiling at her, arm stretched over the back of her chair, listening attentively as she spoke. 

Robin forced herself to walk mechanically to her desk. She took her notebook and pencil case out of her backpack and very carefully arranged everything on her desk, doing anything she could to prolong looking up. She didn’t want to watch this. 

After what felt like the longest few minutes of Robin’s life, Ms. Click began talking. Robin risked looking up and saw that Steve had pulled his arm back and Tammy was sitting in her own seat again. 

She couldn't stop seeing them wrapped up in each other. 

At the end of class, Steve walked out quickly, the way he always did. Robin wondered if he always went to smoke behind the gym and that was why he ran away so fast. 

Tammy whirled to Robin, squealing, her face lit up in a beautiful smile. 

“Robin! Did you see that!”

Tammy hadn’t started a conversation with Robin in two weeks. Robin managed a real smile in the face of Tammy’s happiness. 

“I did,” she said. 

“I think he likes me,” Tammy said, almost shy, playing with the bracelets on her wrist. 

“Yeah,” Robin said, ignoring the sinking feeling in her gut. “I think so too.”

***

The rumors at band practice told Robin that Steve was still flirting with other girls. He seemed particularly interested in Nancy Wheeler, who was a priss and a nerd but who was pretty and definitely his type. He seemed to be slowly wearing her down. 

It made Robin furious. So Steve Harrington had a crush on Nancy Wheeler, fine, that made sense. But if he really liked her, and the rumors said he was absolutely head-over-heels, then what was he doing playing with Tammy and Robin? What the fuck was he up to?

***

A week later, Steve didn’t run out of Click’s class at the first sound of the bell. Instead he turned to Tammy and Robin and said, “I’m having a party at my house tonight. You’re both invited.”

“I’ll think about it,” Tammy said, smiling like this was a game. It was. They all knew Tammy would be going to see Steve and she was just trying to play it cool. 

“Cool,” Steve said. He met Tammy’s eyes, then Robin's. “I’ll see you there.”

Tammy waited until he walked away, then did a little shimmy of excitement. It was kind of lame, but also hopelessly endearing. Robin liked when Tammy didn’t try to act cool around her. 

“You’re going?” Robin asked dully. 

“Of course I’m going!” Tammy said. “This is going to be so much fun! You’re coming, right?”

“Yeah,” Robin said, her mouth running before her brain could catch up with it. Tammy wanted her there. What else could she do? “I’ll be there.”

***

Robin got her dad to drop her off at the party. She was willing to bet she was the only teenager being dropped off by their dad, but her parents weren’t the type to be upset about her going out and they trusted her to drink responsibly. Plus, Robin couldn’t drive, so she didn’t know how else she was supposed to get there. 

By the time she arrived, the party was already in full swing. Music came from inside the house and a few people spilled out into the yard. 

Robin headed inside, dodging around a few couples making out against the hallway walls. Tammy was probably here already, right? Robin passed through the kitchen, filling a red solo cup with a tiny amount of vodka and a lot of coke. Jason Carver was there, flirting with Chrissy Cunningham, who was blushing at the attention. 

Robin slipped into the living room and that was where she found Tammy. She was standing against a wall, surrounded by Olivia, Melissa, and Karen. Tammy was holding a red solo cup and staring out at the other end of the living room. 

Robin followed her gave to Steve, who was talking to… Eddie Munson? Robin watched with her jaw slack until Steve came away with a grin and a joint between his fingers. 

That made sense, actually. Of course the only reason Steve Harrington would ever speak to Eddie Munson would be to buy drugs.

Robin went up to Tammy, hovering at the edge of the group as she said “hi.”

“Hey,” Tammy said, giving her a distracted smile. 

“I like your dress,” Robin said. She wanted to say that Tammy looked good, but that wasn’t a safe compliment. 

“Thanks,” Tammy said. “I got it in Indy.”

“It’s cute,” Robin said. It was — pink and ruffled at the edges and unlike anything anyone else was wearing. Something that screamed Tammy Thompson. 

The music went quiet for a moment, and Robin spun around, trying to figure out why. Carol Perkins was standing by the speakers. 

“Let’s play a game!” she said, blowing a bubble with her gum like the picture of teenage insouciance. “Truth or dare.”

She sat on the ground, Tommy Hagan and Steve Harrington sitting beside her. A few more jocks joined — Jason and Andy from the basketball team, Chrissy and Fiona from the cheerleading squad. Heather Holloway and Patrick and Brenda. 

“We have to join!” Tammy said. She grabbed Robin’s hand and dragged her over to the circle.

Robin complied in a daze. Tammy was holding her hand. Tammy’s hand was soft and warm and not sweaty at all and Robin could die happy, Tammy’s hand in hers. 

Tammy released her as soon as they got to the circle and Robin felt suddenly bereft, taking a seat mechanically beside her. Melissa, Karen, and Olivia sat on Tammy’s other side. 

Steve Harrington was looking in her direction, eyebrows up, and Robin scowled at him. Steve smiled, hands up like he was saying don’t shoot, and Carol noticed and shot Robin a glare. 

“Tommy,” Steve said. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Tommy said. 

Steve grinned. “I dare you to let Carol take a body shot off you.”

Tommy scrunched up his face. “Don’t you mean I should take a shot off her?”

Steve blinked, absolutely nothing behind his eyes. “What do you mean?”

So Tommy lay down and balanced a shot glass on his stomach, so low it was practically on his hips, and Carol grabbed it with her mouth, tipping her head back to drink. Robin didn’t like Carol at all, but she had to admit there was something attractive about it, about the long line of Carol’s throat as she drank the shot and the dainty, self-satisfied way she wiped her mouth afterward. 

From there, they kept going around the circle. 

Heather Holloway gave Andy a lap dance. Fiona admitted to having done mushrooms. Jason Carver was dared to kiss the prettiest girl in the circle, which made him turn to Chrissy Cunningham and say “A good girl like you deserves better than some drunken kiss during truth or dare. What do you say I take you out to dinner tomorrow and then give you a kiss on your front porch at the end of the night?”

Chrissy’s smile was disarmingly wide. “Yeah,” she said, nodding. “That sounds nice.”

“It’s a date,” Jason said. A few of the boys hollered and whooped, patting Jason on the back and shaking him a little. Jason looked bashful, hiding a smile behind a sip of his drink. 

“Finally!” Carol Perkins said. She turned to Chrissy. “He’s been pining over you since last year and it took him this long to work up the guts to ask you out.”

Jason screeched at Carol, who ignored him and winked at a pleased-looking Chrissy. Robin was hit with the sudden realization that Carol Perkins could be nice, when she wanted to be. 

Melissa got dared to swap clothes with Patrick, Karen revealed she’d shoplifted a pair of earrings once, and Olivia admitted to having made out with a boy in the school janitor’s closet. 

Then it was Tammy’s turn. 

“Truth or dare?” 

“Dare,” Tammy said, something brave in her eyes. 

A few of the girls conferred together — Carol and Heather and Fiona — before turning to Tammy with smiles on their faces. “We dare you to shotgun with Steve.”

Tammy’s eyes went wide. Robin didn’t think Tammy was the type to smoke weed, but Tammy pressed a confident smile onto her face. Maybe she didn’t want to back down from a dare. Maybe she just wanted a chance to press her mouth against Steve Harrington’s. 

Steve looked at her from all the way across the circle — if he, Tommy, and Carol were the North Pole, Tammy and Robin were the South, the antipodal point — and raised the joint questioningly. 

“Okay,” Tammy said. 

Steve took a drag off the joint and crawled across the circle. Tammy met him in the middle and he was gentle as he used one hand to tip her chin up, pressing his lips against hers and exhaling. Robin could only really see the back of Tammy’s head, but she was hit by a burning jealousy at the way Steve so casually touched her. 

It felt like it had been years since Tammy had held her hand. 

Tammy sat back beside Robin, a pleased little smile on her face. 

“Band kid,” Carol said, smiling meanly. “Truth or dare.”

Robin shuffled uncomfortably. So far all the dares had involved some kind of sexual display with the opposite sex and Robin did not want to kiss a boy or give him a lap dance. But she also had a lot of secrets she didn’t really feel like sharing. 

She should pick truth, right? Worst come to worst, she could just lie. It’s not like any of these people would ever know — none of them really knew her. 

“Truth,” Robin said. 

Chrissy started to say something, but Carol spoke over her. “Who was your first kiss?”

Robin’s cheeks flamed. Carol was doing this on purpose. 

“I haven’t had my first kiss yet,” Robin said, trying to sound casual. It wasn’t that unusual, at least in the circles she ran with. 

But Carol reacted with extreme shock, her eyes going wide, her mouth dropping open. “Ever? That’s so sad!”

“Not really,” Robin said. Everyone was staring at her. She’d spent months trying to fly under the radar, and now they were all watching her and it was just as terrible as she’d thought it would be.

Carol kept going. “But why haven’t you kissed anyone? Aren’t there any boys you like?”

It would have been fine if Carol hadn’t paused a little, put more emphasis on the word boys. But Carol knew what she was doing, insinuating exactly what she had when she’d stood with Steve by Robin’s locker. 

Everyone in the circle was staring at Robin. Jason Carver looked disgusted. Tammy pulled back a bit from Robin’s side. 

Robin felt like she was going to throw up.

Then Steve Harrington scoffed. All eyes moved to him, to see what the King was going to say. Steve was relaxed, weight back on one hand, legs kicked out in front of him. “Not everyone is a slut, Carol.”

The like you went unspoken, but Robin saw it land. Carol’s face scrunched up with real hurt for a second, like she wasn’t sure why Steve was attacking her. 

Tommy, sitting between them, gave Steve a what the fuck look as he pulled Carol into his side. 

Steve either didn’t see any of this or pretended not to. He turned to Patrick, sitting next to Robin on the opposite side as Tammy, and said “truth or dare?”

Robin relaxed. It was over, right? They weren’t looking at her anymore?

She glanced around the circle and it seemed like everyone had moved on. A sneaky glance at Tammy showed that she wasn’t sitting as close to Robin as before, but she also wasn’t looking particularly repulsed. Maybe she had just forgotten to move back again. 

Robin didn’t really believe it. 

She tried to calm her racing heart as the next few people went. But when it was Steve Harrington’s turn, she couldn’t help but tune in. 

“Steve,” Tommy Hagan said. “Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” Steve said, like every teenage jock ever. 

Carol leaned over and whispered in Tommy’s ear and Tommy grinned. “I dare you to kiss Robin Buckley.”

Robin’s blood turned to ice. Once again, all heads in the circle swiveled to her. 

Robin didn’t want to kiss Steve Harrington. She had been saving her first kiss because she wanted it to be special. She could have pretended to like a boy, to kiss a boy, to date a boy. But she had wanted to save all her firsts for a girl — to have them be real and meaningful instead of a stupid farce. 

She didn’t have a choice though. Not after what Carol had implied earlier. If Robin didn’t kiss Steve, she would practically be confirming that she was a lesbian. 

Robin looked to Carol, who was smirking at her. 

“Yeah,” Robin said shakily. “Okay.”

Steve was watching her intently, something indecipherable in his eyes. He got to his feet and crossed the circle, kneeling down in front of her. 

Robin didn’t think she’d ever been this close to a boy. He smelled like hairspray and beer, and his eyes were brown and serious as she watched her. 

He gave her the same friendly smile he’d been giving her all semester, then leaned in to whisper in her ear. His breath was uncomfortably hot on her skin as he said, “trust me.”

Then he pulled back and squared his shoulders, cocky and unapologetic about it. He smirked around the circle, a boy proud to be showing off that he was kissing a pretty girl. 

Robin was going to throw up. Her heart was pounding and she was going to have to kiss a boy and Steve had been playing games with her all semester. 

Robin closed her eyes, preparing for the kiss and also trying to hide the hot tears she could feel building up. 

She jumped a bit when Steve’s hands landed on her face. He wasn’t holding her jaw delicately like he’d done to Tammy. Both of Steve’s giant palms where splayed across her cheeks, one of them half caught in her hair, dragging it in front of her face. Great. Her first kiss was going to taste like hair and that wasn’t even going to be the worst part of it. 

Robin kept her eyes screwed shut as Steve’s skin pressed against her lips and his nose bumped hers and — those weren’t Steve’s lips. 

Steve was close, yes, so close they were sharing the same air. So close that it probably looked like they were kissing. 

But this was a stage kiss. Steve’s thumb was over Robin’s mouth, his lips pressed to one side and hers to the other. 

Robin opened her eyes in shock. She couldn’t really see Steve — he was too close not to be blurry — but his eyes were pressed closed, brown eyelashes fanned over his cheeks. As if this were a real kiss. 

Where had basketball-playing, prom king Steve Harrington even learned what a stage kiss was? This couldn’t be standard practice for the popular kids — they played these games as an excuse to kiss each other, not to fake it.

And more importantly, why was he doing this? Was he that opposed to kissing her? Or had he somehow noticed her reluctance and decided to protect her while allowing both of them to save face?

Steve used his hands to tilt Robin’s head and she followed without resistance. He pressed closer, moving her back, and they still weren’t kissing but it probably looked like they were making out. Like he was into this. Like she was.

Robin closed her eyes. She could figure out the mystery that was Steve Harrington later. Right now, she had to help Steve sell this. 

She raised her hands to Steve’s shoulders, pulling him closer, hoping he wouldn’t misinterpret her sudden ardor as a request for a real kiss. 

He let out a little moan, his nose brushing hers as he tipped his head, and she smiled against his thumb. Holy shit. They were totally faking it and everyone was going to think she was a good enough kisser to make Steve Harrington moan.

After a long moment, Steve pulled back, simultaneously slipping his thumb to the side so it wouldn’t be over her mouth. 

He stayed in her space a second longer, eyes locked with Robin’s. He seemed pleased with himself, or maybe with her shocked expression. 

He licked his lips and Robin copied him automatically. Her lips tasted like beer and smoke but it was from Steve’s hand, not his lips, and that made all the difference. 

Someone wolf-whistled. 

Steve backed away, returning to his seat next to Tommy Hagan. Robin was speechless as the room returned to focus.

Carol looked pissed. Tommy was elbowing Steve, leaning in to tease him. 

“Damn, Harrington,” said some basketball jock Robin didn’t know. “I didn’t know you were into band nerds.”

“That was a hell of a first kiss,” another one said. 

Steve smiled, cocky and pleased and bashful all at once. He was a better actor than Robin had ever given him credit for. 

Tammy nudged Robin, and that’s when Robin realized she was still staring at Steve, dumb with awe. 

As everyone turned to Tommy Hagan, Tammy leaned in and whispered, “it looks like you really enjoyed that kiss.”

She was trying to smile, trying to gently tease like a friend would, but Robin could see the heartbreak in her expression. Robin wished she could tell Tammy that it had all been for show and that she hadn’t actually kissed Steve, but Tammy had pulled away at the accusation that Robin was a lesbian and only been okay touching her again after that performance of a kiss. 

This wasn’t a world where Robin got to have both Steve and Tammy. 

“Yeah,” Robin said, surprised to find she was telling the truth. She was glad she’d been dared to kiss Steve and not any other boy here. There were apparently layers to Steve Harrington, who she’d thought was nothing more than a pretty, empty-headed, girl-obsessed jock. 

She kind of wanted to know more about him. 

She glanced across the circle. Steve was watching Tommy try to do a handstand, until Tommy overbalanced and fell into Steve’s lap, making him yelp. Steve laughed as he leaned over Tommy, asking if he was okay, and Tommy’s eyes lit up in a way Robin recognized. The way she had probably lit up when Tammy had taken her hand. 

In that moment, Robin felt like she understood something about all of them. 

Carol’s frozen smile as she watched her boyfriend beam at Steve. The way Tommy pretended to fumble a bit climbing off Steve’s lap, if only to stay there a second longer. And Steve’s sharp eyes, catching Tommy’s adoration and Carol’s pain. 

“You’re too high, man,” Steve said, waving his joint in a big circle. Giving Tommy cover in case anyone else had noticed what Robin had. 

“Way too high,” Carol agreed, snatching the joint from Steve’s fingers. She took a long drag, then blew the smoke out, passed the joint back to Steve, and curled into Tommy’s side. 

Tommy and Carol looked like the picture of a happy couple and Robin realized it was another type of performance. Had Carol known before she started dating Tommy? Or had she fallen in love with him first, only realizing he liked Steve when it was too late to stop her heart from being broken?

Robin didn’t want to feel sympathy for Carol Perkins, who had tried so hard to ruin Robin’s night. But she pitied her a little, watching her playact at being happy and realizing that they were all doing it. All these stupid popular kids were just pretending to be shiny, happy people and the rest of the school was buying it, standing too far away to see the imperfections that would have been obvious up close.

Steve met Robin’s eyes across the circle, bringing the joint to his lips. His eyes were perfectly clear, pupils small, not like someone who had been smoking at all. Another slight of hand, like the stage kiss. 

“I think he likes you back,” Tammy said. 

Robin looked at Tammy, who was faking a smile just like the rest of the popular kids. Why hadn’t Robin seen it before? Tammy was brave and Tammy was kind, but she hid those parts of herself, trying to seem just as cookie-cutter perfect as the rest of the people in this circle. 

Robin didn’t want cookie-cutter perfect. She wanted real. 

She still didn’t want to break Tammy’s heart, so she said something she didn’t really believe about Steve. Not anymore.

“Maybe,” Robin said. “But like you said, he’s just a good time. He’ll be over me in two weeks.”

***

On Monday, Robin found Steve at his locker after school. 

His eyes went wide as she came up to him and he smiled at her. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Robin said. She kicked the toes of her converse together. She’d spent all of yesterday doodling on them while watching tv. Maybe it was stupid, given how close Carol had come to outing her, but Robin was feeling a little bulletproof. She’d written I may not go down in history, but I’ll go down on your sister in pen on the whites of her shoes. 

Steve looked down at her feet and smiled. “Nice artwork.”

Robin froze, even though there was no way Steve could read her shoes while standing up. “Thanks,” she said stiffly. “I thought they could use some, uh, personality?”

“I like them better this way,” Steve said. 

Robin cleared her throat. “Do you, uh, wanna get milkshakes? You’re paying, of course.”

Steve’s eyes lit up. “Yeah,” he said quickly. “I’ll buy you however many milkshakes you want.”

Robin rolled her eyes. “Do girls really fall for this desperate act?”

“I’m much cooler around girls I’m interested in,” Steve said. Robin believed him this time. He’d put his thumb over her mouth and then swaggered like he’d kissed her and she trusted him in a way she hadn’t before. 

She was dying to know why he’d done it.

“So it’s just your friends that you bribe into liking you,” Robin teased. 

“Yeah,” Steve said, shameless. “Usually more with free rides and arcade money, but I’ve used ice cream before.”

“You’re so weird,” Robin blurted out. Then she froze. It was practically social suicide to call Steve Harrington weird. 

But Steve didn’t get mad. He just laughed and said “you have no idea.”

“Yo, Harrington,” called a  basketball player walking down the hall. “Hurry up, you’ll be late for practice.”

“I’m not going today!” Steve called back. “I’m sick.” He gave a very unconvincing cough. 

The basketball player rolled his eyes. “Lovesick, maybe.”

Steve scowled playfully. “Fuck off, man.”

“I’ll tell Coach you’re too pussy-whipped to play,” the basketball player said. 

“Don’t you dare!” Steve called. Robin expected him to sound more offended at being called pussy-whipped. No teenage boy wanted to be told he would do anything a girl told him to do, even in exchange for sex. And Steve was definitely not getting sex. But the insult rolled off Steve like water off a duck’s back. “Tell him I have the flu.”

“Sure, sure, whatever.” The boy rolled his eyes as he disappeared around the corner. 

Steve closed his locker. “Ready to go?”

“You’re not going to basketball?” 

“No,” Steve said. “We’re getting milkshakes. I’m not giving up a chance to make Robin Buckley my best friend.”

“Aren’t you, like, first chair?” Robin said. She watched a lot of basketball games by virtue of being in band, she knew it was called starting line. But she enjoyed seeing Steve’s face scrunch up at her words.

Steve groaned. “God, that is annoying. Remind me to stop calling Dustin’s campaigns his nerd practices.”

“Who’s Dustin and what are campaigns?”

“A kid I babysit, and a Dungeons and Dragons game.”

Robin blinked. “Dungeons and Dragons? That Hellfire game?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “He’s not in high school yet, so he doesn’t play with Eddie as his DM, but I’m sure he’ll join in a few years.”

DM? Was that some Hellfire term?

Apparently the new Steve Harrington knew the terms to nerd games. He stage-kissed lesbians at parties and thought it was worth skipping basketball practice for a chance to be Robin’s friend.

“Who are you?” Robin asked. “And what have you done with Steve?”

“I’m a time traveller from the future,” Steve said. 

Robin laughed. What a nerd. “No, really.”

Steve started walking backwards down the hallway, keys swinging around his fingers. “I’ll tell you over milkshakes.”

He held a hand out to her, beckoning, a hopeful smile on his face, and it didn’t feel like a joke anymore. Robin had no clue why, but Steve Harrington really wanted to be her friend. 

Robin peeled herself off the lockers and took Steve’s hand, their fingers twining together, letting him pull her outside. 

[slayfics]

Why him?

Muichiro x Reader short series

Mitsuri invites Muichiro to eat with you so you can get to know him better.

Part 2

"I know!" Mitsuri exclaimed enthusiastically. "I'll invite Tokito to eat with us! That way you can get to know him better and spend time with him! I'm the best big sister ever!" Mitsuri sang in her own praise.

"N-n-no no no! I really d-don't want to do that. I w-w-would rather just keep my distance." You pleaded.

"Oh don't worry I'll be there too so there's no reason to be nervous ok?" Mitsuri said bringing out a paper and pen. "I'll write to him now about meeting us for breakfast before we all head out our separate ways!" Mitsuri swiftly wrote a letter then handed it to her crow. You desperately tried to get the letter out of her hand but you were no match for your older sister's strength.

"Get some sleep and don't worry. It's just food ok? We will have fun tomorrow morning!" Mitsuri said, putting her hand on your back to comfort you.

The next morning you dreadfully came out to the common room where you saw Mitsuri and Tokito sitting. You debated on turning around and running back to your room but just then Mitsuri had caught sight of you.

"Goooooood morrrningggg little sister!" She said with the biggest grin you had seen her have since the last time Iguro came over.

"Good m-morning..." You said grumpily sitting down.

Muichiro did not say a word but ate silently.

"Soooooooo how is everyone feeling today?" Mitsuri said, trying to make conversation.

"Fine..." You said.

"Healthy." Muichiro said looking as uninterested as ever. "Did you want to eat together for a reason?" He asked.

"Oh, I just thought it would be fun since we are both Hashira and here at the same time you know? Plus you know my sister is here too."

"Ok." Mucihro said, and turned back to his food. You shot Mitsuri a glance that was supposed to convey how bad of an idea this was and how awful it was going.

"Sooooooo you ran into my sister the other day?" Mitsuri said attempting a conversation again.

"No, she ran into me. You should train her better." He said.

"M-m-mitsuri! I told you this was a m-mistake! H-he is a-aw-awful!" You shouted letting your embarrassment about yesterday's events get the better of you. Muichiro looked between the two sisters in curiosity then went back to his food, deciding he wasn't interested.

"I've finished my meal and have some business to attend to. Goodbye." He said getting up to leave.

"WAIT!" Mitsuri yelled. "OH! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! I ASKED YOU HERE BECAUSE MY LITTLE SISTER HAS A CRUSH ON YOU!"

You felt all the blood drain from your face. How could she say that to him?? You didn't know what to do. You felt such an overwhelming amount of emotions. Embarrassment, anger, sadness. It was all too much for you to take and you felt like you might explode. You ran out of the room and hurried back to your designated room, closing the door just in time before tears began to fall.

Why was Muichiro so mean? Why him? Why did you have a crush on such a dreadful person? How could Mitsuri out your feelings like that? You put your face in your hands and continued to weep. When you heard a faint knock on your door.

"G-g-go away Mitsuri. I can't b-be-believe you." You spoke with venom in your voice.

"I'm not Mitsuri and I'm coming in." You heard Muichrio respond and your door opened. Why would he come here? To insult you further perhaps. It's not like he ever had anything nice to say.

"You're crying" He said as he sat down next to you.

"Great o-observation." You replied.

"Are you crying because of what Miss Kanroji said?"

"J-j-just forget what she said, it's not true. I think you're a-awful, cruel, and m-mean." You spat.

"I am?" He asked and seemed to daze off.

"Yes! You insult e-everyone even when they are trying to h-help you and you don't seem to care for a-anything."

Muichiro came back from his daze and looked down at his hands... "Hmm... I think I used to know someone just like that..."

"You must have looked in a m-mi-irror recently." You retorted. Muichiro took no notice of your harsh words.

"Hmm... It's too bad you actually despise me... I was quite flattered to hear you had a crush on me."

You froze... he was flattered?? You couldn't wrap your mind around what he was saying. He was so indifferent to everything could he actually be flattered you had a crush on him?

"I n-never said I despise you..." You softened.

"I am too busy as a Hashira to date or even explore those types of human interactions, but you can write me letters if you wish. I will respond as promptly as I can." He said watching you intently now.

Joining the demon slayer corps so young Muichiro never had interactions with someone that liked him, and he never had chances to explore those types of feelings of his own either. As indifferent as he was on the outside, something sparked a deep memory in him of feeling warm, feelings that must have been from a long time ago. He wondered if this meant something.

"O-ok... I'll write you letters Tokito." You said taken aback by his sudden change in demeanor.

Just then Mitsuri burst into the room.

"OH! I'm so dumb I let a boy in my sister's room alone! Tokito you have to get out right now!" She said red in the face.

"W-W-WHAT DID YOU THINK W-WE WERE DOING??" You said mortified. Muichiro stood up and went to exit the room.

"I'll be looking forward to your letter." He said then vanished.

I’m accustomed to writing the reader as Muichiro’s Tsuguko so this was a bit of a challenge for me. However, I hope you all enjoyed this little series! I did my best~

[xreaderbooks]

All I Breathe (5)

Pair: Azriel x Vanserra Reader

Word Count: 4.4k

Warnings: mentions of sexual assault, death, violence, ptsd, language

Summary: Y/n recounts her past with her enemy, making a new 'friend', Azriel makes his appearance in the Autumn Court known at the ball. (angst)

Playlist

Available on Wattpad and AO3

Masterlist - Series Masterlist - Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

The sound of the door clicking shut made you stir in your sleep, your eyes were crusted by the tears you shed overnight made it twice as hard to open them. You managed to blink the eye that was not on the side of your face nuzzled into your pillow, a familiar tall dark figure made his way over to you and you were suddenly more interested in being awake than asleep. You rubbed the sleep from your eyes and the next thing you knew he was sitting on the edge of the bed.

You watch him warily as he fully turns his body to face yours with legs crossed, you wordlessly sat up, matching his position. His silent watchful stare made you feel more vulnerable than you had been last night, it was as if he was afraid you would break if he spoke so much as a whisper.

“I’m not fragile,” Your throat was sore as you spoke. “Say something.”

A mellifluous tune resounded with the one word he replied with, “Something.”

“So you’re a jester now?”

His laugh sang to your heart and you straightened at the odd feeling. You ignored it, your eyes traveling to his spy wear and shot him a look that questioned his presence.

“I thought we should have a check-in on how your end was holding up since we never got the chance to do so yesterday.” He alluded to the both of you not speaking for a whole day after the argument where not-so-kind words were said. You got a flashback of the screaming match where his true feelings towards you were shown. That made it much more difficult to comprehend his actions only a couple of hours ago.

With an exhale you recounted what Beron told you, he listened without a single impertinent remark. “He expects the ‘prisoner’ to be brought to him once you’ve caught him.”

“I’ll handle it,” He says.

“I could help,” You offered hesitantly.

His tone held finality, “I said I’ll handle it.”

You didn’t care if he said he’d handle it, if there was one way to prove you could be of use to your new court, to prove your worth; you would formulate a plan so that Azriel’s main focus could be the alchemist. You could deal with your family but for now, you would let Azriel believe you won’t play a part in it.

You cleared your throat, “I suppose if we are to be allies, you deserve an explanation as to what happened last night.”

“There’s no need-” He started.

“It would make me feel better if we share even the tiniest bit of information about our lives, I can’t trust someone to ‘handle’ something if I don’t know the person I’m trusting.” You persuaded, “It is the reason you can’t stand to be near me after all.”

He didn’t move an inch in response, simply watching you in quiet contemplation as you began to tell your story. “Before I was a spy for Tamlin, I worked for my brothers. I was coerced into their plans of entrapping men who owed them money or who had committed crimes, anyone who escaped them. Whether they had conned their way out of my brothers' grasp or if they were imprisoned and pardoned, if my brothers wanted them it was my job to get them. They made me wear the most attractive dress and made certain my face was painted in a way that would capture the attention of any male. They controlled what I ate, ensured that I train if only so that my figure be the suitable size.”

Your lips curled in distaste, “They taught me the best ways to seduce a male to bed though they never let them get that far. Eris said I wouldn’t be useful if I were spoiled goods, if word got out nobody would want me, not that I cared at least if I were ‘spoiled goods’ it would all stop. They never let them get close enough to do that damage but they definitely got close, too close for my liking and yet not close enough for my brothers to stop them.” Azriel's chest rose and fell in a rhythm you weren’t sure if he was breathing correctly.

“Every night I would take them to a hostel owned by my brothers, after some flirting and a couple touches that made me want to bathe in poison, some were easier to persuade than others. Once I had them pursuing me to the same room that I would take every other male, my brothers would be just around the corner. I swear sometimes they would wait longer just to torture me.” You scoffed at the memory of one night when you plead to the mother they would come quickly, from what you knew of the male he was a thief and a horrible person and loved to touch you in places you always made sure to set your boundaries. Most of them respected it, depending on the male, and until you got to the room it wasn’t a problem.

“One night I had to capture the attention of a lesser fae around my age who owned a carpentry shop left by his father who was very much in debt. He didn’t fall for any of my usual tricks, in fact, he laughed and asked me if I really thought he was that easy. I told him that most are, he got serious after that and offered to walk me to where I was staying, he didn’t know that I was the high lord’s daughter then or that I was sent to lure him into his death. He asked to see me again the next day and every day after that.” You smiled as tears welled in your eyes, “We were together every day for half a year, after the first three months I confessed to what brought me to his store and he confessed to having already fallen in love with me. Even after I told him the truth he still loved me and I loved him, Gods I loved him more than I ever loved anything. Like everything else in my life, it was ripped away from me by my brothers. When they found out about him they tore him apart, I found Lucien near where they dumped his body, they knocked him out so he couldn’t stop him.”

“I had to follow through with every male that they told me to pursue, they let them have their way with me and did whatever they wanted to the guy after. It was my punishment, Lucien couldn’t step in or they threatened to kill me. I played my part for years until Lucien met Jessminda. My father murdered her and soon Tamlin was stepping in and took me and Lucien in. Tamlin and I faked a courtship and marriage for my protection, Lucien became his emissary, and the rest you already know.”

Azriel’s nostrils were flared, and his eyes held something within them that you have seen directed at you far too many times to mistake for anything other than pure rage, though this time you weren’t sure why. “Did they do that to you?” His gaze rested on your eye that had a going from a couple of inches above your brow to your cheekbone.

You shook your head, “Amarantha. She wanted Tamlin for herself and when he denied her, his excuse being me- his wife- with a nail, she cut deep enough to leave the scar. The same eye as Lucien’s to match. The humorous part of it all was she wanted to make Tamlin despise looking at me because of how hideous I look now when he never wanted me in that way.”

There was a tension in the air you didn’t think either of you wanted to address, you climbed out of bed and tied your hair back. You glanced around the room hoping to find something else to focus on. Some invisible force drew you to him, you resisted and instead noticed how his fists were clenched so hard they were white. His hands were covered in scars, you’ve noticed them before but never cared to ask the story behind them.

For an inexplicable reason, his rage made you want to tear the world apart, to try and ease the ire he had in his heart, you sat directly where he was with his legs crossed. His back tense and his wings stiffly folded in, your hand reached for his hand reluctantly. His skeptical gaze made you want to retreat but you would not falter, not after all that you shared.

You made him unclench his fingers taking his large scarred hand into both of yours and to your surprise he let you. “Tell me what haunts your dreams, Shadowsinger,” You say.

“I do not take orders from demanding little girls,” He fakes an authoritative tone yet doesn’t pull away. Your mouth widens into a smile, gratified to hear him joke with you.

“Little girl!” You snorted. “That’s a new one.”

Shock displayed on his face, “That’s a new laugh.”

“You wouldn’t know, now would you?”

“I suppose not,” The solemn expression was brought back. You cursed whatever force tore down the wall of fury you had whenever you were around the spymaster. All you wanted was to hear the sound of his laugh and not the bitter bite of his words. “My brothers burned my hands when I was eight.”

Your hands went slack in his, pieces of the puzzle that was Azriel formed in your mind, that was why he couldn’t touch you. Last night was an exception but the reason he was so distant, the reason he refused to touch you not only because he hated you but because you were made of fire. You lived with fire in your veins, the power that burst out of you when you were hurt or angry, Azriel had multiple reasons to hate you and this one made the most sense.

With that in mind, you released your hold on his hand. Everything was taking formation in your mind, fragments of moments you had spent with Azriel, you and he are more alike than you thought. Your brothers, his and yours, were assholes.

“They were also older and didn’t much care for me, their mother kept me locked in a dungeon for 11 years and barely let me see my mother for more than an hour once a week.” He concentrated on telling you the story, and a crease formed on his brow. Though you couldn’t stand him on a daily basis with his baseless comments on who you are as a person, you felt for him. The more you learned about him, the more his treatment of you made sense. You still wanted to throttle him but there was a part of you that felt him.

A short knock on your door and what sounded like a note slid under the gap of your door. Azriel went to retrieve it, handing it to you with a letter opener. You sliced it open, it was a letter from Eris, informing you of the ball your father was hosting tonight in your and Azriels’ honor.

Azriel was expected to arrive in the Autumn Court tonight and clearly to make an appearance at the ball. You couldn’t remember the last time you attended a revel, it was sure to be interesting and you had to admit to being excited in seeing the shadowsinger in that setting. The fact that it was your family hosting it wasn’t ideal, however, it seemed to be the only time the people of Autumn got to enjoy themselves.

“We are to attend a ball this evening,” You handed the opened letter to him your fingers brushing. You were keenly aware of how much contact you were making with him.

He placed the letter down on your writing desk by your door, he opened your wardrobe, you didn’t realize he had a black bag in there. He unzipped it and pulled out his knives, strapping them to their sheaths on his body. “If you need a weapon don’t hesitate to take any from in here. I’ll be back in time for the introductions.”

With that he faded into his shadows, winnowing away to his mission.

~~~

You slowly made your way down the steps to the ballroom, it had been dressed to fit the occasion. Dark velvet colors, gold trimming, all autumn-themed colors. A feast of food laid out on the tables that lined the walls, servants waiting on stand-by to serve. Those who were at the meeting had brought their families, villagers from the market were invited, it was a large party that you hadn’t been a part of in a long while.

Unfortunately, you knew that once a certain hour came, the families will depart and the revelry will truly begin. Strangers would be found the next morning on the ground, still drunk on faerie wine or other worse scenarios you didn’t want to conjure up in your mind yet.

You were late to the main introduction, not that it was needed but Beron like Rhysand (as you’ve witnessed in the Court of Nightmares) liked to make a show and parade his children to the crowd.

You felt a tug come from somewhere deeper into the crowd, a certain coldness around your ankle, you couldn’t see what it was even if you wanted to. You wore a long red off-the-shoulder satin lace ball gown, courtesy of Beron. The servants brought in the dress as soon as they were down making up your face with dark kohl around your eyes and a red rouge, and dressing your hair down with two strands that framed your face and two thin braids that met in the back of your head, held together by a ruby hair clip.

He wanted to show you off to the Court, show them the daughter (he couldn’t care less about) that was their princess, you were home and it would give them someone to celebrate.

As soon as you entered the chatter around you paused. You didn’t expect to be greeted the way you were, bows and curtseys to your feet were given as you passed and stopped when you reached your father.

At his throne, beside him your mother was sitting, Beron had his hand in hers no doubt halting her from going to you. You curtseyed as low as you could, knowing it would please him, maybe if you did things his way just this one night- he would let you speak to your mother. He waved his hand lazily, careless of your efforts, and signaled for the music to continue.

That was when you went in search of the spymaster. It was surprisingly hard to find him, even with the invisible force that drew you to him as a moth to a flame, the females that had formed a line around him hid him better than his shadows could. You stifled your laughter as you saw his fluster. There was no doubt he could get the attention of any female he wanted by just a look- though you would never tell him that aloud- you were puzzled by the sudden shyness.

The cold whisper came back, this time around your neck beckoning you his way. You conceded and made your presence clear to the females around him, they cleared a path for you, not daring to get in the Princess’ way.

You could sense their lack of hope when you reached your enemy, not that they knew you had no interest in him and that they could have him. Part of basked in the fact that for now, at this moment, he was begging for you to save him.

“Enjoying yourself are you?” His jaw was set a look of annoyance in his eyes.

“Quite so, yes. They appear to be fond of you.” You teased.

He grimaced, “They wouldn’t be if they knew what I was up to just two hours before this.”

“Sounds like it would be an interesting story then,” You held your hands behind your back and peered up at him eager for him to give you the details. “Do tell.”

He shot you a look that you knew meant he definitely wasn’t going to tell you what you wanted to hear, especially not in front of guests. His arms were folded, completely guarded, he wasn’t at the Night Court but he was entirely vigilant for any sign of a threat.

You sighed, “Do you ever have fun?”

He gave you a side-eye. You scrunched your nose up at him in response, which got him to lessen the harsh lines on his face. “It’s a party, Shadowsinger.”

His tone was quiet as it always was, but somehow even more so, “You know it’s not just some party, Y/n.”

You gave out an exasperated breath and rolled your shoulders, “I just saved you from the clutches of bloodthirsty females and this is how you repay me?”

“Your court, your people, your problem.” He shrugged.

“First of all no to all of that,” You glanced at the refreshments table where you longed for a drink but your brothers were surrounding it like sharks. “Second, I’d be most appreciative if you brought me a drink, I’m parched and though I may regret this comment later- you’re the only one I trust to bring me an unpoisoned drink. Nor do I think they would dare poison you.”

His gaze softened as he walked to the pool of sharks without question.

~~~

A circle of fae was created to make room for dancing the quadrille, though you weren’t fond of where you were currently and the dress made to prove you were owned by your father, you clapped along and laughed with everyone. You watched in amusement as a little girl twirled around the couples, strategically maneuvering through, giggling as she went.

You paused mid-clap, your smile fading as you saw the girl about to faceplant into the ground. Panic struck as you saw Eris catch her from tripping, he held her tiny wrist and spun her around once sending her on her way. He straightened his lapels and his posture, heading in your direction. You prepared yourself for what would most likely be an interesting interaction. Azriel who took it upon himself to be a sort of bodyguard for you in the truce you both agreed on, went to the washroom, so you had no comfort.

“Allow me a dance?”

He didn’t give you a chance to respond as he pulled you into a respectable distance, a hand on your waist and the other in yours. The position was familiar as he was the one who gave you dance lessons when you were as young and loved as the girl he’d just saved. A light tune played by the string quartet was in the background as you routinely flowed around the ballroom.

“The dress compliments you, Sister.” Eris took both of your hands in his and pushed you outwards then inwards, giving you a twirl, and stopped to where your back was to his chest, swaying to the right and again to the left. He spins you again to his front, “You’ve gotten better.”

“You look quite stately yourself, brother.” The name tasted bitter in your mouth but if he was behaving, so would you, there was a show to be put on anyhow. “And what with how seriously you took my education in the waltz, how could I not?”

He looked almost proud at how you’ve kept up, a deep part of you preened at the thought. Others who were on the floor struggled to keep up with the pace you and your brother had set.

“He won’t allow you near her until you bring him what he wants,” He whispers in your ear. Of course not, you school your features to hide your furious thoughts. Your mother was your only weakness, the only kind soul who loved you and your brother, Lucien.

Azriel wanted to capture and deliver the ‘escaped prisoner’. You weren’t going to let him do it on his own in the first place, this only gave you more reason to disobey the orders that he had conveyed. You would find a criminal as you always had and lure him into a trap, one you would have to figure out later and deliver him to your father.

Your mind wandered as you floated through the rest of the dance. With a final bow to your partner, Eris spoke softly as he passed you “He hasn’t stopped admiring you since you walked into the room.”

You whipped your head around but he was gone, worming his way around the excited bunch of fae by the refreshments.

The song had ended and a longways dance was set up, more people joined making a long vertical line from the throne to wear the door was. What shocked you was that Azriel had joined on the male side of the line, you kept your position, and you knew the surprise was written all over your features.

A barely visible smirk whispered on his lips as your bodies passed each other in the first line switch, your backs turned, and your hands found his as you moved to the music. You hopped along with the other fae, switching partners and giggling as you went. The same pattern sequenced; facing your new partner, right wrist barely touching theirs then your left- switching sides with a turn, footwork with energetic hops, pulling in-pulling out, and moving on to the next.

It happened twice more before you were finally met with Azriels beautiful face. Your chest heaved from breathing heavily, and your heart raced, pounding like horses running in an open field. You felt euphoric from the air, the dancing, the energy- him. No, not him. You quickly shut down those thoughts.

“Are you alright?” He stepped in your direction.

You took a step back, nodding your head with enthusiasm. “I’m amazing, I didn’t know you could dance.”

He didn’t look convinced by the state of you, he placed a hand at the small of your back and guided you away from the crowd. “Hardly.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” You teased further.

With the way his gaze held yours, you suddenly couldn’t find yourself making eye contact with him. Your corsets felt like they were suffocating you, “I’m going to go to freshen up.”

You didn’t give him a chance to answer as you fled. You wanted to see your mother, she was the only person who could tell you what was wrong with you, the only person you could trust. She was granted leave by your father and escorted out of the ballroom before your dance with Eris.

You wandered along the halls, assuring your steps were quiet but with every corner, you turned you felt yourself being followed. You tested your theory by going the long way to your mothers' chambers, whoever it was that was pursuing you either didn’t care that you knew they were following you or is just plain lousy at their job.

You took a right and attached your back to the wall to catch your stalker off guard, hoping to gain an advantage. You heard the heavy footing of your pursuer and went in for the attack only to be slammed onto the wall opposite where you posted yourself.

“You forget where you learned all your tricks, Y/n.” Your second eldest brother sneered close enough to your face you could smell the faerie wine on his breath. He held your left wrist in a tight grip behind your back. You bared your teeth at him as you inched your other hand to the dagger you had hidden under one of the layers of your skirt.

He tsked in mock disappointment, “You know you’re not allowed near her. For someone who acts like they're smarter than the rest, you don’t seem to think.”

“It’s awfully bold of you to question my wits,” You tilted your head to the left.

“You came back for a reason” He glared suspiciously, “Are you here to take your revenge? Is that why you’re with them, with him? You’re going to finish us off with the executioner you brought with you and end us all.”

“What are you going on about?” You had no clue what wild insinuations your brothers or your father held in their small brains, you supposed you should be glad that they were so far off the true reason for your appearance.

If he wanted to be paranoid about you wanting to take revenge for his maltreatment of you when you were a child, then so be it.

He pulled you from the wall and slammed you against the wall so fast your neck bent back enough for your head to hit the stone. “Answer me!” He shouted.

You managed to grip the tip of the dagger’s handle, and with a flick of your wrist, you sliced the knife against his abdomen. He let go of you if only to observe his wound, you cut deep enough to draw blood, lots of it.

“You bitch!” He growled and lunged for you, yet he never got the chance to touch you.

A shadowed figure with great big wings had knocked him to the floor, Azriel held a lethal aura, he lifted your brother by the collar of his shirt and had him against the wall the same way he had you, except, his forearm was pressed against his throat. His tone in every way threatening, the murderous fury in his hazel eyes meaning every word.

“Touch my mate again and I will kill you.”

Mate.

Mate.

Mate.

Betrayal, pure betrayal you didn’t deny yourself, you didn’t hide your thoughts from him. You let it show in every line of your face, every movement of your body. You took several steps back, disbelief was the one true emotion that didn’t allow you to process.

“Y/n-”

“No, don’t come near me.”

He was overwhelming you with his scent, everything about how you were recently feeling around him now made sense. All your senses came into place the night you touched for the first time. Now all you could think about was; how long had he known. Why would he keep this from you? When did the bond snap into place for him?

You left him standing there with your brother who was frozen with fear. You turned your back on him and went to find your mother.

The guards standing post at her door reluctantly let you in, she was sitting in front of her balcony, just now removing her jewelry. At the sight of you, she dropped everything and opened her arms, receiving you in a hug. 

~~~

Next Chapter

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[jooniperbonsai]

Thanks For the Sub (ksj) | Chapter Two

Pairing: Camboy!Seokjin x Gamer!Reader (afab)

Rating: 18+

Word Count: 13.7k

Release date: Mon. February 5, 2024

Genre: Smut, fluff, angst, camboy au, gamer au, comedy, crack, slow burn (?), coworkers/boss/friends to lovers, an exploration of adults in their late 20s/early 30s

Summary: Now aware of Seokjin's secret, you try to take some of his...techniques into your next stream. But how well will they pay off?

Chapter Warnings: anxiety, discussion of boundaries and triggers, Seokjin explains what bdsm is supposed to mean to us watching at home, internet/cyberbullying dynamics, boss/employee power struggles, discussions of consent, peer pressure, mention of threesome, implied chubby/fat reader (it's vague enough to not adopt a specific size), mention of sex toys, swearing, sexual fantasies, m masturbation, damn Seokjin has a boner so many times in this sorry, size kink, y/n assumes Seokjin's sexuality, porn simulation games, 1 (one) reference to Vine (RIP), Dom Seokjin, kink negotiation, mention of choking and improper bdsm practices, mention of urethral sounding (but not actually happening)

a/n: Ahh hello! First of all, thank you to everyone who has read TFTS so far! It really warms my heart knowing how well received it's been, and your comments and messaged have meant so much. I really wanted to emphasize discussions of consent and boundaries in this chapter. I was struggling to write for a little bit, and then suddenly I saw this one gif of Jin on my feed and my brain jimmy neutron brain blasted my way to a 13k length chapter. Hopefully I've proofread well enough, but if you spot some serious errors please let me know. -h

On Saturday afternoon, Seokjin woke up for the first time in what felt like forever feeling rested. After checking the weather app on his phone constantly throughout the night, he received the alert that heavy snowfall was causing delays in plowing and public transit. He messaged the opening crew, encouraging them to also enjoy the lie-in and prepare for a delayed open. Instead of falling into the semi-sickening lovefest of couples peeling each other’s perilla leaves or trying to feed each other lunch, he could be spared until the evening. 

Which was good, because Seokjin was exhausted. His live last night was not planned, but after closing and apologizing to you about his gross mismanagement of power, he needed to get out the pent-up frustration that crumbled the bones in his body from pressure. 

Sure, it was the right thing to do to apologize, even though he knew he would never be able to look at that prep counter, your wide, glassy eyes, and swollen lips the same way again. But it was important to him. He could never become the kind of man he watched his boss be to him or his wife, forcing his way past someone’s boundaries to get what they wanted. 

Even years later, Seokjin was convinced that had he not shared information about Soon Yi that intrigued his boss, if he’d maybe kept his personal and professional lives separate, things maybe would have been different. And now that he was in the position of power where he was someone else’s boss, wasn’t it his duty to make sure that didn’t happen to you too?

Seokjin almost lost all his control with you yesterday. From the moment you came in with a tired, croaky voice that greeted him “hi” before the sun had even come up, he knew he would be struggling for the rest of the day. 

During multiple points of your training, he had the urge to touch you, which was nearly impossible not to do, since so much of the guidance you needed came from hand-over-hand instruction as he showed you the fluid motions of safe chopping. When his large hands covered yours, Seokjin became aware of how tiny you were to him. Maybe not in all the places, but your height, your smaller hands, they showed him how easily and perfectly you slotted into his body, like a puzzle piece he didn’t know he could ever feel matched to. 

Maybe Seokjin executed this desire to touch you a little too dramatically. When he saw your misplaced cutting knife, he let that excuse lead him head-first into white hot desire, scolding you, watching you squirm a little as you felt embarrassed for losing focus. And that seemed to unlock some feral need in him, to get you to squirm a little more, to touch you and feel the velveteen softness of your forearms as he pinned you against the prep table. 

The little gasp you’d let out sent the blood straight to his cock, and to avoid you seeing how easy and embarrassingly you could undo him–how quickly one singular sound from you would make Seokjin rock hard and panting and under your complete power–he reacted, clasped your wrists, used some set of excuses to get closer, let his arm skim across your cheek to grab a packet of whatever the hell was above you. And the way you didn’t resist, didn’t pull away from his grasp showed him how good you could be, how obedient you were as you turned around when told. 

He should’ve stopped there, but you were standing in front of him, smelling a little bit like coffee and a fruity shampoo you used, your bodies only mere inches from full on contact. And Seokjin wanted more of a reason to hold onto you, to see what ways he could rile you up, whether you were cognizant or not of how, well, submissive you were to him. 

Most of his income from streams came from scenarios where Seokjin played into a softer role, which translated into the role of a submissive pretty boy, and usually a bottom. But for the first time in years, a rich, satisfying wave of dominance rolled back into his body and he welcomed it.

Seokjin knew better, but he couldn’t help himself. The one bit of control he maintained was in his refusal to let go of your hands, even after you had mastered the motions of your knife, possibly even better than Seokjin himself could chop. Because if Seokjin declawed himself from you, his hands would absolutely wander. Up the sleeve of your exposed forearms and down the swell of your breasts and full hips. 

His cock ached thinking about how plush and soft your body would be under his hands, how he wouldn’t have to worry about breaking you. He could safely grope your sides and not feel like he would pinch your bones together, and that was important, because Seokjin liked to be rough.

When that carrot fell, you couldn’t shake Seokjin’s desperate hands off yours and you carried him with you as you curved your body toward the floor to pick up your mess. Seokjin was blessed and cursed with the brief moment he got to touch more of you than he ever had as your ass rocked back and ground gently into him. 

He’d moaned, though he tried to disguise it as a grunt or scoff, but the way your delicious ass attracted him right in between the line of your cheeks practically begged him to rut against you. 

Your reaction of shock, though, halted him as he remembered you two were in the kitchen of his family’s restaurant. He scrambled to cover his dick before it became even more obvious and humiliating. 

And then you fell, because Seokjin was an idiot and forgot he had been holding onto you. 

The sound of your head crashing into the metal ricocheted through his ears, and your pained moan sent him spiraling in panic. He didn’t think. Seokjin wasn’t the best at remaining calm during potential medical emergencies, instead of electing to assess your wellbeing and check-in with you, he just reacted, plucking you off the floor and onto the counter.

You can’t manage a restaurant without carrying heavy sacks of rice or flour, cartons of vegetables or gallons of oils and liquids into the space. That, plus the fact that Seokjin did go to the gym to keep his figure, ensured that when he had to pull you up from the floor, he could do so with ease. Which thanks to his awful, overly enthusiastic libido, was really locking in some potential size kink. If Seokjin could hoist you onto the cold prep counter without breaking a sweat, it meant he could also hoist you onto other things, like his cock. Could bounce you up and down and see how those delicious, large tits would follow his pace.

Fuck. 

This was when Seokjin realized even though he was deeply, deeply interested in these fantasies, his reality was different. Because too easily he had dipped into some innate submissive part of you and decided to play with it and tease you for it. Too easily, he has erased any boundary between professional and personal, and now you are walking around with a giant bruise on your forehead. He used his power to manipulate you, didn’t he? While the tiniest part of him argued back, suggesting it was purely mutual attraction and biology, that he shouldn’t apologize because he swore he saw something in your eyes that almost guaranteed you wanted him too, this is why Seokjin had to apologize. The “almost” of it all. He wasn’t sure, which meant the uncertainty was a risk and just because he wanted something to be true didn’t mean it was. 

By the end of the day, the intense proximity to you and the memory of your lips parting to suck his tongue into your mouth had become too much. Seokjin turned on an impromptu stream to wallow in his self pity and direct that dominant energy into something that was far less harmful and at least lucrative. 

Now, as the winter’s dull afternoon light glowed through the city, Seokjin checked his phone, seeing that the evening crew leader had arrived and informed him that everything was covered and they wouldn’t need the extra help. 

With that update, Seokjin’s entire evening just became available, which was a rare thing for him since he moved up in his job role. But because of this, he was unsure what to do to pass the time. He cooked himself dinner, cleaned, and organized the jars in his refrigerator, needing to keep his hands busy to distract himself from thinking about you. 

His apartment looking immaculate and there no longer being anything else to clean, he finally fired up his computer to play games. Maybe this would serve as a proper distraction. His new PC was set to come early next week after being delayed by the snow. Despite Seokjin’s financial success since his start as a streamer, money to him was still something he wasn’t sure what to do with. 

After Worldwide Handsome took their cut from last night’s fifteen grand in earnings, he would be walking away with about ten thousand dollars. He would, albeit quietly, pour around seven thousand of those dollars into the restaurant, where the mom-and-pop feel of the small shop was starting to show its age.

Last week, he’d called a repairman to give him a quote about fixing a broken coil on one of the griddles. After a quick inspection, he was informed most of the unit was corroding, and it was time to seriously consider a replacement. Between that, the new register he ordered, and the walk-in freezer that was coughing its last breath, probably as we speak, Seokjin spent nearly forty grand in the last month with repairs and replacements to keep the shop running another day. 

His parents had insisted they’d pay for the expenses, but after the first few discoveries he’d made of the DIY wiring his father had tried in earnest to configure, Seokjin stopped alerting them to the updates he was making, hoping that distance, age, and some fairly similar looking appliances would allow for these changes to go undetected when they returned. He had seen what this place made. He’d seen his paycheck. There was no way in hell his father could afford an $18 to 25,000 walk-in freezer on their operating budget. 

Overall, Seokjin made plenty of money with streaming, but beyond some investments and his nice apartment, as well as a savings account to ensure he wasn’t completely destitute, he lived much below his means. When he hit goals during his streaming, it did really feel like he was winning big. To buy himself a new PC was something he knew he worked for.  

Just as he was browsing the new skins in the game store, he heard the familiar chime and his heartrate picked up. 

You were live. 

He hesitated. “No,” he said out loud to himself, his voice croaking after hours of not speaking. “Don’t even think about it.” 

He knew if he looked at you right now, all the distractions, the cleaning, the dedication to keeping himself busy, would be for nothing. It would be painful to look at you–probably all cozy with your hair pulled messily away from your face, your glasses hanging off your nose instead of your usual contacts–and not think about how merely hours ago he had your heat rubbed up against him. 

If he really wanted to torture himself, he would also think about how the casual, disheveled look you sported could have been something he woke up to this morning if he’d tried a little harder, the loose t-shirt you probably wore rising up while you slept next to him, exposing the soft tummy he knew hid under it. Maybe even one of your nipples would slip out, hard from the chill of the cold winter air bleeding into his apartment. 

But Seokjin wouldn’t torture himself. He knew better. When he exited his game, he definitely didn’t launch his web browser and go to your channel that was on his Favorites tab. And he definitely didn’t cup himself through his sweats as he watched you appear before him. 

If the idea of you in casual wear could make him this hard, the view of you now, as you sat on stream with a tight, low-cut top that showed the curve of your breasts and their delicious, lickable valley between them, could easily turn every part of him into stone. You did your makeup today. Let your hair delicately frame your face. You looked like you were logging on to lure your viewers to come to you like a siren. Seokjin wanted you to devour him. 

His cock twitched and he groaned. He was such a pervert. But whoever this Y/N was, she looked like she was ready to play some games, and not the kind that Seokjin was used to seeing on stream. 

“Well, hello,” you purred. Was this really happening? Who the fuck had possessed the wide-eyed, awkward gamer he was used to watching?

“I thought, given that it’s so close to Valentine's Day, and because I missed the stream last night, I would make it up to you.” 

Seokjin froze. How had he not known you were supposed to stream yesterday? He would’ve never let you stay so late. He shot you an apologetic text,and when he looked up from his phone, he saw some of the comments flooding into your feed:

Mingisaysrelax: Um…am I on the right website? 😏💦

MountainSan88:😳 

PizzaBoy97: You look really pretty 😍

MizzVyne: Is this allowed? IS THIS ALLOWED?

Seokjin watched as your chat exploded in response to your new look, clips being taken by the hundreds when you leaned down to adjust your seat and the tops of your breasts jiggled. Your mods seemed to be on top of things though, because as soon as he saw raunchy or hateful comments, they were swiftly being taken down. 

“I’m not going to read my comment section right now, but I assume you’re all a little shocked by my appearance. I don’t know, I was feeling a bit inspired by another streamer I watched last night when I got home from work. He had some really good ideas on um…stuff, and no I’m not going to share who he is because some of you will absolutely cyber bully him for being associated with me and he deserves better than that.” 

He. A pang of bitterness surged through Seokjin. It was laughable, really, how he was jealous because you were watching other male streamers when you got home from work, completely oblivious to how on another site he was jerking his aching cock to his viewers thanks to how worked up you made him. 

“But yeah, I’m going to switch up the stream in the second half, if you want to stick around and see.”

This really piqued his interest, pressing his palm down onto his erection to try and relieve some of the pressure. 

You frowned at your screen as you launched your game, some first person shooter that would hold your attention so you wouldn’t have to talk.

You opened your mouth to add something, but you were immediately dropped into your game, setting your jaw as you focused on the controls in front of you, occasionally panicking, key smashing so loud that it drowned out your squeals when you were knocked over and over again and needed a revive. 

Seokjin assumed whatever teammate who kept reviving you must’ve been a subscriber who was stream sniping…or reverse stream sniping? Stream assisting and reviving as you struggled your way through the game. 

Something really stuck with him as you played. Whoever this “mentor” was must have been well versed in the knowledge that on any streaming platform, sex sells, especially for women. Your new look was drawing in quite the crowd. He wasn’t sure he’d seen you have this many subs, points, or viewers while streaming before. It was like a switch flipped. 

He felt a tiny flutter of something like pride swell into his chest. You were becoming more confident every day he knew you, from your knife skills to school teaching to now streaming. 

“Oh shittttttt,” you groaned into your mic, ripping Seokjin away from his soft reverie and back into full on, desperate wanting. Maybe you were toeing the community guidelines with this stream, but that groan sounded almost pornographic coming out of your mouth, and any chance Seokjin had at trying to be respectful was long gone. 

He cocked an eyebrow. “Oh you’re being a bad girl tonight I see,” he chuckled to himself.

Almost as if you heard him, you giggled back, biting your lip playfully. Fuck, what were you doing to him? Your chat seemed to be in a similar standing. 

As a result, One of the mods pinned an announcement to the top:

W0nW00: To maintain community guidelines and compliance, we are labeling this channel as 18+. We ask that you be respectful to Y/N and her moderators as we continue with this stream. If your account is set to under 18, you will be redirected in 2 minutes. 

Shit, all for a simple moan? 

You paused the game. “I’m going to go for a bio break. Be right back.” You set your break screen, and instead of the usual, cutesy graphic of a cherry blossom tree blowing in the wind that said “Spring Day Streams”, it was now a neon, vaporwave cityscape and said “Join Us For Spring Night Streams, An After Dark Experience”. 

Seokjin’s eyes wide, he finally released his cock from his sweats, and took himself in his hand. Oh, this was going to be good. 

Seokjin is a camboy.

That’s the only thought splitting through the headache you’ve had all morning. Is there such a thing as an orgasm hangover? Because if so, you’ve got one. If not, maybe you were concussed in the kitchen yesterday.

You’ve spent most of the day trying to clean up the mess of your apartment and frankly, your mental state. Seokjin spends his Friday nights Daddy domming his humble pool of viewers and making thousands of dollars doing so. To even think that sentence feels insane. 

And humiliating. Because attached to that sentence is the realization that Seokjin’s major success as a gay camboy means that he is absolutely not thinking about you the way you are of him, and the kiss you imposed on him at work was definitely not consensual after all, which when you think about it, is obvious based on how frantically he apologized and assigned himself at fault for what happened. He was trying in the most polite way to reject you. 

You’re an idiot. And despite all of it, the shame of your action isn’t what’s delivering the heavy punch; it’s the fact that your crush didn’t die the second you found out last night. If anything, you’ve been silently wallowing in your sadness since you woke up, your stupid heart not processing that there’s one significant reason for why you can’t have him. 

You try to trudge through the fog of it all, placing your newly cleaned toys back into their proper dust cases and compartments before returning them to the drawer next to your side table. You switch loads of laundry and drop the warm pile on your bed, grimacing at the idea of having to fold it all. 

You shouldn’t be disappointed. This is a stupid crush that was never meant to go this far. Not to this place where you aren’t just humiliated, but the loneliness that you often avoid feeling has been spilling through the cracks of your life all day. 

The laundry is the only thing that occupies one side of your bed. Never another body, his warmth, his weight existing as another living thing keeping your living thing company as you fold laundry or wash dishes. 

No, you shouldn’t have projected this crush or obsession or whatever you want to call it onto Seokjin, but in these months of conversation and blooming friendship, you’ve found your mind beginning to wander into the fantasy of not just sex, but safety and connection. He’s a man who has always treated you with the utmost respect, even now in how he has maintained a boundary that gently rejects you, even if it’s confusing. 

Before his promotion at the restaurant, there was collaboration that fostered your trust in him; your bodies started working around each other like dancers, fusing your movements with a natural flow. You’d seen some of that pop up throughout the day yesterday, which you couldn’t help but feel like delivered a bit of hope in your stomach. 

You know it’s useless to continue hoping that something will change. Maybe he’s bi, you’ve thought a few times since you went to bed. He did call everyone a good girl. But, don’t some guys call each other girls as some kind of kink? But even hoping for that still feels wrong in your gut. Instead of wishing he just so happens to like pussy, you should be redirecting yourself from the fact that it doesn’t even matter. He said so himself, he’s your boss. 

“Ugh,” you groan into your unfolded laundry. Why can’t anything ever be easy? 

You shove the clothing pile to one side of your bed as you lie down, staring up at the ceiling, your eyes following the soft pattern of cracks that have begun to appear through the paint. You already know that going back to work on Monday will be awful, not just because this crush won’t crush itself, but because you clearly now know more about Seokjin than he perhaps ever wanted you to know. Won’t it be awkward trying to talk to him? And if he asks why you’re being so weird, what will you even say?

Sorry Seokjin, I’m not sure how to talk to you anymore because I spent Friday cumming while watching you on your gay cam show as you stroked your huge dick and admittedly once I saw your face connected to your dick I had the best orgasm of my life that rendered me useless the next day.

Perfect. This won’t be absolute hell at all. 

Your stream alarm rings on your phone. You sigh. That’s right. You promised a makeup stream to your followers. 

How did Seokjin stream so confidently? Last night, the way he just exuded dominance and control, how he managed to get so much money from sitting there and making his chat do the work? It’s not only impressive but also inspiring. If you were able to have that distance from your chat, maybe things would be a bit easier, and the questions that were so personal and directed would fade into the background while ones of adoration and impersonal fantasies could take their place. 

And the money, god. If you had money like that, you wouldn’t have a stack of financial aid forms sitting on your dresser right now waiting for you to basically jump through hoops to ask nicely for a loan. 

The way he was able to be so different and make money off of it? That feels promising to you too. Because whoever Daddy Dom Seokjin is, he isn’t just walking around in the world being “on” all the time. You know him as someone whose ears flush with embarrassment the second one of the delivery guys tells him he made an error with the order and tries to diffuse the tension with some free snacks; who often hums game scores and whose laugh sounds like a squeaky windshield wiper swiping across dried glass. 

What if you could be more like that? 

Not Daddy Dom or Mommy Y/N, but more casual and detached? You could stop reading your chat and answering questions. Or if you did want to play into some of Seokjin’s sex appeal, you could dress slightly more suggestively or do your hair and makeup to exploit the male gaze’s money a bit, just like how Seokjin did. 

In this world of streaming, where everything feels like fractured versions of reality, parts of you being split among the pixels and delivered and digested into someone else’s home for their entertainment and pleasure, it’s hard for you to ever feel like you can have some close community with your followers. Not like Wonwoo does with his. Because of your start and how people perceive you now, there just doesn’t seem to be a way for you to have intimacy. Even if you tried, your chat flies by so quickly now that unless it’s a notification from a mod, any usernames and personal anecdotes are lost before you can even know who’s who. 

You think about it for a bit. It can’t hurt to try, right? It’s not like you being a little less reserved would automatically launch you into a career in porn. And if it will help bring a little more income in, lessen the blow a tiny bit, you can’t really see why it would make sense to keep doing things this way when you are this miserable by the idea of it. 

Spring Day Streams holds a standard image that is pink and soft, and you know some people love watching you because you’re hitting some fantasy they have. The woman who looks like an angel but swears like a sailor and as stereotypes often assume, fucks like a demon. 

What could “fuck like a demon” look like on an often all ages game streaming platform, though? Well, not all ages. Some streams are only accessible to registered users over the age of 18. Usually the age filter is there because the game is super graphic, or the streamer is a sex educator or swears so much the algorithm has started penalizing them. A few times though, you’ve seen some streamers playing games that are so raunchy they’re basically porn. And porn versions of those games exist, but to keep some of them streamer-friendly, they also sell versions that don’t have uncensored anime girls receiving creampies. That would definitely maintain the brand without going too far, right? 

You open your phone, typing in some of the titles of games, mostly dating simulators you’ve seen other streamers play before, and then you stumble across one called MiCamStudio, a puzzle game with the plot where you’re the manager of a camgirl enterprise and your goal is to become the most successful, richest entrepreneur while keeping your girls happy. 

You laugh. It feels a bit on the nose, but a fun way to shake things up in an after-dark concept. And it’s not too expensive, which means if this entire plan bombs, you won’t have invested much into it. Fine, you’ll do it. 

Wonwoo responds right away after you shoot a quick message with your idea to your mods on discord to help them prepare. 

On it. 

With a deep breath, you start to get ready. 

As you brace yourself to come back from your short bio break and announcement, your heart is hammering in your ears. What if everyone left? What if things get weird or gross or you think you’re being kind of sexy and cute but are really just being an idiot? 

Suddenly, this entire idea seems so stupid. What if your mom decides this is finally the time she wants to watch you stream? She hasn’t ever had the interest to, but what if she finally thinks to herself on a random Saturday night in February, “Wow, I sure do crave watching some video game streams! Say, I know my daughter Y/N streams. I should check it out!” or worse, what if someone she knows sends one of the clips or a screenshot of you with your tits practically out? 

Your anxiety is starting to win in this battle, and as you pace back and forth in front of your computer, shaking your clammy hands and trying to remember how to breathe, you see the number of viewers has dropped since the stream moved from all ages to 18+. Which means that you can now read your chat again. 

The comments are actually really supportive. Among them are some of your mods cheering you on, but one username anchors you back into your chair as you watch the notification dance across the screen. 

JokeJinSeokjin has subscribed for 3x months!

Seokjin. Seokjin is live and watching you. Which you expect to be the thing that will throw you over the edge. Seokjin, your boss. Your kind of friend. Your crush. The man who you are trying to emulate in this attempt to be sexy and earn more money and confidence. 

Surprisingly, a warm glow of comfort settles in you stomach instead. Because while maybe in all of this mess there’s plenty to be anxious about, you feel a part of you that’s determined to make him proud, to show him in this rejection what he’s missing out on. You take a deep breath to steady yourself as you hit the button to come back. 

“Ah, hello! I mean-um, hello,” you catch the nervousness pouring out of your shaky voice and clear your throat, trying to sound more composed. 

“I wanted to try something new today. Well, tonight. Welcome to Spring Night Streams, where I’ll be playing some not safe for work in more of a raunchy way type of games. Because as we know if there’s blood and guts and horror, it’s all ages! But boobs, those are a no no!”

You shakily laugh and suck your lip into your teeth. The taste of your lipstick laths over your tongue and you try not to think about how messy you just made it look. Or how you might now have lipstick on your teeth to really add an effect of clownery to your poor jokes. 

“I’m going to play this game? It came out a few years ago, but it’s a puzzle game called MiCamStudio. Maybe some of you have played it. But uh, yeah if you don’t like things like that I can always um…well I’ll just try it and see…” you trail off and nervously fidget with your controls as you open the game. 

Whatever you were expecting out of a dating simulator type game where you were in charge of cam girls, it wasn’t this. When you open the menu to start a new game, the animation that loads after you click “Start Streaming” is dozens of bra-clad boobs bouncing across the screen as it transitions you to the story line menu. 

Jesus Christ. Heat floods your cheeks. This somehow feels worse than the time your earbuds died and you didn’t notice that the audiobook of a very spicy holiday romance you were listening to wasn’t coming through them, but your phone. On the bus. And to make matters worse, you were at a part where the narrator was very generously providing sound effects and moans for the main character as she participated in an orgy with triple penetration. Yikes. 

You begin the walk-through of the storyline, greeted by Candy, a pink haired, busty camgirl who is looking to expand her horizons in the business. As you tap through the prompts, Candy starts to become less dressed, abandoning her already tiny skirt and crop top combo for a barely-there set of lingerie that covers just her nipples and vagina. 

“I need your help!” Candy pouts, her eyes shimmering with tears. “I need 400 new fans for my business or else I’ll be out of work! Quick, use this magic wand as you solve puzzles to help me get closer to my goal!” 

The wand is, of course, a vibrator. When you play through the first level tutorial and are prompted to use the wand, it vibrates the blocks, shifting them into new positions on the screen to match colors together. If you get enough combos, she has a giant orgasm, which increases her fans so you can pass to the next level. 

As you work through some of the first few levels, you notice that your view count has recovered somewhat from earlier, though the comments are kind of off-putting. Not because people are being sexually inappropriate, but because they’re mad you’re not interacting with them. 

NGL I thought this was going to be more fun and naughty. 

Yeah now she’s not even talking to us at all. 

I miss when she was bad at games and it was at least interesting. 

Someone come get me if she starts moaning again like she did earlier. 

Fuck. You are fucking this up. And your viewers are right, you haven’t been talking to them. Or really doing anything but playing the game and trying not to wince from embarrassment every time Candy moans as you make her a star. 

There’s got to be something you can do. You think about Seokjin again, who you’re not sure is still watching, but you hope some of that confident edge he had last night starts to come over you, too. What was it that he did to keep everyone engaged? 

He gave them incentive. A goal. He didn’t have to say much to them but tell them what to do and they happily did it. And that also took the pressure off of him to keep talking. 

With a deep breath, you test the waters. “Oh, you wanted more fun and naughty? Well, you didn’t really work for it did you?” 

You hate the words as they come from your mouth, but they have an immediate result. 

Loyal2You tipped 1600 points. What do you need us to do to earn it?

Your face burns hot, and you sip some water to try and cool yourself, playing it off as nonchalance rather than anxiety. You feel your stomach threatening to lurch into your throat as you force out the next sentence.  

“Mmm, I don’t know. Maybe you need to show me what I need,” you smirk. You really don’t know. Money? Subs? People not questioning you? This to be over?

LongJohn69 gifted 10 subs. Maybe this will help? 😉

“Well, it’s a start. Thanks for the sub,” you giggle, forcing yourself to relax into your chair. 

“Hmm, what can I give you all as a reward? I feel like I could really use some cute new clothes that I can wear for you next stream if you help me?” 

Your voice is softened and the pitch is a bit higher. Maybe Candy’s baby voice is having an impact on you from the game, because your normal, even paced tone is taking a turn. Is this the persona you’ve been trying to find? 

But you need this money. School, your future. You can’t just keep living the way you have been. 

7DaysAWeek tipped 10,000 points. Please, say “thank you 7 days” in that adorable whiny voice, baby. I’ll double tip if you do.

You freeze. 20,000 points is $200. All for you to say something so simple and stupid? 

God, but it doesn’t feel right to do it. You could ignore it, you think. And walk away with $100 before your commission rate is taken out. Which will end up being nothing, you realize.

“Oh, hmm.” You pause and then just do it. “Okay. Thank you 7 Days for the points. I really appreciate it.” You drum up the dramatics, eliciting some horrible, embarrassing baby voice that makes your vowels stringy and weak. 

Yuck. More requests pour in, people eager to get you to recite some innocent seeming phrases that you know are fodder for their spank bank. 

You see a tiny notification flash in the bottom right corner: a private message from Wonwoo. 

Y/N, you could get into deep shit if you aren’t careful. This could potentially violate your terms of service. 

You frown at the message but nod to let him know you read it. 

“Okay, well, I think it’s time we get back to the game!” You awkwardly divert your attention back to the screen, letting Candy’s moans fill the silence as you ignore the new requests and subs for the rest of your stream, too humiliated to think about what they could be saying.

After you end your stream, you feel the damn of tears that was welling your eyes for the last half hour spill. 

What a fucking disaster. What started as a hopeful night turned out to be one of your most streamed yet somehow also least successful broadcasts. The rush of viewers at the start provided you with a great boost, but after you didn’t engage again with the requests, your views, subs, and points plummeted, leaving you with a very slim payout for the day. This wouldn’t be much of anything for your bills once commission is taken. 

You don’t know how people do this. You feel like absolutely dog shit, and you even wrapped early, pretending that you were sick. But maybe you also aren’t really pretending, your stomach feels knotted and sour. 

Something about that felt wrong, but you don’t really understand why. It’s not like you’re prudish or fear sex. On any given day those kinds of requests stack up by the hundreds. But maybe it’s because tonight you finally peeled back the dismissive layer and let them in that has you feeling vulnerable and honestly, a little dirty. 

You wipe some stray tears from your eyes, stretching across the desk to grab your phone and pull it off of do not disturb mode. You see a few texts from Seokjin that he sent while you were streaming. 

Seokjin (8:17PM): Hey! I didn’t know you were supposed to stream yesterday. I would have let you leave early if I’d known.😞

Seokjin (9:15PM): Hey, are you okay? You look really uncomfortable. I know you’re playing and won’t see this until after you’re done but I wanted to check. 

Seokjin (9:47PM): Y/N, please don’t feed into these requests if it’s not what you want. 

Seokjin (10:02PM): Call me. The second you get this. Urgent.

You read the last text, which was sent twenty minutes ago. Shit, did something happen to the restaurant? 

“Y/N,” Seokjin says after one ring, his voice strained. 

“Um, hi Seokjin. I’m just calling you back because you said it’s urgent! Is everything okay with the restaurant? Did the snow knock power out or something? If you need me to come in tomorrow too I can help with stuff.”

“What?” Seokjin pauses for a second, his exasperation now turned to confusion. “No, Y/N. Everything with the restaurant is fine.”

“Oh. Then why did you call?” you ask. 

“Well, if you saw all my texts then you know I was watching your stream. And I just wanted to check and make sure you’re okay after that? Near the end you looked pretty upset.”

The warmth in your stomach you felt when you first heard his voice is gone, replaced by a sharp, gritty unease.

“Oh. Um, yeah I’m…fine,” but the tightness in your throat betrays you and a tiny sob escapes as the tears begin falling again. 

Seokjin doesn’t say anything as you sniffle into your phone, scrubbing the dribble away from your nose and cheeks with your sleeve. 

“Hey,” he says as your cries become softer. “Do you want to get out of the house for a bit?”

“It’s kind of late, isn’t it,” you say weakly. 

“That’s not what I asked. Do you want to get out of the house for a bit?” He repeats. 

Do you? Part of you is exhausted, tempted to just go right to bed. But you know if you lie down right now in the rest of that unfolded pile of laundry you might never emerge. 

“Ok,” you whisper into the receiver. 

“I’ll come get you,” Seokjin says. “Dress warm. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

When you were little, your parents took you on a road trip to get away from the city. You sat in the backseat, kicking your father’s chair grumpily on the first day, tired from waking up early and having to be stuffed into the car with the mountain of snacks, toys, clothes, and camping gear you had shoved in beside you. Your father was patient for the first hour of your kicks, but before long the steady thump thump thump on his lower back was becoming a strong annoyance as he navigated further away from home. 

“Y/N,” your father had sharply warned once he’d had enough. “Keep it up, and I’ll take your feet off and put them into my pockets.” 

While in retrospect the threat is silly and impossible, at the time, your five-year-old self was struck with horror as you imagined him sawing your feet off like the patients who were out in the snow for too long in that medical TV show you saw at your grandparents’ house once.

You’d tucked your feet underneath you until you were at a rest stop, where picnic tables and a small garden scape awaited you, filled with native wildflowers and lazy, fat bees that hovered from flower to flower. 

Your mother smoothed your hair with her hand, guiding you through the garden as your father bought your lunches from inside the building. 

“He didn’t mean it,” she’d said softly, feathering the tips of your hair across your cheek. Goosebumps prickled along your arms and you shivered, even though the sun was heavy and hot on top of you that day. “No one will take your feet from you.” 

You’d hugged her tightly then, still unsure as to why someone would try to take your feet from you. Your tapping in the car was mostly to keep you from feeling like you were going to be sick, but back then you didn’t really have the words to express yourself. 

When your father returned, he wordlessly placed your meal in front of you, including a large, fudgy cookie for dessert. Your father had always been proud, and even then when he didn’t apologize to you and promise he wouldn’t saw off your feet, being given a dessert was as good as any apology. 

He smiled when you licked the smudged chocolate off your fingers, eventually tutting impatiently so your mother would take you to the bathroom to wash up. Afterwards, you found him looking at a map on the building’s outside wall, with a bright cherry red You Are Here sticker signifying where in this confusing picture you were supposed to be. 

“There’s an observation point a few stops away from here. It’s supposed to be a really nice view over a valley. Y/N, do you want to be our navigator for those and help me decide when we should stop to look?” 

Laced in there was his apology. An opportunity at redemption, connection. You’d nodded instantly and scrambled back into the car, no longer upset about having to share your space in the backseat with all the cargo, ready to take on your role as your father’s co-pilot. 

You visited every observation point along that freeway that trip, all the way from the rest stop to the campground in some rural village. Some of the spots were lackluster, now overgrown and showing a view of a wall of trees and bushes and not some regal cavern or farmland below. But there were also the ones that, had you never insisted on visiting, you would have never seen half as much of the flora and fauna you’d expected to see on your camping trip. And it was the one major trip your family had ever had that made you all feel like a collective unit, ready to fight against the forces of grumpiness or foot-sawers together.

From that point on, whenever you saw the sign marker, you couldn’t help but feel a smile bloom on your face, which is why at this moment you are sitting next to Seokjin in his car, bundled up and stupidly beaming at him as he mirrors a happy but confused smirk back at you.

When he’d picked you up, Seokjin didn’t say much, just started driving north, through your neighborhood and into the rolling hills outside of the city. While this morning’s snow still clings to the trees and rooftops of some hillside buildings, surprisingly, the plows have done a good job of ensuring the road is safe and salted. You can feel the tense knots in your shoulders starting to lessen a little just from the feeling of being somewhere else for a while.

As you weave up the mountain side, toward the observation point, you gasp. 

“What?” he asks. “What’s wrong?’ His eyes bulge from his head. 

“It’s just that, I love observation points,” you say sheepishly, not sure if you should divulge your entire story. 

Seokjin nods, thoughtful. “I like to come up here sometimes when I’ve had a really bad day. Just need to clear my head. Seemed like you needed to do that too.” The car curves along the bend, some of the wind fluttering clods of snow from the trees and onto the road. 

“Yeah, I do…” You trail off, letting him take you higher into the mountain before pulling into the observation point. This one has some small cafés and despite the late hour and snowfall, there are still quite a few cars parked in the lot, some sets of families and couples strolling around with warm drinks and peering out onto the twinkling, snow-covered city below. 

“How’s your head,” he asks gently, and it takes you a minute to remember what he’s referring to. You touch the make-up covered bruise and shrug.

 “Eh, it’s not so bad.” Truly, as the day wears on, you are feeling a bit tender, but the swelling has gone down, and your worry has gone with it. 

Seokjin opens your door for you, ever the gentleman, and you try to fight off the harsh tug in your chest that likens this behavior to a date. 

The two of you head over toward one of the lookout points, leaning against the rail posts. You take in the rolling hills below, how soft and plush the city looks now, almost like it could never be a place where you feel sadness or loneliness. You sigh. 

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Seokjin begins gently, “but I was wondering what happened during your stream tonight.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” you assure him. 

Maybe this conversation would feel more uncomfortable if you didn’t already feel so awful. You are just trying to feel a little bit better about this whole ordeal. Trying to find in you some nugget of comfort to ensure a more stable future. And hell, Seokjin had made it seem so easy. But now, you are humiliated. You aren’t sure how you are going to go live again and go back to how things were before when the internet is probably making a giant laughing stock of you, or fetishizing you. You’re not sure which one is worse. 

“So, I know when we used to be, um, friends, I had mentioned to you that streaming is something I fell into. And as you also know from working with me, I don’t have the best social skills. Or I can, maybe, I don’t know. Anyway, I haven’t been liking it that much, really. Mostly because people in the chat always ask really personal questions about me and it feels weird. Like they’re real people but they can’t be real, to me. Does that make sense?”

He nods once, urging you to continue. 

“Right, so, in all of this, I’ve been trying to think of ways to make it more fun for me. And last night I saw you-YouTuber. I saw this YouTube streamer and on his stream he just seemed so cool, and smart. And he was able to both stay engaged without telling everyone everything and had distance. But he also was kind of domin-strong, he was just really good at telling people to meet goals and incentives. And it worked, they did it. I thought, maybe this could help me be better at this so I don’t hate it so much. I could make some persona, do something different that helps me better enjoy it or make more money. I don’t know. It seems stupid now when I think about it.”

“It’s not stupid, Y/N,” Seokjin says, turning to you. Your eyes flit to his face. His nose is pinkish from the cold, and his broad shoulders are tightly bound up to his ears to avoid the chill from spreading. 

“Of course you should like streaming, but if you don’t, if this isn’t the formula that works for you, then maybe you should try something different to help you.”

“How do you do it?” you ask, realizing too late what you are saying. 

Seokjin freezes. “Do what?”

“Um, how do you maintain confidence all the time? Like at work and stuff.”

Seokjin scoffs. “I don’t. You know that. Weren’t you just with me last week when I was bowing and spluttering like an idiot to Mrs. Yoon because that one repair man backed his car over her potted azalea? I was anything but confident then.” 

You fight a soft smile. Seokjin had been trying to scoop the twiggy, out of season bush into a bucket to salvage it before offering to replace it. Mrs. Yoon however, was having none of it, chirping on about how that plant had been germinated from her ancestors’ hillside home generations ago, and despite her choosing to carelessly plop it into a busy alleyway, she was sure there was no replacement that could soothe her aching heart. Seokjin handed her a wad of cash, and a gift certificate to the restaurant in an act of good faith. That seemed to shut her up. 

“You know what I mean,” you nudge. “You have an ability to talk to people though. Even Mrs. Yoon can’t say no to your mother’s bossam recipe when you charm her like that.” 

“First of all, no one can say no to my mother’s bossam recipe, regardless if I’m there to grovel or not. Secondly, you’re charming too, Y/N.”

You chortle at this. You? Charming? “Ha, I wish. But really, Seokjin. Half of that stream was an awkward setup and I thought I was going to puke. And not because of how I was dressed or anything like that. It’s so weird. I don’t really care about if people make comments like that about me because they’re impersonal. But knowing that I am sitting there, and everyone has some expectation of how I’m going to perform for them, it makes me feel awful.” 

“Tell me about it,” you hear him mutter, but he then recovers. “It sounds like that crossed one of your boundaries, then. Just because some explicit stuff doesn’t bother you, doesn’t mean that nothing ever will. And it doesn’t have to make sense. You can not care if strangers are talking about you sexually but care if you’re engaging with them and using sexual innuendos to do so.” 

Part of you is tempted to engage with the comment, to press him to explain and pretend that you have no idea what he’s speaking in regard to. But what good would that do here? Please Seokjin, can you share with me how being a gay sex cammer, which I absolutely already know about after watching you and masturbating to you, has impacted your life? 

God, how mortifying it would be for you. 

Instead, you let the comment go, cutting him enough slack so he can assume you didn’t hear him. 

“You know, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Seokjin adds. You shoot him a look. 

“I don’t really have much of a choice at this point! No offense, but it’s not like I’m making bank at the restaurant, and I already have chosen to withdraw from this term because of billing issues and–” 

“You’re withdrawing from school? Y/N!” He yells,  and you feel a heat of shame flood your cheeks as you see some scattered people shift their attention toward you. 

Now you were both embarrassed and pissed. How dare he scold you?

“Not from school, just the term!” you yell back. You’d made the choice in your spiral this evening, in between bio breaks. It was haunting you as you stared back at the packet of financial aid papers and billings notices. Streaming, you’ve now seen, is such a hit or miss game. And you truly can’t maintain the expenses that can cut into your work hours. Especially if you need to get a different job that isn’t streaming or working at the restaurant. 

“Is..is that where Spring Night Streams is coming from?” he asks, face flushed with embarrassment at his outburst. Your anger dulls.

“Partially. This felt like some way to sustain myself without it draining me. I thought maybe if I look pretty, people won’t just come and try to either ask me super personal things I don’t want to share, or they’ll just feed into basically the illusion of sex and pay me that way. And I can continue to play games and suck at them or be good at them, but the original reason behind why they came to my stream could be replaced with a different person, someone who isn’t so closely trying to dig into me.

“But, then I fumbled the bag, and you saw it. The viewer count was fluctuating so bad, and the second I interacted with that one comment, suddenly I was toeing the line for TOS and could easily have jeopardized my entire branding and be permanently banned from the website for sexual activity. Tonight was one of the lowest payouts I’ve made since I started. And now I know too, this could all just as easily go away if I’m not being…I don’t know. Compliant.” 

Seokjin makes a dissatisfied grunt, his breath coming out in a white puff. Now past eleven, most of the couples and families have dispersed, and the cute café that had advertised decadent looking hot chocolates is closed. The only thing remaining open is the tiny convenient store. 

You try to suppress a shiver but fail. 

“Come on,” he says, guiding you away from the railing and toward the store. 

Inside, the shopkeeper doesn’t even flinch or look away from his phone, which is streaming some sports match in Spanish. 

Seokjin places his hand on the small of your back as he guides you over to the drinks section, gesturing for you to select something from the warm options. 

“I wouldn’t recommend anything pre-made,” he warns, his voice low. “That stuff has probably been here since this morning.” He helps himself to a tea packet and the hot water dispenser. 

You browse a little and find a packet of hot chocolate. While it may not be the fancy, marshmallow delight pink drink that the café had advertised in their window, this will do just fine. 

By the time you’ve gotten your drink mixed together, Seokjin is waiting for you at the counter, a selection of different snacks piled high and a gentle smile on his face despite how bothered and grumpy the shop worker is toward him, practically smashing the food into a bag and muttering a total. 

You hadn’t given yourself a chance to really look at him before, but as he stands before you, you can finally take in how incredible he looks. While he’s wearing some gray joggers underneath, he’s elected for a long black puffer coat and green knit sweater and somehow looks so put together, so…boyfriend. 

Your heart flutters a bit and you try to tamp it down. This isn’t a date, you remind yourself, Get a hold of yourself Y/N. 

As you head back out into the chilly air, you both settle into a table outside of the convenience store, and Seokjin pulls the snacks out of the bag, all of which are your favorites. 

“You remembered?” you ask, a little stunned that he would commit all your tiny convenience store runs to memory over the months you’ve worked together and would split packets of sweet potato puffs and tiny, sweet cakes. He shrugs. 

“Morale is low. You need the boost. Now pass me some of those chips, I’m starving.” 

Your stomach growls in agreement, and you pop open the bag, nibbling away quietly. 

“You don’t need to people please to be a good streamer,” Seokjin says finally, rinsing his mouth with his tea. You chew your bottom nervously but wait for him to continue. “There’s tons of people on the internet who do streaming for all kinds of uh, stuff. And they make a ton of money without compromising their values to do so. Maybe instead of focusing on what you think people want in a stream, do what you want instead.” 

You sigh. “See, that sounds great and all, but when I tried that today, people got mad and left. Did you see all the donations trying to get me to say things or do stuff after that first one?”

Seokjin rolls his eyes, taking a big bite of a chocolate cake thing and chewing diligently. “Welrr,” he begins, his mouth stuffed full, “I guesh you have to undershtand dat peepo on dee internet will always chewz sex first to get what dey wan.” He swallows. “And if that doesn’t work because someone sets a boundary, fuck them.” He pauses. “Not literally!” A blush creeps up his neck. 

You laugh. “I thought you limited your swearing to mostly angry kitchen interactions,” you say, and sip the watery hot chocolate. You wince. 

“You chose wrong with that hot chocolate. I’ll make it up to you next time.” Next time. Your stomach leaps. 

“But you don’t see it because I’m trying to maintain a professional air most of the time. But I say shit, piss, cock and fuck pretty regularly.” Like when you’re camming, you mentally note. 

“Yeah, so, speaking of that. And boundaries. This isn’t really the most professional boss-employee relationship happening right now.” You gesture around you. You didn’t want to say it, but you know it needs to be addressed. Seokjin and you really need to figure out a new set of rules, especially now you know what he does after dark, and he’s watching your streams, too. 

He pauses and sighs. “Shit, yeah, you’re right. Look Y/N, I do want to talk about that. And we can address it. But before we do, I want to finish talking to you about what happened earlier today. Can we do a brief boss-employee dynamic halt for the rest of the time we’re up here? I want to talk to you as a friend right now, which we once were, even if it was for a short time. Will you let me do that?” 

You look up at him, and he’s gazing back with intensity, and also something that looks almost like desperation. 

“Okay,” you say. “For the rest of the time we’re out of the city. We are just two people. Friends. Not boss. Not an employee. Just us.” 

He smiles at that. “Yeah, just us.” 

Seokjin tried to not kick himself in his own ass for doing what he was doing now. Bringing you up here, to his safe place, was far too intimate of a decision. But when he’d watched the rest of your stream, watched you do stuff that– while he couldn’t be absolutely sure but he could assume– tested your boundaries and comfort, he knew he couldn’t just let you spiral by yourself. 

He’d been there before. During a show earlier in his cam career, Seokjin was once asked to try a more extreme kink on his stream which involved a thin metal rod that he would push into his urethra for pleasure. 

He’d agreed to try it before he’d even looked it up, and even when purchasing the equipment, he’d felt really queasy and knew he would hate it. But he’d promised, which he now understood was a fake law people set for themselves to push them past their limits. On the stream where he tested it out, he started shaking and crying, stopping before he could even open the package with the rods in it and ended his stream early. 

From then on, he had spent more time learning about kinks and BDSM. It was much more psychological and technical than he’d realized, with precise and careful movements, components of care, and more thoughtfulness than he’d ever really learned from porn or the internet. 

While he and Soon Yi had been exploratory in their sex life, it wasn’t like they’d ever done proper research when they were together. Looking at things now, he felt a little sickened knowing she could have gotten seriously hurt the times he choked her, not knowing the right placement of hands or pressure to make sure he didn’t cause permanent damage. 

Seokjin then reassessed his boundaries. He never wanted to position himself on his streams where he would succumb to pressure for money and compromise his own safety or desire. This was supposed to be fun.

The main tenets of BDSM are safe, sane, and consensual, which is hard to define on the internet. When something is leaked or found by the wrong party, it can especially compromise consent. With a permanent imprint of something existing once agreed upon, at any point someone’s right to withdraw consent can be invalidated simply because there’s a paper trail. And if that happened, then safety and sanity were sure to be called into question too.

Which is why Seokjin couldn’t stay silent after he saw you drawing breath after shaky breath after the first exchange with that follower. The instant regret that bloomed on your face as you so easily traded your comfort to make money, he never wanted you to feel that or experience it again. 

Which is why you now sat before him, the residual makeup from your stream still there but smeared, a thin looking peacoat doing a lot of work to protect you from the elements. This is why he said dress warm. Why were you wearing a glorified blazer in this weather?

He knew his time was limited with you, and that yes, he was already compromising this boundary that he’d set. But boundaries could be redrawn, and in this moment, he didn’t want the only thing protecting you right now to be that peacoat. He needed to protect you too. 

Granted, you probably were questioning his qualifications in this, and for a brief moment he considered telling you, but he quickly dismissed the idea when he remembered the video of him cumming and saying your name existed on his page if you’d ever gotten curious. Behind a paywall, sure, but it was there. 

No, for now, it was Seokjin and Y/N, friends. Us, he thought, and his pulse quickened unhelpfully. 

You sat in front of him, sipping at that awful hot chocolate, waiting for him to deliver more of his advice. He hesitated to speak more. Here you were, attention fully focused on him, and the dependence on him to get you home tonight, to move back into a world that wasn’t just you two and your own little universe, and all Seokjin was doing was considering how long he could carry on the pause. 

Maybe he would never speak again, and you would have to stay here forever, on top of the mountain as the snow began to gently fall around you two like you both lived in your own private snow globe. 

Wait, snow? Seokjin blinked, and sure enough the flakes were swirling around you both again, the wind kicking up your hair. You let out a sharp shiver, and that broke the fantasy of staying here. 

He ushered you back to the car, where now the snow was coming down in thick, heavy globs that signified the moisture in the air had increased, which made sense. Back in the city, the forecast had said it was set to rain, but he’d forgotten elevation impacts the weather, and that the change of moisture in the air also could result in ice on the way down. 

As you warmed your hands in front of his heat vents, he tried to think of his next move. It was now after midnight, which meant the road authority was probably not planning on plowing the roads anytime soon, and the accumulation quickly erasing the parking lot around you was a sure sign that it soon would be unsafe to drive. 

If you stay here any longer, you might be stuck together all night, an evil idea glinted through his head, and he felt a pulse of desire run through him as he caught a whiff of your soft, sweet scent. 

It would be kind of hot, the two of you snuggled in the backseat of his SUV, you clinging to him tightly to keep yourself warm through the storm as you used his parka as a blanket, the windows fogging up to give you two privacy as you moved tighter together, panting into each other’s mouths when you rubbed up against him and–

No. He couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t. Urging his steadily inflating erection down, he glanced over to you, noticing you were still shivering. 

He sighed. God, why did he have to get hard right now, in gray sweatpants no less? Nothing screamed “boner alert” more than seeing a dick swelling in light colored sweats. But you were still cold, and he decided he would rather risk you seeing him hard than your teeth chattering or you getting sick. 

Seokjin removed his puffer, handing it to you. “Here, put this on,” he ordered, and you looked at him, a tremor rocking through your body as you tried to eke out a “thank you”.

You began to put the puffer over your peacoat, but Seokjin shook his head. “I think your peacoat is useless right now. Maybe you should take that off and just wear mine. And then, consider getting a new coat,” he teased. 

You hesitated. “Uh,” you said. Seokjin’s eyebrow raised, and he swiftly adjusted himself in his joggers while you looked down at your coat before sighing and unbuttoning it. 

Fuck. You still had on that same top from earlier, and Seokjin could now see that it wasn’t just a sexy, low cut top that showed your heavy and full breasts, but that it also had a large keyhole cutout through the back, which meant you didn’t wear a bra with it. He bit his lip as he took in your hard and prominent nipples. God, no wonder you were cold. You were practically naked. 

His cock twitched, and any attempts he had at concealing his erection were useless. He was now definitely going to be fully hard for the rest of the drive. 

You zipped yourself into Seokjin’s puffer and let out a satisfied sigh as you nuzzled into the warmth. Seokjin took the opportunity to snatch your peacoat from your lap and drape it over himself, praying that would help conceal some of the compass-pointing-north bullshit he was trying to stave off. 

Unfortunately, you snuggled into his coat was just making it worse. 

Clearing his throat, he started the car, and slowly began testing the surface of the parking lot. It was a little slick, but nothing too bad. If you stayed any longer, though, you would definitely be here overnight. 

With a silent, sad nod to the outlook point, Seokjin prepared himself to head back to reality, where your moment of connection would be replaced by workplace congeniality. 

About halfway down the mountain, the snow surely turned to a heavy rain, aggressively battering down on the windshield and making it nearly impossible to find the lines on the road. 

“I’m sorry, I think I should pull over,” he apologized and you agreed easily, your shoulders relaxing a bit as he pulled over to the side of the road. 

“Well, we never really got to finish talking about stuff anyway,” you offered generously. 

Seokjin smirked back. “Yeah, we didn’t. Look, what I wanted to say earlier was that with streaming, you shouldn’t have to compromise on what you want to be successful. If people leave your stream because they can’t hear you baby voice their requests so they can get off, then fuck them. They aren’t the community of people you want to watch your content, anyway. Those are the type of people who are never satisfied, who will just demand more from you. Sooner or later they’ll be less kind and be aggressive and threatening. And you don’t deserve that, Y/N.” 

He sucked in a breath. “You just need a chance to build confidence, that’s all. Assuming you even want to continue doing these streams. I know you said you don’t feel like you have much of a choice, but maybe I could help you out. Uh, I could give you a raise or something so you could quit! And with school, too, I’m sure we could figure out something! Maybe if it’s not too late you could go back and––”

You held up your hands, signaling for Seokjin to stop talking. 

“I’ve made up my mind! And I don’t think giving me a raise or trying to help me with school would be a great way of maintaining that boundary we are supposed to have, remember? Something tells me a boss isn’t supposed to offer his employee an undeserved pay raise for her personal issues.” You huff.

You were right. Seokjin chuckled. “Okay, fair. I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to throw everything away like I did.” 

You whipped your head over to him. “Listen, Seokjin. I appreciate that you care and don’t want things to happen to me. But I’m also not you. And you also didn’t throw everything away but that’s another topic completely, one I thought we discussed yesterday morning. Regardless, I’m getting a lot of mixed messages here and I need you to help me understand what exactly is happening right now. Are you my friend or my boss? Because right now it feels like you’re telling me what to do like you are in charge of me but hiding it behind the guise of friendship and that’s not how this works. So explain. Ideally before you drop me off and we don’t speak again until Monday.” 

Seokjin swallowed hard, an anxiousness beginning to swirl in your stomach. This whole conversation felt like it was going south really quick. He scrambled to steady himself and took a deep breath.

“You’re right,” he said, running a hand through his hair. He hadn’t styled it today, and the black strands were sticking to his forehead from the melted snow. “I’m sorry. You have every right to decide. And you’d said before that this was a temporary pause. And even if it wasn’t, that’s also your choice.”

“Again, yes, you’re right. But I also don’t see why you seem to care so much!” Your volume raised in annoyance and you crossed your arms over your chest in a puff. “You don’t get to decide I’m some soft little flower who can’t advocate for herself! Like yeah, I feel shitty about what I did but I’m just trying to figure out my boundaries, just like you said earlier! So yes, I have the right to decide if I want to go back to school or not! Thanks for pointing that out!”

If he hadn’t been getting chewed out right now by you, Seokjin would’ve thought you were the cutest thing he’d ever seen, your mouth settled into a sharp frown and your eyebrows knit together as you argued with him. 

Instead though, he felt like a jackass. He’d seriously overstepped in his attempts to protect you, and guilt washed through him as he realized he was placing himself into your shoes. Even if your situations were scarily similar, you still had the right to do what you wanted without his interference. Besides, his intention was to provide safety for you, not control. Maybe he’d underestimated you earlier and how you were utilizing your stream. Yes, you were uncomfortable, but it’s not like you were a child who was set to be taken advantage of, or that you’d make the same mistakes he would.  

“I-I care about you, Y/N. We’re friends. I know being your boss changed a lot, and while I sign your paycheck and have to give you orders, it’s not like that change in role made me care less. It’s not that easy.” 

You uncrossed your arms. “But,” you started, your tone softening, “you can’t both tell me what to do as my boss and tell me what to do as a friend. I’m not clocked in, Seokjin. And that’s why this is so fucking hard. Because my boss is the one who took me up a mountain after apologizing to me yesterday for his “gross misuse of power” when I’m the one who kissed you sitting on a fucking prep counter! And yeah, we were friends before you were my boss, and that means I learned to work with you and trust you as my coworker, and we shared interests so you can watch my streams and tell me about MapleStory. We have history and it’s not something we can deny. But you keep acting like I am not in control, like I am not an adult. 

“I would love it if we could stay on this mountain forever,” you added, taking the words Seokjin was thinking earlier and making them real, “because, maybe then we could just stay friends. I miss you as my friend! And I wouldn’t feel so…weird now trying to figure out which guy, Boss Seokjin or Friend Seokjin, is talking to me.” 

Seokjin was unsure what to say, just that he knew he’d fucked up yesterday not just with his behavior in the kitchen, but ultimately how he set boundaries with you. 

“I don’t know what to do about it, Y/N,” he said weakly, honestly. 

“Can I then offer a suggestion?” Your voice sounded frustrated, on the verge of yelling. He nodded. 

“On this mountain, right now. You are my friend. And any other time when we aren’t at work, we are friends. We are not the first two people who started a friendship and had a power dynamic at work. I don’t know what happened in your past that makes this so hard for you, and you don’t need to tell me. But whatever you said yesterday, it wasn’t true. I want you to trust me when I say you didn’t take advantage of me. Was it kind of stupid and inappropriate on both our parts? Sure. But I’m not this weak, breakable thing. You said so yourself with my boundary-setting for my stream that I just need confidence to assert myself and make sure I don’t get taken advantage of. So let me start with you. Help me start with you.” 

You leaned a little closer and Seokjin’s heart beat erratically. “I promise, Kim Seokjin, that whatever happened in the kitchen yesterday was consensual. At least on my end. And that I do hold you in regard as my boss during work hours most of the time. But I can’t fucking stand if you continue to uphold this standard when you talk to me as an authority and then immediately pull a hypocritical move and try to be my friend after. It’ll drive me crazy.”

Your voice was shaky now, like you were holding back tears. Seokjin fought the urge to pull you close to him, but god, how he wanted to. 

“What you do need,” he asked and you sighed. 

“Clear communication. On both sides. No more deciding for me. On anything. If I say no at work, it’s just as valid as saying no in private, even if it’s something you think is what’s best for me. Even if you don’t like it. Because you don’t know what really is or isn’t until I tell you.” He nodded in agreement. 

“I can do that. And I’m sorry again, for how confusing this must’ve been. I acted selfishly when I decided that my position as your boss overruled and negated any of our history. It was never going to be as clean as I wanted it to be,” he apologized. 

You managed a sad smile but nodded, a sign you accepted his apology. 

“Thank you. And also, I do want to continue doing the streams. I didn’t get to say that before. I do want to try after dark stuff. Because it feels like it could be fun, could help me stay involved but less personal if that makes sense. And…” You trailed off, humming to yourself as you tried to find the words for your final thought. 

“I really would like it if I could have your help in this. To help coach me in a way to maintain that boundary. You did have some really great points on execution. And I think maybe your experience in cam-leadership and management could help me both continue doing this but also finding what I want. And I need a friend for that. Not a boss or manager.” 

Seokjin’s eyes widened as he caught the last of what you were saying. 

“Wait,” he said, trying to put the pieces together. Were you asking what he thought you were asking? “So…you want me to help you run an adult-only, after dark gaming stream?” You laughed. 

“I need you to be my confidence coach,” you clarified. “Help me learn how to say no to my fanbase and keep myself calm throughout a stream so I don’t compromise. And like, I don’t know. We can iron out the details, the idea is so fresh to me, but I need you, my caring friend Seokjin, to make sure I don’t break the terms of service again and ban me from streaming.”

He blinked a few times, unsure how you’d arrived at the conclusion that he would be any good at this. 

But Seokjin knew he would be. He did this multiple times a week, and it’s how he knew you were heading toward trouble. What if he could help you learn how to protect yourself? Because you were right, you didn’t need anyone to save you. But you maybe needed someone to show you. And he could be that person. 

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll do it.”

As Seokjin pulls up to your apartment nearly an hour later, you feel a slight sadness that your night is over. On the way home, as the rain steadily poured and the city lights came back into a clear view, you’d felt a tug of worry in your gut that because you were back in the city, your agreement to stay friends wasn’t real, and that any moment Seokjin would be cold and formal, withdrawing his agreement to help you with streaming. 

You’d had the idea in the car in somewhat of an epiphany, sorting through the confusing dynamic you’d been shoved into. It made sense to you, now. Instead of trying to model yourself after the master, why not learn from the man himself? 

Despite your initial anxiety that he would back out, Seokjin if anything is all the more reassuring, gently nudging you with your peacoat in his hands to signal it is time to trade. You nod sleepily, shrugging it off your shoulders and trying to ignore the disappointment you have in no longer being enveloped in his warm scent. 

As you tuck your arms back through your sleeves, Seokjin gets out of his side of the car, the rain still beating harshly, but he appears even more determined to open your door for you, opening an umbrella to keep you and your coat from getting pounded on. 

You try to insist on sharing the umbrella, but Seokjin shakes his head, guiding you forward toward your apartment complex’s front door. 

“Thank you,” you say as you step under the lip of the roof with him, smiling up at Seokjin, who is already soaked. His black hair is piecey and dripping down his face, plastering a few disheveled pieces across his forehead. “God, you really should’ve used the umbrella too! You’re drenched!”

Seokjin laughs a hearty laugh, the squeaky, windshield wiper one that makes your chest burn. “Please, that coat you’re wearing is pathetic. I had said dress for the warmth and you picked one of the worst things you could find. Even a standard issue blazer has more weather resistance than that thing!” 

“Excuse you, but this coat most of the time is fine. And also, I thought you were just saying it as a formality! If I’d known we were heading into a literal mountain I would have changed my clothes!” You bicker back, your laughter filling the space between you two. 

“Yeah, well, now you know for next time,” he says, eyes flickering with something you almost categorize as lust. 

You beam. This time the idea of next time feels possible. If Seokjin and you can work on these weird work boundaries, there might be a hope something comes from this after all. Unless he’s gay, which you still can’t quite figure out, but you try not to think about that as he shakes his head like a big dog. 

“Okay, Sparky,” you joke and glance down at your phone. It’s very late now, and your body is quickly succumbing to the exhaustion of the day. “I’ll see you Monday?”

Seokjin’s shoulders sag, and he sighs, stepping back into the rain. “Yeah, I should probably let you go now. I’ll see you on Monday. And Y/N?”

His lips turn into a smug smirk as the rain soaks through his clothes. “Don’t forget that you promised me a crate of julienned carrots”.

©2024 by jooniperbonsai

[crplpunkklavier]

there is something to be said about how i really barely feel disabled anymore once i'm in a truly accessible space. because the space is no longer disabling me.

so, we went to see the @montereybayaquarium for our honeymoon. we didn't make it through the whole aquarium on our first day, so we went twice. on day 1, i came to the ticket desk with my cane and said i'd like to have a wheelchair. on day 2, i didn't bring my cane, and once again requested a wheelchair. there was absolutely no difference in the employees' reactions: i didn't have to ~look disabled~ to be immediately met with a nod, and a wheelchair that 1) was my size and 2) i was able to move myself.

this is going to seem like a list of things that clear a very low bar, and i suppose it is. but i have been to bookfairs that attempted to take my cane from me because they didn't believe me i needed it, as if cane users carry cane prescriptions around with them (NOT A THING.), and who only let up when my friends and i explained to them (not reminded. explained) that what they were doing was illegal. the cologne zoo only has visitor wheelchairs that can be pushed by a companion, not wheeled by the user themselves. the art museum needs me to bring my own. so, you see where i'm coming from.

the aquarium was fully accessible. (at least for me as an ambulatory wheelchair user - i of course can't speak for people with different disabilities.) there was no exhibit i was cut off from by stairs, because all of them either had reasonable ramps (not too steep), or elevators that were quick and roomy enough not to make me feel like i was missing out. every exhibit was at a height/level that someone sitting down could still see. some of the active touch exhibits (like getting to pet certain animals or feel kelp) were trickier, but staff always came forth unprompted to ask me (not forcibly, just ask) if i could reach everything okay, and if i couldn't, they leaned down and over to help me get where i wanted. there was a walk-through bird enclosure where a staff person followed us, and explained that the doors need to open and close somewhat quickly, so she'll just stay around us while we're there, and as soon as i'm ready to exit through the door i was to let her know. she was fully in the background while we were in there, and at no point did i feel like i was under any pressure to get out soon, or like i was inconveniencing her.

literally the only difficult thing about going through the aquarium with a wheelchair was that at the very end of the day we weren't entirely sure where to give it back. the only difficult thing about going through the monterey bay aquarium with a wheelchair was getting rid of the wheelchair!

am i just advertising the monterey bay aquarium in this post? maybe. yeah. they're good in general and i'll give them as many free ads as i want. they were just also a really good example for accessibility that made me feel like a completely normal aquarium visitor. like i wasn't disabled, because the place enabled me to visit it.

and it's on my mind now that i'm back home in germany, because yesterday i had to take a train from a station that had me crawl up 4 flights of stairs with a cane and a suitcase around crowds of people that didn't help. and it wasn't that the elevator was broken or anything. it's that plenty of train stations even in large cities like cologne simply are not accessible for anyone who can't climb stairs.

and the aquarium was a good example for how it's not just things like ramps and available wheelchairs that are necessary, but how their staff also clearly knew what they were doing. there is an etiquette to learn for people who had never worked with disability before (you will at some point!), and they'd learned it. my needs never stumped them. and i got to spend my honeymoon feeling like an easy customer and only ever weeping because i got to see the ocean.

[juceynightmare]

dating 101 (18+) part 23 - cody rhodes x reader

my masterlist

dating 101 (18+) masterlist

pairing(s): cody rhodes x fem!reader, roman reigns x fem!reader

warning(s): swearing

genre(s): college!au, slow burn, fluff, angst

|| previous part || next part ||

“what are we?” was the question that echoed in the room the second it had left y/n’s mouth. it was the late in the afternoon now, and after showering together, buying a plan b, and eating out at a nearby pho restaurant, the two of them went back to cuddling on y/n’s bed. he knew one of them was bound to ask the question sooner or later, considering the fact that the two of them had quite literally scarred each other with their initials, and the last mark cody had cut into her skin had been his first name.

cody sighed, his gaze trained on the ceiling although he could feel y/n’s gaze on him, almost as if she was begging for him to look down at where she was laying on his chest. “i don’t know.” he mumbled, feeling his heart hurt in his chest at a realization that y/n was most likely still going to go to roman. for whatever reason, the man didn’t want to bring up roman. the thought of roman had suddenly made him feel angry, and not because cody likes y/n. he figures something had to have happened during basement night, because whenever he tried to remember what happened with roman, he’d only see red. “are you still going to be with roman even though i’m the first person you see in the morning when you wake up and the last person you see before you fall asleep?” he asked, and the question had been laced with so much hurt that cody couldn’t even mask it if he tried.

god, y/n couldn’t believe austin was right.

she tore her gaze away from cody’s face, fixing her gaze on her wall as she slid her head off of his chest and into the crook of his shoulder. roman had texted and called her that morning as soon as he woke up, but y/n couldn’t bring herself to even open the text or call him back. the guilt was too much, and now it had all erupted in her face.

she’d be stupid to not recognize the hurt in cody’s voice. cody liked her, but y/n couldn’t even figure out if she was simply infatuated with roman and not actually liking him in the way she thought she did. what she did know was the fact that she was drawn to cody like a moth to a flame, and that every part of her body that was currently touching his had felt as if she had been electrified.

“you don’t even date.” she mumbled, her defense mechanism telling her to argue, argue, argue.

“you haven’t even thought of there being a possibility that maybe, just maybe, i see myself dating you.” cody angrily huffed. and despite the anger that laced his voice, he tightened his arm around her to pull her closer into his side. “i like you, y/n. and maybe i’ve liked you this whole time, i don’t know.”

that certainly wasn’t the way cody had expected to confess to y/n, although he supposes it was the perfect confession for two humans who used each other for their own needs.

“cody, you said yourself that you don’t see yourself being committed to one person.” she said, ignoring cody’s confession because she knew now that cody has liked her the entire time. when she pushed herself up to sit up on her bed and face cody, she found that his gaze was already piercing through her. it was as if a dam had broken down in his gaze, and every unsaid emotion cody has been hiding from her had finally flowed over.

“god forbid that i grow up and have a different view on what i want out of life.” cody scoffed, pushing himself off the bed so he could also sit up on the mattress. “i tried, y/n. i tried to ignore my feelings for you and fuck them straight into someone else. yesterday morning, right after you had gone off to roman, i tried to literally bury my feelings in some other girl’s pussy and guess what? it didn’t work. because here i am still in your bed hoping that you’d wake up and realize that i don’t give you the ick when i kiss you, no matter how many times you say that me being a frat boy gym rat is an ick in itself.”

y/n stared at cody, eyes wide and her heart falling in her chest. here, her best friend was pouring his heart out for her in the most cody way possible.

“i like you, y/n. you’re my favorite person in this entire world, and if this doesn’t prove how much of myself i’m willing to give to you-” cody grabbed her hand and lifted his shirt, pressing the palm of her hand over the cut she had made into his stomach. “then i don’t know what will. i’m not good at this relationship shit. i’ve never had a girlfriend, and i’ve certainly never felt this way about someone.”

y/n gulped, her fingers brushing over the cut gently. she stared down at her lap, breaking the eye contact with cody and feeling her brain began to pound against her skull. her heart had felt full in her chest after his confession, and the cuts of cody’s initials on her hip and his name on her back had began to burn and itch, as if to remind her that she had asked him to carve himself into her.

she thought about the way she’s been acting around cody. the way she’d literally run to him after feeling disgusted about kissing roman. the way her body had literally wanted to claw at itself after realizing that she had made out with randy and not cody. the way cody had made himself a permanent fixture in her college life. the way that cody was the one who lured her out of her shell and made her realize that if it weren’t for them, she’d most definitely be hating her college life right now.

she had also learned that despite the fact that cody had always sounded like he’d be an emotionless asshole considering the trail of broken hearts he left behind, cody was the same man who’d tie her hair up every morning, hold her hand so she didn’t get lost in the crowd, and make sure that she felt safe at all hours of the day. he’d literally flip the world on its axis just to make sure y/n didn’t have a shit college experience and that she’d only have happy memories here.

“i’m not good at relationships either, i’ve never had a boyfriend.” she mumbled in response, finally looking up to meet cody’s gaze. “i don’t know if what i feel for you is more than platonic.” she admitted softly, and her heart threatened to jump out of her chest at the way she could visibly see cody’s heart break. “but i do know that i like being around you, being taken care of by you, kissing you and getting fucked by you. you’re my favorite person and…” her voice trailed off, and suddenly y/n felt embarrassed. she leaned forward, her head turned downwards and she rested her forehead against cody’s shoulder. “i know that i don’t feel fireworks that tingle all the way down to the ends of my fingers and toes when someone hugs me that isn’t you and i hate kissing someone who isn’t  you.”

cody would settle for that answer for now, and he wrapped his arms around the girl. he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in, and he felt his heart pump slowly in his chest. “so what now? you know i like you and see myself being committed to just you. you don’t know how you feel for me, but it sounds like you don’t want me to stay away.” he asked, closing his eyes and burying his face in the girl’s hair.

“let me figure things out, i guess.” she mumbled, wrapping her arms around cody’s midsection and moving so that she could straddle his lap. “i don’t want you to stop how you’ve already been acting around me, but i think it’s best we don’t kiss or fuck for a while. not until i figure out what i want.” she said.

cody nodded his head, not trusting his own words as he pulled his face out of her hair. he brought his hand up to the back of her neck, squeezing it gently as if to tell her to look up at him. when she pulled her head away to look at him, cody felt as though he could read her thoughts when he looked into her eyes. he could feel the way her thoughts were running a thousand miles an hour, and cody knew what her first step was to figuring out her own emotions. “you’re going to talk to roman, aren’t you?” he asked, watching the way shock quickly took over her features. he flattened out her hair, leaning in as if he were going to kiss her, but quickly dipped his head and pressed a kiss where her neck and shoulder met. “go. i’m getting angry at the thought of you being with roman for reasons that i know isn’t just because of my jealousy.” he laughed, lifting his head and seeing the uncertainty in y/n’s eyes.

“will you be okay if i go talk to him?” y/n asked, bringing her hand up to cup cody’s cheek.

he smiled at her, a half-assed smile that hurt y/n where it really mattered. “if it helps you figure out what you want, then yes, i’ll be more than okay.” he assured her. he bucked his hips up, as if to tell her to get off of his lap and leave. “text ted if you’ll be joining us for dinner. he should be back soon.”

it hadn’t gone over her head that cody had told her to text ted instead of him, but she didn’t push it. everything had blown up so quickly and y/n needed to figure things out now - midterms were starting the very next day and she didn’t need to have this on her mind when she should be worrying about her upcoming exams.

she pushed herself off of cody, stopping herself from leaning in and pecking his lips despite how much her body and heart were yelling at her to ease his pain. she walked over to her desk where both of their phones were resting, picking up her phone and texting roman.

[y/n] can i come over? we need to talk.

she watched as his read receipt showed up almost immediately. what caught her eye was the fact that cody’s phone had lit up with roman’s contact calling him, and she turned to look at cody.

“who is it?” he asked as he got out of bed.

“why did roman call you after reading my text?” she asked, pulling cody’s phone off of the charger and handing cody his phone once he stood beside her.

he stared down at roman’s contact, his eyebrows furrowing together in confusion as he watched the call eventually drop because he let it ring for too long. “no idea.” he mumbled, looking over at y/n’s phone and reading her text with roman. “you didn’t text him anything about me either, so really there’s no reason why he should call me.”

cody unlocked his phone and pulled up his and roman’s text message, about to call the man back before a text from roman popped up.

[roman] she’s texting me talking about suddenly “needing to talk”

[roman] i’ll kill you, rhodes. i know you told her.

he turned his phone off after he read the texts, and before y/n could see it. he cleared his throat, wondering what happened the previous night because seeing roman’s text had ignited something in him. “he text you yet?” he asked her, shoving his phone into his pocket.

“yeah he did. apparently he’s already here in the building talking to a friend of his so he’s coming up.” she hummed, looking up at cody. “you should probably…” her voice trailed off.

cody nodded his head, wondering if it would be okay for him to reach out for a hug. he didn’t like the thought of roman being in the room with y/n alone, considering the threat roman had just texted cody. he settled for patting her head and telling her, “call me or knock on my door if you need me, okay?”

she nodded her head and it took cody a moment for him to actually get moving, feeling as though his feet were glued to the floor. reluctantly, cody made his way out of the room, the only sound as he left being the sound of his keys.

just as he left, roman was already outside of y/n’s door. instead of greeting cody when they crossed paths, roman simply bumped shoulders with cody, and cody returned roman’s fiery glare as the two stood side by side facing opposite directions. for whatever reason, seeing roman now had cody wishing he could raise a fist and slam it into roman’s jaw as hard as he possibly could. but why? because cody wanted to make a statement that he’s better than roman? no, even cody knew that picking a fight with his love rival wouldn’t make him win the girl. so why did cody feel as though he wanted to strangle roman, and why did roman share that same hostility? did cody spill his feelings for y/n during basement night and roman remembered? was roman’s threat because he told cody not to confess to y/n because it’d ruin his chances with her?

every scenario was running through cody’s head, but instead of pressing further, he simply bumped shoulders with roman again, harder than roman had pushed his shoulder against his, and walked past him to walk into his room. cody was going to do everything he could to remember what the fuck happened that night.

y/n watched from inside her room, her eyes wide at the hostility that had occurred outside of her room. eventually though, roman realized that y/n’s door was wide open and she had seen the entire interaction.

roman sighed, thinking of lies to make up to get out of this situation while still saving his 500 dollar bet as he stepped foot inside the room and shut the door behind him.

“look, whatever cody said, it’s a lie, okay? i don’t even know who she is. cody’s trying to spread rumors about me because he’s jealous of us and-” roman began, only to be cut off by a very confused y/n.

“what’s a lie? who is this ‘she’ you’re referring to?” y/n asked, crossing her arms over her chest and raising a brow at roman’s words.

roman couldn’t think of a lie quick enough that’d get himself out of this deeper hole he had dug himself into.

|| next part ||

[blooming-violets]

My sister in Christ, first off, hi. Second off, amazing writing like *chefs kisses* all around.

I don't know if you're taking requests or not, so sorry if this is out of place. I would love you to smithereens if you did a part three for the Peter Parker car accident fic.

Maybe his girlfriend could come out of the coma but like need lots of help recovering mentally and physically? Idk, just an idea.

Xoxo 🕺💃🏽🕺💃🏽

The original car accident fic can be found [here] AND WAS ONLY SUPPOSED TO BE A ONE SHOT but then turned into a part two [here] aaaaannnd now a part three.

It's pretty short but she's awake and alive and here to stay...and spilling all Peter's secrets but he ain't even mad about it because he's just happy she's alive.

She had been awake for exactly one week…if he could call it “awake”. 

Coming out of a coma wasn’t anything like the way movies or shows portrayed it. May, and a few other nurses, tried to warn him as such but Peter was never very good at listening. She didn’t blink her eyes open and reach for his hand with a slightly confused smile. She didn’t ask how long it had been or what had happened to put her in the hospital. She didn’t seem relieved to be alive or happy to see him or even knew who he was. It was like she had no concept of being in the hospital at all. Her big eyes gave off vacant stares, almost as if she was sleeping with them open. When she spoke, her voice would be small and scratchy, and nothing she said made much sense. Sometimes she would fall asleep mid sentence. The doctor claimed that this was all normal. He heard the term “PTA” thrown around a lot. Or post-traumatic amnesia. It was apparently something that happens after a traumatic brain injury and is common among people waking from comas. He only half heard what the doctor’s said when they spoke to him. His focus was usually trained on his girlfriend. 

Even though she looked rough, he liked seeing her without the tubes blocking half her face. Her eyes might be unfocused and her words might sound like she’s speaking a forgein language at times but she was conscious. Being conscious meant she could improve. 

And she did. Day by day. Little by little. 

Her memory was nearly nonexistent. She kept getting her dreams confused with reality. She would wake up and be absolutely certain that she had spent the evening dining on a cruise ship in the Alaskan waters. She would excitedly tell him how her boyfriend had managed to win the cruise tickets after competing in a pie eating contest and dominating the other competitors. Then she would pause, blink a few times while staring at his face, and laugh about how he looked just like her boyfriend. Peter would smile and tell her that he was glad she enjoyed her cruise ship dinner. And he was glad. If she got her dreams confused with reality, at least she was having good dreams, and he was present in them…even if she couldn’t make the connection between her dream boyfriend and himself being the same person. 

A week after she woke up, her memory was still not right, but it was slowly getting better. Yesterday she had successfully remembered Peter’s face as being someone she knew. It was better than nothing. He pushed the elevator button to her level. Now that she was awake and stable, he felt less guilty running home to shower every few days. When the doors opened to the neuro recovery ward, he stepped out and smiled at the nurses behind their station. 

“Hey there, Spider-Man!” One of them looked up with a sly grin. “Save any people last night?”

Peter’s smile faltered and his face immediately flushed as the panic rose, “...What?”

Alarm bells rang in his head. His heart pounded in his chest. How did they know? Did that paramedic say something? He should have never told her his name or taken off his mask in front of her. He thought he could trust her. If his secret got out- 

A chorus of laughter followed his panicked spiral. 

“Your girlfriend has been telling anyone who will listen that she’s dating the infamous Spider-Man. She claims that he once brought her on a rooftop date overlooking Rockefeller Center during the Christmas tree lighting. We never knew you were so romantic, Spidey.” The nurses giggled, clearly assuming that her words were nothing more than another confused, dream infused reality instead of the actual truth. 

Peter forced a smile and took a shaky breath, “Ha, ya got me! It’s me, you’re friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, just swingin’ in to check on my girl.” 

“Aww, that’s sweet. How lucky she is to have a real life superhero looking out for her,” she winked at Peter to indicate she was only teasing. “She’s doing well today! Go see if she can remember your face this morning. Don’t want her actually falling in love with Spider-Man instead of you.”

He let their jests fall into the background as he swiftly walked to her room. His heart was pounding in his chest. Not because he was angry she was out here spilling his secrets but because she actually remembered something. Last December he surprised her by setting up a rooftop picnic as they watched the giant tree light up. That was no dream she was recalling. That was a memory. 

Peter burst into her hospital room to find May sitting by her bedside and speaking softly to her. He beamed at the two of them, jogging over to his girlfriend and planting a big, happy kiss on her cheek. 

She made a face of disgust and turned to May, saying sarcastically, “Who does this nurse think he is? Personal space much? They’re gettin’ real friendly here.” 

May chuckled under her breath, “Nurses these days are very hands on. Peter, honey, why don’t you have a seat? I was just about to leave and I’m sure she’d enjoy the company.” They often took turns watching over her as she didn’t have any family of her own. 

She studied him from her hospital bed with wide eyes, analyzing his face, “Hey, I know you. Has my boyfriend ever saved you from a disaster? He’s Spider-Man. He saves people. We’re going to get married someday…probably…if he wants to. I’m going to have his Spider babies.” 

May suppressed another laugh and patted her nephew’s arm, “She also had a very good dream about Spider-Man last night. I think you might have some competition on your hands.” She gave Peter a quick wink. “I’ve got to get home. I had a full night shift but I couldn’t leave without stopping in to say good morning to my favorite girl. You take care of her, honey. I’ll see you later.” 

Peter waited until they were alone in the room before he turned to her with a big smile, pulling up a chair to her bedside, “You are an absolute nightmare, you know that? Almost gave me a damn heart attack today. Could you please do me a giant favor and stop telling everyone you meet my biggest secret?” 

“Okay,” she stated with vacant ease. “What’s your secret?” 

He laughed under his breath, “You’re lucky you’re cute.” 

Her smile faded the longer she stared at his face. Her brows pinched together in thought. He could tell she had just remembered something and was working hard to put it into words. 

“...Peter…” She whispered. “That woman called you Peter. That’s my boyfriend’s name. You look like him. You come here every day. You sit by me. You bring me flowers. You talk to me. You fall asleep in that chair every afternoon. You look just like him.” 

He held his breath and nodded, silently watching her try to put the pieces together. It was like he could see her bruised brain starting to heal in front of his eyes. 

“Why do you look like him?” She asked.  

He blinked back the tears starting to press into his eyes, asking softly “Why do you think?”

Her breath caught in her throat, her eyes intently studying him, “You’re Peter, aren’t you? My Peter. I think I know you. I think you might belong to me.”

His smile broke through the tears and he quickly cleared his throat, “Yeah. I belong to you.”

“Cool,” she sighed, sinking back into her pillows. Her face settled back in its placid, nearly vacant expression once more. 

“I love you,” he whispered to her, terrified of letting the moment pass.  

She turned her head back to face him, confusion pulling at her brows, but she flopped her hand out on the bed for him to take. He gladly accepted the offer. It was the first time since she woke up that she willingly reached out for him. His thumb brushed over her fingers as he relished in the feeling of holding her again. He would wait for her forever. 

“I think I love you, too,” she whispered back, a tiny smile gracing her face. "Spider-Man."

[thatuselesshuman]

Oc Questionnaire Tag

I'm bored as hell so stealing an open tag from @the-golden-comet for a monster of a Questionnaire

Your Questions:

Pick 3

Uh so Zero's gonna yap today since I formally introduced him yesterday

1. Five Things that make you happy?

"Hmm, I guess I like a nice sweet date, soft blankets, and music. Running is also nice, since I can run for hours and pass the time. What could the fifth thing be... Oh, Five is nice as well. He, for whatever reason, likes to drag me to whatever new bar he found in the city. "

2. If you could save just one other person who would it be?

"Five. He's the only one who makes an effort to talk to me, whether I want him to or not."

3. Tell us one of your funniest jokes.

"I don't tell jokes like that. Mine are mostly passing quips. The actual jokes are Five's job."

4. Where would you like to visit?

"I think the mountains east of Selim would be nice. I've never been out of the country except for missions, and the mission where I leave the country are few and far between. When I do leave, it's usually to converse with our ally."

5. When do you usually go to sleep?

"Whenever I have the time allowance. Sometimes I go days without sleep."

6. Are you a jealous person?

"Not usually."

7. Have you committed a crime?

"I like to say that my existence is a human rights violation, so..."

8. Do you have a chore you absolutely hate?

"Cleaning up blood. It gets everywhere and stains everything. What's worse is that I can just barely sense the blood, so I never clean it correctly."

9. Tell me an embarrassing childhood story.

"I was sitting in the park with my brother when we were young and I suppose it looked like I was staring into the distance. Well, some lady thought I was staring at her... assets. She stomped over to me and berated me before slapping me across the face for 'lack of manners'. She didn't listen to me when I tried to explain to her that I'm blind."

10. Are you a good person?

"No. I've killed hundreds of thousands of people. My fiancé's parents were killed in war. If she were to see me today, she'd be ashamed to have ever known me."

11. What's the worst thing you've ever done?

"I was raiding an army base and was instructed to kill everyone in sight. The raid was going well, but I then stumbled uopn a room full of children. I killed most of them in their sleep, nice and quick, but one of them was awake and cowering in the corner. For some reason, I couldn't bare to kill her too. I gave her one of my knives and told her to run, and if she ever saw me again, to kill me with that knife."

12. Do you regret it?

"Yes. What I did was not a mercy. She will forever live haunted by what I did instead of in the afterlife with her loved ones. I gave her the painful way out instead of the easy way."

13. What's the quickest way to make you laugh?

"A mirror. My existence is the world's funniest joke."

14. What is your favorite song right now?

"I'm not sure, but what I am sure of is that whatever the Trainees are singing at the top of their lungs in the middle of the night sounds terrible. I'm better off giving them a good scare to make them piss themselves so they don't sleep deprive the rest of the Trainees the rest of their lives."

15. Do you sometimes wish to be someone else?

"Occasionally, but that would mean someone would have to be me. No one deserves to have blood on their hands for atrocities they didn't commit."

16. Do you push forward or take time to rest?

"Most of the time I'm not allowed to rest. I can go longer without necessities such as food, water, and sleep, so the General uses that precious time for more missions. I think I get a week or so off every couple of months. Though, now I'm recovering from an injury so I'm training the Trainees."

17. If you had to pick an item of clothing or an accessory to wear for the rest of your life, what would it be?

"My mask. I've already been wearing it for 600 years straight, what's a few more?"

18. What is your favorite drink?

"Five orders me this thing called a 'virgin' Blue Nightlock whenever we go out. I'm not sure what that means, but he swears it doesn't have alcohol in it. It tastes like a blackberry soda."

19. If you were forced to forget one memory, what would you choose?

"Asking my fiancé to marry me. I wish I could forget her entirely."

20. What is a positive thing your worst enemy would say about you?

"I'm the strongest adversary they'll ever face, even if I'm on the tightest leash on the continent."

Wow, that took a while!

@moltenwrites @willtheweaver @wyked-ao3 @katenewmanwrites @agirlandherquill +open tag

[minty-butter]

Dandelions (RegulusxReader)

A/N: I stopped writing fanfics a few years ago, but I was listening to Dandelions by Ruth B and got an idea for fanfic and had to write it, I hope you enjoy it!  

Summary: y/n never thought they’d fall for their best friend, Regulus. Always ignoring the signs that they were in love thinking they were just happy to have him in their life until they realized in 5th year while attending a ball together.

Warnings: nothing but fluff

  Maybe, it's the way you say my name 

“Hey y/n, did you finish yesterday’s potions essay?” Regulus asked while approaching you in the halls. 

Regulus usually helps you with any potions assignments since it’s never been your best subject, but yesterday he had to attend quidditch practice, so he didn’t have time to help. “Surprisingly, yes I did” you answered. You were digging through your bag to look for the piece of parchment to ask him if it sounded good enough to turn in.

“Because of your help I’ve been having fewer difficulties with all of the assignments thankfully, also could you read it quickly? I want to know if it sounds decent at least” You asked as you found the parchment and passed it to Regulus. His smooth yet rough hand brushed against yours as he took the parchment. You very faintly blushed as you pulled your hand away.

“Sure, I’ll read it while we head to class” Regulus replied. He started walking ahead of you as you briefly wondered why you wished you could have kept your hand in his or held his hand while walking to your first class of the day.

And I've heard of a love that comes once in a lifetime

There was a kid who lived next to your house when you were around 11 or 12 whom you used to play with almost every day. He was probably your first crush thinking about it now. His family was moving that summer before you went back to Hogwarts for your second year, you had been sad that he would be leaving and asked if he’ll write to you. He promised he would, but never did even after you sent a letter to him. When you realized that he probably wasn’t going to ever send you one you were sad and asked your mom why he didn’t write back when he promised he would.

“Some people lie and make promises they won’t keep, honey. But don’t worry, one day you’ll find someone who will love you till the ends of the earth and would do their best to keep your promises, " she said. “How long will it take to find that person? I don’t like people breaking promises, even worse if it’s a pinkie promise” You asked.

“You will one day, and when you do find them hold on to them tightly. That type of love will only come once in your life” she said as she bent down and hugged me. You wondered what she meant at the time, but now you think you Understand.

And I'm pretty sure that you are that love of mine

  After your parents dropped you off at the Hogwarts Express for your 3rd year, they waved bye to you till you could no longer see them, you started looking for a compartment you can read the book your dad had gifted you when he came back from a business trip in France. You found an empty compartment, put your luggage on top of the shelf, then took out the book to begin reading it. After a few pages, someone knocked on the door and slid it open. You looked up and saw a cute dark-haired boy with light eyes. 

“Sorry to barge in, but could I join you in here? Some of the students were getting loud where I was before, and I’d like to read in peace” He had asked. “Oh sure, come in”. He walked in and sat on the seat opposite of you. “My name is Regulus Black, what about you? I don’t think I’ve seen you before”

“y/n y/l, I’m usually in my dorm or the library studying potions, which is probably why you haven’t seen me” You replied. He noticed the book in your hand and asked you about it. “Hey, isn’t that a popular book right now in France?”. “Is it?  My dad got me it from his trip there, it’s supposed to be a romance and mystery novel” You replied. You asked about his book, and he told you what it’s about. The rest of the train ride you guys were discussing all the books you’ve read. You both have been close friends ever since.

'Cause I'm in a field of dandelions Wishing on every one that you'll be mine, mine

  On a warm august evening, you and Regulus were sitting under a tree next to the river that was near your house. You were doing some assignments that were given to do over the summer while Regulus was reading a book. In the corner of your eye, you saw a cluster of Dandelions and walked toward them. Regulus watched as you picked one of them and asked “What are you doing?”. “Did you know that there’s a legend where if you blow all the seeds of a Dandelion off in one breath, then the person you love will love you back?” You answered. 

“Really? Where did you hear about that?” asked Regulus. “ My mom told me when I was a kid, she also said if you make a wish and blow on it, it will come true”. You passed it to Regulus and told him to make a wish. He took it then closed his eyes for a bit thinking about what to wish for then blew on it. “What did you wish for?” You asked. “If I tell you, it won’t come true. I’ll tell you if it does happen” He replied.

And I see forever in your eyes I feel okay when I see you smile, smile

  During breakfast in your 5th year a week before Christmas, Dumbledore had called the attention of everyone in the Great Hall. “I have a big announcement to make, so if you all will listen, please” He paused and waited for the students to quiet down before continuing his announcement. “As you all know, this upcoming week is Christmas. This year we will be holding the Yule Ball on Christmas Eve.” He continued to talk about the details of the ball while I looked over at Regulus, he was already looking at me. We made a silent agreement to talk about it after breakfast is over.

After breakfast, you both met up in the halls near the courtyard. “It seems like everyone is excited about the ball, are you?” Regulus asked while approaching you. “Kind of, it seems like it might be fun at least” You replied.

“There are many people already talking about taking dates, do you have anyone in mind?” He asked. You briefly thought about telling him you wanted to go with him, but you brushed those off. Surely, he must want to take someone else. “Hmm, not really” You replied, “What about you?”. “I don’t have anyone in mind, why don’t we go together?” He asked. You blushed at the idea of going with him and turned away so he wouldn’t see your red face. “Sure, it would be better than going with someone else” You accepted.

The day of the Yule ball finally approached while you and your roommates in your dorm were getting ready for the event. “You look great, y/n. You’re going with Regulus, right?” the Blonde-haired roommate had asked. You timidly said yes and continued getting ready. “I hope you two have fun, you’re such a cute couple” They all continued getting ready while you stopped. You were flustered at the thought that other students in Hogwarts might have thought you two were a couple.

Regulus was waiting for you with a Lavender rose pin in hand. When you walked up to him, he handed the rose to you. “You look breath-taking y/n” He complimented. You blushed and said thank you while accepting the rose. He helped you pin it to your outfit, then wrapped your arm around his and lead you to the Great Hall. They were playing soft classical music in the hall. You were in awe of how they had decorated it. It looked like you just walked into a winter wonderland. “Welcome to the Yule Ball everyone, we hope you enjoy yourselves tonight and we all wish you a Happy Christmas” Dumbledore said while everyone was entering.

You both went to get a table with your other friends and chatted for a while. You were snacking on some of the food they had set out before Regulus invited you to dance. You slowly made your way to the area they cleared out. Regulus got into position, one hand on your waist and the other holding your hand. As the music started, you both were swaying across the dancefloor having fun. Mid-dance you suddenly wished that you could be like this forever. Regulus put both his hands on your waist so he could pick you up and spin you around. You were in love.

Realizing that all the times you had been flustered by his actions, not knowing that you were in love. You suddenly blushed brightly. “Are you okay? Your face is all red.” Regulus noticed and asked. “Nope, everything is fine” you answered. Regulus stood quiet for a moment before leading you away from the dancefloor and taking you back to the table. “Are you sure? If you’re not feeling well, I can take you back to your dorm”. “Don’t worry I feel fine, let’s continue enjoying the ball” you assured him. The rest of the night you enjoyed talking and dancing with your friends and Regulus.

Before you arrived at the common room, Regulus pulled you aside and asked to speak with you privately. He took you to the astronomy tower and started observing the stars before turning to you. “That’s the star I was named after” Regulus pointed out to the night sky. You managed to find it and started admiring all the stars. When you looked back at Regulus, you found he was already staring at you.

 “Is that all you pulled me away from the common room for?” You joked. He chuckled and walked towards you. “No, I was just buying time to prepare myself” He answered. You looked at him confusingly. “y/n…I have something to confess” Regulus paused for a second, seemingly to calm his nerves. “I’ve fallen in love with you. That day back in 3rd year when we met, it was like love at first sight. You were kind to me the whole conversation and we shared so many of the same interests. This past year has made me see how much of a great person you are and how I’d love to be called your boyfriend, maybe even husband in the future. So, I planned to confess to you tonight…y/n, this may be a bit forward, but I’d love to be called yours, so will you go out with me?” Regulus confessed. You were in shock, you thought that he liked someone else. Not to mention only tonight did you discover that you’re in love with him.

You must’ve been silent for a while because Regulus seemed nervous. “It’s fine if you don’t feel the same” he stated nervously. “Huh? Sorry I was just a little shocked…I realized just tonight when we were dancing that I’m in love with you, so it was all so sudden to me, but yes, I’d love to have you as my boyfriend” you said happily.

I feel okay when I see you smile, smile

He gave you the brightest smile you’ve ever seen. You felt yourself fall for him even more. Regulus approached you “Then, is this okay?”. He pulled you into his arms and locked his lips with yours. His lips felt warm and soft, and you felt him smile into the kiss. You started smiling as well. It felt like fireworks were going off in your stomach, you wrapped your hands in his hair and pulled him closer to you. When you both pulled away, he laid his forehead against yours and smiled again. “I’ve been wanting to do that for so long, I’m happy to finally be yours” Regulus admitted.

Wishing on dandelions all of the time Praying to God that one day you'll be mine

You were feeling extremely nervous right now, your friends were helping you calm down and get ready. “Don’t worry y/n, everything will be fine” your blonde-haired friend reassured. “What if someone forgets the rings, or-” you panicked. “It’ll all be okay; don’t worry about that we’ll make sure everything goes right. You focus on having the best wedding, okay?” They said reassuringly. You sighed and nodded. One of your other friends walked into the room and asked “Okay, it’s time, are you ready?”. “As I ever will be” you said with a nervous smile. 

Your mom was waiting for you near the wedding aisle. “Oh, you’re here. Are you ready, honey?” she asked. You nodded and looped your arm with hers. “I told you, you’d find that person one day.”

“It’s time. Let’s start walking down” She looked at you with an adoring smile. You both started walking down the aisle when the music began. Regulus was at the Wedding arch looking at you walk down with your mom, smiling. Your mom handed your hand over to Regulus and walked to her seat. 

After the officiator’s speech, Regulus started saying his vows “I promise to always love you and do the little things to make you happy, I vow that we will be a family forever and I’ll always make time for you”. You teared up a bit at his vows and continued to say yours “I vow to be grateful for every day I share with you. Even on the bad days, I’ll promise to always communicate and work through our problems together.” You both say your “I do’s” and exchange rings. Then, the officiator says, “ You may now kiss the bride”. Regulus pulls you into his arms and kisses you, just like he had 6 years ago. It still felt like fireworks even after all these years. 

“My wish that summer before 4th year was for you to be mine” Regulus whispered in your ear.

When you're looking at me, I've never felt so alive and free When you're looking at me, I've never felt so happy

A/N: Lmao this was supposed to be a short fic, but I got carried away. It ended up being 2,376 words when I planned it to be 800 at most💀 Also, a lavender rose means love at sight, so regulus fell for the reader first💜

[theflowerofthecommonwealth]

Power Armor Punch Part Forty Five

Masterlist

Nick: *keeps ahold of her and comforts her when he can. Does some light diagnostic work for a good few hours but nothing that puts him out of commission*

Teshteal: *ends up rolling over in his sleep. Muttered a few other disturbing things referring to memories from the vault*

Jasmine: (Got in maybe an hour of sleep in total, not that anyone should have noticed this as she pretended she still was sleeping. She spent most of the night with her eyes closed in a half daze, listening to Nicks words of comfort with an almost filtered attention, like it’s not quite clicking with her)

Teshteal: *wakes up in a cold sweat with a start* I’m sorry-! *blinks and remembers where he is*

Nick: Sorry? For what exactly?

Teshteal: Nothing… *gets up and stretches, first like a cat then like a person, arms in the air and bending their torso with one arm still extended* How is she?

Nick: I think she’s awake but it’s honestly hard to tell. *looks down at the fallen hat* Your hat came off. Might want to pick that up.

Teshteal: Ah. *picks it up and dusts it off before setting it back on his head*

Jasmine: (Awake and very much uncomfortable and miserable. She still feels like she’s burning up and everything aches from her muscles to her bones. Head is stuffy and there’s a constant buzzing in her ears, she’s almost afraid to check her vision. Worse part is that she can’t even do anything about most of her pain on her body… Because it’s not real. It’s phantom pain from those horrible moments she suffered under those guards, something that comes and goes that she just has to deal with it… And don’t even get her started on yesterdays problems from the cutting, from her home, to the chems, to the bunker, and from breaking her coding to the point were she is now afraid to do anything out of line)

Nick: *sighs and gets up, still holding his daughter in his arms* Better get going.

Teshteal: Got anything to snack on?

Nick: Main pocket of the bag there. *gestures with his chin at the bag they were pulling from last night*

Teshteal: Thanks. *digs in there* A whole roasted deathclaw steak?! *pulls out the container. It still looks as fresh as the day it was made*

Nick: A what…? *Forgot it was in there* I wouldn’t-

Teshteal: *already eating the suspect meat like it’s nothing* Tasty.

Nick: …I don’t even want to know how you can stomach that. *walks out to Lucille, who’s injecting Radaway though a flap in her armor* Ready to hit the road?

Lucille: *nods before lifting part of the X-01 helmet to reveal a built in straw so she can drink a can of purified water*

Teshteal: *finishes packing the bag and slings it over his shoulder with his own satchel where he keeps his possum toy and joins the three outside*

Jasmine: (Slowly opens her eyes, staring blankly at Nicks scarf. She’d argue about walking on her own but she’s afraid to speak or even sign to get Nicks attention. There has been enough drama caused by her already, she has to stay quiet as a mouse now. “If you do not have something useful to say, don’t say anything at all.” “Do not think, just do as you’re told”)

Nick: *looks down and smiles at her when he sees she’s awake* How are you feeling, kitten?

Teshteal: Ah, she’s awake? That’s great! *bounces up to her with a stupid smile*

Jasmine: (Gives a vague nod, staring off with a thousand yard stare at nothing)

Teshteal: I see. *goes quiet, remembering his very unfinished training*

Nick: I think she was nodding at me. *starts walking after Lucille. They’re on the move, now*

Teshteal: Technically, I’m not supposed to talk if I’m not trying to fool someone.

Nick: You talk all the time- who are you trying to fool?

Teshteal: Not a soul. I just can’t stop.

Jasmine: (Pulls her hood over her head and stuffs her newly done braid in it so it’s hidden. Even though she’s burning hot, she puts on her mask on that was hanging from her waistband. Her cloth one would be better suited, but she just feels like covering up as much as she can at the moment)

Lucille: *it isn’t long until they pass by Teshteal’s old home*

Teshteal: *stops humming to himself and looks on sadly as they pass. Whispers* Goodbye, my family. *walks on, humming a sadder song mournfully*

Jasmine: (Winces under her mask as another jolt of this mentioned phantom pain hits her. She bites down on her lip to suppress a cry, staying motionless)

Nick: You okay, doll?

Lucille: Probably needs rest in a proper bed… good thing you have one in Vault 88.

Teshteal: *winces at the mention of a vault* Why would he have a home there?

Lucille: Oh a lot of people do. 88 is basically more of an underground city than a vault. Complete with its own detective agency.

Teshteal: *shudders* As long as there’s not anyone turning me into a pin cushion…

Jasmine: (Shakes her head at the mention of that vault, crossing her arms. She doesn’t want to go anywhere but their chosen destination, and right now she believes that’s to find Donny. She can’t go back to being a useless pathetic girl flaring around helplessly, she’s built to constantly be moving otherwise she gets restless)

Teshteal: *scampers back to his home while they’re not far away to gather blankets and runs back after shoving them as much as he can in the bag* We could camp somewhere.

Nick: Did you just…?

Teshteal: I figured we needed the bedding.

Nick: *sighs and looks to Jas* You need proper rest. Just for a night. 88 would be the best for that. Can you do that for me?

Jasmine: (Just shrugs her shoulders while staring off blankly under her mask. She can’t even guarantee that she’ll sleep even if they go there, so no promises. She’ll leave it up to the adults to make the call in the end. Right now she has to focus on managing her pain, and not making it known)

Nick: Even if you don’t sleep, I think it would do you a world of good to lie down for a bit. Specially after the night you’ve had.

Teshteal: *quietly to himself* It might be decades before those become manageable. *frowns* Or a century…

Lucille: *just quietly walks on. Leading them to Vault 88. Considering letting them go on without her*

Jasmine: (Not happy about going to Vault 88 one bit but she puts off making a big fuss about it. Just as long as she avoids the hospital or anywhere near it, all should be fine)

Lucille: *it isn’t long till they’re back at the subway entrance*

Teshteal: Ah. This is where we met.

Lucille: Yeah. *opens the man hole covering*

Nick: *jumps down before them bending his legs as he lands to reduce the damage on his joints. He starts carrying Jas through the small area to the 88 branch*

Teshteal: So you live in the sewer? Like that one comic?

Lucille: *climbing down already* Which one?

Teshteal: *climbs down after, closing the cover* Had something to do with turtles.

Lucille: *reaches the bottom and walks off* …Turtles? Sorry. Still doesn’t ring a bell.

Teshteal: *jumps off the ladder* It did come out in the late 1900s. Very short lived series, sadly. Maybe that’s why you never heard of it.

Lucille: Could be. But this isn’t a sewer. This is the subway station part of Vault 88. *gestures to the homes that have nestled into the tunnels and rooms of the station and the small platform people walk around in*

Teshteal: Oh. I didn’t expect-

Lucille: A thriving community?

Teshteal: Well when you think of a vault you think of sterile walls and confusing corridors.

Lucille: Ah. The closest to that is the main entrance and the halfway house near the center. This is no different than Diamond City or Goodneighbor. It’s just a town. *shrugs*

Jasmine: (Stifles another cry of pain, doing her best to keep her head up and not lean on Nick. Maybe putting on her mask was a bad idea, she can’t breathe properly and is drenched in sweat which only makes her feel more faint and stuffy)

Nick: *as he reaches the agency* You want to take that mask off? It can’t be helping you cool down. *striding over to his bedroom next to the dining area. Near the door is a tool cabinet with a bottle of coolant and spare tools for repairs and close to the wall, on the same side, a twin sized bed. He sets her down on it very gently*

Jasmine: (Nods as she  she shakily pulls her mask and hood off with her movements being jagged, staring off at the ground while she sits. Its so unsettling, nothing is clicking with her. She barely has control over her own body, or thoughts)

Nick: Sit tight. I’m going to get you some fresh water and bandages for your wounds. I need to check them for infection, alright doll? *strokes her hair with a kind smile*

Jasmine: (Gives a distant nod back to her Dad, his voice still sounding like it’s coming from behind a door in another room. Hell, she doesn’t even know where she is at right now)

Nick: *quickly goes and gets the supplies. While he’s away, he starts thinking of ways to get her to be more responsive. His mind wonders back to the commands but he shoves the thought aside- those are for emergencies only in his mind. Never to be used unless circumstances are dire… hopefully ever at all* Gotta be something I can do… *walks back into the room and starts helping her with removing the bandages*

Teshteal: *scampering all over the place checking out anything and everything that interests him*

Jasmine: (Makes no movement while the bandages are removed, making herself numb to the pain and reality right now. She’ll come back later when she no longer feels so shitty and weak)

Nick: *it doesn’t take long for him to clean her cuts and reapply a very thick layer of bandaging. He leaves for a moment and comes back with reheated stew and ice cold water. Concerned* You haven’t eaten in quite a while, doll. A few days in fact. Could you try to eat some of this for me? *takes a spoonful of the broth and holds it up*

Jasmine: (Stares off like she didn’t hear him, then slowly blinks. She glances down with a slight look of disgust, not that the soup isn’t good or tasty looking she just hates the thought of eating) (Quietly) “No thank you Dad, not hungry.” (Goes back to staring off at nothing without saying anymore, and not planning to)

Nick: Doll, I can tell you’re feeling weak. You badly cut yourself back there in the Glowing Sea somehow on top of the cuts I just rebandaged. Safe to say you’ve lost quite a bit of blood. Eating something will get your strength back. So… *almost pleading with her* Please eat. Even if it’s just a little bit.

Jasmine: (Already said no so she’s not repeating herself, her mind isn’t changing…. But the way Nick is begging her tugs something in her heart, because at one point she was begging someone else to eat at least just a little, reassuring her over and over again that she was beautiful the way she was and didn’t need to be more skinny. She can remember the worry she felt weighing in her heart as she stubbornly persisted in getting her sister to eat something, going as far to sit in her lap and stare at Lilac with big eyes and whatever food she was suppose to eat in her hands, holding to her older sisters mouth and staring she will not leave until she ate)

Nick: *sighs in defeat* I can’t make ya eat, doll. But I strongly recommend it. *sets it down on the floor next to the bed with the water. He walks out of the room to the dining room table and sits, lighting a cigarette in heavy thought*

Teshteal: *spends time in the Starlight cavern lit up by hundreds of bottle lamps and chandeliers just… staring at how the lights dance on the ceiling*

Jasmine: (Puts her head in her knees and just kinda sits there quietly without doing anything, waiting for the worse of this moment to be over. Waiting for her mind to clear, waiting for the terrible phantom pain to go away, waiting waiting waiting…. She’s so damn tired of waiting things out, she wants to actually get going now. She’ll probably eat later, but constantly doing something is part of her coding. She doesn’t need to rest, therefore she needs to being making herself useful)

Nick: *starts to really consider if this is one of those cases where a command might be necessary. She’s lost in her head again-* No. *sternly to himself more than anything. That could trigger more of those terrible memories and even a habit of using them and he doesn’t want that. Looks over at his bedroom* If you want to make yourself useful, eat and then rest. Otherwise you won’t be able to get anything done, Rosie.

Jasmine: (Blinks down at the food, her stomach twisting in knots as another pang of pain rips through her, making her nervous and terrified that she will be punished for sitting around. Silently, she drops onto the floor and slips on her mask then her hood, crawling under the bed and huddling into a ball against the wall)

Nick: *not even going to question it. He’s exhausted. If she eats, she eats. If she doesn’t… he’s done what he can… sighs out a puff of smoke*

Jasmine: (Lifts off the bottom of her mask and puts her thumb in her mouth to suck on it like a toddler out of nervous habit, listening for the sound of heavy footsteps or the slamming of the heavy vault doors opening from the end of the long corridor her cell room was in, followed by her barred cell door flying open. Swears that she gotta get herself over this soon, it’s downright ridiculous)

Nick: *just sitting there having a smoke. That’s all. At this point he’s leaving it up to her.*

Jasmine: (Starts to quietly hum to herself “Let It Be” by The Beatles in an attempt to keep herself from biting down on her thumb, quiet enough that Nick can’t hear. She used to hide under her bed in the cell all the time, singing softly enough that the camera or microphone couldn’t pick it up)

Nick: *taking a moment to run another diagnostic*

[Time jump]

Jasmine: (Opens her eye after an hour or two of trembling despite being hot and waiting for nothing to come for her motionlessly, her thumb still in her mouth. She kept humming the same tune over and over again, her heart skipping every time there was the slightest noise. What is she waiting for again? For herself to heal or for it to be safe to come out from under the bed? Where was she anyways? It’s so foggy in her mind that she only has brief snippets of previous events, wasn’t she just with Nick? And he wanted her to eat…. Eww)

Nick: *pulled out a pack of cards from his pocket to play solitaire with himself by this point. Muttering softly* If I move the 9 there that’ll free up the two… then the 5… but then I’ll have to deal cards out. Maybe the 7 to the 8 there- no wait that’s a different color. *frowns*

Jasmine: (Buries her head in her hands while she curls up tighter, wanting to punish herself for wasting time by stupidly hiding from a threat to come that doesn’t exist anymore. Those dark thoughts start to swirl around her, clawing at her and drawing her in. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. She opens her mouth and takes in a deep breath, not going to let this spiral out of control. Stupid Pathetic Girl) (Crying out fearfully) “Daddy?!” (Looks at her trembling hands and her legs from under her mask, hallucinating images of dark blood leaking down into a pool of crimson) “Help, I-… I want to hurt myself!” (Not as an elegant of an alert as it’s suppose to be, but that’s the best she can do)

Nick: *immediately on his feet* Hold on, Rosalinda! *runs into his bedroom and notices she’s not on the bed* Rosie, where- *crouches and sees her somehow curled up under the bed. He holds both of his hands out to her* Here, let’s get you out of there.

Jasmine: (Crying under her mask and shaking all over like a frightened little kitten. She tightens her hood and takes both of Nicks hands, carefully crawling out from under the bed, trying to make herself as small as possible and is ready to dive back under the bed if she hears any sudden noises or shouting)

Nick: *reassuringly* That’s it- I’m right here, kitten. *gestures towards himself with both hands* Dad’s right here for ya.

Jasmine: (Blinks slowly at him from behind her mask at his reassuring tone and words, then quickly scampers over to the safety of his embrace. She whimpers something about being scared of monsters lurking outside and something along the lines of her being pathetic and a burden as she puts her arms around him)

Nick: *sits back on the ground, wrapping his arms around her* I know, doll. I know. No one’s coming to hurt you. Just you and me in the agency, right now. *rubs her back gently* It’s okay… ssh. It’s okay…

Jasmine: (Pulls back momentarily to take off her hood and rip off her mask that she tosses to the side, revealing the streaming tears on her cheeks that are making oceans already. She carefully climbs into Nicks lap like a small child would with a choked cry, hiding her face in the crook of his neck while she blubbers something about it hurting and yearning for it to be over)

Nick: *softly reassuring her* The pain will stop soon. Promise. *gently rocks her back and forth* They can’t hurt you anymore….

Jasmine: (Holds onto her Dad as tightly as she can without doing damage, praying that he is right…. She doesn’t want anyone to hurt her ever again in the horrid way she’s been having nightmares and flashbacks about. Wether it be more raiders or gunners, slavers, or false friends tryna trick her with false smiles and words of comfort. Getting wounded by foes is inevitable, but never does she want to be assaulted and taken advantage ever again, she doesn’t think her body could handle it…)

Nick: *keeps reassuring her and comforting her for the next few hours until she feels more stable, only offering her food again when he’s sure she’s more aware of her surroundings*

Jasmine: (Gets a better sense of security and safety as she snuggles her Dad, letting herself enjoy the moment despite all the troubles. Still cannot say that the urge to harm herself has gone away though. (Stupid programming ruining everything) When he offers her the soup, she frowns and reluctantly takes the bowl in her hands, sipping it slowly from the sides because holding a spoon on her own would be near impossible. She has to eat at least a tiny bit, for Nick if not herself)

Nick: *as she eats the soup* There you go, sweetheart. *gently rubs her back*

Jasmine: (Sips down over half the bowl and almost all the solid chucks, hating the sensation but she doesn’t feel as weak anymore. She stops and stares down, a thought coming her to mind about what happened yesterday) “………” (Suddenly throws the rest of the soup across the room in a mini tantrum of frustration with an angry cry, blinking as she processes what the hell she just did)

Nick: Now why did you do that?? *raising an eyebrow at the teen* Talk to me, doll.

Jasmine: (Shrugs her shoulders, not looking at Nick)

Nick: Shrugging isn’t going to cut it. Use your words. Sign if you have to.

Jasmine: (Rubs her face with a heavy sigh, snapping at herself to not start bawling) (Signing) “Later, Dad. It’s nothing anyways.” (Still snuggled in his lap and refusing to look at him. Shes feeling antsy, maybe because she’s angry and trying/failing to hide it. Her fever isn’t helping, maybe she should fresh up, and take off her jacket)

Nick: Alright… *thinks for a second* There’s a bathroom upstairs if you want to freshen up. I’ll carry you there.

Jasmine: (Silently nods without looking up, pointing to her bag. Again, she’d have something to say about being carried, but considering she couldn’t even hold the bowl properly due to poor coordination, that’s just asking for another disaster)

Nick: *stands and holds her with one arm while grabbing her bag. He heads upstairs to the bathroom, next to Lucille’s little corner (it even has a working tv) and sets Jas down gently* Keep the door open just in case. I don’t want you hurting yourself.

Jasmine: (Nods again, taking her bag from Nick and places it on the floor) (Signing) “Don’t let anyone else come close, please….” (Looks around at the bathroom, blinking to help adjust her eyesight)

The bathroom: *a small metal shack with a sink and a toilet*

Nick: I won’t. Though, I think I’d feel much better about your safety if you handed me your knives until we’re on the road again.

Jasmine: (Removes her vest and jacket, taking out any tucked away knives she had subconsciously hidden in pockets or seams and hands them to Nick along with her dagger. Her eyes linger on the notebook at the bottom of her bag, her face darkening a little. She picks it up and opens it, quickly flipping through her jumble of writing with her heart sinking at all the chaos. On the last few pages, she notices that two are stuck together with blood)

Nick: *after putting as many knives as he can in his pockets* Doll, I also think it would help if I kept ahold of the book for now. I don’t think it’ll do you any good up here. *taps the side of his head*

Jasmine: (Clutches the notebook to her chest protectively for a moment, thinking it over with herself. Her programming calls for keeping track of certain things as not to forget and protect it at all costs, or face severe punishment. She looks down at the notebook that contains sensitive information, then at her Dad whose already seen what’s in it, reluctantly holding it out to him)

Nick: Thank you. *takes the book* I’ll keep it safe. Swear on it. *does an x over his coolant pump again with an earnest smile at her. He tucks it into his coat*

Jasmine: (Wants to smile back at him, but all she can muster is a kind nod with her eyes twinkling. She touches her braid, deciding to wash her beautiful hair in the sink while she’s giving herself a mini sponge bath to help cool off and to stay clean. The hygienic standards in the Wasteland are too low, she was cleaner in her dirty cell than most of the mercs and drifters out here. Don’t even get her started on the people sneezing and coughing thick blobs of spit into open air, disgusting. She opens her bag and pulls out her toiletry pouch that contains all the stuff she needs before working off her clothes slowly. Wonders if she can be gentle with herself this time, maybe not scrub until her skin is red and raw or yank the roots of her hair until her scalp is sore)

Nick: *standing nearby, keeping his eyes averted mostly to give her some privacy. He does occasionally glance over to check on her but it’s very brief*

Lucille: *decides to open the sweet shop back up and run it*

Teshteal: *swimming in the water pump area happily*

Jasmine: (Gets off her two shirts and pants off with minimal pain, hanging them up to scrub off any dirt or blood then to let them dry. She unbraids her hair and lets her curls swish over her shoulders loosely, turning to grab a brush when she feels a slight sting from one of her self harm cuts. Her hands quietly remove the bandages from her waist, eyes widening when she sees that one of her deeper cuts is reddening and oozing with a little puss) “Fuck….” (Quickly checks her upper arms and legs, finding a few more of the deeper ones have also gotten infected. Since she promised she would use the knife she got from Lucille only on bad guys, she had stupidly used a raiders dirty knife and didn’t think to sterilize it first. God, this better not be the cause of her fever. She looks around for anything that could help clean the infections, not planning on making a big fuss about it or notifying Nick. This should be a quick fix, it’s only a minor inconvenience)

Nick: *already noticed* There’s antiseptic in the medicine cabinet.

Jasmine: (Jumps a little at his sudden voice, sighing at how jumpy and shaky she is. It’s just a bunch of stupid cuts she did, she can get over it on her own. She opens the medicine cabinet and pulls out the antiseptic and a rag, taking in a deep breath before she unwraps all her bandages and reveals the array of damage she has done. After a moment of staring down at all her wounds with wide eyes, she snatches the brush and turns on the sink, working on washing and maintaining her curls first then the rest of herself. She lathers some soap onto her scalp and rinses away all the dirt and particles that had gotten caught in her hair, carefully sectioning off her curls into parts so it’s easier to brush)

Nick: *feels guilty because he didn’t catch the infection but isn’t going to say anything about it*

Jasmine: (Applies a nice amount of conditioner to the ends of her hair, letting it soak in before she starts brushing it. To get her mind off her wounds and to hopefully calm herself so she doesn’t tear out her own hair or skin, she starts softly singing a tune she used to love) “Keep a little song handy, wherever you go…. And nothing can ever go wrong. Boop-Oopy-Doo!” (Hits the Boop-Oopy-Doo part perfectly, just like Betty Boop did in her cartoons, her voice even captures that cutesy babydoll tone she had) “Keep a little song handy, and sure and you know. Sunshine will follow along…..”

@lucilleandherrobots

[ramen8baka]

Hey, could you please do a Captain Levi X cadet reader enemies to lovers fic please where the reader is injured and sick and Levi has no choice but to help her. Thanks!

Of course! Enemies to lovers always is a good story. I’ll do my best 😃

summary: reader gets slight concussion which makes her bedridden for a few days. So Levi has to take care of her. ⚠️WARNINGS⚠️ just slight (i mean verry slight) angst to fluffy fluff. Also i used she/her pronouns.

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“Keep going cadets! Under any circumstances should anyone be stopping unless I say so.” Levi shouted. “What if you get injured?” Sasha’s dumbass said. Wow she’s really asking for it, you thought. Levi responded smartly with “unless you’re limbs are hanging off and you’re bleeding to death, no.” You were doing your regular pushups, crunches, sword skills, etc. You were still very sore from yesterday’s training. And the day before that. And the day before that. Annnd the day before that. Levi was known to be strict and if you didn’t follow the rules, you were getting your ass beaten. “Cadets, get in your lines!” You all did as ordered and ran into 2 lines. You knew what Levi was going to say before he said it.

“You’ll be sparring with the person across from you. No fatal injuries, and no complaining.” Yup, sounded about right. You were sparring against Mikasa. You weren’t worried, as you and her were on the same level of skill. You see, that was the problem. Mikasa was quiet but competitive. Connie and Sasha sparred, Connie won. Eren and Jean sparred. Eren won by a hair. Soon it was your turn. “I’ll beat you today, Mikasa.” Mikasa just grunted in reply. You started sparring. The rules were usually whoever gets to the ground (loses their sword, cannot fight back, etc.) first loses. Mikasa was pretty rough today and you tried your best to fight back but the soreness all over your body wasn’t helping. Somehow you’d gotten to the top of a wooden post. It was a few feet off the ground. You planned to use your grappling hooks to go from that tree then steal Mikasa’s weapons and you just might win. You’d have to be quick, though. You jumped from the post and-

“Hmm?” You rubbed your eyes. “what- where… how did i get here?!” You said, surprised. There, in the corner of the room was Hange. “hey, y/n. You got a concussion from training. I know it probably hurts now but-“

“what?! I don’t remember any of that! Now that you say it, my head is pounding. And i’m incredibly parched. What am I supposed to do? When will I be back on my feet? I can’t miss training!” You tried to climb out of bed but Hange stopped you. “Tsk tsk tsk, y/n. You’ll need to rest for a few days. Since you got a concussion, you’ll need special care. Your head will be more fragile and you have gotten sick in general just from dehydration.” What will Levi say? He’s probably mad. No, no, no, no!

“hey, calm down y/n/n! We have someone special to take care of you~” Hange sung. You really didn’t like where this was going. You felt like you’d pass out any second, you had a slitting headache, felt incredibly thirsty, starving, tired, and embarrassed. Just then the door opened. “Levi?!” “You bet!” Hange said. Man, she has too much energy. How and why was Levi going to take care of you?

“Let’s just get to the point. Thank you, Hange.” Hange waved and mumbled a ‘see ya’ before walking out. Levi sat on your bed next to you. “So… why are you taking care of me? What will the other Cadets do? Who’s training them?” “worrying won’t help you get better faster. Besides, none of that is your business.” He sat up and walked to the other side of the room. After a few minutes of digging around in drawers he brought you a bottle of water and leftover bread. “here.” He handed it to you. This was the nicest he’d ever been to you. You munched on the bread and gulped down the water in seconds. You swore you saw a slight smile on his face.

“are you… smiling?” He quickly put on his signature frown again. “No, why would I be smiling?” He blushed a bit. You will admit that you always had kind of a crush on Levi. Ok, you had a big crush on Levi. You never thought he might like you- even just a little- until now. “I think it’d be best if you just rested for now. Even if you just want to lay here.” He suggested. “Alright.” You laid on your side facing him still. “You’re strong, you know.” He said just above a whisper. “W-what? I mean, thank you!” You sat up after hearing that. “shhh. Lay back down. You need the sleep.” He was sitting in a chair next to your bed at this point. “Levi… I kind of… how do I say this”

“You like me, i’m guessing?” You turned bright red. “What?! How’d you know?” You asked the last part quietly. “it’s sorely obvious. Although I do suppose I’m fond you too.” He smiled softly. You were happy. “So you do like me? I can’t believe it!” You said joyfully.

“Calm down, y/n. Don’t get all riled up. Getting more sleep will make you feel better soon. We’ll talk more when you wake up.” You nodded and soon started to doze off. You swore just before you fell asleep, he pressed a kiss to your forehead.

[sugdenlovesdingle]

apparently I write Owen pov lone star/tarlos fics now - who knew.

A missing moment of Owen finding out what happened.

or read on AO3

----

It's late by the time Owen gets home. He's tired and quite frankly kind of disappointed he and O'Brien and the FBI hadn't managed to find the bomber or the bomb.

He rolls his neck and digs his keys out of his pocket to open the door. The house is quiet which means Mateo probably stayed at Nancy's. For a second he wonders why Buttercup isn't coming to greet him as he makes his way into the house, but then remembers texting the doggy daycare to ask them to keep him overnight because work ran late.

That's when his mind goes back to the call from TK he'd rejected earlier that day and all of the times he'd felt his phone vibrating in his pocket after that. He takes it out and attempts to unlock it, only to find out the battery died on him.

"You'd think they could find a way to make the batteries on these things last longer." he mutters to himself while trying to remember where he put his charger.

He makes his way upstairs and to his bedroom and when he sees his bed, suddenly exhaustion hits him and he figures that whatever was bothering TK earlier, he and Carlos will have worked it out themselves by now.

They're grown men, they love each other, they're probably fine by now. Asleep in their own bed together without a care in the world.

He quickly changes for bed and has half a mind to plug in his phone to charge before he lets himself drift off to sleep.

The next morning he wakes up feeling fairly well rested, a quick glance at the mechanical alarm clock he'd reluctantly bought after a power outage tells him it's around his regular wake up time.

He tries to get his head together enough to figure out what day it is and if and when he's supposed to be at the station.

"It was Tuesday yesterday... So today is Wednesday... The 16th? No the 15th. Yesterday was valentine's day." he mumbles while he sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed. He smiles to himself reasoning that's probably why TK was calling him yesterday, to talk through his plans for him and Carlos after they had made up.

Out of everything that has happened to them since moving to Austin, TK meeting Carlos really has been the best. Sometimes Owen thinks the two of them finding each other was some kind of divine intervention. That everything in their lives had just been a part of some bigger plan so they would meet.

He'd talked about it with Gwyn when she'd lived with them and seen first hand how happy Carlos made their boy. Texas really had done TK the world of good.

After a quick shower and a shave, he put on his uniform, grabbed his keys and phone, and left for the station.

TK's calls from the day before were still in the back of his mind but he figured he'd just talk to him in person at work instead of listening to the messages he'd left him.

Odds were that TK would just be walking around with the same dopey lovesick smile that hasn't left his face since about May.

He still had trouble wrapping his head around the fact that his little boy was getting married. Soon. And who knows, maybe they'd start talking kids in a few years and he'd be someone's grandfather.

Not quite ready to deal with that idea, he shakes his head and walks up the steps to his office, giving a quick wave to Paul and Marjan in passing and quickly glancing at the ambulance to see if TK was around.

He smiles and pretends to tip his hat at Tommy as he walks past her office and opens the door to his own.

"Oh. I didn't think you were coming in today after everything so I just... thought I'd make myself useful." Judd says, jumping up from his chair. "I was just updating the paperwork for the calls from the past week. I uh didn't mean to overstep."

Owen smiles and waves his apology away.

"It's fine. It's good training for you for when you're officially captain Ryder." He pats Judd on the back as he sits down. "But I told you I was only taking one day off, right?"

"Yeah... but I... well... we all just thought you'd have other things to worry about today..."

Owen frowns.

"No, no, I'm good to work. but thanks for stepping in yesterday."

"Sure. Any time." Judd says and turns around to leave.

"Oh, Judd, is TK in yet? He called me a bunch of times yesterday. He and Carlos were having some kind of argument I think. He wanted my advice but I was a little preoccupied... and what do I know about healthy relationships anyway, right?" He asks laughingly but turns serious when he sees the look on Judd's face. "What? What is it? They didn't break up again did they?"

"No, no they did not..." Judd trails off. "When is the last time you talked to TK?"

"Yesterday. When he called me for advice on his argument with Carlos. I think it was about Iris Blake..."

"Right? And after that?"

"Well... no. I was a little busy. He texted me a few times and left some messages but I thought I'd just talk to him face to face here. What's going on?"

"Maybe you should call him."

"Or maybe you could just tell me instead of making me guess?"

Judd sighs and sits down in the chair on the other side of Owen's desk.

"TK is taking some time off to be with Carlos... after he got kidnapped by some kind of serial killer. The same one who had taken Iris Blake."

"What?!"

"I don't know the details. Grace was on duty yesterday and she helped them find him."

"Them?"

"Gabriel Reyes got the rangers involved." Judd says. "Like I said, I don't know the details... I just know Carlos was taken to hospital yesterday after they found him and TK took some time off."

Owen shakes his head trying to process the information.

"Is Carlos ok? Is he still in hospital?"

"I don't know. I was planning on checking in with Major Reyes later."

"Gabriel. Right. I'll call him. See what's what." Owen decides but before he can pull up Gabriel's number, Judd's phone rings.

"TK, hey, how is he?"

"Put it on speaker." Owen whispers

Judd does what he asks and he hears TK sigh on the other end of the line.

"He's alive. And insisting he's fine. If it was up to him he'd be back at work today."

"Yeah? And what does the doctor say about that?"

"Physically he's been lucky. The head wound is superficial and the rest is just cuts and bruises that will heal on their own. There shouldn't be any lasting damage."

"That's good isn't it?"

"Yeah... but she suggested talking to someone about what he's been through and he's insisting he doesn't need to." TK sighs again. "I know everyone processes trauma in different ways... but he doesn't even want to think about it. Iris is working on him now and telling him how it helped her... but I think he's just listening to humour her."

"Maybe she'll be able to get through to him." Judd suggests

"Judd, you have met my fiancé haven't you? He'll do everything to help others but when someone suggests he might need help, everything is fine and he'll pretend nothing is wrong."

There's some rustling in the background and TK promising someone he'll be right there.

"I have to go, the nurse is here with the discharge papers."

"They're letting him out already?"

"Yeah. I think they've pushed him to the front of the line for every test to get him out of here as soon as possible. He's the worst patient you can imagine." TK says and laughs a little. "Could you update everyone? I can't deal with telling the whole story again and again."

"Sure thing kid. Tell Carlos to get well soon. Text me or Grace if you need anything."

"Will do." TK promises. "Thanks Judd."

They say goodbye and Judd ends the call.

"What the hell happened yesterday?" Owen asks, scrolling through his texts with TK for answers.

"Why don't you give him a call and ask? I'm sure he'd appreciate hearing from his daddy."

Owen nods and hits call.

"Voicemail."

"Well... he's probably busy right now. You heard him. They're discharging Carlos already."

"Yeah... I'll just... give them a few hours and swing by their place at lunch." he checks his watch, it's a little after 10AM.

Judd nods and ducks out of the office, leaving Owen alone with his thoughts.

He tries calling TK a few more times but after getting voicemail right away each time, he accepts the fact his son doesn't want to speak to him right now, and decides to give Gabriel a call.

Thankfully he does answer and fills Owen in on everything he's missed.

"But Carlos is alright?"

"Yes, they checked him out in the hospital and physically he's going to make a full recovery. They've both had a rough time though. Hell we all did. I don't think I'll ever get the image of TK doing CPR on Carlos out of my head. I thought we'd lost him."

"Yeah..." Owen agrees, thinking back to the time he found TK in his New York apartment after his overdose. It feels like a lifetime ago but at the same time the memory is as vivid as if it happened yesterday.

The 126 gets called out to a fire after that and it's close to 2PM by the time Owen finally makes it to TK and Carlos' place.

He hesitates when he's in front of their building. TK hasn't answered any of his calls or texts and while he knows now what happened, he still hasn't listened to any of his messages.

After a while he works up the courage to go in, thankful a neighbour going to walk their dog lets him into the building so he doesn't have to ring the bell. He goes up to their floor like he's done hundreds of times and walks up to their door, only before he can even think of knocking the door slides open and Andrea steps out.

"I'll come back tomorrow to check on you two. Rest mijitos, take care of yourselves." She says before turning around and coming face to face with Owen. "Oh hello Owen, I was just leaving so the boys are all yours." she smiles. "Try to get TK to eat something, he's been so stressed. He needs to take care of himself."

"I'll do my best." Owen promises and steps around her to enter the loft.

"TK I'm fine. Just a little sore. Stop fussing." He hears Carlos say as he hovers by the door.

"You're not fine. You had no pulse, Carlos. You died."

"Yeah but your brought me back. And I'm ok now. You heard what the doctor said this morning, I got lucky."

"Yeah you did. But she also said you had to rest. And getting up to clean the kitchen isn't resting." Owen watches as TK sits down on the sofa next to Carlos' hip, carefully tucking a blanket around him. "And besides, the kitchen is already clean. Your mu - mama did it."

Carlos smiles.

"She's got you calling her mama now?"

"She insisted." TK smiles back. "We talked when you were asleep last night and she said I should just start calling her mama instead of Andrea because I'm part of the family already anyway."

"She's right." Carlos says and the two of them share a kiss.

Owen feels like he's intruding and considers leaving when TK notices him standing by the door.

"What are you doing here?" He demands as he gets up from the sofa, the softness and sweet smile gone in an instant.

"I came to see how you were doing... Both of you. Gabriel told me what happened."

"You wouldn't have had to ask Gabriel if you'd answered any of my 200 calls and texts yesterday." TK says and crosses his arms in front of his chest. "Where were you? What was so important that you couldn't even answer the phone?"

"I...it's a long story...complicated... I can't really talk about it... I'm sorry."

TK rolls his eyes.

"Is it some woman again? Someone barely older than me that you picked up with your motorcycle? Or some girl you tried to impress by telling her you're a firefighter?"

"No, it's nothing like that, I promise."

"Then what?"

"I wish I could tell you..."

TK lets out a frustrated grunt and reminds Owen of the little boy who used to make the same sound before stomping off to his room whenever he'd lost the debate on staying up later or going to a friend's house after school instead of doing his chores.

"Babe..." Carlos says softly, getting up from the sofa and rubbing TK's back.

Owen takes a good look at him. He looks tired and he's got a large bruise on the side of his head and a cut that has been stitched up. Judging by his movements he has some bruised ribs and is more bruised battered under his clothes.

"No baby, I'm sick of it. Do you know how many times I called him yesterday? He only answered once. And even then he couldn't wait to get rid of me."

"That's not true. You're my son, you'll always be the most important person in my life." Owen protests but TK just glares at him. "I'm sorry you had to deal with this on your own."

"I wasn't on my own, dad. I had Gabriel and Andrea. And Grace. And the whole crew. Even some of Carlos' colleagues who barely know me checked in on us in hospital." He pauses for a second to collect himself. "I needed you and you didn't even want to take my call."

"It's not that I didn't want to... I couldn't... and I wish I could tell you why... and I promise as soon as I can, I will."

"Don't bother." TK says and walks to the door. "I think you should leave now, dad, Carlos needs rest."

Owen looks at Carlos who gives him a slight nod and then steps out into the hallway.

"I'm sorry for not being there for you when you needed me... but I promise that's going to change from now on. Whatever you need, call me and I promise I'll answer. Even if it's in the middle of the night and you're suddenly craving dim sum. Call me."

"Thanks Owen." Carlos says politely before TK slides the door shut.

Owen stares at the closed door for a moment before making his way downstairs and back to Judd's truck he'd borrowed.

He gets behind the wheel and just as he's about to start the engine, he feels his phone buzz in his pocket. He takes it out and checks the notification. It's a text from TK.

I need time.

He rereads the message a few times and then hits reply.

Take all the time you need. I'll be here for you when you're ready.

He knows Carlos probably had a thing or two to do with it all, but he still considers it a win. He'll leave them be for a few days and give them their space but promises to himself to be a better dad to his son from now on.

He starts the engine and pulls out of the parking lot while dialling a familiar number.

"Andrea, hi, it's Owen. Listen, do you have some time to get together today or tomorrow? I have some ideas to give the boys a wedding they'll never forget and I was hoping that maybe you could help me with that."

[xexiar]

Keep Watching. 39

Ch38 Ao3

----

Chapter 39

When we were woken up that morning, my head was pounding. Damn it. The last I remember was the smell of lavender. That’s when I tried to look at the room around me and saw I was still in the nurse’s office. Miss Midnight was speaking, but I didn’t hear a word. All my attention was on the key ring that hung on her left hip. From what I could see, from my current angle, there was this one key. It was a card-like that came out from a large bulk. Was that its power source? Or a code generator?

As we walked the halls of the arena, I kept looking at the key Midnight had. If it was a code-generated key, then how does it generate the codes? Then what about the cuffs themselves? If that’s possible, it would make sense as a way to make sure villains can’t take the cuffs off if they ever escape. But not like that had stopped anyone before. Based on the few texts in our history books, there were 2 prisoners who not only escaped but also successfully removed their cuffs. I wonder how.

When I looked at the cuffs from this angle, I saw it. The key slot was in an area that was difficult to get to normally. Especially if a person wasn’t aware of it. When Kacchan walked to where his left leg was behind him, I spotted that strange keyhole. From this angle, I was able to tell it was the type of hole that required the key to snap into place. Meaning that if one can find the right shape, they can mimic a key and get free. Now the question comes down: Do all cuffs have standard keys? Or it deferrers between models and types. If that’s the case, would there even be a universal key? Or a key model?

Would the twins tell me if I asked them about the anti-quirk cuffs? They do have military ties, and so does my aunt. But then again, they probably wouldn’t enclose something like that to a child. Maybe there is another way to learn more about the cuffs. Is it possible to somehow get my hands on a set? If I can, then I could break it apart and practice trying to escape them. Nothing wrong about learning how something works to be prepared for anything.

Now that I got that sorted out, I have to figure out what to do about Miss Midnight’s quirk. From all the hero blogs and what I witnessed yesterday, her quirk was almost like a type of knockout gas. And if that strange lavender smell from last night is to go by anything, her quirk is supposed to calm a person to sleep. I wonder if a person can become immune to such a thing. Or would someone need to wear a mask around her constantly? Which wouldn’t make any sense. I’m not 100% sure, but there is a possibility that her quirk doesn’t need only to be smelled.

If that’s the case, any opening the quirk can affect is needed. So, that leaves the eyes exposed and skin. But is it even possible to become immune? Maybe there’s something in my dad’s journals. He was jotting down how quirks affect human biology. At that, he wrote his notes in multiple languages. Then there has to be something in there that could explain building an immunity to certain things.

Wait a minute! Thinking about the fact he was in the military and so are the twins. I couldn’t help but feel giddy. I have access to military-level information. In all forms of history books, there is mention of how certain factions in the military have been highly trained to handle all forms of human extremes. From surviving different torture methods to ignoring the body’s fight response in dangerous situations. Would I be allowed to ask for the same type of training? Or would I have to find those files and train myself?

I gave a passing glance at Miss Midnight as we entered the main school building. At this moment, I couldn’t help inwardly chuckle. Soon, your quirk won’t affect me. “That’s chilling. But why stop there? You also have to worry about not just her quirk. Some quirks can leave you powerless.” That giggling voice had a point. There are people with quirks like Aizawa-sensei. But if I’m just as strong without my quirk, then it wouldn’t matter if I used OFA or not. “Now we’re talking. See how much fun it is to think for yourself? Who needs Kacchan.”

I couldn’t help but suck my teeth. I’m not only going to be a hero. My plan is also to make sure nobody ever gets hurt like Kacchan and I ever again. “Scary. I like it. But you don’t need to be a hero to do something like that. It’ll be so much more fun and easier if you drop the act.” I was not acting. Being a hero is the only way to do things. “Says the one who has private journals on how you would be able to kill each and every person that wronged you and Kacchan. Especially in the journal entries, you went into lavish detail about how you would torture Mr. Hazwa to the brink of death for locking you in the bathroom. Or how about the one where you planned to kidnap and poison Kato and Saito? You don’t have to be a hero to seek justice.” I tried to mentally shake off that voice. No way would I actually do what I wrote down. Kacchan would be so angry with me. And I would be just as bad as an average villain.

Thankfully, today’s class was mostly going over what went down during the sports festival. As Aizawa-sensei went over each and every match, I was half paying attention. That was until he went over my matches. Besides reminding me I need to get a better grip on my quirk, with how I still suffer from drawbacks. My fighting style and form also needed attention. Especially on finding a style that works for me. Which I didn’t get what he meant at the time.

After the review, sensei showcased everyone who got recruited. I was somewhat surprised by the overwhelming amount of people who asked for Todoroki and Kacchan. And to hear Sensei state how this usually doesn’t happen. “We will go more over the internship program when you return.” With that, Aizawa-sensei dismissed us for lunch and allowed Midnight-san to remove the cuffs from Kacchan.

As I neared the door, I was surprised when All Might suddenly appeared on the other side. After a moment to catch my breath, we walked around the corner. “How is your arms, young Midoriya?”

“I’m able to bend my elbows, but I was told to give my arms another day to heal fully.” While nearing the teacher’s office, where we usually meet, All Might showed that he had a bag of meat buns with him. That’s when I recalled how Kacchan and I hadn’t eaten breakfast. Kacchan must be extra on edge since he hasn’t eaten. “Is it ok if I take those, All Might?”

All Might gave me the bag of meat buns. “Go right ahead, young Midoriya. I have more in the teacher’s lounge. They’re made fresh this morning.”

“Thank you, All Might.” With the bag in hand, I ran towards the lunchroom. It was then that I saw how Kacchan walked past the entrance. What could have happened? I got closer to Kaminari. “What happened?”

Both Kaminari and Kirishima looked at me. “Don’t know, man. Kiri and I were asking what Midnight-san was like, and Bakugo yelled at us and then went off.”

“Yeah, Midoriya. Not sure what that was about?” I looked at Ashido, and even she seemed confused.

I couldn’t help but let out a huff. “Kacchan’s probably cranky because he didn’t eat anything.” All three looked at each other before looking back at me. “Do any of you three have hot sauce on you?”

“Not really. But let me go get some from Lunchrush-san.” With that, Kirishima ran into the lunchroom and came back just as fast.

“Thank you.” I put the hot sauce in my pocket and went off to find Kacchan. Now, where could he have gone off to? At first, I went to check the nearby staircase. Kacchan always had the habit of running off to either the staircase or bathroom whenever he wanted to be left alone. It never fails. But seeing how he wasn’t at this staircase, could he be in the nearby restroom? Just my luck! I found Kacchan. At that, he seemed taken aback when seeing me but quickly had his angry face.

“What the hell do you want, nerd?” He was definitely cranky. Especially with how loosely he folded his arms and tapped his foot. Kacchan isn’t one to fidget unless he’s on edge. So, taking a deep breath, I bravely stepped forward.

“Um…” It was hard to stare at Kacchan, with how my own face started to burn. As I tried to speak, I kept reminding myself how we were no longer in middle school. How nobody we knew and grew up with was here. So, it was safe to be this close without risking being harassed by teachers. But it sure didn’t help that we were in a bathroom. A room that I was beaten the most in. “I know how much you hate missing a meal. So… I thought…” Come on, Izuku. It’s just food. The worst Kacchan can do is tell me to go away. But what if he punches me? Damn it! I can do this. Just give it to him and get it over with. “I have some hot sauce packets in my pocket.” To my shock, he took the bag from me. I tried to bite back a smile. “I’m sorry that this is all I could offer.” The way he started to bite down on one of the meat buns was so cute that I couldn’t help but smile. “I’ll see you in class, Kacchan.”

I practically ran out of the restroom. It felt like my whole body was on fire as it violently shook. I tried to slow down my breathing as I felt my heart racing. What the hell? It's not like I was scared to give Kacchan food or anything. But something about being in the bathroom with him had my nerves going crazy. After all, he wasn’t the only one who hurt me in such a room before. Yet, why was I still shaking?

After a few more deep breaths, I finally walked the halls back to All Might. It was then that I couldn’t stop feeling giddy. I still can’t believe I did it. I gave Kacchan something during school hours, and he didn’t snatch it out of my hands. This must be a dream. I gave my cheeks a quick pinch. And the pain gave me hope that I wasn’t dreaming. It wasn’t even his birthday, which made today feel even better.

As I was practically skipping my way through the halls, I couldn’t stop smiling. I wonder what else I could get away with since we were in a different school. However, my excitement quickly changed to worry as All Might informed me that I had been recruited by someone for my internship. The way my mentor was being so dramatic had me wondering who this person could be. “His name is Grand Torino. He was once my mentor.”

“Oh my gosh!” All Might quickly turned to face me. “I get to do my internship with someone who also trained All Might! That is so cool!” I couldn’t stop shaking from excitement. What was ever the possibility that I would get a chance like this? The mere fact that I even got to train and be mentored by my idol was already a miracle. But now I get to do an internship with my mentor’s mentor! Today keeps getting better!

“Earth to young Midoriya!” I quickly blinked and saw how All Might was waving his hand in front of me. Then he went about pinching the bridge of his nose. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, fanboy.”

“But I can’t help it, All Might!” Jumping to my feet, it was hard to contain my excitement as I bounced in a circle. “I get to meet someone who mentored the great All Might. There are no records of such a thing. So, to learn that All Might even has a teacher is unheard of. And I GET TO MEET HIM!”

“Haha.” I looked up at All Might as he placed a hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t stop shaking as I smiled up at him. “I do tend to keep my life as private as possible.” He continued to smile as he went into his muscular form. “But don’t get ahead of yourself yet.” He then handed me another meat bun. “Lunchtime is almost over. Finish eating, and we can go over your performance during the Sports Festival after school.”

“Ok.”

…

After lunch, sensei went over how the internships worked. He even went over the hours we had to put in. The fact it would mostly take place after school hours. But for the first 2 days, it would be an overnight stay. Something about it being an evaluation period. “This is where most agencies decide if they want to keep their interns. So, it is essential to make a truly good impression during those days. If not,” The way sensei looked at me before looking back at the rest of the class sent a shiver down my spine. “They will terminate your internship, and you will need to apply to another hero agency.”

So, there was a chance that my first choice could fail? That is impossible… Or is it? Even when I have many to choose from, there’s still a chance that it won’t end well. Especially with how the crowd reacted yesterday. And if they only chose me for my quirk, that’s an added problem.

It kind of reminds me of those damn PE games we had to do. Where two kids had to choose who went on their teams. Without fail, it always came down to me and Deku being the last two choices. And the teams would always argue about who got to have me, only because they didn’t want to have the nerd. A lot of times, our PE teacher just kept Deku away when it came time for those types of days. People would rather have me on their team instead of the nerd because I was physically stronger. It always pissed me off.

Sensei eventually handed out internship forms. “You have until Thursday to pick out the 3 agencies you would like to apply for internships. Also, tomorrow, we will be going over choosing your hero names.” About damn time! “You’re all dismissed.”

After tolerating the annoyance of hearing how damn Deku was doing air chairs this whole time, I stuffed the internship form in my bag. As I was making my way out of the class, is when shitty hair wrapped his arm over my shoulders. “Want to come with us to a burger place nearby?”

Suddenly, raccoon eyes and dunce face appeared in front of us. “Yeah! Come on, Bakugo!” Raccoon eyes started to jump up and down. “Please. It’ll be my treat.”

I looked between the 3 idiots and wondered if it would really be that bad. But then I remembered how I needed to get home since I had to stay overnight on school grounds. My old hag is going to kill me if I don’t return in a timely fashion. “I don’t know.”

The way they all looked sad somewhat bothered me. Was it really that important that I went with them? So, I took out my phone and texted the hag. “We’re having another late night. So, go hang out with your friends. We can celebrate you winning this weekend.” I was still in shock the old hag actually said it was ok. And when I told the idiots I could go, both shitty hair and raccoon eyes locked arms with me. They practically dragged me through the halls as we went to our lockers.