#SO TIRED OF BEING THE ONLY PERSON AT MY FUCKING RESEARCH ASSISTANT JOB WHO KNOWS HOW TO USE R

[hxvphaestion]

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[stray-kids-react]

Hot Topic

Masterlist

Warnings - Swearing

Genre - Fluff

Pairing - Changbin x Interview Reader

Your boss was a bitch and everyone knew this for a fact, being head of a huge magazine company really went to her head. And being her assistant and part time celebrity interviewer put a lot of stress on your shoulders, but it payed well and you still loved your job nonetheless.

But having to run to a coffee shop at 5 in the morning in uncomfortable through the pourning rain, was definitely not a highlight of your job experience. Your teeth clattering and goosebumps rising on your skin, the rain was pouring down hard it was hard to focus on anything in front of you.

"H-hi can I get two small black coffees, one meduim vanilla mocha, and one large hot chocolate." You ordered, wiping off the mascara that ran down your cheeks.

The cashier nodded cautiously, concerned by the way you looked. The elderly couple sitting not to far away from you was sipping their cups of tea as they boared into your souls it seemed. You knew this day was coming, having such a great couple of days and getting a raise... It was bound to have a small dip so your life isn't like Barbie dolls.

"Name?" The chashier questioned, chewing her gum loud and obnoxiously.

"Y/n." You sighed, trying to maintain some level of composure with that annoying chewing.

You tossled back and forth on the pads of your feet, zoning out due to your tired state. You nearly tripped over your own feet when the cashier called your name, holding a tray filled with burning cups of caffeine. You turned around quickly at the vibration of your phone, alerting you that you boss was becoming impatient.

A dark haired man crashed into you, gasping out of concern immediately. All of the drinks spilled onto new and already drenched jacket, and the rest flew onto your face. You left your eyes closed as you held in the scream trying to crawl out of your lips.

"Shit, I am so sorry." He apologised, helping you to your feet.

"It's okay." You whimpered, voice trembling from the overwhelming emotions forming in your mind.

Before he could grab napkins to help you out, you were already walking back to your home. Tears strolling down your cheeks from a mix of frustration and exhaustion, you knew you needed the day even if it meant taking extra hours the next day.

You poured the bubbles into your bathtub as you called your boss to tell them you wouldn't be showing up today, they sounded passive aggressive as they agreed but demanded you to do extra hours tomorrow. Which included interviewing the kpop boy group Stray Kids.

That's when a lightbulb clicked in your head, the man you rushed into was Seo Changbin. You were a fan of Stray Kids and didn't even recognize your bias because you were so stressed out from work.

"Oh my God..." You sighed, sinking into the water with disappointment in yourself.

-The next day-

"Y/n! Can you help this group to to the proper floor? I'm really busy." Your favored and spoiled Co worker suggested, clearly just wanting to get some time off. You agreed nonetheless.

Eight God like men stood next to each other with innocent confusion in their eyes, they didn't complain like other celebrities or acted snappy either. This made it more frustrating when your co worker made her irresponsible actions your problem to solve, they didn't deserve that type of treatment.

"Hi, I'm y/n l/n I will be your interviewer tonight and I just wanted you all to know how hug of a pleasure it is to have you hear. I'm a huge fan." You revealed, adjusting your posture with a pure smile.

They followed you towards the correct location, couches and chairs set up for the interview. The staff were all busy fiddling around with the equipment to make sure everything was fully prepared, which left you to try and entertain the special guests all by yourself. But before you could speak one more word, your boss rushed towards you.

"I am so thankful for you y/n, I just got a call from Elle magazine asking me if I would be able to interview Rihanna in a few hours, so if you don't mind locking up the building for me. Thanks sweetie." She demanded, tossing you the keys as she waltzed away from you.

It was after supper and you've been working non stop since 6am, and now you had to stay in this hell hole for even longer. A staff member ushered most of Stray Kids to different spots of the set.

"Are you the person I ran into yesterday?" Changbin questioned, close behind you.

"Yeah, I'm sorry I ran out so quickly. This job just is a lot of stress and work." You apologized, confusion furrowed hsi brows as to why you were apologizing.

"Don't worry about it, I actually feel bad for how hard these guys seem to be on you. Do you need any help setting up or anything?" He suggested, a softness in his eyes that made your heart do back flips.

You shook your head, knowing your face was probably stuck in a slightly shocked expression. You were proven this when a small smirk was noticeable on his features as he walked past you to get ready for the interview.

The interview went smoothly, not a awkward moment between you and the band. This is due to being a fan and doing your research before agreeing on the interview, unlike other interviewers who have completely made it unwatchable for some viewers.

You nearly stumbled over your words many times but kept composure each time, the stumbling only ever attempted to happen when you looked at Changbin.

Sending you small winks whenever the camera zoomed in to an other member, and watching you soft eyes everytime you spoke. You could feel the heat on the top of your ears from his simple but effective actions.

Felix noticed Changbin's actions towards you and smirked to himself, he slightly warned him whenever the camera would be focusing on him or if he would be in view. Everyone knew how entertainments were like when it came to dating, and that's why it was exciting when an idol didn't seem to care and wanted to live their lives.

"So I have one last question for you guys." You reassured, reading the last card in your hand.

"What is something you want to tell your fans?" You asked, smiling since you considered yourself a fan.

Each member expressed their love and appreciation for their fans, some sending small hearts from their finger tips before the camera panned away from them. You appreciated how humble and easy going they were, especially after dealing with celebrities like the Paul brothers. The worst interview you've ever had would have to be with Justin Timberlake nonetheless.

You stopped listening to Timberlake after the interview and wanted to try a new genre, and that is how you got into kpop. The first band you became a fan of was Exo, but your ultimate group became the loveable dorks called Stray Kids. You saw yourself as just some regular interviewer that wasn't special in any way, and you never thought any celebrity would give any attention.

The most attention you've got in your career was a handshake you made with Itzy's Lia while interviewing them. That's why it surprised you how Changbin seemed interested in you, since there were so many other people who would give everything they had to be with him.

"Did it work?" Changbin questioned, a genuine smile across his features as you looked in his direction.

"Did what work?" You asked, giggling softly at his puppy like expression.

"Your day seemed tough so I wanted to make you laugh, that's why I was winking. I wanted to break the ice." Changbin explained, fiddling with the ends of his shirt.

His reasoning made your heart flutter much more than if he would've just done it to flirt, it seemed genuine and thoughtful rather than desperate and fuck boy like.

"That's actually really sweet. Thank you." You commented, trying not to show him how much it effected you.

He nodded as a welcome, secretly adoring the that crossed your features.

"I better get going. I have a lot of cleaning up to do." You sighed, beginning to step away from the boy of your dreams.

Changbin glanced towards his band before running after you, a prominent shade of red dipped on the tips of his ears and cheeks.

"If I promise not to spill it over you, do you think I could make you a coffee and help you?" He asked, voice meeker and less confident than it was a few minutes ago.

You agreed to his proposal, trying not to squeal. Your crush wanted to spend time with you, and this was the only time you ever wanted to thank your boss.

[wefoundloveunderthelight]

Mystery Of Pixie Hollow by GleefullyCaptainSwan - Sneak Peek

Chapter 3/11

Read on AO3: | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

Or on FF

Stacy's Tortured Crew: @teamhook @kmomof4 @stahlop @lfh1226-linda @ilovemesomekillianjones @itsfabianadocarmo @mariakov81 @qualitycoffeethings @zaharadessert @jrob64 @jonesfandomfanatic @natascha-ronin @tiganasummertree @xarandomdreamx @therooksshiningknight @batana54 @superchocovian @onceratheart18 @ultraluckycatnd @snowbellewells @karlyfr13s @the-darkdragonfly @xsajx @deckerstarblanche @jonesfandomfanatic @winterbaby89

Chapter 3: Story Time

“I asked who you are, and you have yet to give me a name.” He growled again in her ear.

“My name’s Emma Swan. I just want to talk to you about your daughter.”

“What do you know about my daughter?”

“I know she went missing just like my son, Henry.” She felt his entire body flinch. “Please, right jacket pocket, there’s a picture of him. I just want to talk.”

She felt him dig into her jacket, pulling the photo free and stepping away from her. He stared at the picture, a frown slipping on his stubbled face. “How old is he?”

“He’s six. He went missing on his birthday a few days ago.”

He was waving the knife around, tucking it under his chin as he talked to himself. “It’s the appropriate age range…makes sense…hmm...few days ago…where were they…went North…” He stopped moving and stared at her. “Storybrooke, not again...”

“I’m sorry?”

“They were in Storybrooke last weekend, correct? The carnival.”

“That’s right, how did you know that?”

“I track their movements, keep an eye on where they go, look up any missing person reports after they leave.” He stepped into the boat, gesturing for her to join him. Emma stood nervously on the pier as he disappeared into the belly of the boat. She looked around at the empty pier. If she went missing now, no one would have any idea where she was.

Shit.

He poked his head up through the stairwell. “Are you coming or not, lass?”

She sighed, stepping onto the boat, and following him cautiously down the stairs. When she got to the bottom she gasped. In every direction she could see there were photos on the wall with string connecting them. It was like an art project had exploded in the small area, except it wasn’t art, it was some low-tech stalking shit if she ever saw it.

She knew she should turn around and get the hell of this man’s boat, but curiosity was eating at her. What did he know? Why was he so obsessed with the people on the walls?

“This is where I started doing my research, Alice, she went missing five years ago. We found Pixie Hollow just walking through the neighborhood and Alice loves fairytales, so she just had to go.” His voice trailed off sadly, as if he didn’t even remember she was in the room and then suddenly he spun around on his heels. “This one went missing shortly after, it’s harder for me to get information on anyone that disappeared before Alice, I tried, but my research skills aren’t that great. I hate computers, Alice always did everything…” He trailed off as he turned around again.

“You can see that they all fit the age range, around 5 to 8 years old usually.”

“You’ve been collecting all of this information for 5 years?” She finally spoke.

“I’ve had to be resourceful; the cops are useless.”

“Tell me about it.” She said with a snort.

He turned around and stared at her. “Where did he go missing at?”

“I told you, Storybrooke.”

“No, what attraction?”

“It was a mirror maze, you know, filled with mirrors, can’t find your way out.”

“Mirrors…that’s a new one. Alice, she went missing from the Jolly Roger Adventure ride, she got in the cart, she was only in for a few minutes, but when it came out the other side, she was no longer there. Vanished.”

“I don’t remember that ride being there.”

“I’m sure they change them out to avoid suspicion, just like the name. When we went, it was called Neverland Adventure Park. I believe they go by Pixie Hollow now.”

“How do you know it’s the same park?”

“You have to follow the money, love.” He said with a smirk. “And this one.” He turned toward the board on his wall. “She’s always with them.”

“Who’s that?” She stepped closer to the photo of a woman with short hair, wild eyes.

“That’s Tink. If the park opens near you, she’s sure to be found nearby.”

“Wait, like Tinkerbell?” She laughed.

“The one and only.”

“This is ridiculous. Next you’re going to tell me Peter Pan owns the place, and all his lost boys operate the rides.”

“Well done. You’re quite perceptive love, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to need to tell you.”

Her mouth dropped. “You’re insane.”

“Ouch, you wound a man, I can assure you I have my wits about me.”

She turned to leave. “I just want to find my kid, I’m not here to play pretend with a man who believes in fairytales.” He reached out and grabbed her by the wrist.

“I can assure you love; this is no fairytale; this is the stuff nightmares are made of. Pan is dangerous, and if he has your boy, you best start believing in him.”

She shook her head and pulled her hand away from him, turning to leave before something caught her eye near the stairs. She stepped closer to the photo. “I know this idiot.”

She felt him hover behind her, his breath at her neck. “That’s Felix. Real jackass that one.”

“He’s the assistant manager at Pixie Hollow.” The idiot who told her that Henry must have run away. He was there. No. Emma closed her eyes. This was insane. “I have to leave.”

“This isn’t some fantasy I’ve made up, Swan. It’s all real.” He called after her, letting her run up the stairs and away from the boat. “It’s all real.” She heard him shout as her feet hit the pier and she hurried back to her car, slamming the door shut behind her.

She tried to slow her breathing, the thought that perhaps what she had witnessed was just an elaborate nightmare and soon she would wake up in her bed and Henry would come bounding into her room and everything would be alright but as she drove home that night, thoughts of what she witnessed in that boat, she knew that no matter how crazy he seemed, the man was just desperate to find his kid.

Henry had only been missing for a few days, Killian’s daughter had been gone for 5 years. She wasn’t sure how crazy she would look if she hadn’t found Henry after that long of a time.

She stopped at a station when she was halfway to home, she filled up the bug and bought some snacks to eat on her way. She was starving and realized that she had skipped eating since she left her home that morning. As she stepped into the light, leaving the gas station behind her, she recognized a black car that she swore she saw parked outside Ashley’s house.

The sunlight gleamed across the front window for a moment and Emma walked casually to her car, she opened her door and sat in the front seat. Glancing over at the black car she saw movement in the front seat. She pulled out of the gas station, turning onto the road as she watched the black car behind her do the same.

Whoever this asshole was, they were definitely following her.

Emma drove a few miles until she spotted a convenience store on her left, turning quickly she dashed into the parking lot and parked her car. The black car squealed to turn into the lot, parking a distance away from her. Emma watched it in her rearview mirror and then swung her car open, grabbing the tire iron next to her on the seat.

She marched toward the car, gripping the tire iron in her hand. As soon as she got close to the vehicle, the door opened, and Officer Nolan stepped out of the car with his hands in front of him. “Hello Emma.”

“Are you fucking following me?” She yelled as she lowered the tire iron.

The passenger door opened, and Officer Locksley stepped out, his hand firmly on his hip where she knew his gun sat.

“We weren’t following you…” He said and Emma rolled her eyes.

“Are you kidding me? I spotted you miles ago, are you really going to try and convince me that we all just really had a hankering for some snacks miles away from town?”

“Well, we weren’t following you earlier, we just…” Officer Locksley started before his partner interrupted.

“We were following Killian, so imagine our surprise when you showed up.”

“Jones? Why are you following him? He’s just some nut on a boat.”

“You need to let us do our job, stay away from Killian Jones.”

“Why, what aren’t you telling me?”

“Look, I can’t get into specifics with you. I get it, you’re desperate.” Officer Nolan began and Emma found herself wanting to toss the tire iron at him. He flinched and held up his hand. “I’m sorry your kid hasn’t come home, but this isn’t the way to find him. Jones isn’t all there.” He said pointing to his head. “His daughter’s been gone for a long time now; we’ve been keeping tabs on him.”

“Why? I’m pretty sure you’re outside your jurisdiction.” She said with a laugh. “Why are you so obsessed with the guy.”

“Alice went missing in Storybrooke five years ago. He moved out here after a while, but we’ve always kept tabs on him. He was in and out of shelters with that little girl. Working as a fisherman with men he never should have trusted around his daughter. He’s dangerous, stay away from him.”

“Wow, judgmental much? So, if you’ve ever had the unfortunate experience of not being able to provide for yourself, of needing to ask for help somehow that makes you a bad person? Is that why you don’t believe someone took my son either? You looked me up and don’t like my backstory either?”

“Look Ma’am, we don’t want to see you get murdered too.” Officer Locksley added.

“Murdered?” She exclaimed

“Why do you always do that?” Officer Nolan yelled at his partner before turning back to her. “Look, just stay away from the man, let us do our job.”

Emma laughed and turned away from them. “Try doing your job first, maybe then you can give me advice.”

Emma took the backstreets home, satisfied when she didn’t see the black car following her anymore. How dare they judge someone because they had to live in a shelter. Emma had spent a few years in one herself before she was able to provide for her and Henry. Things weren’t always easy for them after Neal left them high and dry with no income and no clothes on their backs. Emma did what she had to do to survive. She hated to think that because of that, she was viewed as a bad mother.

She would do anything for Henry.

Emma tossed her keys on the table, shutting the door behind her and locking the latch. She went to the fridge and grabbed a beer, popping the top and dropping down on her couch. She reached over and pulled the laptop toward her, clicking the button as it blinked to life.

Pulling up Google, she typed, “Killian Jones Storybrooke.”

The search was quick and efficient, the first story came with an older photo of the man she met today. He was younger, probably in his early 20’s. The photo was of him being taken into custody, and another of his mug shot, steely blue eyes staring into the lens with a look of anger. The article was from 15 years ago.

“Killian Jones arrested for manslaughter.” The title caused her eyes to grow, she clicked the link, digging into the details. It appeared the man worked for a criminal mastermind, Mr. Gold, who operated outside the lines of Storybrooke. Killian appeared to be the muscle, hustling people for money that was owed to his boss. The story told of a love affair with the bosses’ wife, Milah. Apparently love was enough to set him straight and he turned on Gold.

From what she could gather from the court case notes, Killian had interrupted a fight between Mr. Gold and his wife, a fight so brutal that it left the woman paralyzed and unable to walk. The ensuing fight ended with Mr. Gold’s death and Killian’s incarceration for manslaughter, with time served and good behavior, Killian served five years.

Emma searched again, “Killian and Milah Jones.” A grainy photo of a wedding was all she could find, the man smiling as he stood behind the woman in the wheelchair. She bit her lip, clicking onto the next article. “Woman dies in car crash leaving behind husband and infant daughter.”

Emma made an audible noise as she clicked the article, reading the story about how a drunk driver had crashed into the couple who were returning home from a quiet dinner. Milah Jones died at the scene leaving Killian alone with his infant daughter, Alice.

Emma wiped the tears from her eyes, clicking on the search bar. “Killian Jones missing daughter”

The photo of the carnival caused her heart to stop. She recognized the lettering on the sign in the background. It said “Neverland”, but she remembered the way the letters of “Pixie Hollow” lit up the night she had arrived at the carnival. Reading the article, she found that the story matched the one that Killian had told her earlier that evening. His daughter had gone into the ride and never came out.

Whatever Killian had become in his life, a liar wasn’t one of them.

Emma didn’t know what it was about the man on the screen in front of her, blue eyes staring back at her as if he had a sad story to tell, but more than anything, she saw understanding behind his eyes. He understood what she was going through more than anyone else.

She reached for her phone sending off a text to Will.

Emma: You were right, it was a wild goose chase going after these parents, no one wanted to talk to me. I just need a few days to get right in my head. I’ll text you soon. Love you.

Before she could stop herself, she was in her car, driving down the highway on her way back to Boston. She glanced in the rearview mirror making sure there wasn’t a black car behind her, the officers who had found nothing about her son in the time they had been looking.

When she pulled up to the dock, she looked at herself in the mirror. “This is crazy.” She said with a laugh.

Crazy was all she had, she thought.

Getting out of her car, she made her way toward the boat parked at the end of the slip. She creeped onboard, unsure of the etiquette for alerting the resident of a houseboat to her presence. “Hello?” She called out nervously, hoping he wasn’t brandishing his knife at this hour. “Killian? It’s me, Emma Swan. We met earlier today.”

There was a creak below her, and she froze. “Hello?”

“It’s bad form to sneak into a man’s home in the middle of the night.” She heard the voice below her; his boots tapped against the boards as he ascended the stairs, moonlight dancing against his dark hair as he reached the deck.

“I’m sorry. I uh…I needed to talk to you. To warn you.”

“Warn me? What do you have to warn me about, love?”

“When I left here, I was followed by the cops.”

“Of course, you were. I’m honestly surprised it took Mills this long to send those two out for a visit. Pity they involved you, my apologizes, Swan.”

“Wait, you knew you were being followed?”

“David and Robin have been keeping an eye on me ever since I left Storybrooke. They are determined that one day they will catch me slicing young children to pieces and put me away forever.” He narrowed his eyes. “Is that what you believe, love?”

“I think you just miss your daughter.” She said softly.

“You mean the boys didn’t tell you all about my sordid past?”

“No. Well, I mean yes, but I don’t care. I read all about it, Mr. Gold, Milah, Alice, if you wanted to hurt me you would have done it earlier when you held a knife to my throat. The way I see it, everyone has a past, that doesn’t mean we don’t miss our kids.”

He stepped toward her. “You’re not afraid of me, Lass?”

She shivered as his lips practically danced off her neck. “N..no.” He stepped back and stared at her as if he were examining every inch of her.

“Then you believe my little, how did you put it earlier…fairytale?”

“I don’t know what I believe, but I know my son didn’t run away.”

“Very well, then it’s story time.”

~*~

“Daddy I want to ride the Jolly Roger!”

“Ok starfish, but first daddy needs to get you that churro you wanted.”

“But I want to ride the ride, there’s isn’t any line.”

“But you can’t take food with you on the ride, Alice.”

“I can go on it by myself while you hold my churro, daddy. I’m a big girl.”

“Are you now, love?”

The little girl smiled brightly, and Killian knew he could never tell her no. He paid for the churro and the man handed it toward him as they walked toward the Jolly Roger Adventure ride. They approached the attendant and he handed over the tickets.

“Is she alright to ride alone?”

The man laughed, “Ah yeah, it’s not scary, in one door and out the other.”

He nodded to the man, looking around at the quiet ride, there wasn’t a single child in line. “Alright, starfish, get in your ship and enjoy the ride.” The little girl wrapped her arms around his waist and smiled up at him.

“Love you daddy.”

“I love you too, my darling.”

She ran toward the ride, looking back one last time. “Don’t eat my churro.”

Killian’s eyes darted around the room, watching as the woman examined the photos he had amassed in the belly of his boat. He didn’t know if the woman believed everything he had told her about his dealings with Peter Pan and his traveling carnival, but he knew that she was desperate to find her son and if he knew anything it was that desperate people would believe almost anything.

If Pan had this woman’s son, he would need her to believe him. It was the only way he was ever going to get Alice back. He’d been doing this alone for five years, maybe it was time to try something else.

~*~

“What are you going to do when you get out of here?” Alice asked Henry as they sat in the dark.

“I’m going to eat the biggest piece of birthday cake I’ve ever eaten. I might even eat an entire cake.” The girl laughed. In the few days she had known Henry, he had always been at her side. He was scared and missed his mother, but more than anything else, he seemed to feel comfortable in her presence.

Alice had been here longer than most of the other children, she had remembered that terrifying feeling of being alone, knowing that you were trapped and couldn’t get home. She missed her father more than anything in this world but growing up she had learned a lot from her father about accepting your circumstances, learning to adapt to your environment.

She had done just that, adapted. She didn’t cause trouble, she made friends with all the children, and she knew when to speak and when not to. She felt it was her job to take the children under her wing, to keep them out of harms way.

“What are you going to do when you get out of here?” The boy asked.

“I’m going to sit down with my dad and eat a churro.” She laughed, smiling fondly at the last memory she had of her father standing at the entrance of that stupid ride, holding a teddy bear in one arm and a churro in the other. The smile on his face as he watched her disappear into the black void was the last thing she remembered every night when she went to sleep.

One day, I’ll find you daddy, she thought.

One day, I promise.

[moonbeambucky]

Hey Neighbor (Part 2)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader Word Count: 3997 Warnings: mentions of cheating, mentions of death/loss

Summary: You had a plan and then life came along with one of its own. With your future almost derailed you worked hard to get yourself back on track and finally everything seemed to be going right… that is, until your new neighbor moved in.

A/N: A huge thank you to my wonderful beta Sam @buckyofthemyscira​​​ Feedback is always appreciated!

PART 1 | HEY NEIGHBOR MASTERLIST

A soft knock at pulls you away from the computer. Twisting your stiff head towards the door you smile, seeing Steve Rogers standing with a tray of coffee and a paper bag in hand marked with the logo of your favorite nearby restaurant.

“You’re a lifesaver!” you chuckled, though you meant every word as you invited Steve to sit at your desk for lunch.

Steve worked security for Stark Industries and you developed a close friendship in the years since you’ve been there. Though he was undeniably good looking, with the build of a Greek God and long lashes you were incredibly jealous of, you never saw Steve as anything other than the brother you never had.

At the time you met he was dating a girl from the building, Lillian Nguyen from accounting. You hadn’t seen much of her in person, just through the photos Steve showed you with adoration on his phone. When he began talking about looking for engagement rings you were thrilled but that excitement was replaced with anger and confusion when Steve found out Lillian was cheating on him.

He was extremely hurt and became guarded afterwards, not wanting to put himself out there again. His lack of socializing worked with your lack of a social life and on the rare occasion you had a moment free from school work Steve would often come over and hang out to binge watch shows you needed to catch up to on Netflix while you ate pizza.

The paper bag rustled as he pulled out a large sandwich, cup of soup and a salad, distributing napkins across the desk as he knows how much of a messy eater you can be. You grabbed the sandwich, tearing open the paper wrapping and sinking your teeth into it with a bite full of food too large for your mouth.

Steve laughed, as he stirred the broth of his soup. He’s witnessed you eating before, unapologetically shoveling food into your face especially when you were starving.

“You know the sandwich isn’t goin’ anywhere, right?” he joked.

Chewing a large mouthful, you grabbed a napkin to wipe the corner of your lips that you felt had a piece of food sticking to it.

“Steve,” you paused to take a sip of coffee, “I’m fucking starving. I ran out this morning and all I had here was a package of almonds that are not filling despite what you say.”

He asked the reason for your tardiness and you explained how you stayed at the cafe until closing to finish up your work, all because of your stupid neighbor.

“Have you tried talkin’ to him?”

You stared at Steve incredulously. “Haven’t gotten a chance. I gotta wait for the right moment. There’s no way I’m knocking on his door, not when he’s banging all of New York, who knows what I’d end up seeing.”

“D’ya want me to do it?”

It was in Steve’s nature to help and though you appreciated his offer you wanted to handle this yourself. You were the one that had to live next to the Music Man, it would be better to confront him alone.

“I understand,” he said, taking a swig from his water bottle. “You down to hang tonight?”

“Wish I could but before my time is sucked away by the next paper I really need to research where I could do my internship. I’m all registered for school but I need to submit the paperwork for where I’ll be doing my hours and I’m running out of time.”

“You should talk to my buddy Sam. Maybe he could get you in at the hospital.”

Sam was Steve’s friend from the gym. They’d work out together, turning everything into a friendly competition to see who could run faster or lift more. Sam was also a doctor in the emergency department of Metro-General so he might have connections. It was worth a shot so you asked Steve to text him. Still you planned on searching for more backups to be safe.

Before the hour was over Steve left to head back downstairs to the security desk and you continued your work for Ms. Hill. You had evolved to working closer with Ms. Hill, becoming more like an executive assistant to her and when necessary Ms. Potts.

In between coordinating a meeting your phone goes off with a text from Wanda, asking if she could see you over the weekend for brunch. Ironically, she ended up moving to the city after all. There was only so far she could go with her degree at home and with her mother’s blessing she came to New York to work for The Jewish Museum.

She lived in a trendy loft on Bleecker Street, decorated with her signature eclectic style. Woven rugs hung like tapestries on the wall, plants hanging down from macramé holders in front of the large windows. Her furniture was an odd mix of plush velvet tufted cushions and smooth leather arm chairs that somehow worked with the mid-century touches and industrial shelving.

Her apartment had more space which you envied, although you loved everything else about where you lived. The neighborhood was amazing, with great shops and a lot of different food options right at your doorstep. Everything was perfect, except your neighbor.

Responding to Wanda you let her know you could most likely make it depending on the workload you’d be getting from your Saturday class. You could not wait until that was over. Spending all day in a small, windowless room instead of enjoying the summer weekend made you miserable but you were close to the end, so, so close.

When the work day was over you went to meet Steve downstairs, walking over to the desk to say goodnight to the elderly security guard who’s been with the company since its inception.

“Any plans for the weekend Mr. Lee?”

The wiry white hairs that made up his mustache moved as he grinned. “Well, Joanie thinks my hair’s getting a bit long,” he smiled, running his fingers through his greyish-white strands. “She’ll have it trimmed before supper, I'm sure,” he laughed.

A smile graced your face whenever you listened to Mr. Lee, admiring the adoration he had for his wife. Steve has heard all of his stories more than once but he never tires of them either. Everyone loved Mr. Lee, especially Tony Stark, who continued to pay him a full time salary for the part time hours he worked.

The job was easy enough as he greeted visitors to Stark Industries, and signing them in to the building while Steve and some other employees did most of the security checks.

You and Steve bid Mr. Lee goodbye as you made your way to the subway. Steve didn’t live far from you and though he could have gotten off at a further stop he always walked with you to your building, partially to make sure you got home safely but also because he needed a distraction to get out of his head.

There were many times when you suggested he go out, not with the purpose of meeting someone but just to break up the monotony of his routine, but Steve lost his confidence after the breakup. For now, he didn’t want to be told what to do, he simply needed a friend and so you were there for him.

Wanda sat back against the chair beside the bistro table covered in shade. Her always changing hair color was light brown today, parting the silky strands perfectly down the middle. She was the definition of cool, despite the heat, wearing a loose scoop-necked tank top, slim ripped jeans and topped things off with a pair of motorcycle boots. Her neck was adorned with a few necklaces of varying lengths, one of which she never took off, a silver lightning bolt in honor of her late brother.

She and Pietro were twins with distinctly different personalities. Wanda was laid back, even as a child. She would actually stop to smell the roses that lined the garden of their backyard, whereas Pietro was always moving. He was an extraordinary multitasker that could not sit still.

Pietro had so many dreams, a full list of things he wanted to do in life but he was taken from the world too soon. Wanda wears the necklace as a reminder to live life to the fullest, knowing how quickly things can change.

Squeezing through the other tables to get to Wanda, you huff as you sit down and catch your breath, apologizing for being late.

“Wanda, I swear I’m going to kill him.”

“Who?”

“The fucking Music Man! I had to leave my own damn apartment again because of his stupid playing. Like, dude, could you not? You live in an apartment. Everyone hears you, everyone!”

Grabbing the glass of ice water you quickly drink most of it to soothe the dehydration of your mouth.

“And another thing, like does he not realize that we can all hear the girls he’s banging? Wanda, they’re so fucking loud. If they were still there right now I bet you could hear them from here.”

Wanda laughed at your accusation. “Oh, so they don’t stay the night? He’s a ‘wham, bam, thank you ma’am’ kinda guy?”

“I guess! I hear them leave, whining at his door as they’re begging to stay over. It’s so pathetic. What’s so great about this guy anyway?” you scoffed. “I wish he never moved here!”  

With a final humph you opened the menu, your anger dissipating as you read the descriptions for everything you wanted, mouth salivating as you tried to decide what to choose. Wanda opted for the frittata while you decided to take out your frustrations on yourself with delicious Challah French Toast.

Wanda’s eyes widened as she watched you drown your meal in syrup. You hummed in satisfaction as you took a bite.

“Hmm, it’s not as good as the kind your mom makes,” you said.

Wanda laughed, “Uh, yeah, because she never used a whole bottle of syrup. Geez Y/N can you taste anything other than sugar?”

“Shush Wan, let me enjoy myself here.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head at you. “Well, anyway, I wanted to tell you something exciting...” she sang, grinning widely. “Director Coulson asked me to curate an exhibit on prejudice told through Romani-Jewish art!”

“Wanda this is perfect! I’m so happy for you!” you beamed, getting up from your chair to wrap your arms around her in a proud hug.

“I know! I’m so excited. Mom’s gonna come up for the opening. I mean that’s a long time from now but fuck, I can’t wait!”

After finishing brunch you went back home to begin working on your final. It was a research paper that was worth half of your grade so you really needed to concentrate. And yet the moment the elevator doors opened to your floor you heard it, the sound of music flooding the halls coming from none other than the apartment next to yours.

Jamming your keys into the door with frustration you grunted, grabbing all the things you needed to do your work at the cafe. Your foot tapped impatiently as you waited for the elevator again. With your arms crossed over your chest you could feel your blood boiling beneath your skin, beating to the stupid rhythm of the stupid song that your stupid, inconsiderate neighbor wouldn’t stop playing.

The elevator dinged before the doors opened and you were like a bull, grunting and blowing puffs of air from your flaring nostrils as you were ready to charge into it. As the doors opened you stopped yourself from barreling into your neighbors that were inside.

“Whoa, Y/N!” Clint said, raising his hands up defensively, “Easy there.”

Clint lived on the floor above you along with his fiancée Natasha, whose arms were looped through his.

“Sorry guys,” you apologized. “Oh, wait.” Making your right hand into a fist you ran it across your chest in a few circular motions.

“Someone’s been practicing,” Natasha chimed in, signing her words along as she spoke to you.

Clint was partially deaf and though he used hearing aids he often signed, especially when he didn’t feel like talking to people, although you were one of the lucky ones he considered a friend. Still, you wanted to be able to communicate with him, even if he didn’t want to actually speak.

Clint was a history teacher who already tried to get you into his school for your internship but doubted you would be brought on board. There were apparently a lot of issues going on with the principal and Natasha surmised there was a big lawsuit in the works.

Natasha was an attorney, hoping to make partner at her current firm Nelson & Murdock. Clint never failed to praise her, nicknaming Natasha the Black Widow as he claimed watching her dismantle a witness was like watching a spider sink its venomous fangs into its prey.

“Where’re you guys off to?” you asked.

“Just going out for some ice cream,” she replied.

Clint laughed. “Some ice cream? No, I’m going out to eat a lot of ice cream,” he chuckled, rubbing his eager stomach.

Natasha poked the small protrusion of his belly through his shirt. “Listen buddy, we’ve got a wedding to plan. Easy on the ice cream.” Natasha brought her full lips to his for a kiss they both smiled through, knowing she was teasing him.

“What about you Y/N?” Clint asked.

The elevator doors opened and you walked out with them, explaining how frustrating it’s been that you’ve had to leave for the cafe to do your work all because of the new neighbor.

“Oh the Guitar Hero?” Clint joked. “Yeah, we can hear him too. Well, actually…” he drifted off smirking.

“Clint takes his hearing aids out so no, he doesn’t hear him,” Natasha filled in the information that had you bursting out with laughter.

“Can you hear the women too?” you wondered, considering their apartment was right above his.

“Yeah, kind of, that’s more muffled though. It’s probably a lot worse for you.” Natasha grimaced, catching the way she didn’t mean the words to come out.

It was true though, sharing a wall with the man that made your string lights bounce with every thrust. The sound was bad enough and thankfully your headphones helped with that but every night you had to shut your eyes, hoping you would fall asleep before he was through with them.

You had to give it to the guy though, the man had stamina. Still, you wanted to kill him. At least you were friends with a lawyer...

The next few days have the same result, with you coming home dead tired from work, hoping you’d be able to stay home to work on your final to no avail. You tried using the headphones in your apartment but it didn’t help. The sound was mostly blocked out but your mind couldn’t focus on anything but the anger you held towards the neighbor, knowing he was playing that same song over and over again.

You might as well live in the cafe since you’ve practically paid them your rent in coffee and pastries over the last month. You were burning out quickly and Steve decided you needed a break, bringing over pizza and beer.

Opening up the box, you smiled, staring at the bubbling cheese.

“Ahh, pizza, my one true love,” you said, plating slices for you and Steve.

Your small table was always covered in textbooks, mail and other paperwork you needed to tend to, so you and Steve took your usual spots on the couch.

After working at Stark Industries for a few months you made enough money that allowed you to finally buy much needed furniture. You adored your light grey couch, adorned with blush colored throw pillows. You threw the fuzzy white blanket over the side of the couch, not serving much purpose during the summer months other than to look like it was naturally left on the cushion in a perfectly styled manner for display.

Pushing aside the candlesticks that sat on your coffee table, you set down actual coasters for the bottles Steve opened, not wanting to ruin the veneer of the grey wood top of your rustic coffee table. A small accent rug helped define the space you declared as the living room, despite having your bed within arm’s reach beside you.

Against the brick wall is your TV, sitting atop a modern white stand with shelves for storage you’ve packed to the brim. Beside it, a large antique floor mirror leans against the brick. It was as tall as Steve who helped bring it to your apartment after you found it at a flea market. However, the thing you cherished most was the artwork of the Brooklyn Bridge that hung above your couch, painted by Steve as a gift to you.

“So,” he said, chewing quickly to swallow the food in his mouth. “I talked to Sam. He said it would be cool for you to call him about the internship.”

“Oh yeah. You really think he could help or is this just a rouse to give him my number?” you half-joked.

Steve laughed deeply, wiping away a bit of oil the pizza leaked onto his chin. “Nah, it’s definitely about the internship but I wouldn’t put it past Sam if he tried to take you out. Lord knows he’s been on my case about it with you since I met ‘im.”

“Does he not think guys and girls can have a friendship without romance involved?”

“I can’t speak for him… probably not though.”

You laughed before getting up for another slice. You hoped Sam would be able to help with the internship, no strings attached. He didn’t seem like that type of guy anyway, and all of Steve’s friends were good people so you weren’t worried.

As the Music Man began his one man band you had to gradually increase the volume of your television; your anger rising with every click of the remote. It was no longer enjoyable to watch the action movie you and Steve put on, having to raise the volume for higher to hear the dialogue and scramble to lower the blasting noise of car screeching and explosions. When you couldn’t take it anymore you called it a night.

“Guess you haven’t spoken to him?” Steve asked the question he clearly knew the answer to.

“Soon,” you said hopefully, not knowing when the day might come.

As the sun began to rise on the early Saturday morning you were getting ready for class. With your closet open you debated on what to wear when you heard a voice from the other side of the wall.

“Hi ma… Things are good… and Dad…”

He must have been walking around the apartment as you heard most of the words.

“I know…Leaving now…”

You heard the undoing of his locks and the front door creaking open. Shit! Your first moment to speak to the Music Man alone and you’re standing in your underwear. There’s definitely no way you would approach him now. Instead you raced to the door to try and catch a glimpse of what he looked like but it was too late.

Huffing in frustration you continued to get dressed and within fifteen minutes you were ready to leave. The elevator dinged as you shut your door, inserting your key to turn the deadbolt, unaware of the form that was moving closer towards you, not until you heard the whistling of a familiar tune.

Your heart pounded furiously in your chest, as if that tune was part of a psychological experiment, like Pavlov’s dog but instead of salivating you wanted to punch something.

“Hey neighbor.”

The soft voice of the Music Man broke you from your vision of punching through your shared wall and destroying his instruments. With a calming inhale you turned around to face him.

“I’m Bucky.”

You didn’t respond, you couldn’t. The breath was stolen from your lungs as you stared directly into the kindest, bluest eyes you had ever seen. All the anger left your body, replaced by the softness of his pink lips that reminded you of flowers in full bloom.

He was tall and lean, but your eyes did not miss the bulge of his biceps that showed through his cotton t-shirt. In his hand was a coffee cup, gripped under his long fingers. His hair was dark and pulled back into a low sloppy bun, with a loose piece falling beside his smile.

His hand was extended towards you and you weren’t sure how long it had been. It felt like you were staring at him for hours, or was it only seconds. Did time really stop moving the moment you finally saw him? You broke yourself out of your trance to shake his hand and introduce yourself.

“It’s nice to meet you Y/N. I just moved in. Well not just, but not long ago,” Bucky said.

Yeah I know. I hear you every night. You remembered your frustration and tried to assemble the sentence in your head of how to confront him.

“You ever get coffee from the place on the corner?” he asked, gesturing to the cup in his hand. “The line was crazy long but worth it, it’s delicious.”

“Yeah, once or twice but I’m usually at the Grind House. They’re open late and that’s where I have to go to study because… uh…” you stammered for a moment, “...your guitar playing is too distracting.”

You chewed on your bottom lip, wondering why you felt uncomfortable when he was the one who was being a bad neighbor.

Bucky’s face dropped with guilt. “I’m so sorry, I had no idea.”

“It’s alright,” you lied, not knowing why you said that. Pulling more confidence out of midair you continued, “It’s just that the walls are so thin and I’m in school, well I work full time too, but I’ve just got a lot on my plate and honestly I’m not sure how much longer I can afford the coffee shop every night.”

You chuckled to lighten up the conversation, continuing to ramble before giving him a chance to speak. “So, um, if you wouldn’t mind, maybe you could practice during the day instead or weekends are mostly fine. I’m actually heading to class now so I’ll be gone all day.” Great, give him your whole schedule why don’t you.

With nerves getting the better of you, you turned on your heel quickly saying it was nice to meet him. Briskly making your way towards the elevator you pressed the button furiously in hopes it would get to your floor faster.

Once inside you let out a big sigh and waved your hand in front of your slightly sweaty, heated face. Bucky seemed like he genuinely wasn’t aware of the noise he was making, and the way you passive aggressively called him out on it made you feel like shit.

But what was worse was knowing there was a face, a drop dead gorgeous face that is responsible for making the women of New York scream in ecstasy every night. It was going to be very difficult to concentrate in class today.

Getting home later that afternoon you were anxious to make something to eat, but more anxious about Bucky, hoping you wouldn’t run into him again. As you opened your door your foot slid on something and as you looked down you saw a small envelope with your name written on it.

Inside was a $50 gift card to The Grind House with a little note. I’m truly sorry about the noise. –Bucky

Your mouth opened in shock at the realization that Bucky did this nice gesture for you, and worse, you were going to have to thank him.

PART 3

[idrellegames]

In a modern au what would the componions do

Im the perso who sent that unfinished ask, i hit sent accidentally :( i wanted to ask in a modern au what kind of jobs the companions would work at? I can see felix being a chemist or an engineer 

Oh no worries! 

Hmm... I’m not sure? I always struggle with Modern AUs since setting defines so much of my characters’ characterization and they’re not really the same person if you remove them from the world they inhabit, if that makes sense? (I’m sorry if this sounds like I’m being a grumpy stickler, I’m just not a huge fan of modern AUs!). 

But if they did live in a modern world, it’d probably go something like this:

Alexia - History graduate student who ends up on a reality TV fashion competition show. I don’t think she’d win, but she’d get to like third or second place.

Ren - Professional parkour athlete. Probably works with a group of friends who have a YouTube channel; he’s clearly the most talented of the bunch but he has 0 screen presence so he’s just hanging out in the back and does an incredible move, unprompted, that’s only half in frame

Calla - Inherited millions from her shitty family and is slowly donating it away to different charitable funds. Her instagram has 10 million followers and she only has 3 posts, all of which involve showing off her muscles and practicing martial arts. 

Mel - An artistic director for a mid-range theatre company that produces experimental new work. He’s highly respected in his field, but also puts the fear of god into other theatre companies because he knows exactly which ones are breaking union laws and he will inform IATSE/CAEA when he knows someone is pulling bullshit with their employees. (And apparently he lives in Canada because those are the Canadian theatre unions)

Aeran - Has an upper position that pays the bills and a little extra on top, but is trapped in the retail cycle and can’t get out. Hates his job. Lives for his hobbies. 

Nelani - In local politics. Probably a personal assistant to her party’s leader. It’s probably the Green party. (Apparently she is also in Canada). 

Felix - Just wanted to do research but the university thing didn’t pan out because he hates teaching and now he’s a chemical researcher for a large oil company or Big Pharma and hating every moment of it. 

Bonus Masters:

Cenric - Tired professor who fervently believes post-secondary education should be free and is getting increasingly annoyed at rising tuition costs. Gives 0 fucks, will retire within the year by doing a public demonstration at noon in the middle of campus, and then disappears to the countryside and deletes all his social media. 

Varyn - Highly sought-after defense lawyer. Established and runs her own firm. Strong Miranda Priestly vibes the older she gets.  

Sero - Cirque du Soleil performer who has been with the company off-and-on since the beginning. 

[sage-nebula]

My problem with the “let the adults handle things" is that the protagonist and Hop are just okay with that and actually listen? kids aren't like that?? In every other story with children and main characters they get told stuff like that but still don't listen anyways and actually works and save the day. But the real reason is that it was probably the original plan but the game got rushed and had to scrap it and cut corners

This might come as a shock, but kids are people, and therefore aren’t a monolith. “Kids don’t listen and wouldn’t be okay with that” isn’t a statement that can be made with 100% accuracy because just like all adults are different, all kids are different. Some kids will stomp their feet and throw tantrums when they’re told no. Others will accept it. It depends on the individual child, as well as the circumstances involved.

As for these specific children and circumstances:

The primary time that Leon and Sonia say “let the adults handle this,” Hop wasn’t actually present. He shows up after the cutscene has already unfolded. Even if he had been, Hop hero worships Leon. He wants to surpass Leon because surpassing him means being just like him. He’s crushed after battling Bede not because he lost, but rather because Bede tells him that he’s making Leon look bad. Hop apologizes to Leon the next time he sees him. What all this means is that if Leon tells Hop to do something, Hop is 99.9% likely to do it. If Leon says, “Stay back and let me handle this,” Hop will. This is evidenced by how, even though Hop runs past Raihan and others to get to Leon in the climax of the story, he at first hangs back and lets Leon handle Eternatus, confidently telling the player that Leon can do it. It’s only when Leon fails and is injured that Hop steps up to battle Eternatus alongside the player, Zacian, and Zamazenta. So yes, it makes perfect sense that Hop would listen to Leon because Hop hangs on Leon’s every word and has since he was very small. He trusts and believes in his brother implicitly and, even after deciding to cheer for the player in the Championship match, later confides that he didn’t really think the player was capable of defeating Leon.

As for the player, they have no personality outside of what you give them. For me, I’ve been playing Pokémon games since 1998. I’m absolutely beyond tired of having to save everyone’s asses because the PokéWorld can’t go two years without facing another crisis. I don’t want to be the hero anymore. I don’t want to be the Champion anymore. I was exhausted at having to be the Champion in Alola. This isn’t a job that appeals to me, it’s not one that I want. So if Leon and Sonia say, “Go continue your adventure, we’ll handle this,” my response is, “Thank fucking god” because that means I can fuck back off into the wilderness and continue exploring. I don’t want it to be my job to clean up whatever bullshit mess Chairman Rose or any other villain has caused. I am here to explore lands I’ve never seen before, to catch and train and play with monsters, and battle alongside them in battles I choose to participate in, too. That’s all I want to do. Any other bullshit is just a giant pain in the ass that pulls me away from what I’d rather be doing. And since I feel that way, the player character in my games feels that way, too. After all, when I play, the player character isn’t actually a kid. She’s actually an adult in the body of a kid. But she’ll pretend to be a kid if it means someone else picks up the slack and saves the world for once (even if she ends up having to do it anyway, sigh). She deserves a damn break.

All of that said:

In every other story with children and main characters they get told stuff like that but still don't listen anyways and actually works and save the day.

That’s exactly why it’s refreshing that this wasn’t the case in Sword & Shield. I mean, yeah, the player had to intervene anyway because that’s just how video games work, but it was nice that for once in this series’ history the adults actually tried to do something. The only other time this has happened was in Black & White, wherein the Gym Leaders and Alder stepped up to make a stand against Team Plasma. Otherwise, the adults are 100% useless in every single game, even the ones where the villain is threatening genocide, and as an adult myself, I really hate that. Sure, kids need stories where people their age are being heroes, absolutely. But when adults don’t even try, and instead happily leave everything on the shoulders of a child, I get aggravated. It shouldn’t be up to actual children to save the world, and it was so refreshing to see a Pokémon game where that was recognized, and where the Champion himself was seriously injured trying to make sure that didn’t happen.

Lastly:

But the real reason is that it was probably the original plan but the game got rushed and had to scrap it and cut corners

Yes, Sword & Shield had a limited development time that led to some things getting cut (such as the National Dex, tragedy though that is), just as every game since Gen VI has. However, I can confidently say that this is not one of them because of the characters involved.

Sonia has, in my opinion, one of the richest characterizations and most realistic stories out of almost any other Pokémon characters from the games. At the start of the game, she’s in her twenties and has no idea what she’s doing with her life. She’s retired from battling after dropping out of the Gym Challenge in her youth, but she dropped out of the Gym Challenge because she lacked the confidence to face the obstacles it presented, not because she wanted to do something else. The fact is, Sonia doesn’t really know what she wants to do. We know that she went to school at one point (her fake assistant in the post-game mentions that Sonia does have a doctorate), but she doesn’t have any actual research she’s working on. Instead, she’s a self-appointed assistant for her grandmother, even if what she does is mostly just meander around the lab . . . reading or organizing materials, I guess.

But after her grandmother gives her a kick in the pants and tells her to go find something she wants to do, she manages to do just that. She finds something that ignites her curiosity and her passion, something that makes a difference in her life at the very least, and possibly the lives of everyone in Galar. She finds her confidence, her drive, and her purpose. At the end of the game she’s the new regional professor, more sure of herself and her place in the world. And as someone who only just very recently left my 20s, I can say that Sonia’s story in this regard is very, very Millennial. Most twenty-somethings have no idea what they’re doing with their lives. And while they probably won’t figure it out as quickly as Sonia did (I’m still working on it myself), her struggles are very relatable and real. It’s clear that a lot of thought went into her character and her writing. Game Freak gave her a lot of love.

With all of that said though, Sonia being hyper-aware that she is an adult while Hop and the protagonist are kids is something that is present from the very beginning. She brings it up when you first reach the wild area, for instance. She makes it known that she has more experience and that she is therefore watching out for you and for Hop (particularly since Leon frets over Hop, as Sonia also points out). Sonia telling the protagonist to just keep enjoying the Gym Challenge while she looks into things is 100% in character for her. It’s characterization present from the start.

And the same goes for Leon. Leon, who became Champion at age 10, and therefore has had to shoulder the burden of being Galar’s Champion for over a decade, knows exactly what it is to have too much responsibility at too young an age. Sonia notes that Leon “practically raised [Hop]” (which is odd given they have a mom and at least one grandparent, but nonetheless), and also that he worries about him constantly. I believe Raihan says something along the same lines. And we see this from Leon as well, with him questioning you about what was going on with Hop when he runs into you in Hammerlocke after Hop’s battle against Bede, and then talking about how he’s going to seek Hop out to talk to him again. Leon doesn’t want Hop to so much as feel bad, much less be in actual danger, even setting aside the fact that Leon feels greatly responsible for the safety and happiness of everyone in the Galar region and therefore feels that it is his responsibility as Champion to face any threat to any of that head on. (Which, it is his responsibility as Champion to face threats to the region, but Leon takes it too far in that he feels he’s responsible for everyone’s happiness as well, which in turn contributes to how unhappy he actually is being Champion). So considering the fact that Leon is very protective of Hop and feels strongly that it is his duty as Champion to deal with any burden Galar faces, it is 100% in character for him to wave you off with a smile as well. That’s not a “we cut this corner because of time,” this is a, “We understand the character we’ve created and we’re staying true to him.”

So, to summarize: I disagree with everything you said. Goodnight. 

[slightlyaggressiveaffirmations]

I feel like some people I know (including my supervisor and occasionally professors) don't understand that I sometimes take longer than other people to complete tasks or learn things (probably due to several of my disabilities). Do you have any advice for explaining this to other people but not making it seem like an excuse? My accommodation of extra time on assignments in school doesn't allow me very much extra time. Can I also request some affirmations about it's OK to learn at my own pace?

Hi Anon!

I have similar problems to you - because of my cognitive dysfunction, I am a slow learner, and I usually need three times as long to read anything. I am currently working on a research project for my degree that should take me one semester - but I have been able to negotiate much much longer - the initial plan is that instead of the usual 15 weeks, I will aim for 27, with the option for additional time if I need it. The reason: I cannot take in more than about 10 pages of reading a day, and that’s simply not enough.

So... let’s talk about how I explained and negotiated my way to this agreement:

1. I am registered with Disability Services

So, not every school has one, and it doesn’t help with a workplace, but essentially what this means is that I took steps to explain my situation before it became a problem. As well as registering that I need assistance (which I’m guessing you have done too - hence the extra time) I always speak to a new lecturer or professor myself after the first class. I say something like:

“Hi. My name’s Kate and you will have recieved an Education Access Plan for me. I just want to let you know some things...”

My school has rules that the Plan has to be followed, and the staff aren’t allowed to ask me why I need my special accomodations, but I like to be upfront and explain to them. Then they feel like I’m honest and trustworthy, etc. And I find them always very accomodating.

2. I make sure people see the effort I put in

I am a high achiever. At school, in the workplace, in my activism work, in video games! At school, I care a lot about my grades, but I also make a deliberate effort to be sure my lecturers and teachers can see my effort. I ask a lot of questions and raise my hand when I know the answers to things. I contribute to class discussions. I email if I am sick and I go to consultation hours and ask for help.

This means that when I need that extra time to finish an essay, they know wasn’t lazy or wasting time (and sometimes, maybe, I was!) because I have that track record of being a good student who puts effort in. I’ve even got a reputation now with staff I haven’t met.

I do the same thing at a job. I work hard and I make sure I’m seen working hard.

Note: You should not have to do this! I should not have to. Our word and a medical certificate should be enough. But it often isn’t, and you asked for advice, so this is it, sadly.

3. I explained exactly what my need is and why

When it came to negotiating this specific longterm extension on my research, I had to ask my supervisor to commit to much longer. That’s a big ask. So, I needed to be clear on what my problem is and I also came to her with a proposed solution to that problem. The clearer you can be, the better (which can be hard with a cognitive disability - but writing it down can help)

So. Problem: I can only read about ten pages or so a day of the kind of complex academic language this research requires. That’s drastically below the amount I need to read in the timeframe available.

Solutions: I need more time. There’s a way we can enrol me so the computer system allows me to take more than one semester, and I came to her with that information. I wrote a proposed study plan of how long it might take me and when I might have a first draft, a final draft, etc. I included what kind of information I thought I needed and how much time I thought the first few of these might require (Two weeks on Subject A, Three on Subject B).

I also explained to her how varying the tasks I’m performing helps me to keep focused - so I wrote a list of the tasks I needed to do besides reading, and gave her these too, so she could see how I’d help myself work better by varying tasks.

People love it when they don’t have to do that much work! If you say “Here’s the problem, I already found the solution, please tick the box that says you agree” they fucking LOVE that. The thing is done with the least inconvenience to them.

So, your problem: You need longer to complete tasks or learn something new.

If you feel comfortable, it will help to explain why this is. In simple terms, but not patronising. I always say:

“I have trouble concentrating, especially if there are distractions like other noises - even something minor like an air conditioner. I get tired easily, I can only focus for short periods. I fall asleep when reading long passages of text. I read slowly. Some days I cannot read at all.”

All of those things make up “I need more time”, but they explain WHY I need more time, and often a person who is just ignorant about disabilities simply hasn’t bothered to think about it and when you explain it like this, they begin to understand why you find things more difficult than they do.

Another thing I like to say is “Think about how you function when you’re very tired. When you try to read a book but you’re ready to fall asleep and the words blur - that’s me all the time” - that’s an experience that they can relate to, and that really helps!

Then you can tell them the solution: “It would really help if I had extra time. That would give me more time to read everything over twice to make sure I understand it.” Or you could say the extra time helps you because you can only work for a small period each day and therefore you need more days to give you an equal amount of work time as your classmates.

OK. In summary:

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with an “excuse” - it’s just a reason you didn’t or can’t do something and we shouldn’t attach negative connotations to that. But I know what you mean when you say you don’t want it to sound like an excuse, so ways to avoid that include:

1. Make your needs clear BEFORE you need them. (I realise you’re already in the situation, but note for future) If you’ve already told someone about a potential problem, it will not sound made-up to them when you bring it up during a deadline.

2. Make them trust you. Show them that you wouldn’t lie. If they think you are an excellent student/employee/citizen/etc, they will not see you as having a reason to make up some excuse. Why would you when you’re normally so diligent and enthusiastic?

3. Explain the WHY (I do and learn things slower because...) and offer solutions by explaining HOW they help (More time would mean...)

This was an extremely long answer... Not sure I could read it all in one hit myself, tbh! :p Might be pushing that ten page limit.

Good luck, Anonymous Friend. I hope some of this is helpful to you.

- The Slightly Aggressive Affirmer

[butterbeeryuta]

You

Inspired by Netflix original series, 'You.'

yuta x reader | stalker!yuta au | smut, thriller | 6.0 k

warning: mention of drugs, profanity, death, stalker behaviour, sex scene

Note: Sometimes, you have to do what is right. It may not be right for you, or anyone else, but hey, ethics is a tough area of study. In the end, we all have our own personal morals anyway. It’s called egoism. Believe me, I’m doing this for you. Just hang on, we’ll meet, and you will be mine.

Ah, I was waiting for you. Three twenty-four p.m. every Wednesday and Friday. For the rest of the days, you either have work at the clothing store as a sales clerk and English assistance, or at the café if their pancakes are on sale. But, today is Friday. You walked in the library rather silently if I have to say. I’ve been observing you since last year when you entered this university from a TA’s perspective. Today, you were wearing a button-up shirt tucked into your jeans, so it can be assumed that you take a business related course—maybe economics, or business studies. But, I know you don’t. You’re in your second year of university taking biochemistry hoping to be a pharmacist to help your adopted older brother, Lucas, recover from his drug addiction. You have a really caring and supportive father who will do anything for his children, and that is because he does not know about your brother’s condition. He thinks that your brother is doing fantastic studying marine biology abroad in Australia, when he is actually living with you and your roommate in Seoul still figuring who the hell he is. As per your mother, nobody knows I guess. Nobody really knows, and neither do you. But, let’s pretend I do not know that for now.

Your eyes were looking for where to sit. You looked unsure if you should sit next to Kim Eunseo, the third year student in the acting department known for vomiting on her boyfriend, or the empty spot in front of me, the teacher assistant for chemical thermodynamics. Or maybe, you want to sit beside Na Jaemin, the heartthrob freshman of Hanyang University. The boy was perfect; pretty face, honey-like voice, and takes media studies and journalism under a 50% scholarship. But, I am better. I am better for you, and not that heartthrob, and neither is your ‘small’ crush on Dong fucking Sicheng who also happens to like you. Your eyes scanned over the empty seats, and for whatever god or spirit that was listening to me, you seemed to walk over to my space. Good job, you’re taking the initiative to come near me. It’s good progress my dear.

‘Hi, Yuta right? Is it alright if I can use the socket in front of you for my iPad?’ So that was the reason. Maybe next time you will willingly sit near me because of me, and not for that device of yours. And it’s been almost two years my love, how are you still so unsure about my name?

‘Yeah, of course, here let me plug it in for you… y/n right?’ That’s good Yuta, do the same thing your loved one does. You smiled brightly in return, nodding your head in approval. You should smile more my dear, it looks wonderful on you. So much more wonderful than the sorrowful and heavy eyes you have whenever you come home when having to deal with that gigantic brother of yours from both family and school stress. But trust me, all of this pain and pressure will all be lifted once you fall into my arms. I will keep you safe and loved. Your hand reached out of your bag for the charger, the white wire coiling against your smooth skin. My dear, the things you do so innocently can mean something else for people like me. Imagine your vulnerable and frail little body tied up against the bed with a white rope, it will look so good against your skin. For a person so intelligent academically, I wonder why you have a crush on a man who just so happens to like you back. He’s such as ass acting all cute and innocent when in reality he just wants you to teach him and give your notes just so that he can pass Biology 101. Your hand, or I guess the charger, made its way to mine, our skin touching for a brief second. Our first time holding hands.

‘Thank you so much. And just for the record, I do know that your name is Yuta. You’re the TA for chemical thermodynamics. And also because that was the class I got highest in’ you added, smiling shyly as you look at your iPad, probably a digital copy of your polymer chemistry textbook. Of course you got the highest in that subject. Yes you are intelligent, highly intelligent if I have to say, but a 97% as an average may slightly be an exaggeration in comparison to your original average of a 83%.

‘Ah yes of course. 97% in chemical thermodynamics, how can I ever forget you.’ I added with a smile.

‘Surprisingly yeah. I genuinely thought material chemistry was my best, but now I guess it’s thermodynamics.’ You added. You’re not lying. Material chemistry was, and still is your best. You’re doing great in all subjects love, so you do not need to worry about that. It’s just your fucked up brother, and your insufferable crush.

‘Well you did amazingly well on your test. With a brain like yours, you would be wanted to come join the seminars for your thesis paper you’ll write in the next 2 years.’ You only smiled in return, your go-to-move when you just want to start working on your stuff. I saw that happen way too many times. For example, two years ago on the 7th of December at the café, the waiter asked for your phone number, but you only smiled and rejected in response. Last year on April 30th when you were on your trip to Jeju island with your friends, Yeeun and Sooyoung, you wanted to stay in your hotel room because you were tired, so you smiled to the girls and rejected their offer to go to beach. And what did you do instead while your friends were swimming and tanning? You masturbated while watching lesbian porn on that exact same iPad you are studying from. With that note, I let you work on whatever you had to do, while I should be checking the current materials in the lab for the lab experiment for the freshmen students. God I hate being a TA.

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It has been exactly three hours and seventeen minutes since you came, working hard on your notes as you listen to piano versions of kpop songs. You’re honestly so cute sometimes, it’s really hard to control myself and devour you. But that time shall come naturally to us one day. If not, I will ensure it will happen.

‘Hey, can I ask something?’ Are you talking to me? I looked up at the love of my life. Your eyes looking at me, very clear to me that you want something.

‘Yeah, what is it?’ Well that sounded quite rude. 

‘I know that you’re a Chemistry graduate student, and as mentioned earlier, you work as a teacher assistant. I was wondering if there is a job open at the university? I do work at the clothing store, but I sorta need more income since I have to move apartments. Anyway, um, is there a job open?’ You asked. More jobs to move? What the fuck, is your roommate kicking you out? Your voice sounded so… desperate, needy, broken. You were broken.

‘Well I doubt it you can be a TA, but I’ll see if I can get you the lab technician position, or maybe the university’s official peer tutor. I’ll see what I can do.’ And there is that beautiful smile again. Obviously I will have to actually ask the professors and administrators, but they know your reputation and capabilities love. They talk about how you’re ready to go to graduate school in an instant, and how you’ll be a great asset in the research department. I promise you, your life will be perfect the moment those two men stop dragging you, especially Lucas.

‘Thank you so, so, so, much Yuta. Here, let me give you my contact for easier access…’ Good job my dear, good job.

Wine is disgusting. The amount of tannin present is so overwhelming, leaving an unpleasant taste in your mouth. I don’t know why you like it love, but here I am in a restaurant that serves multiple different types of wine. Red, white, mulled, rose—all of which I know you will greatly enjoy. I want to question why you drink this, but I know. It’s all you ever post on that nonsensical Instagram page of yours. Wine. Wine. Wine. Sometimes there’s a splash of red, or clear bubbles coming from time to time. You’re a mess, a drunken mess. Which is why I am here; I will fix everything for you. Knowing that you texted your group chat entitled as ‘vagina power’ twenty-three minutes ago that you were on the way to the restaurant, you should walk through that door in three, two, on—

‘Excuse me, is Mr. Nakamoto Yuta here?’ Your voice asked the waitress.  Technology never fails, I can assure you that. There you were in your clothes from class today. You had medicinal chemistry, human physiology, organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, then ended the day with Korean—you must be exhausted my love. While you were apologising being late as you made your way to the table, all I could notice were your dark under eyes, the dullness in your eyes, and the slight oiliness on your scalp. You are overworked and internally dead. Despite my one year and a bit of research on you, what I could never answer was why you are working so damn hard and not letting one in to help you. Yes, I know that it is your goal to be this highly skilled pharmacist to help your brother, but you yourself knows that even without the excessive revising, you will still make it. Back in senior high school a guy named Kim Yugyeom asked you out, and you said no. You also said no to Park Jimin, Kim Jungwoo, Bang Chan, and even your first ever crush in Grade 11—Yoo Jeongyeon. She made you think girls were for you, but you still said no even if you two fucked in the laboratory because you didn’t ‘finish’ your experiment. Why do you always say no?

‘… thank you so much.’ You were still talking?

‘No problem at all. So, how’s university?’ Keep the conversation going Yuta, keep it going.

‘Well, it is challenging and heavy, but I guess I am doing fine. But now that I get the lab technician job, it will hopefully get better’ you say much more cheerfully, contrasting the tiredness and paleness of your face. You’re an unheard ghost.

‘Well that is how university is. But to congratulate you for your new job, we must make a toast!’ You raised your glass, and so do I, and we clinked. My, how can you not love this person. The moment I see you, all I want to do is hug you, protect you, and love you. If I can make you mine, treat you as my own, I will be the happiest man on the earth.

‘So how did you become a TA?’ You asked as you sipped your alcoholic beverage; your plush lips pressing so tightly against the rim of the glass cup and—Yuta, stop it. 

‘Well, I took Chemistry only for my undergrad, and a bit of IT and languages. Then the professor, Professor Seo, asked me to be his teacher assistant initially for organic chemistry. But, I hated that subject and I ended up negotiating to change my position after a month. Then I got the chemical thermodynamics TA job. It’s honestly the exact same job, but I just prefer this topic.’ This is most likely that only truth that I have told you, and you were still listening to me for every word. A true listener with a bright mind, yet not bright enough to realise I have been watching you for more than one year.

‘Well, I think that is great. But let’s move away from academics, I just had five classes straight and I will honestly evaporate into thin air if I hear the c-word again.’ You say as you slightly chuckle. Alright then, what should we talk about? The reason to why you’re leaving your apartment? Your reason to deny people’s offer when they ask you out on a date? Why you overwork yourself to death to a point where you’re affecting yourself physically? Tell me, I need to know.

‘So you wanted to leave your current apartment right? Why’s that?’ You froze for a while. Eyebrows furrowed, eyes moving to the side. Almost unsure if you should respond to my question. You do have a point though, this is by far our first oral conversation, you barely know me.

‘I can’t afford my current apartment anymore since I kind of forced my brother to be moved to the hospital. So I need to save up more money to pay for hospital bills and the cheaper apartment.’ You quietly replied, your eyes still avoiding mine.

‘Oh no, what happened to your brother?’

‘He’s sick. Mentally ill.’ Well, at least you’re not lying to me. Though you could have said that your brother was kicked out of the University of Adelaide for failing all his classes, then he moved back to Seoul with you all high and reliant on that white powdery poison. It has been two years, and he was barely improving, and you had to move him to a hospital. Why didn’t you tell your father who loves the both of you unconditionally? It was because for that exact reason—he loves the two of you unconditionally. You knew for a fact that once your father finds out that your brother is a drug addict mess, Lucas is cut from the family, and you just could not let that happen. You two grew up together, and he used to take care of you a lot when you were in high school. He helped you drive around places, or libraries per se, and he also bought you snacks and all. He seemed to be very happy and caring back then, and you do not know what happened to him the moment he touched down in Australia.

‘I’m sorry to hear that. I hope he gets better soon.’

‘Thank you, I hope he does too.’ The conversation is dying Yuta, quick, think of something.

‘So when are you planning to move?’

‘Oh um, maybe sometime in February or end of January. I will be getting my apartment keys in the next two weeks, so yeah, around those times.’ I better clean up my schedule during that time then.

‘Hey if you need help in moving, just let me know. I will be willing to help.’ Your eyes finally looked up to meet mine, slightly bigger than usual as the corner of your lips were about to rise. You were about to reject my offer.

‘I-I think it’s fine, I’ll be able to manage on my own—‘

‘No, no, I insist. You’re going through quite a bit, the least I can do is help you move in your stuff.’ You nodded instead, bringing your lips to a tight line. You’re considering my offer aren’t you?

‘Alright, I’ll let you know when I’m moving.’ You say as you comb your hair backwards with your fingers. I cannot wait to make you mine.

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It’s been about two months since we had our first proper conversation, and we have not stopped since.

‘You know, Ikea is the greatest thing that has ever came into existence.’ You say, carrying the big wooden compartment for your bed. Which will eventually be our bed, but I can wait.

‘Hmm, I remembered a few days ago you said ice cream was the greatest invention in human history.’ And it is arguably true. It’s comfort food, and keeps you happy from the amount of sugar stored in which makes your brain beg for more. It’s addicting yet unhealthy, but you cannot stop yourself. You crave it when you’re happy, sad, angry, stressed, tired— it’s designed for you to be beg, and beg, and be—

‘Ice cream is a great invention, I do not deny that. We should get ice cream afterwards once we’re done building this bed.’ You smiled at me, again. That beautiful and bright smile of yours can melt anyone my dear, you better be careful before you flash it to anyone else. ‘Anyway, we should go back to building this thing, I want to sleep tonight’ you added, moving your legs again to attach the next piece of the bed frame. Maybe I misread you a bit, you seem to work hard in everything. Not only in academics, but you’ve been doing your best in the lab, academically, ensuring your brother feels safe at the hospital, and even in making a goddamn bed frame for yourself. It is almost as if you barely take any breaks, and yet you do not seem to mind. Maybe you just enjoy to work hard.

‘Ice cream later is it then. Are you the type to eat those weird flavours like into mint chocolate or strawberry cheesecake, or some shit like that?’ Of course I knew what you liked. A few months ago, October the 12th to be exact, you went for ice cream with your lab partner, Sana, and you had chocolate only. You claimed yourself to be an avid chocolate lover. I honestly do not blame you for that.

‘I don’t think they’re weird or anything, but I just prefer to have plain chocolate. I just like chocolate in general. How about you?’

‘I’m more of a matcha type of guy.’ Another honest thing that came out of my mouth. You chuckled in response, nodding your head up and down just by a little. You want to say something don’t you? ‘What is it?��� I asked.

‘Oh, it’s nothing too bad. It’s just very Japanese of you,’ you answered, trying to snap yourself out of a giggly state. Cute. After our small chat, we eventually set up the wooden frame, and placed the mattress on top along with placing of the beige bedsheet. I can’t believe this will be the exact same bed where we’ll have our first everything, including our children. We will have two beautiful daughters: Saya and Emiko. They will be four years apart, and both girls will be at least bilingual. They will also love and cherish the both of us. With our combined intelligence, our girls will conquer the industries, wrapping the entire world in their little, delicate fingers. We will be a perfect family of four, and this bed, the one we have just made together, will be with us until the end. Just before my mind could go somewhere else, your tired body dropped on the newly made bed, feeling the softness and the warmth provided by the material.

‘I know you’re tired too Yuta, you should lay down too,’ you say with your eyes closed, both your hands interlocking with one another just above your abdomen. From what I know, you only do this when you are really tired, thinking of all sort of different scenarios. Since you asked me to anyway, I laid down beside your exhausted body, embracing the same warmth the bed is providing. ‘You know, I’ve never really had anyone over at my place since I’m so busy and all, but I’m glad you came and helped me move’ you softly say, your eyes finally open as your orbs look directly up at the plain ceiling.

‘It’s not a problem really, you do seem tired during lessons so I figured helping you a bit can hopefully ease whatever you’re going through.’ You grinned at what I said, as if you somewhat agree. I do hope it’s true my dear. You had it tough with your brother, but I will assure you that you will become the pharmacist you deserve to be.

‘You did, Yuta. You did.’ The bed slightly shifted, only to see you on your side as you look at me, and here I am looking back at you. Without hesitation, your lips pressed against mine, something I did not expect at all. Since when were you like this? Have I misread you all this time? You rejected so many different guys and one girl, yet now you are acting to brave and different in contrast to my observations and research over the past years. Although multiple questions came across my head, this does not mean I have to stop whatever you just began. 

Your warm hand made its way to my left cheek, rubbing the cheek back and forth with your thumb, almost the same gesture when you caress your loved ones. Grabbing your left leg, I pulled over my body, allowing you to sit on top of me, our bodies so close to being connected, to being united. The kiss did not break at all, in fact, it deepened. You surprisingly took the initiative to tap the velvety muscle on my bottom lip, so needy to enter the hot cavern. Maybe this is your way to ensure that you can trust me, and that somebody can love you forever. Maybe this is a process of yours to know that you will be taken care of for eternity. I deserve to be with you my love, you are everything to me, and I know I will be your everything. Your tongue eventually slipped through my lips; both our wet muscles meeting each others, exploring each others caverns for the first time. My arms were holding you tightly against my body, keeping your fragile body on top of mine—I do not want to let you go. But, how do I know that you really want this? Despite the fact that I do not want this to end, I had to pull away, just to be sure. Our mouths slowly separated with the presence of a string of wetness proving the intense session we just had. Your forehead fell against mine, your eyes clouded with lust as you pant heavily against me.

‘Do you still want to do this?’ I have to know.

‘Y-yes, please make me feel good’ you whispered against me. Fuck.

*Disclaimer: sex scene will begin from here. This will be a female x male smut scene, so if this is something you do not want to read, please scroll down until you see another disclaimer similar to this. Please keep in mind that I will write a male x male scene, so please do not feel too disappointed. I am sorry that I was not able to write it on the same day as the publication. Thank you.

Our lips reconnected again, only this time, the feeling was much more intense. I poured in all of my frustration of waiting, and the amount of love and lust I have for you my love. I flipped us over, finally seeing your sensitive and fragile body below me. You are a sight to see my dear, but only for me. I have seen the way your body trembles as your delicate fingers enter in and out of you; your legs shake uncontrollably, your free hand unconsciously slips inside your hot mouth trying to keep yourself quiet, and your beautiful face contorts in pure pleasure. I want you to do the exact same, but I want you to be louder, and I want to be the one pleasuring you. The moment our tongues touched again, I took the initiative to envelop your velvety muscle with my lips, tasting you completely, leaving you as a moaning mess under me. So you like this. I continued to do so as your hips slightly rocks back and forth, your covered sex rubbing against me. Leaving your mouth, I peppered kisses down your addictive skin, taking in the honey-like scent you had. Soft whimpers escaped your throat, clearly enjoying the amount of care and love you were receiving. You deserve this. My hands slipped under your shirt, feeling the soft and supple skin until I met your clothed breasts. Massaging the flesh against my hands, your fingers crawled up behind my neck, slowly making its way to my hair, pulling the roots so gently. My dear, you are indeed irresistible.

‘Yuta t-touch me please,’ you beg, moving your hips even rougher than before, almost as if you are trying to reach for your orgasm by yourself. I chuckled at your submissive manner, knowing exactly what to do to make you come.

‘You want to come my princess? Do you want your pretty pussy to come over my tongue? You’d like that won’t you as you beg nonstop.’ I read that on your diary, you wanted someone to go down on you and make you orgasm uncontrollably, and you want to repeat the process until you beg them to stop. My dear, you are one dirty little girl. You only whimpered in response, nodding your head vigorously. Although it would have been ideal to get a response from you, I know for a fact that the last time you got laid was five months ago with your colleague at the clothing store, Lee Minho. I hope that he is forgotten. Pulling your shirt up, I kissed down from your supple skin until I met the top of your black sweats. I slowly pulled at the strings as my eyes looked up to meet yours. There you were with your glossy and lust-filled eyes as your bite your finger, anticipating what would happen to you. Your chest was heaving up and down as I pulled at your pants, only to reveal you in your sheer white bra and panties. What a fucking sight. Pulling your legs apart, a visible wet patch was displayed, showing a clear outline of your pink lips begging to be destroyed.

‘I haven’t even touched your greedy little hole and yet you are so wet princess.’ Before you could even say anything, my tongue made contact with the soaked cloth, tasting the sweet essence as a moan of relief escaped your throat. Continuing to lick up and down against your clothed sex, your fingers made it to the roots of my hair as your slowly rock your core against my face. Your moans slowly turned louder and louder, and all I can say is, I was definitely going to implode. Allowing you to take control of me, your legs started to tremble on either side of my head as the tip of my tongue was on your covered clitoris. To further intensify the feeling, I pulled your barely existing panties to the side, sucking on your clit, tasting you properly, eating you out like a starved man.

‘Fuck!’ You screamed, legs shaking vigorously as your fingers left my hair for your lips. Without letting you rest, I grabbed both of your legs, pushing my tongue into your dripping entrance, pathetically clenching around it. What a fucking whore. Moans and sounds of me eating your core filled the room, and whoever is living beside you is surely going to know you as a slut. ‘Y-yuta shit I’m coming again,’ you moaned, your head thrown back against the pillow underneath you. Pulling the warm velvet out of your sticky cavern, I slipped in two fingers, moving in and out of you as I watch you in pure euphoria. Just like that, your legs closed and shook, screaming for the second time tonight. Taking out the fingers, I slowly made my way up to your fucked out body, only to see your lips red from the biting, as well as your teary eyes from your orgasms. I pushed the fingers through your lips, and like the good girl you are, you immediately sucked in my fingers, leaving me to imagine all the things you can do with that sweet little mouth of yours.

‘Fuck me please, god I need you in me’ you say breathing heavily, as if trying to understand how you were coping with two orgasms in one go. You said you needed me. Kissing you one more time, I finally unzipped my pants, releasing the solid member that sprung against my lower abdomen. As I removed my sweater, your eyes were staring at the red tip whereas your licked your bottom lip.

‘I’m going to enter alright,’ I whispered beside your ear, peppering feather-like kisses on your face. You froze a bit in place, though I was not exactly sure why. You did not seem to say anything, but it may be because you are finally being with the man who truly deserves you. Placing myself on your dripping hole, I looked at you one last time before anything else goes wrong, or if I miscalculated everything.

‘Just put it in Yuta, I’m on birth control, no need to worry’ you impatiently said, waiting to be filled and feel immense pleasure. Taking in your words, I slowly pushed myself in you, trying my best not to hurt you or bring you to any sort of pain. But my god, were you tight. Your velvet-like walls enclosed around my hard cock, almost impossible for me to go further in. You gasped loudly, pulling yourself closer to me as you held your hands behind my neck, feeling every once of me. ‘Oh my fucking god, I’m so full.’

I pushed myself further with one of my hands on your lower abdomen to keep you stable. ‘Shit you’re so tight, stop me if I go to harsh on—‘

‘Just fuck me Yuta, I don’t want to go gentle, please just do it.’ What?

*Disclaimer: smut scene has ended.

‘Y/n how else will I make love to you if you want to go rough on our first time?’ I asked, trying my best not to lose my temper. Why on earth do you want to go rough? Isn’t that why the reason you rejected all of those guys so that you can finally be with the one that truly deserves you, and can protect you from anything? Your eyes only grew wide at what I said, slowly pushing yourself off me.

‘Make love? Yuta, we’ve only started talking for like two months, what do you mean make love?’ You asked, successfully pushing yourself off of me, slowly pulling the blanket to cover yourself. Why are you acting like this?

‘You kissed me on your newly made bed, what else was I suppose to thi—‘

‘I was only asking for a quick fuck, not a whole love-making session Yuta. I think you should go home and rethink what you just said, I don’t think you’re in your right mind right now.’ How can you say that? I have loved you since you entered the class with, asking thought provoking questions to the professor. I have loved you since you were at the lab, working on your experiment until eight in the evening. I have loved you since you helped that customer in your shop many months ago, trying your best to communicate with the old woman in her mother tongue. You were always so patient, hard-working, and submissive— how can I not love you?

‘No! I do mean it, I do love you. How can I not? You always work so hard and made sure that you and your brother, and your academics were both in good condition. You are my dream, how can I not love you?’

‘Yuta, you’re saying the most insane shit. Please leave. What happens between me and my brother and my studies only should be limited to me, and not you’ you answered, not believing any word I said.

‘I am being normal, you’re just too busy and stubborn to believe anything I am saying! I have taken so much good care of you. I helped you get a job, I paid for all the meals and snacks we had together, I helped make your fucking bed, and you repay me by being your fuck buddy?’ You were infuriating. You were not like this when I watched you on a daily basis.

‘Well I’m sorry if you thought that I was trying to make you as my boyfriend or something, but I do not have time for that Yuta. I am truly sorry if that is what you thought, and if you do not want to see me anymore, I completely understand that—‘

‘No! You rejected Kim Yugyeom, Park Jimin, Kim Jungwoo, Bang Chan, Yoo Jeongyeon, and you do not let anyone else to love you. Is it because you’re too busy taking care of your drug addict of a brother?’ Your eyes grew wider than it already was, your mouth left agape unsure of how to react. Shit.

‘H-how do you know all of t-these things?’ Your voice was shaking, the fear on your face clearly visibly.

‘That’s not m-my point. What I am trying to say is—‘

‘Yuta, have you been stalking me?’ Yes, I have.

‘What? No, I wasn’t. You’re dodging my question again.’ Shit, Yuta. Think, think, think.

‘Then how do you know about my brother?’ You asked, fear and shock still evident on that beautiful face of yours. I made my way to her, gently cupping your face in my hand.

‘I h-heard about it from s-somewhere—‘

‘Get your hands off me! Tell me how you know all about this!’ You shouted, ripping my hands off of you. Without thinking, my hand came in contact with your skin. Loudly.

I slapped you.

A bright red mark was left on your face, eyes filled with tears, unsure if it was from the pain, or from our argument.

‘Shit, no, I didn’t mean that. Fuck, okay, y/n, let’s talk about this like adults’ I said, trying my best to diverge her thoughts away from what just happened. But I know that it will not work, you are one of the smartest people to exist, and you do not let yourself down easily like that.

‘Get the fuck out Yuta. You’re insane.’ Why are you not listening to me? I grabbed your body, leaving you to scream for help, pleading to be freed away from me— but I am not letting that happen. You are mine. I tightly wrapped my hand against your throat to make you shut up, making sure that you listen and concentrate on every word that I will say to you. You need to be disciplined love, especially if we will be together.

‘I need to know why you’re acting like this otherwise we will not be a happy couple. You are my everything, and I should be yours. I made you enter a world of euphoria with my mouth alone just a few moments ago, and you rejecting my love and pushing me away will not work. I have loved you the moment my eyes laid on you, and I need you to love me back’ I explained, watching your face slowly lose colour as your screams died down, but I do not care. You need to listen to my every word and acknowledge it. ‘You will be my partner for the rest of your life, and so will I. We will have two beautiful daughters, and you will also be able to help Lucas medically without letting your father know. But before we can do any of that, you need to be disciplined and I am here for that. Do you understand me?’

No response.

‘I said do you understand me.’

Still no response.

Your face was pale, eyes were closed, body cold. You were lifeless. Y/n,  we were supposed to be together forever. We were supposed to have children, have you become a pharmacist, we were supposed to be in love together. Holding your lifeless body in my arms, I rocked your bare body back and forth— you’re not dead my love, you’re just resting. Yes, you’re resting.

‘Y-you’re not dead. I was just teaching you a lesson, but you seemed to become tired. It’s okay, we’ll do it another time. I love you so so much, I will never hurt you my love. Never.’ A dark laugh left my throat as tears rolled down my face. I finally had you in my arms, finally.

a/n: WEEEEEE i wrote that???? okay umm while i’ll be too busy screaming at myself for writing THAT scene, i hope everyone enjoyed it despite the fact that mcfucking yuta was a creep, but yeAhhhH. i am honestly quite paranoid after finishing ‘you’ cause i keep thinking that someone is in the house, but not really, but yeah... the show was good though. let me know if you also watched it cause i would really like to talk about it with you. and also, HAPPY NEW YEAR! i hope ya’ll had a fun time celebrating it. 

明けましておめでとうございます！今年もよろしくお願いします。今まで英語だけで話を作ったので、今年日本語でやってみたいと思います。

祝你新年快乐！万事如意也心想事成❤️

[creepyalienghost]

Doctors assistant 3

Sammy puts his pen down on the desk next to his sheet music. He had decided he was finish working on it tonight. Besides it was going on 3am and he needed to get some sleep for the early morning in a few hours. He was the only person there left at the studio as he usually is most nights. Even Wally goes home earlier then him, way earlier. Sammy however loves to stay here late and get work done. It was the best time to do so. It was quite and there was no one to distract him plus he was a night owl.

He Gathered his belongings and made his way out. As he Exited the studio he opened his book to the page he last stopped at and began ready about the legends and folklore. He doesn’t know why but this topic speaks to him. It calls out to him. Sammy thinks he use to be into this stuff when he was younger before going to a family that drilled things like the importance of money is and Business things, in his head. He hated that at the time. All that math and business learning he was made to do by his Foster dad did lead him to get a great job here so he was ok with it now. But he started reading folklore about three months ago when he and Joey went to the library.

The stories he read of people’s encounters with ghost, monsters and legends fascinated Sammy for some odd reason. He liked the stories about monsters the best, liked reading what they saw, heard and especially what they felt In that moment of terror.

He was invested in the book as he walked down sidewalks and into alleyways until he heard a strange noise from behind him,turning around quickly. He felt uneasy then as he looked left to right in the darkness to find no signs of life. No robbers, No homeless people, not even animals. He remembered then his friend and coworker, Jack, had always told him that walking at this hour could lead to trouble for him. He always worried for his friend especially knowing the dangers things he and Joey do together. He hated now that Jack could be right and for never listen to him.

“Hello?” Sammy called out, closing his book and holding it with one arm. He waited for a minute to see if someone would call back to him, but no one answered.

Before he took a step to move, he felt a sharp pain in his neck! He dropped his book and spawn around, gripping the spot on his neck. What he saw made no sense. Maybe it was because he’s vision was fucked up now or maybe because he felt tired but he saw three shadow like figures. “W...it-...pa” He had tried to speak but couldn’t form the words correctly.

“Shhh there’s no need to be afraid, my child” came a calming voice that he couldn’t pin point. “Your in good hands” after that all vision and feeling left his body.

——-

Sammy woke up In a dimly lit room with a foggy head. He knew this wasn’t his bed but he had no idea who’s it was and how he got there or even where there was. He sat up, shook his head to clear it then glanced around his surroundings. The room was small but pretty cozy for an abandoned building. There was a few candles on the small table nearby that was keeping the room from total darkness. Next to them laid his book neatly placed and a desk placed along the opposite wall with a chair for it. Papers and folders were scattered on it.

Sammy moved closer to the desk and felt something heavy around his ankle. Looking down, he noticed though the small bit of light he was given, a thick metal chained was attached around his ankle with not much more room to walk, Although he could walk around in this room. He was trapped though with no way of getting out or knowing if help was on the way.

He stayed quiet for he didn’t want his capturer to know that he was awake now. He needed to figure out what to do and where he was first before anything. He slowly stood up from his bed so the chains made little to no noise and slowly he took small steps to the desk. He picked up the first page his eyes landed and scan though it then he did the same though more. It was a bunch of Science and Medical junk, Stuff on diseases and sickness.

“I found the cure.” A soft gentle voice spoke from the doorway. It did make Sammy jump but didn’t place fear in him.

He looked over a the strange figure and knew he should be terrified, he did look like death, but he wasn’t. He felt Comfort from it. He felt like he knew it but couldn’t remember where. “We meet before, having we?” Sammy ask.

The being nodded his beak. “We had.” He reached in his cloak pocket, pulling out a key and gave it to Sammy. “Come. We have much to discuss.”

The being stood at the doorway, waiting for Sammy as he unlocked the chains around his ankle. “Why the chains anyways?” Sammy ask

“So you wouldn’t run in the darkness and get hurt again.” The being answered. Sammy searched his memories and only kinda remember falling thought something when he was a child. Could this being really had been there?

Sammy followed him out the small room and down an dark hallway. It was clear with the children drawings and crosses hung up on the wall that this was place use to be a church. He wondered how it became abandoned and for how long ago.

The two arrived in an kitchen area. There was a few tables that were surprisingly cleaned from dust and a couple usable chairs which the being offered one. “Please sit.”

Sammy took a sit next to the being and listened as it began speaking.

—-

Within the hours of their Conversation Sammy understands the missing pieces from back then. He now remembers the year of being with the doctor and their work they were trying to accomplish, The doctor gave him files of his research has prof. Sammy read them then it dawned on him. The doctor had drugged him and brought him hear. But how had found him? And was there another reason for those chains? “Doctor...” He looked up at the being. “I have it, don’t I?”

The being looked down in sadness then nodded after a moment. “But I can cure you, my child.” The doctor replied. “You won’t be a failed experiment ether! But for you...I’m giving you the choice. If you wanna be cured or not. Take your time. It’s a big choice.” With that the doctor left the table to give Sammy time.

Sammy sat there and read the files again then reread them a third time. He had to be sure before doing this. It was risky. It was dangerous but he didn’t want to die from the pestilence. After another reread he made his choice. He was going to be cured.

Sammy got up from the table and headed back down the hallway looking for the doctor. “I made my choice. Cure me.” He said when he found him.

The doctor stood up and placed his notebook down on the desk. “Follow me, please

Sammy followed him to the well lit operation room which was in the back of the church. The doctor guided him to the soft hospital bed and helped him on it. “Now my dear” the doctor said grabbing an surgical mask. “Lay down and relax. Once you wake you will be cured.” He slipped on the mask over Sammy’s mouth and turned it on.

Sammy laid there and looked up at the old church ceiling. He couldn’t believe after all this time the doctor found the cure. He wondered when and who it was on but that was questions for another time. Now he just needed to relax and he was begging to. He was begging to fell the drowsiness from the medicine. His eyes began to drip, getting heavier and heavier with each minute. It wasn’t ten minutes when Sammy was fully deeply asleep. The doctor got his tools, cleaned them and started his work.

———

When Sammy woke up he was weak for a few days but the doctor took care of him. He also had to regrow his hair which took months. Within years for being cured Sammy noticed that he stopped aging and only then he released what the pestilence was. It was death.

He was immoral now.

[arthurjdrake]

Water Works : Notia & Arthur

TIMING: Present LOCATION: Drake Residence  PARTIES: @arthurjdrake and @humanmoodring SUMMARY: Notia needs tears and she’ll go to any lengths to get them. TW: Injury / Violence

The ride to Arthur’s wasn’t exactly comfortable, and Nadia ended up getting lost a bit along the way. Sue her, she’d only been there once, to go to a party full of people she didn’t know and didn’t care to, not really. She hadn’t meant to to tell the man that she didn’t exactly care to stick around town for much longer, but, hey, she could tell him she wanted to take a business trip and hope for the fucking best. She’d tell him anything he wanted to hear as long as he gave her some phoenix tears. She’d have to shmooze him for a bit, win him over again and promise to be a good little research assistant or whatever it was that Nadia did. She’d get the tears, sell a bottle or two, and be on her merry way, not looking back on the shitstain that was this town and everything that it had to offer. Every nosy medium and hunter and witch and banshee, every overly concerned zombie, could kiss her ass. She didn’t want to deal with them and their desires to take what was hers away from her. But she couldn’t show that, could she? Instead, Nadia put on a smile and hopped off her bike, stuffing her hands into her jacket pockets and walking over to Arthur’s door. She gave it a knock and waited, hoping this wouldn’t last too long.

For once the house was absent of noise, save the soft whir of the fan oven as Arthur slouched on one of the countertops staring absentmindedly out the kitchen window. His phone lay open on the countertop, Nadia’s message left on read. A sticking point on which his focus was intently hooked. She needed to get out of town? It was strange. Ever since he’d first met her Nadia had seemed so keen to take up the job he’d offered her, eager to get a new start in a position that asked no questions. Which after hearing the horrific tale of everything that she had been through in her relatively short time on this earth was understandable. In a way partly influencing the reason why Arthur had continued to pay her position despite the time she’d taken for personal matters. They were on good terms but sometimes there were boundaries that needed to be respected. But leaving? Leaving the only place that might be able to provide a solution and modicum of safety to her? It didn’t make sense. Pulling his phone off the counter he peered at the message again, attempting to read between the lines to understand what would make Nadia bolt to this degree without asking for some kind of help. He was broken from his musings by the echo of the bell and quickly hurried to get the door. “Hey! Gees it’s been so long!” he greeted opening his arms and stepping out to wrap Nadia up in a warm and tight hug.

Of fucking course the bird man was a hugger. Nadia couldn’t help the way she tensed up as he grabbed her, his too warm body far too close for far too long. Fuck, the man was a desert. She’d thought she left that kind of heat behind in Arizona. She hadn’t expected to lose control of her body and watch as her host made friends with a literal fucking phoenix. She’d just have to deal with it. Plastering on a gentle, easy smile, she said, “Arthur! God, it really has been. Since your birthday.” Surrounded by people she didn’t know and could only hope didn’t know Nadia that well, it had been one of the more anxiety-inducing times here in White Crest. She hated intimate get-togethers. “I’m so sorry, I’ve been meaning to get in touch. I’ve just had a rough time of it, recently.” She flinched a bit, sighed. “I got kicked out of my apartment a few months ago, and it’s been a bitch finding a new place and I’m just... “ she ran a hand through her hair, a bit of genuine frustration showing through. “...tired.” She laughed self-deprecatingly, shaking her head. “But you! How have you been?” What had he and Nadia been working on, again? Nerdy school stuff, probably. “How’s the semester gone for you?”

Nadia tensed as she was pulled in, strange, on all the other occasions that he’d given her hugs she’d always reciprocated with appreciation and a joking remark of his space-heater nature being a reminder of home. So Arthur had made a mental note to always do his best to make her feel welcomed and comforted. “Uhuh, a long while back that- too long” he stepped back, but his attention lingered on her features head cocking ever so slightly as though trying to decipher something that just didn’t sit right. But he couldn’t pinpoint it and shook the feeling away for now, reading too much into it probably. “Rough time of it?” he echoed as he wandered down the corridor assuming she would follow while the empathetic nature of his concern quickly overtook any doubt for the time being though. “Kicked out of your apartment? The hell Nadia?” the words were a little incredulous stopping and turning back to her just inside the kitchen, more irritated by the thought of someone having the audacity to do something of the sort to a person he cared about “why didn’t you… You could’ve come to stay here. You know you’re always welcome. Granted… Things are a bit arctic right now...” The uncertainty about just what was going on lingered, it had been a week or that he’d first noticed the instance that he was sucking the very heat out of every room he walked into. It was fine for him, but it had left the house in a practically arctic state. “What the hell’s been going on?”

“Way too long,” Nadia said, giving the man a smile, though she didn’t necessarily mean it. She knew she had to keep up appearances, though, knew that he was observing her, sizing her up, though that wasn’t the right word for it. People didn’t size Nadia Diaz up because they just didn’t perceive her as a threat. She was a decent person, a weak person. He was simply trying to figure her out. And she couldn’t let him. “Yeah, just… things kind of, like, suck.” Nadia laughed and rubbed at the back of her neck, those kinds of self-deprecating actions that Nadia was known for. She just needed to act like Nadia long enough to get some tears, get this guy off her back, and then she could start planning a way out of town, out of this life. Start over in a new place where no one knew who the hell Nadia Diaz was. “I, fuck. I had a disagreement with some of my neighbors.” As in, she wanted them dead, and they disagreed. “They’d been living there longer, so of fucking course it didn’t matter who was right and who was wrong. I ended up getting kicked out.” She flinched a bit, wanting to lash out against his tone but knowing that was the wrong fucking move. He didn’t feel mad, just shocked, the spike of it working its way through her system in a way that she figured she could still make it out of this. “I know, Arthur, I know, but you’ve already done so much, and I just-- I didn’t want to bother you.” She smiled at him slightly. “It’s really not that bad, in here.” Truthfully, she hadn’t noticed the cold. She kind of always felt cold, liked feeling cold. It was better than his overwhelming heat. She sighed. “A lot. I don’t know. I don’t feel safe in this town anymore. I just want to get out. Not for-- Just for a bit, you know? Just a bit.”

More often than not Arthur found himself studying the people around him, sometimes unintentionally other times quite deliberately; an attempt to decipher ulterior motives or passive deceptions. The reasoning and understanding as to why often only came with an episode of hindsight, the realisation of just what set him into this strangely rational state of being. “Oh gees, in that case you need to tell me everything that’s been going on hm? Maybe we can see about making some amends… come, come” he waved her in encouragingly and set about moving some cups onto the counter and pouring out the hot-chocolate that had been simmering on the stove. His expression one of concern at the mention of disagreements. “You live near Regan don’t you? But what happened? Surely it can’t be bad enough to warrant getting evicted.” That didn’t make sense. Pushing the mug across the counter he returned to the oven and pulled out the tray setting the cookies to cool on the airing rack while he worked. “ Nadia,” there was a long and slightly drawn out sigh while he pushed his glasses up his nose with the tip of his thumb and leaned on the counter. “How many times do I have to tell you, you’d never bother me. Ever.” His eyes narrowed a fraction, the dark grey clouding in his eyes as he looked at her intently for a long moment. “You can’t keep running away from whatever’s bothering you. Now, how about you tell me about whatever’s going on. What’s got you so spooked?”

“It’s--” Nadia cut herself off, running a hand through her hair. “Where to even begin, you know?” She laughed and followed after Arthur, wrapping her arms tight around her. She didn’t want to sit down and drink hot chocolate and play act with this phoenix who didn’t really know shit at all. She just wanted to get some tears and be on her way, Maybe she could give him a sob story, and he’d cry. That’d be really fucking nice, wouldn’t it? She took the hot chocolate and wrapped her hands around it. “Yeah, yeah. Did. I just got into it with the landlord. You know how rent is. I felt like I was getting jipped, and I was, the fucker. So I packed up, moved somewhere nicer. Got a chill roommate. It’s all good, now.” She raised her mug to him in a salute and took a drink. The liquid burned on the way down. “I know, I know, but… I’ve just been trying to, like, find myself, these last few months. It’s been hard.” What was she running from? Nothing. Everything. A buncha charges and a buncha people that wanted her gone, vanished, destroyed. All so that some little bitch that had rolled over without fighting until it was far too late could have back a life that Nadia had made. No, thank you. Not gonna happen. “There are people here,” she said quietly. “People that knew the ghost that possessed me. People that want me to do things I’m just not fucking comfortable with, and-- and I just-- I don’t want to be that person. I can’t be her, don’t want to be the person that she was. I want my own fucking life.”

“Really?” for some reason Arthur found that hard to believe, considering the amount of incidents that had happened at that building, if anything the landlord seemed like a pretty fair guy by all accounts. “You know that’s weird - he seemed pretty forgiving considering the amount of glass incidents that I heard happened while other residents were there.” His head tilted a little, tightening his hands a fraction around the mug as he levelled her with a flat and searching look. Not the first that had come tonight because something about the weight of the conversation didn’t flow in the way they normally spoke. “Right, but those ghosts aren’t here are they? I mean they got exorcised you told me the story yourself and you’ve got all the protection you’d ever need to stop that from happening again. Heck, we’ve got enough people in this town that could keep you safe from that… Who are these people? What are they asking you to do?”

“Yes, really,” Nadia said, her eyes hard as steel. She could feel him doubting her, and she could tell this situation wasn’t going the way she wanted. She could still try to turn it around. She knew she could. She at least had to try. “Honestly, I’m just as surprised as you are. Thought he was a pretty cool dude until he spiked up my rent for no fucking reason. I wasn’t the one breaking all the glass. But, hey, it’s over now. I’m getting settled in somewhere else.” She smiled at him, despite his intense stare, with that easy, self-deprecating Nadia Diaz grin that she’d perfected over the years. The only thing that gave away her frustration was the slightest flickering of the lights. “Huh, that’s weird.” She wished she had a better handle on that shit, especially when she was trying to shmooze people, but what could a girl do? “They never got rid of them, not properly,” she said quietly, wrapping her hands around her mug and making herself small. “And I’m not safe, not here.” She made her eyes panicked. “They’re criminals, Arthur, and I’m not putting anyone else at risk because of me.” There. That was a pretty Nadia statement. “I just-- I’m so tired. I’m tired of what they want me to do. I’m tired of always looking over my shoulder. I’m fucking exhausted. I just need to get away.”

“That doesn’t really make any sense… And I mean you’re right, if you weren’t the one behind the glass and you were covering the cost of fixing it anyway then really he wouldn’t have any ground to stand on.” Nadia of all people was hardly a disruptive renter, it didn’t really track that Nadia had gotten herself kicked out of her apartment over something that was definitely not her fault. It wasn’t impossible, but the story didn’t entirely add up. Arthur looked at her, and the steeliness in her gaze struck him as strange. Nadia never typically looked at anything with such an intense level of seemingly calculated determination. Yet as he was about to ask another question, the lights flickered and his eyes tracked up quickly. “Uh… yeah.” Considering he’d changed those lightbulbs the week prior they definitely shouldn’t be on the way out. He tried to keep the level of his voice neutral, but even years of experience couldn’t entirely maintain his decorum. “You aren’t putting anyone at risk of doing anything they aren’t willing to do themselves, Nadia, you can’t control the decisions of every person in your life.” As much as it would have made life so much easier, that simply wasn’t how things went. “What do they want you to do?” Maybe then this sudden skittishness would make more sense. “How though? Tell me how running is going to help though? What’s to stop these people finding you somewhere that there aren’t people that in all honesty are pretty well equipped to keep you safe.” If anything despite the lurking dangers, there was more benefit to staying.

“It’s human nature, Arthur. Sometimes things don’t make sense.” Nadia raised an eyebrow at the man, wishing he’d just fucking let this drop. He was pushing her, and she hated being pushed. She watched him, getting as much of a read off of him as she could. He seemed unnerved. Good. Maybe this would stop him from digging too deep. She couldn’t even pull from Nadia anymore, something that was wonderful when she was working but was an absolute bitch when she was trying to deal with Nadia’s supposed friends. She sighed, looking away and biting her lip. “I know, but people shouldn’t have to do that. Not for me.” There, that was very Nadia Diaz of her. Devaluing herself was practically the little empath’s trademark. She’d get herself killed if it meant someone else didn’t have to get hurt. “I’ve-- I’ve had to start committing crime. Small robberies. Shit like that. And I don’t want to, but they’re-- they’ll rat me out to the-- I don’t want to go to jail, but they’ll turn me in if I don’t.” She sniffled a bit. “Sorry. It’s just… If I run, they’ll have a harder time finding me. White Crest just isn’t safe for me. Not with that ghost still hanging around. Not with these people breathing down my back.” Not with everyone wanting to bring Nadia back.

“Sometimes no, but when you’ve lived as long as I have you can often get a gauge on how a person’s going to act based on interacting with them.” So that didn’t entirely track, nor did Nadia’s current attitude towards the topic. “Bullshit,” Arthur interrupted without warning his frown deepening “that’s bullshit and you should know by now that’s now how this works. You don’t call the shots on what someone else wants or is going to do for you, you know why?” There was an ironclad sternness in his voice, “it’s because you’re deserving of people that give a shit about you. People might’ve let you down before - you’ve been through hell and come out the other side of it but this time you aren’t alone. So no more, no more saying people shouldn’t. They can and they will because you deserve people that care enough to step out and call time on the shit that you’re being put through.” His mind was turning over the information, processing and trying to come up with a plan that they could put into action. “Then we find evidence that you’re being blackmailed, there are plenty of people on the force who are in the know. Heck I even know an FBI agent that’s catching up on the run of this town… The law can work for you Nadia - there’s no need to run. A ghost is definitely something that we can handle.”

Nadia gritted her teeth so hard that her jaw hurt, and the lights flickered again. She took a deep breath in, let it out, and turned to Arthur, her face devoid of emotion. “Do you know what’s bullshit? This conversation. I’m not in the mood to play pretend anymore.” She stood up, leaving her mug. “I do call the shots, and I’m done here. Sorry, prof. But I don’t have time for this.” Even if he had tears, those fucking tears that she needed desperately. She almost wanted to stop, to backtrack and make try to get some of them out of him again, but she couldn’t keep this up. She’d admit it: she was losing her Nadia Diaz touch. Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing. Time for a reinvention, anyways. Nadia Diaz was a ghost, unimportant and useless. She didn’t matter. She laughed at him, though. “You’re funny. People ‘help,’” she made air quotes, “because they’re nosy, or because they want to make themselves look good. It’s not because they care. Not when there’s nothing worth caring about.” She started walking away. “The law is useless, but it’s fairly easy to evade, I won’t lie. I don’t want them to work for me. Me and the cops, we’ve never exactly seen eye to eye.” She stopped though, all smiles, all teeth as she turned to look at him. “Oh, I think this ghost is far more than you can handle, Professor Drake.”

The change was practically instantaneous and Arthur truly wasn’t sure what to make of it at first. Didn’t Nadia understand that he was just trying to help her see that her best option of getting out of this was staying right where she was. But the words were spoken with such a degree of scorn and intensity that in all honesty, Nadia wasn’t capable of. Not the Nadia he knew. So why was she acting this way? Things were bad but there was always some modicum of hope no matter how dark it might seem. He blinked, mind processing the information and strange behaviour and by the time he realised she was already halfway to the door. He shifted in an instant, hand going for the nearest iron implement on the countertop - a cast iron skillet and he barely noticed the rising warmth in his hand, starting to heat the iron in his grasp “rich talk coming from someone that that clearly doesn’t understand the meaning of caring for another person’s life… Especially her life.” His eyes narrowed at the threatening demeanor she adopted, it was jarring, to see someone you cared a great deal about acting in a way that was so out of character. His fingers tightened on the skillet, half torn between seeing Nadia and having to remind himself that this was some interloper hijacking his friend’s body. He advanced slowly reeling through his options, he didn’t want to hurt her, hell he didn’t want to hurt anyone but if this was for the greater good of getting that spirit out of her… Sometimes you had to suck it up and make the hard choices. “You’re hardly the first ghost I’ve ever had to deal with…” he paused half a metre or so away, studying and assessing her expression hoping to see some kind of recognition. Where his uncertainty lingered before a low burning anger steadied his voice and his hand, half tensed and ready to swing if she made any move he didn’t like. “Is she in there?”

“Oh, you caught me on a bad day,” Nadia said pleasantly, looking at the iron skillet in Arthur’s hands and flexing her fingers, the lights flickering again. “Or maybe a good one. See, I’m feeling a little unhinged.” The temperature in the room, already cold, lowered further still. “This is my life, capisce?” She moved in closer, completely unafraid of this man. He wouldn’t hit her because he wouldn’t hit Nadia. For all his righteous fury, there was still a part of him that was apprehensive, thinking that the young woman that he cared about was still bouncing around inside her, trapped and only a moment away from getting out. She softened her expression, schooled it into something hurt and unsure, taking long blinks and shaking her head. “Arthur?” Her voice came out in a quiver. She was close to him now, and she stumbled towards him, but instead of waiting for him to catch her, she grabbed his hand, felt his fragile bones under her fingers, and twisted his arm. She felt it snap. God, these bird people really do have shitty hollowed bones, don’t they? “You’ve never dealt with someone like me, prof. I can assure you of that.” She grinned at him savagely. “No, she’s not fucking in here. You wanna know where she is? Dead.” She laughed. “Some dumbass children playing at exorcists kicked her right out of her own fucking body. It’smine now, and I’m gonna leave this town, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“Bullshit,” Arthur retorted coldly as he advanced each step slow and calculated in its placement, an attempt to rotate and get himself between her and the door “you have no right to it. Get out, or I will make you.” Mercy wasn’t the only individual that lived under this roof capable of indecent acts. It had been a long time, several lifetimes in fact since a rage as frosty as this set in. It burned cold, under his control in the face of a friend turned foe. But she was also right, doubt lingered like a clinging thorn riding just beneath the flow of his anger.

Because Nadia was still in there. She had to be.

After all, that’s what ghosts did. They suppressed their hosts. Kept them hostage within their own body.

While he stood braced the logical part of his mind reminded him that this could all be an act, it was too fast, seemed too easy. But a moment’s hesitation was all it took. The opening presented itself and she seized it, yanking his arm with horrific force and the quiet kitchen echoed with the resounding snap of bone. An unforgettable, horrible sound accompanied by a cry of pain and debilitating wave of nausea. He stumbled, catching the counter and steadying himself, cradling his twisted arm close adrenaline pumping through his veins as he rounded on her. “That’s not how this goes,” he ground out flatly, she had the advantage of speed, but he had height and weight on his side. Anger fuelled his movement, hefting the skillet back and swinging hard until it connected with a sharp clang followed up by dropping his weight and charging her with the aim of slamming her back into the counter. If he had to incapacitate her at the risk of his own life then so be it. If it meant Nadia could get her life back, well, it was an easy trade to make.

Crying out as the metal connected with her cheek and caused more than just a physical pain to rip through her, Nadia felt something inside her surge, the light bulbs shattering around them. Her hand went up to touch where the skillet connected with her face, and she was completely caught off guard as the weight of him slammed into her. She kicked out against him. “Fuck you!” she snarled. “There’s no one to give the body back to. She’s dead. She’s dead. You make me leave, and this body becomes a corpse without a soul inside of it.” It didn’t matter, in the end, if Nadia Diaz was still hanging around or not. If Nadia left the body, it would die. Probably. She was sure somebody could put it on life support, but bodies didn’t last that long without a consciousness steering it around. Surely this fool knew that much.

“That’s exactly how this goes,” Nadia snarled. “I’m going to walk out of this house, and I’m going to walk out of this town, and there’s not a goddamn thing you can do to stop me.” She looked over to the sink where it was next to her, reached over, and turned the water on. She splashed a bit of it on Arthur to get him off of her, a threat. She’d drown this fucker if she had to. She knew all about how little birds just hated getting wet. With a shove, she said, “I guess this is a bad time to tell you I only came to get some tears, huh?”

“You’re lying,” Arthur hissed as he slammed her into the countertop not caring about the glass that littered the surfaces or the painful throb of his arm. He had one good hand and it was already going for her throat. He had no intent to kill, even if he knew how this was way more important than that he just needed to incapacitate her long enough to try and figure out what the hell the next step was. How they were going to get Nadia back where she belonged. So a choke until she passed out was the most rational option right now. The one thing he couldn’t allow was for her to get out of here. If she did… He didn’t want to even entertain the notion.

His fingers clamped down, squeezing tight against the tension in her neck his teeth gritted as he fought to hold her still. “And even if you’re not, then we’ll just figure out how to get her back. Either way your time’s up.“ But it was easier said than done, and with an arm out of action he couldn’t pin her as effectively as he would’ve liked. The intent was broken momentarily as he felt the scalding pain across his face; the skin blistering red and raw in seconds where the water had come into skin-contact. It wasn’t much and so he battled through the pain, resisting the shove and grimacing as he shoved her back just as hard going once more for the throat. “Fuck you. You’ll get what you deserve… One way or the other… She’s coming back.”

“I’m not,” Nadia snarled, though her words were cut off effectively by the hand wrapped around her throat. The water in the sink splashed about and the electrical appliances started going haywire, and she looked at him with other contempt. Her eyes stung as tears started to stream down them, and she couldn’t catch her breath. Again, she stuck her hand in the water, spots dancing around her eyes as she brought her fist up and punched him hard in the nose. There was no holding back. She would kill him if it meant that she walked out of that door and into freedom. She jerked her knee up, and, with Arthur well and truly distracted, punched him again for good measure. Gasping, she brought a hand to her throat, wiped at her nose a bit. “You think you can do what an exorcist couldn’t? Face it, bird brain, you’re as useless as your hollowed bones in this kinda situation. Just accept defeat.” She shook the remaining drops of water collecting on her fingers onto him and headed for the door. “I’ve already gotten what I deserve, and it’s this.” She shrugged, gave Arthur a shiteating grin. “She’s not. And you’re useless to me. If I see you again, you’re gonna get to see your next life a lot quicker than expected, pal.” She flipped him the bird (enjoy the pun, asshole), and left, still rubbing her sore throat. That was gonna bruise, wasn’t it?

[s1cparvism4gna]

PuNK

WARNINGS: SMUUUUT, cursing

Pairings: Rafe Adler x OC

Tags: @desertvvitch , @courtenbae , @tiecladartist

Author’s Note: I’m now going to be posting my fic chapters on this blog instead of the other. As always, let me know if you’d like to be tagged 💕 enjoy! 😉

Chapter 6

Lyric’s POV

The next week at work was… strange to say the least. First of all, I’d never been so well rested. Second, I had gotten a call from the dive bar that some fancy guy came in and bought all the Floral and Fading tee shirts. All of them. ‘Who needs 150 band tees? That are the same….’ I thought. I tried not to think much of it but we made a lot of money from it. Enough to get groceries and laundry done and enough to splurge on getting my nails done for Italy (which I still couldn’t believe I was even going!). The third reason, which was the strangest of them all, was Rafe. He was acting weird. And by weird, I mean he’d been smiling more and saying his morning greetings pleasantly. Instead of yelling bloody murder when he asked things of me, he’d temporarily step out of his office to physically look at me and pose his questions. And he’d say things like “please” or “would you mind”.... I was almost convinced he’d been abducted by aliens and replaced with a clone. He would let me go home early, he would extend my lunch breaks, and he even invited me to join him at lunch. On more than one occasion. To which I immediately but politely declined. It was too much too soon. It felt like a trap.

By the time Thursday rolled around, I had everything packed to go. The air in the office was as normal as always. Everyone was tired and complained about how shitty their morning was. Everyone but my coworker Winter who was solely interested in Rafe and I’s upcoming trip to Italy. But for all the wrong reasons…

“I just think he might have a little crush on you is all.” She said, scribbling in her journal and typing up something in her computer. I snorted rather loudly as I sipped on my coffee.

“That’s bullshit if I ever heard it—”

“Just hear me out!” She exclaimed, low enough for only the two of us to hear. She stood from her desk and scuttled over to sit on the edge of mine. I leaned back into my seat, legs crossed and lips pursed to keep myself from bursting into laughter.

“Please. I would love to hear your reasoning.” I said, awaiting her answer as if I was waiting for the punchline of a joke to kick in. She pushed her blonde hair behind her ears and leaned towards me.

“First of all, it’s really not that far off. He relies on you to get shit done around here. If you weren’t here, he’d be a wreck, this office would be a mess, and half of us would lose our jobs. Two! You haven’t even seen how he’s been looking at you lately—”

“He doesn’t see me—” I interrupted briefly, tugging on the collar of my light pink turtleneck and sipping my coffee.

“Bullshit. The other day when you two were in a meeting, you got up to do something for Mr. Ackles and I looked up for a split second, glanced in the conference room…. I swear to God, he could not stop staring at you. I mean everywhere you moved in the room, his eyes were on you.” She said to me. I crinkled my brows and opened my mouth to refute but truthfully I didn’t know what to say.

“I’m his assistant! He’s probably making sure that I don’t fuck up—” She made a face for me to shut up. So I tilted my head as she continued.

“And let's be real about this: we can not act like he’s not the most attractive man in the building.” She winked at me, looking around to make sure he wasn’t around. She wasn’t wrong. Rafe was very attractive. I just never stared long enough to be under his thrall. And I never would. He was much too uptight for me. “Ricki, look. You’re 32. You’re not gonna get any younger. And that punk act you’ve got going on isn't gonna last forever.” I scoffed, trying my best not to be offended. I put blood, sweat, tears, money, and sleep loss into my musical career.

“Wow…” I laughed, blinking at her a bit.

“Not saying that you won’t make it but… isn’t that type of music generally for the younger crowd?” She asked me. She wasn’t really helping herself.

“Keep on callin’ me old, Winter….” I warned her in a half joking tone.

“I just think that if it turns out that he really does like you, you’d be stupid to not at least try it out—”

“Okay, you know what? I don’t care how he looks at me. The man dramatically spits out coffee if it’s not the right temperature. Why do I need that kinda stress in my life?”

“Because he’s rich.”

“I don’t care about that. He’s a shitty person.” I said simply, ending the conversation as I grabbed a file from behind her and opened it to read. She gave a frustrated sigh and crossed her arms, looking at me in disappointment. I glanced up from the file and she was still standing there. “Was that all?” I asked in a slightly bitchy tone. She shook her head.

“You’re unbelievable.” She said, smacking the back of my head playfully and sitting at her desk.

“Unbelievably SICK!” I retorted, flipping her off momentarily and she chuckled. Just then, Rafe came stalking into the office.

“Good morning, Mr. Adler!” Winter greeted, like the kiss ass she tended to be. But he ignored her.

“Ms. Lewis, could you meet me in my office please?” He asked as he quickly walked by.

“Yes s-” Before I could even finish my answer, his door slammed shut. I blinked, unsure of what to even think. He was happy all week… ‘I hope he’s still happy…’ I thought as I stood. Winter and I exchanged glances and I entered his office. He was scarily quiet, his hands gripping onto the edge of his desk until his knuckles were white. His briefcase laid sprawled out on the floor; I assumed he tossed at the couch and it didn’t make it. I carefully closed the door behind me and walked towards his desk. Once again, I couldn’t help but ask. I rested my hands on one of the seats in front of his desk and crossed my ankles, taking a deep breath before speaking.

“Are you okay?” I asked. He gave a deep sigh before curling his fingers into fists and punched the desk for a second. I jumped at the sudden noise as he sat down.

“No, Lyric. I’m not okay. I was but not anymore.” He answered through gritted teeth.

“What happened?” I sat down in the seat I was leaning on, smoothing out my skirt as he paced behind his desk. He began with a huff, already seeming more irritable the more he dwelled on it.

“Tell me… have you been keeping up with Samuel by any chance?”He asked as calmly as possible. I gave a nervous chuckle.

“What- do you think we keep tabs on each other like teenagers?” I answered. Truthfully, I hadn’t seen him in a very long time. I was almost disappointed. Almost. Rafe’s cheeks seemed to turn a faint pink for a moment as his poker face faltered a bit.

“No, no- I just…. I figured since you two were so close in the office that maybe you kept in touch...” he replied in a boyish tone.

“Are you jealous?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood a bit clearly he wasn’t feeling it.

“Lyric, please… This is serious.” His tired green eyes locked with mine and I could immediately see that whatever the problem was was truly stressing him out. So I gave him a break.

“No. I haven’t heard from him.” I told him. He hummed at my answer and scratched at the stubble that attempted to appear on his chin. “Rafe, what’s going on?” I asked, beginning to feel concerned. He seemed to be doing a few breathing exercises before he answered.

“It seems that some of my research has gone missing.” He said, holding onto the back of his seat for dear life.

“And you think Sam took it?” I asked.

“Well he is a thief, after all… I wouldn’t put it past him.” he grumbled, putting his head in his hands. My eyes widened.

“No shit.”

“Yes shit. He didn’t just magically come out of thin air. I…” he paused to carefully choose his words. “I bailed him out.”

“Oh. Shit…. How long was he in for?” I asked. I couldn’t believe it.

“14 years…” he replied, running his fingers through his hair.

“For stealing?! What did he steal?! The Hope Diamond?!”

“Oh no he uh…. he killed a guard on the inside.” He mumbled.

“HE WHA- he what?!” I snapped.

“Yeah. Congratulations. You were flirting with a murderer.” He said in a sassy tone. I chuckled and denied it.

“No… I wasn’t...flirting-”

“You were just being friendly?” He said. I smirked at him.

“Oh piss off!” I said, playfully hitting his forearm. I half expected him to look at me like I was crazy but he just smiled small and huffed in frustration, resting his forehead on his desk.

“Ugh this is the fucking worst…” he said. “I bet he’s on his way to Italy for that cross now.”

“Okay cool- but it’s an auction. Last I checked he was broke as hell and the security will be so tight…. So don’t worry about it, okay?” I said, calmly. He searched my eyes for a moment and nodded. His shoulders dropped and he seemed a bit more at ease. I put a comforting hand over his and ran my thumb over his knuckles. “It’ll be fine. We are going to go to Italy, sip some wine, eat some pizza, and get all dressed up for this auction. And you’re going to walk out of the estate with this cross. I’m manifesting it. I am putting it into the ether.” I said as positively as possible. His eyes never left mine and his grip had tightened a little in my hand.

“Of all the fine cuisine that Rome has to offer, you still want... pizza?” He chuckled in amusement.

“Of course! I want real Italian pizza, okay? With melted mozzarella and fresh tomato sauce and all the seasonings! Not one from down the street...or a frozen box.” I said and the look he gave me shocked me. His eyes seemed to trace over every feature of my face and his cheeks faintly blushed again. For a second I began to wonder if this is what Winter saw. This look that he was giving me right now. That shy look of longing. He smiled and retrieved his briefcase, sitting it on his desk as he avoided my gaze.

“Very well. I’m sure there’s a decent pizzeria around.” He said, taking a seat.

“Yes!” I exclaimed as I stood to leave. “So remember! Don’t worry. You’ve got this all under control.” I said, backing out of the office. And with that, I went back to my own desk. I sat down with a sigh. I couldn’t shake the look he’d given me. I suddenly hated Winter for making me notice it. Something about him was no doubt changing and I was interested to see what. I sipped on my coffee and continued to work until the day was out.

Finally, it was time to go. I pulled my suitcase from under my desk and dragged it to sit next to me. The office had gone home for the day and my last order of business was to leave Winter instructions on what to do in our absence. I was literally shaking with excitement. I’d never been anywhere outside the country before. I couldn’t wait for a bit of warm weather. I was freezing my ass off here. Rafe seemed to keep his cool since I talked to him last and to be completely honest, I was glad about it. The last thing we needed was his temper on a whole 9 hour flight. After a while, he appeared from his office and closed his door behind him with a tired smile.

“You ready?” He asked me. I shot up from my seat and threw on my trench coat, making sure I had everything together.

“Absolutely!” I grinned.

“Allow me.” He said, lifting the handle of my suitcase and dragging it along behind him. I was surprised at him. I always knew he was a gentleman but I’d never been on the receiving end of it before.

We walked to the elevator that took us to the rooftop and waiting for us, on and ready, was the big white company plane. I stopped for a second as I watched Rafe board the plane to just appreciate the experience I was about to have. “Are you coming or are you just gonna stand there?!” I suddenly heard Rafe shout to me above the deafening engines, tearing me from my thoughts. I nodded and ran towards the plane, trying not to twist my ankles in the tall heels on my feet. He stretched out a hand to me and helped me up the small flight of stairs. We were greeted by the pilot and a stewardess and shown to what was pretty much a lounge on this plane. The interior of it all was absolutely gorgeous. There were lavish beige recliner seats and a couch to match. Portable desks were made cherry oak with golden cup holders and the carpets were a deep wine red with gold accents. Red curtains covered the windows and there were even decorative pillows and blankets— everything was made to match. When I sat down, the stewardess came in and immediately began asking us if we wanted food or drinks… or alcoholic beverages.

“We’ll take dinner here.” Rafe answered before I could even open my mouth. “I’m sure you’re starving by now, right?”

“Uh… yeah.” I whispered, shedding my jacket and sitting on the couch.

“What do you want?”

“What would you recommend?” I asked, truly unsure of what I wanted.

“Jack back there makes this roasted garlic chicken with vegetables that’s just… magic.” He chef’s kissed the air and I widened my eyes with a giggle, sitting back in my seat. I’d never seen Rafe so expressive.

“Well then I’ll have that!” I smiled. I watched him grin as he began loosening his tie, undoing a few buttons and rolling up the sleeves of his collared shirt, putting in an order for a seasoned fish and potatoes.

“Very good, sir. May I get the two of you started on drinks?”the stewardess asked.

“Chateau Margaux Red, in a chilled glass please.” He answered, opening and reaching into his briefcase to pull out a few folders and a pen. Then she turned to me.

“And for you, miss?” She asked with a kind smile.

“Um…. whiskey?” I answered vaguely.

“Is there a brand you prefer?”

“Um….. no. I usually just order whiskey and I get... whiskey.” I giggled nervously, scratching my head. In the corner of my eye, I could see Rafe smile a little, his shoulders bouncing from a light chuckle.

“Get her a glass of Glenfiddich.”He said and the two nodded at each other in agreement.

“Two glasses…. maybe three.” I corrected him and he laughed again.

“Yes,ma’am. I’ll be back shortly. We should be in the air in about 10 minutes.” She told us as she gave me a smile. I returned it and sat back on the couch, my fingers tapping on the arm. I was nervous about flying, I’d never flown before. But I couldn’t let him know that.

“You okay?” He asked suddenly.

“Yeah…. just… really want a cigarette…”

“Hmph. I didn’t know you smoked.” He said casually.

“Uh yeah…. I’m tryin’ to quit.” I mumbled.

“Well good. That shit does fuck all for your lungs anyway.” He said and I nodded with a smile. He just kept on surprising me. Ever since we left the office, it was like he’d become a different person. I’d never heard him swear so much leisurely. “So um, I still have a bit of work to do before we touchdown in Italy. I’m gonna have my earpiece in so—”

“Of course! I can be quiet.” I chimed. He just chuckled.

“After dinner, Lyric.” He smiled.

“I knew that.” I mumbled in embarrassment.

Just as the stewardess said, we were in the air in no time and starting our flight to Rome. We held a light conversation over dinner, sort of like an ice breaker. Contrary to what I originally thought, he was actually kind of funny. Or “punny” rather. We talked about work, people in the office, how he couldn’t stand his meetings with certain people and we had a list of them that we both agreed were the absolute worst people; for similar reasons too. Afterwards, he delved into his work and I curled up on the couch, playing a few games on my phone as I listened to music, continuously drinking glasses of whiskey until I couldn’t feel my face. I couldn’t help but take a few glances at him as he worked though. The veins in his forearms that bulged as he scribbled on papers and the sharp angle of his jaw as he threw his head back when he was exhausted or frustrated was hypnotizing to say the least. The muscles in his chest making themselves present beneath his collared shirt and vest, the few strands of hair that tended to fall out of place by the end of the workday, his striking green eyes… ‘Stop it, Ricki. It’s Rafe. It’s your boss. You shouldn’t look at him that way…. Why are you even looking at him that way?!’ I thought suddenly. I scoffed and turned my phone off to close my eyes; maybe I could get a nap in somewhere on this flight. Before I knew it, the warmth of the food in my stomach, the low vibrations of the plane, and the comfort of the couch paired with the multiple drinks I had seemed to be enough to send me to sleep. Then I began dreaming…

I was in the office. It was after hours by the looks of things. When I turned in my seat, the workroom was empty, all the desk lamps were on and I was the only one there. Looking down, I was dressed in a simple white collared shirt and a pencil skirt that seemed to be a tad shorter and tighter than normal. But it didn’t phase me one bit. Hard rock music played off of my speaker rather loudly and there was an unfinished email typed up on the computer before me. I sighed and turned around to continue working when I heard Rafe’s voice calling me. “Ms. Lewis, I need your assistance please!” He yelled. Like always, I groaned loudly and went stomping towards his office. When I walked in, he was sitting behind his desk with his legs kicked up on the edge. His hair was disheveled as I secretly realized I liked, the buttons on his vest undone and his tie loosened, the cuffs of his sleeves rolled off of his wrists displaying a fancy watch. I leaned into the doorway and placed a hand on my hip with a touch of attitude.

“What do you want, Rafe?” I asked, completely out of character. If I ever answered him like that for real, I would probably be fired. But instead of yelling, he just let his eyes run over my body, biting his lip with intrigue. I cocked my brow and crossed my arms, tapping my foot impatiently as a devious smile flashed across his face. My heart skipped a beat as he took his feet off the desk and turned his attention to his computer.

“I’m having a bit of trouble getting this PDF to open. Would you mind…?” He asked me. I blinked at him a moment and sighed.

“Yeah. Seeing as I have to do everything else for you.” I replied in annoyance. I started over to his desk and he moved out of the way. Not necessarily standing up, more like just rolled his chair away from the computer. I leaned over as he rested his head in his hand on the desk, so obviously gawking at me as I typed away. Suddenly, he reached out and pushed a lock of hair over my ear, his finger stroking my jaw and his hand running over my shoulder then down my back. His touch caused a stir in me and I let out a shaky sigh but I continued to work. The file wouldn’t open. It didn’t make any sense. I did what I would’ve done on my own computer. I opted to try again.

“What is it that Samuel has that I don’t?” He asked me suddenly, his hand rubbing circles at the small of my back. I was taken aback and snapped my head to stare at him. The look on his eyes was something hungry and needy; like he was trying to hold back from doing something.

“I… um—”

“What can he give you… that I can’t?” He asked, his hand slipping past my hips and over the rounds of my ass. My heart began to race as his fingers traced down the back of my leg. I almost went weak when he graced over the sensitive spot just above the back of my knee. His touch was so electrifying that I could barely think. He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he watched my reactions carefully.

“He… I don’t—”

“You don’t even know do you?” He seemed to smirk as his fingers ghosted over my inner thigh, slipping by the split in my skirt a bit. He gripped onto my thigh tightly and as he stood, his fingers brushed over my clothed clit. “Do you even want him? Hm?” He breathed into my ear, pulling my hair off of my neck and letting his nose trace my jawline. I had forgotten what I was even doing in his office to begin with since he started touching me. I took a slow and deep breath as his cold lips pressed against the warm skin of my neck. I closed my eyes with a shiver as he began massaging my through my panties. “Answer me, Lyric.” He demanded, slapping my ass rather harshly. I gasped from the contact and my hands began to shake in excitement.

“Rafe, I—”

“Mr. Adler…” he corrected me.

“Mr. Adler, I don’t know what you mean…” I sighed.

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you. The way you look at him… Why don’t you look at me that way, huh?” He asked, lifting my skirt as he stood behind me, running his hands over my ass gently. “Do you have any idea what you do to me, Ms. Lewis?” He groaned as he pressed himself against me, his hands now firm on my hips as he pulled me close to feel his growing hard-on. As he ran his hand up my spine, I felt my back arch for him. He continued to spank me until my cheeks turned red and the cool touch of his fingertips eased the pain. His fingers hooked around the hem of my panties and yanked them down my legs. He used his foot to kick my legs apart and carefully scooped up and handful of my hair, pulling on it a bit. He ran a chilling finger up my slick cunt and licked his fingers for a taste. He moaned in my ear as I let out shallow breaths.

“Just as I thought. You taste delicious…” He said and he continued to stroke my wetness until I was all worked up and began to finger me roughly. I was left groaning in need.

“Mr. Adler… please…” I whimpered, his fingers diving in and out of me.

“What’s that, sweetheart?” He asked in a deep alluring tone.

“Please fuck me—”

“Please fuck me, who?”

“Mr. Adler! Please fuck me, please!” I cried out. With a frustrated grunt, he pushed everything off of his desk, not caring about the mess and laid me down. He undid my blouse and cupped my breasts, leaving sloppy kisses all over my chest and he undid his belt. I didn’t see it but boy could I feel it as he entered me. He sucked on my nipples a while as I got used to his size and his hand travelled up to my neck, squeezing lightly as he began to move. He kept it slow, drawing out the feeling of my clit dragging along his length. I couldn’t keep myself from whining as he rolled into me.

“Fuck me harder.” I said suddenly. “Please fuck me harder, Mr. Adler.” I moaned, staring him right in the eyes. He gave an almost evil chuckle as he removed his tie from his neck and wrapped it around my wrists tightly, pushing my arms above my head. He hiked up my legs to wrap them around his waist and he began to drive into me. He hovered over me, staring into my eyes with so much lust and want as I squealed and moaned beneath him. He alternated between slow and fast paced, ramming into me until I felt myself beginning to come undone.

“Keep it up and you’re going to make me cum, Lyric.” He growled through his teeth, resting his forehead against mine with a satisfied lightly dimpled smile. And it was a damn gorgeous one at that.

“Cum in me. I want you to…” I shuddered. He laughed tiredly, cupping my cheeks with his surprisingly soft hands and kissing me deeply.

“Whatever you want…” He said darkly, his hand dragging from my cheek to my neck again. And this time he used both hands to choke me gently. He snapped his hips into me repeatedly, tears beginning to well in my eyes as I started to see stars.

“I’m gonna… I—” Just as I was about to release—

I felt a hand run down my shoulder, gently shaking me awake. When I opened my eyes, I was met with those striking greens and I gasped in embarrassment, moving away. Rafe has woken me up, sitting on the edge of the couch with a tired smile.

“Sorry! Didn’t mean to scare you.” He said kindly as I sat up, a thick fabric falling off of my shoulders. He’d covered me with his jacket. My heart raced under his touch and I could feel my face burning as I looked into his eyes. “We’re about to land. I figured maybe you’d want to see the sky view.” He told me, pointing to the window behind my head. I turned my head to see a beautiful sunrise over what looked to be the Colosseum. I gasped and rose to my knees like a child to get a better look. All of the beautifully sculpted buildings and the bluest waters…

“This is amazing…” I said unknowingly.

“Wait until we actually get into the city.” He said in a soft tone of wonder similar to mine. I looked over at him and we shared a smile. This weekend was going to be an adventure for sure...

Full story on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26598127/chapters/64850665

[salted-cushions]

All the reasons I gave you, the things I wanted and didn’t want - they were real, but they paled next to you. Like candles lit under the midday sun. And I, weak and stupid, watched the sun set on my life for the last time instead of snuffing even one of my candles out. Now they’ve all burned out, and so I’m sitting in the dark with nothing but my regrets to keep me company.

Long-ass emo post that takes a long time to get the the point, be warned.

I have taken up running in the past few weeks. I am not a strong runner, but my aerobic capacity is slowly improving and I’m starting to enjoy it... slightly.

I ran a community 5K this morning, and the emailed me my results about an hour later. I ran it in 33:15, which was much better than last time but still slow as fuck in the grand scheme of things - the fastest guy there posted a time of 17:30ish, which I know because he lapped me about 10 meters before the finish line.

So I was pretty confused when they told me I ran the fastest time in my age category. Like wtf? So I opened the results page and sorted it by age category - and it turns out that out of 182 runners, eight of them were between the ages of 20 and 29.

Where the fuck do I find people my age to make friends with? Most of the people in my course don’t speak english well enough to really get to know them, and besides they tend to form their own little cliques based on nationality - the chinese students have their own little groups, as do the indians and sri lankans. The singaporean and hong kong group is a bit more welcoming (and they tend to speak better english too), but like... I can get along with them well enough, but not well enough to be part of the in crowd, y’know? And it feels kinda weird to be the only white guy hanging out with an entirely asian crew. Plus their main social activities seem to be hot pot and boba tea, neither of which I’m that in to.

I’d really hoped that I’d be able to make some friends doing this running group thing, but I guess only the young and old do it. Ever since I’ve moved back to the suburbs I just never see anyone between highschool age and middle age. And the people who are kinda around my age are like... young families who’re starting out with homeownership and having kids, just at a different stage of life than I am. I guess all the young people are living near unis or towards the city.

A few years ago, I wanted friends who went out and got drunk, had house parties, did drugs and had lots of casual sex. And I had that, for a little while, working at a bar near the city - we’d pull 12 hour shifts, sit in the bar after close and drink our paychecks, hit the clubs and dance for hours, hook up with strangers, crash somewhere for a couple hours sleep and do it all again tomorrow. But it’s not as fulfilling as I thought it would be, I think I only wanted it because I thought I missed out in my teens and early 20s. (Hospitality bosses want their employees to do this, by the way - they’ve created this culture where you basically get abused by them and the customers all day, then spend all your money drinking at your workplace to get the bad feelings out, and then by the time the next shift rolls around you’re so tired and hungover all you want is to get through your shift and get drunk again. It’s disgusting, and I hope I never work at a bar again).

So what sort of friends do I want now? I don’t really know. I want to be able to talk about things that are on my mind, share my accomplishments and have them celebrated, get support when I need it and give it when they do. I want to host dinner parties and cocktail nights, and go to my friends’ dinner parties and cocktail nights. I want to go to nice restaurants and classy bars for celebrations, and maybe hit a club and dance until I can’t stand once or twice a year - but not on a school night, that’s not very smart.

I guess part of my problem is I want to do everything and be accepted everywhere (thanks, ADHD). Not that many people want to go and see the ballet or a musical, and also get high and talk about life, and also exercise every day and be fit and healthy, and also get shitfaced and dance until the sun comes up. People I meet seem to have space in their lives for work or school, family, a couple good friends, and exactly one ‘other’. My ‘other’ is a list a mile long, and everything has to be done at 110% otherwise I’m not interested in the slightest. I miss dancing - but there’s no point taking it up again until I can commit $5k/year and 15+ hours/week to competition training, plus probably another $5k/year on costuming, shoes and travel. I miss world of warcraft - but there’s no point playing unless I’m gonna do 10-15 hours of keystones on top of raiding three nights every week. I miss league of legends - but there’s no point playing unless I’m gonna play four hours a night to keep my skills sharp, oh and also that game makes me so fucking angry that I’ve broken more than one keyboard playing it. I miss martial arts - I kinda wanna do jujitsu, but it’s so expensive and you gotta buy all the gear straight away, and I know that if I get into it I’ll start wanting to train every day and spend all my time and money on it. Plus I don’t always get along with the kind of people who do it - the typical BJJ guy is either an older dude who realised he was getting fat and had a midlife crises, or a younger guy with a shaved head and intense eyes with dark circles whose bought into the culture with a cult-like intensity and has the vibe of being on the precipice of getting an SS tattoo. I miss magic the gathering, but collecting cards for a competitive decks is an incredibly expensive and time-consuming process with significant setbacks every couple months when a new set comes out, plus MTG people tend to be have this unique combination of zero social skills, zero personal hygiene, and intense arrogance that makes them eminently unlikeable.

I like lifting, but I don’t really like gym culture - if it’s powerlifting, it’s all bearded bikie sorta guys listening to heavy metal. If it’s weightlifting, it’s very insular and cliquey (although the scene in my city is very small, so that might be a poor judgement). If it’s ‘bodybuilding’ - not people who compete, but guys who want big pecs and arms, and girls who want a skinny waist and a fat ass - it’s all ‘yeah brah’ meathead vibes and shallow instagramming. Besides, I spent all this money on my home gym stuff, so I can’t really justify paying for a gym membership just for socialising.

I like running, or I’m liking it so far. I don’t know about the people, they seem a bit too... normal for me. Everyone’s chatting about their spouses and kids and dogs, except the little group of competitive runners who seem to be more interested in training than chatting (funny that). Maybe that’s how I find myself and make some friends - keep moving towards having a house and a spouse and kids and a dog. That’s scary though. Is that what I want?

This has been on my mind a lot recently, to be honest. In a year I’ll be finished with my degree (theoretically) and hopefully find a professional, salaried job. What then? Except for the year I decided I would drop out of school and have a career in hospitality (bad idea), that’s been the point where my idea of the future stops for quite a while now. I know I want to buy a house or an apartment at some point, and since I found out that my sister and I are inheriting an interstate property homeownership is actually starting to sound realistic. I know, in broad strokes, the field I want to work in. But... do I want to live in the city and live the urbanite single life? Do I want to have a family and live further out where there’s space and more greenery? If my research project goes well, maybe I could try and get hired on as a research assistant, or if I find something worthwhile I could put together a PhD proposal (lol good luck with my amazing 1.1 GPA). I could work for the local government, or the state government, or the federal government, or a design firm, or a construction firm, or a consulting firm... the options are so many and I don’t even know how to begin evaluating them.

Of course it’s all a bit of a pointless exercise right now, because I’ll honestly take whatever job I can get when I graduate. There’s a lot of jobs for civil grads, but with my awful grades, dodgy resume and just being older than the rest of my cohort, I won’t have the luxury of being choosy. Public, private, non-profit, research, city-based, rural or even interstate - I’ll be submitting as many applications as I can and taking whatever I can get. And that will cut down my options for stuff like where I like and what kind of lifestyle I want to lead, like I can’t be seeing musicals every weekend and frequenting trendy cocktail lounges if I’m living and working off in Traralgon or whatever, and I can’t be living on a ten-acre rural plot with some sheep and a couple of border collies if I need to drive into the city for work every day.

I’m not ready to turn 30. I’m getting my shit together, but it’s so fucking slow and frustrating. At the start of the year I tore up my life and started from scratch - like I have every few years since I turned 16 - but I think and hope that this will be the last time, now that I’m aware of my patterns, medicated, and trying to plan for my future. But making those plans means... I need to figure out who I am and who I want to be. I need to separate what’s a part of me from what’s manifestations of ADHD. I need to figure out what I genuinely like, and what I think I like because it’s novel, or stimulating, or because I saw people doing it and instinctively wanted to mirror them. I need to dig through the ideal version of myself, the person that I want to be, and figure out what pieces are good and what aren’t. A couple years ago, I had this idea that the ideal me would say ‘I’m gonna do what I want, and the people who don’t like that can piss off.’ Well, I woke up one day recently and realised that I had no friends because that attitude had systematically pushed everybody that I cared for out of my life, so that’s one idea that I’m working on getting rid of.

There is one part of that which is very difficult for me to approach, though... and that’s my ex. She told me that she thought I looked hot with a beard, and so that became part of my ideal version of myself. I normally wear stubble these days - but with the nice clean line shaved into my cheek, just like she liked. I tell myself this is the way I think it looks best. But maybe I only do it because my ideal me is built for her. Before I met her, I already wanted to be fit, healthy and strong - dance training, lifting, sometimes running (but never sticking to it). But fitness was a big part of her life, and while we were together I absorbed some of that from her. It would be stupid to drop it from my life altogether, but I can’t help but wonder how much of why and how I do these things is constructed around her.

I never met anyone who understood me like she did. I’ve never liked sharing hobbies with girlfriends - inevitably they don’t quite get it, just as I don’t quite get theirs. Like, girls who wanted to play video games with me didn’t understand my drive to improve and be competitive - how when I play a game I’m constantly striving, in every moment, to be that little bit quicker, more accurate, more efficient, to make the right calls, to pick the right strategies. To them, a game is just a game to play for fun - and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not how I enjoy video games and I’m going to be intensely frustrated for every single second of you clumsily trying to participate in something I’ve spent thousands of hours getting better at. I can’t even play Mario Party without becoming a ruthless monster, please let’s put on a movie or something before my head implodes.

She got it, though. Not with video games - she didn’t give two shits about them - but about fitness. She wasn’t like those people who come to the gym to half-heartedly do a set on every machine and then go home to eat ice cream, or the people who just do an hour of incline walking while watching tv and playing on their phones. She did research, and made intelligent plans, and took it seriously. She’d grit her teeth and push through the shittiest days, where lesser women (and men) would have cut their workout short and gone home. She badly needed to succeed, so badly that every little failure cut her to the quick. Healthy? Fuck no. But just like me. More than me, better than me. We understood each other. And let me tell you, you’ve never known love until you’ve watched your girlfriend grind her way out of a PR squat that by all rights she should have failed - and then seen the elation on her face once she’s racked the bar and realised what she just achieved.

Jesus, I’m close to tears now. I just wanted to bitch about not having any friends and I’ve once again segued into pining over her. God I’m so lonely. Why am I like this?

Reading over that last paragraph... it does sound like I have genuine feelings for her, and not just an obsessive need to recapture the one that got away. So that’s... good, I think. It doesn’t change anything really... it doesn’t uncover a new course of action to take, or instruct on how to manage my feelings better. But I don’t want to be that creepy, obsessive ex. I’ve felt like that a lot over the past couple years, but only internally... I’ve tried to leave her alone and done pretty well, I think. Like yeah, I think about her way too much and stalk her socials pretty regularly, but if she doesn’t see any of that then... it won’t make her uncomfortable. That’s the theory. And I’m getting better with the stalking... I just open her instagram and say to myself ‘see? still blocked and set to private. you didn’t miss anything.’ and then I can close it and go about my day. Not great, but... better than the alternatives for now.

This is where it all comes together. I want to text her, have another shot, lay everything out and say ‘I want now what you wanted from me two years ago.’ And I think that’s an actual desire, even a plan, not just me desperately trying to grab on to the last few shreds of dopamine I could get from her. But... I’m not ready, and it’s not the right time. I need to keep getting my shit together, so I can face her and be proud of myself. I don’t want to be embarrassed by living in an ancient, dirty and broken-down house - but I’m working on that. I don’t want to be embarrassed by my inability to stick to an exercise routine for more than a few months - but I’m working on that. I want be confident when I say I’ll finish my degree this year. I want to be confident when I say that next year I’ll have a job and be looking at buying a house. I want to be confident when I say that I’m quitting smoking - or, better yet, proudly say that it’s been so many weeks since my last cigarette.

I hurt her, in the past. And I regret it, and I’m ashamed - because as I’ve learned more about myself, the reasons are becoming clear. She wasn’t happy, and she would break up with me. I would say, ‘well of course I don’t want that, but you need to do what’s right for you.’ And then I would go cold for a couple of days until she inevitably came crawling back - until the last time, when she didn’t. I shouldn’t have let it go on. And why did I let it? Because I’m weak and selfish. Because I ignore issues that I don’t want to deal with, and happily go on with my life as if they don’t exist. Because I’m desperate for approval and validation, and couldn’t do the right thing by her because it would have meant losing a huge source of that. Because I think I can get away with anything, and I care more about whether there will be immediate consequences for me, rather than if something is right or wrong or affects someone else.

I took so much from her. Her friendship with our other roommate - destroyed, and at the time I said ‘that’s between the two of them,’ but I was the one who came into their lives like a hurricane. Her house - she was the one who had to move, even though she’d lived their long before me - I was the one who should have moved out, but I said to myself ‘she’s the one who’s leaving, that’s her prerogative.’ Her gym - I should have stopped going there when things were moving towards the end, but I didn’t. Then I told myself that we went at different times now and wouldn’t see each other, so it was fine - until one day when she came in, saw me, went to the bathroom and hid for at least an hour until I’d left. It shouldn’t have taken that much to make me change gyms - and for what! That gym was her community, for me it was just the most convenient place that usually had a free squat rack. And I took it from her. All of these things were so easy to justify - ‘I’m gonna do my thing and if anybody doesn’t like it - they don’t have to stay in my life.’ I was so fucking selfish, and I have so much regret. The only thing I could possibly do is apologise. And I hate apologies - words mean nothing without actions backing them up. There’s no action that I could possibly take that could give these things back to her, so all I could do is grovel at her feet and tell her that I’m sorry and that I’m trying to be a better person.

I’m scared. Even if I do get my shit together and sack up enough to text her, and even if she actually replies, and even if by some miracle she wants to try again - I’m scared that I’ll hurt her again. That I won’t have grown out of my selfish, irresponsible ways. I can SEE the patterns, but can I change them? I think so... but it’s not an overnight thing, and it’s not a neat and direct path from A to B. It’s a messy, unclear, painful and difficult thing that I have to do if I want to be a better person, if I want be capable of having a stable and loving relationship in the future. I can easily see a future where, if all the pieces fall into place and we start dating again, I just use her up and toss her away again - just like every woman I’ve ever dated. Then I’m back exactly where I am today - lying in bed emptying my feelings into the internet - and she’s twice scarred from having me in her life. And then I hurt the next woman, and the next, until I eventually die bitter and lonely, looking back on the trail of pain and heartbreak I’ve left in my wake.

I’m scared of the other options, too. I’m scared that she rejects me and it doesn’t help me get over her. What do I do then? This would be a real hail mary, there’s no third chance - hell, the second is already a stretch. I just cannot go on for the rest of my life feeling like this - it’s been two years! The first three months or so were by far the worst, but after that it’s like... this became my new baseline. A bit of ebb and flow, but never gone. Maybe it’s worse than usual right now because I walked past her last week... and maybe it’s worse than usual because I’m trying to dig these things out from the depths of my brain in the hopes that the light and air will cleanse them. Maybe by going through this phase of rawness and regret, I’ll be better equipped to move on and this will all die down. Although I’m pretty sure I would have to genuinely accept that I can’t have her, and... I don’t know how. Maybe an emphatic and absolute rejection would do that for me. I’d probably have to throw away some of the stuff she gave me. I don’t know. I’m not equipped to approach that idea right now.

And then... what if she says we can try being friends? How do I navigate that? I’m not capable of doing something halfway, I’d spend every waking minute looking for an angle. It’d be an opportunity, not a friendship. That’s... manipulative. I don’t want to do that. And I don’t want to lie to myself and pretend I could do that. I don’t think it would happen, anyway - I don’t see that coming from her. Although I have seen her being friendly with an ex of hers, so... maybe I’m wrong.

And what if she says yes... but then I find out that I was in love with the idea of her that I’ve constructed over the past two years, and the person she is now doesn’t resemble that at all? What if I was just caught up with new relationship energy and a novel person, and really the connection and rapport wasn’t as deep as I remember it being? What if I do everything right this time, and still end up unhappy? I know that dating is always a risk, but... I don’t want to be dumping her six months down the track because she didn’t live up to this ridiculous, unrealistic fantasy version of her. And I don’t want to end up a bitter old man in a loveless marriage, any more than I want to end up a bitter old bachelor with a collection of broken hearts. I think about it and I’m pretty sure that the connection we had was real, and the reasons I want her are real and accurate - but ever since I started wrapping my head around this ADHD thing, I’ve stopped trusting my perceptions of things so much. If I want something, my brain will tell me pretty much whatever I need to hear so that I can rationalise my doubts away.

And that’s part of this whole thing - all this work that I’m trying to do on myself, how much of it is for her? I say it’s for myself, but I wouldn’t put it past me to be rationalising it that way, when it’s really all part of a larger scheme to win her back. Like, I clean my kitchen benches with spray and a cloth every single day now, sometimes two or three times if I’m cooking a lot. I think that’s because I want my house to be cleaned to that standard - but she had extremely high standards of cleanliness, so maybe I’m just trying to make myself the person who can tick that box for her. And I can say, well, if that’s the case that’s ok - the motivations don’t matter as long as you’re improving yourself. But if that’s the case... what happens after I text her? If we get back together, and my brain goes ‘cool goal achieved, we can shut this all down now’ and all the good traits I’ve painstakingly developed collapse back into nothingness. Or if she says no and I actually accept that, then my brain might go ‘ok this is pointless now, let’s get rid of it’ and the exact same thing happens? I want to be a whole, complete person on my own - and a good, responsible, reliable person who does stuff like keep a beautifully clean house - and so the idea that all of that might be built around this hope of having her back in my life is... uncomfortable, at least. As is the idea that I’m constructing a persona who’s only purpose is to win back an ex-girlfriend, as if life is some stupid romcom.

This has gone way off track, so... I’ll leave it there. R, if you’re reading this... I’m so, so very sorry about so many things. I hope you’re not reading it, because I’m not ready - for the apology itself, or the conversation that might follow. But I also hope you are reading it, because that would put the ball in your court and absolve me from the need for action - and I’m still too weak to do the difficult things in life.

When I told you I would come with you, I should have followed through. And I had reasons for not doing that - like I told you in my letter - but looking back I don’t think I was being honest with myself or with you. I was just too weak to do the difficult thing, and so I told myself half-truths until they sounded true enough to tell to you. All the reasons I gave you, the things I wanted and didn’t want - they were real, but they paled next to you. Like candles lit under the midday sun. And I, weak and stupid, watched the sun set on my life for the last time instead of snuffing even one of my candles out. Now they’ve all burned out, and so I’m sitting in the dark with nothing but my regrets to keep me company.

That’s it from me, everybody. Thanks for reading my blog.

[loonathevelvet]

Everything I Wanted O1: The way back home

O2

You’ve been away for twelve years, but the sudden death of your mother brings you back to the house you grew up in. In a place metaphorically — and perhaps literally — filled with ghosts, you find yourself caught up between who you are, who you used to be, and the darkness that consumes you.

Pairing: Reader x Jungkook/Jimin (I haven’t decided)

Genre/TWs: Horror, it will absolutely contain some form of violence later on. It might contain smut but don’t hold me to that promise. There’s fluff and there’s angst, but I guess a lot of angst.

Notes: I do realize I haven’t posted since 2018 yet here I am, because I really want to write this thing that appeared in my mind out of nowhere. So hello again! 

Word count: 4k

____________________________________________

Being back at the house you grew up in after all those years was a very weird feeling. You weren’t even inside it yet, still on the other side of the street. Something, though, was making you light-headed and dizzy, and you were very grateful you were sat down in the rental car you got once you arrived at your hometown. Maybe it was something about the scent of grass that hit your face as soon as the car got close. Maybe it was the old, rusted fences that surrounded it, by this point probably impossible to restore. Maybe it was the mansion’s degraded paint, and the windows, once white, now a shade of beige. Maybe it was the silence that echoed in your ears, and the way everything seemed just close enough to how you remembered it to make you want to vomit.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was finally being in that big mansion after almost twelve years.

It was, by no means, out of your own will. Was it for you, those twelve years would have turned to twenty years, and then thirty, and then forever. If it weren’t for the call you got that morning, you would never get back here, ever.

***

You recalled waking up that morning, at 7AM, and making your coffee as usual. You decided to make some pancakes, because why not? You were excited, because it was the first time since you began working as an editor at a big magazine that you would get an entire week off. So you let the calmness of the morning fill every cell of your body, breathing in and out and stretching your arms, then your back.

You could get used to that.

You picked up a book, trying your best to stay away from any and all electronic devices you owned. Your job revolved around computers. You always had to be reading something, or editing something, or researching something. You were beyond tired of screens, and the strain they put in your eyes. All you wanted was some well-deserved rest. Lazily, you sat on the couch, put down the coffee on the small table by it and started flipping pages.

It was already nearly 10AM when you decided to check your phone. You liked reading, but it was getting boring. You thought maybe you could just check if there was anything important, and then go out and do some yoga. You stood up and picked up your phone on the kitchen counter, turning its light on. That’s when you saw 16 missing calls from your assistant, Jimin, and what felt like a hundred other notifications. You had given Jimin the week off too — safe from a couple of mundane tasks you asked him to get done —, so it freaked you out to have that many missed calls from him.

He called you one more time, and this time, you answered.

— Hey, Jimin. Is everything okay?

— Have you seen the news today? — Well, that was certainly an odd question. You remarked that his voice sounded agitated, as if he was impatient or angry. Or maybe it was something else.

— I have not. It’s my week off, I was trying to get some rest.

— Good. Listen. — He paused, perhaps trying to gather his words. — Look, I don’t know how to put this. It happened earlier today. Your… There was an accident. In your hometown. And your mother, she… Hm… She… 

— Jimin, come on. — You cut him off. — Cut to the chase. 

— Well, your mom is dead. — It wasn’t anger, or impatience in his voice earlier. It was the nervousness of knowing he was about to tell you something you should have heard from your family.

Well, at least you didn’t hear it in the fucking news. They were probably either tearing apart everything she’d ever done or treating her like a saint, and you didn’t know which one you hated more.

You felt the world fall apart around you. Suddenly, it was as if your feet were directly in the center of a black hole, and everything was getting sucked in — you were completely lonely, and there was nothing and no one. Nothing but an empty feeling in your stomach. You knew, of course, that your mother would die someday. You never really cared. You weren’t really close, and she only ever tried to reach you maybe three or four times a year, when you’d vaguely catch up about everything in your lives to excuse whatever financial help or connections you might need. It always felt a bit less dirty that way. Now that she was gone, however, it all came crashing down on you.

Did you care? What the fuck were you feeling?

— Wha - What?

— Look, I am very, very sorry. I already booked a flight for you in the afternoon. Again, I’m so sorry.

— Jimin. — You said, trying to recollect yourself. — Can you book a flight for you, too? — The idea of being alone in that big house, knowing your mother was dead, truly irked you. You tried to think of an excuse to bring your assistant with you. — I’m gonna need you to make some phone calls and take care of some stuff while I’m there. Put it on company time, I’m sure they’ll understand. That is, of course, if you have nothing planned this following week.

You heard Jimin sigh on the other end of the line. You were asking too much of him, and you knew it. He had a tendency to be overzealous, and you hated to ask of him more than he could handle. But at that exact moment, you needed someone to come with you, and despite having lived for so long in the city, you had very few close friends. And of those, none would be okay with coming so far away with you for probably a month or two. You were alone.

— It’s okay. I’ll just take care of my plane ticket, then, and pick you up at three.

***

And now, that left you in the car, hands gripping the steering wheel with all the strength you had. You looked at your knuckles, slowly turning white. Jimin sat beside you. He was trying to not let his worry show through too loudly. You could feel, though, his eyes on your hand, and the very fact he was silent showed he didn’t really know what to do or say.

— Hey. — He said in a soft voice. — Maybe we should get in.

— Maybe. — Your voice sounded soft too, but the anger you were trying to keep in was showing through. 

You finally stepped out of the car, and then so did Jimin. As he moved towards the back of the car to get your bags, you took strides towards the house with all the fake confidence your body could muster.

***

The butler was waiting for you when you got there, back completely — and unnaturally — straight and a face contorted to keep from breaking down into tears. Mr. Kim was a very old man who had been working in the family since you could remember. He had seen you grow, and he had seen you leave. Most of the staff would come and go from time to time, but Mr. Kim held your family very close to his heart. You always considered him an uncle, or a father of sorts. He felt more like a parent than your parents.

— Hey. — You said, feeling heavy-hearted. You were never close to your mom. You were very much able to keep your shit together right now because honestly, you didn’t regret disappearing from her life in the past twelve years. But seeing the pain and suffering in the butler’s face made everything all too real.

— Hello, Miss. Y/N.

A weird type of silence filled the room. Jimin, behind you, shuffled uncomfortably. You didn’t have the courage to mention the tragedy, to ask questions, and Mr. Kim was clearly too absorbed in his own thoughts and feelings to pay any mind to the heavy aura that had formed. You remembered him as a lively, smart old man who would always boast about his family, and order you around because he was the only person you’d actually listen to — after all these years, it almost seemed as if he was waiting for your orders instead.

— How is your grandson? — You asked, trying to distract him a bit. — Last I’ve heard, my mother told me he was off to university. Or that he was just starting a new job, I don’t quite remember.

— Ah, yes. Mrs. Y/L/N paid for his tuition. — It seemed as if your attempt of taking his mind away from your mother was a disaster. Her life was too tangled into the Kim family’s for that to be possible. — She got him hired into a big company too. He’s a lawyer now, my boy. — By this point, a smile crept into his red-eyed face, which in turn made you feel a bit better. — He always comes by everyday. He always did, to see me (and the Mrs. too, she was always very proud of my boy), but my Taehyung has been worried about me, all alone in this big house without Mrs. Y/L/N, so he’s been sleeping here too, in one of the spare bedrooms. — His eyes suddenly shot up to you, a bit scared. — I hope that’s no trouble to you, Miss.

You wondered who he thought you were now, after all these years. You’d never turn down Mr. Kim’s grandson, even if he was a complete stranger to you. Which he wasn’t. You and Taehyung were pretty tight as children, since not everyone was allowed into your life back then. It was almost as if he feared you a bit now, as if he didn’t know you as the child he had mostly raised anymore. After everything, you understood. By all means, it was your fault that you had become strangers. Still your heart stung.

— It is no trouble, Mr. Kim. I hope both you and him are sleeping well. And if he isn’t already, move him to one of the big bedrooms upstairs. I’m sure no one else will be using them from now on.

He smiled and thanked you profusely, and suddenly you recognized the man you had grown up with. Maybe he recognized you too.

***

By night, everything was always silent in that big mansion. 

You had locked yourself in your bedroom as soon as you’ve showed Jimin in which room he’d be sleeping, and then you decided you wanted to be alone. You were already feeling lonely, anyway. You heard the sounds echo around the hallways when Mr. Kim’s grandson, Taehyung, got home, and you decided to ignore it completely. Talking and pretending to be fine didn’t seem like something you were interested in at that moment.

It was already two in the morning when you decided to leave your room, walking the long corridors very slowly and carefully, trying not to make any noise. The house was cold. Everything inside it had always felt very lifeless to you. You were lifeless. So was your mother, and the butler. Everything was either dying or rotting and the emptiness it brought you was so familiar. Almost nostalgic, in a weird way.

You reached the staircase after a while. Your bedroom was on the third floor, and you could see each step down leading you more and more into the darkness. You didn’t want more darkness, so you sat on one of the first steps and hugged your legs, resting your head onto your knees. You were sure at that moment, you must have looked very small and very fragile. Weak, even. You didn’t care, though. No one could see you in the dark.

Empty. The world, everything around you, empty. You were empty. Empty, empty, empty. You just wanted to not feel lonely in the big mansion you’d grown up in. You wanted to not feel lonely in the big city. You’d been running away from your past for so long, and you always thought the emptiness in your heart was just a price to pay for freedom. But here you were, back where you started. Still lonely. Still the same small terrified girl in that big, big mansion, hiding from your past. You just wanted to not be alone at that moment.

As if your thoughts were materializing, you heard steps behind you. You’d look back to see who it was, except you didn’t really care — between Taehyung, Jimin, Mr. Kim, and the rest of the staff, a lot of people were always living in that big mansion, and whoever it was, you didn’t want any of them to see the tears beginning to form in your eyes. You probably wouldn’t even recognize them, anyway, if they weren’t Jimin or the butler. Whoever it was, they sat beside you, and then let the silence fill the space between you.

— Are you alright? — A deep voice whispered lowly, after a while. You guessed it was Taehyung. It definitely wasn’t Jimin. He chuckled, but it had no humor in it. It was just as lifeless as everything else in that house. — That’s a dumb question, I guess.

— Do you like it here? — You whispered too.

— What do you mean?’

— This house. Do you like it? — He paused for a while, probably wondering if you were going insane. 

— I guess. It’s a pretty sweet house. 

You turned to look at him. His skin was pale, and his jet black hair was falling a little bit over his tired eyes. You didn’t remember Taehyung having such a strong jawline, or dark eyes, or being so tall. And he most certainly didn’t have black hair. As far as you could remember, at least. It had been a while, though. You’d both grown up and changed.

— I hate it here. It’s so big and so empty. I wish I could abandon it forever. I wish I’d never come back.

— Why did you? — He whispered, doe-eyes focused on your fragile figure. — I’m sure you could have stayed at a hotel. It would be very understandable, all things considered. No one would care.

— I don’t know. — You whispered back. — I wish I could tell you.

You stayed by his side, in complete silence, for just a little longer, and then he excused himself politely, got up, and left. Maybe the emptiness had gotten to him.

***

Although you’d barely slept, and your eyes looked red and puffy, you were up at 7AM. You went down the stairs you’ve feared the night before to find Jimin and Mr. Kim talking casually in the kitchen. You stood by the door before they noticed, just listening in to whatever they were saying.

— She has changed so much from what I remember. — Mr. Kim was saying, fondness in his voice. — She used to be so small, and so scared of everything. I’d send her to bed and she’d go back down to the kitchen at night. Said she heard a noise and thought it was a ghost. We had to put her to sleep again with a lullaby. — He stared off for a bit, lost in his own thoughts. — When the poor girl said she’d never step foot in this place again, I damn right believed her. But I guess one can’t run away from the past forever.

Jimin chuckled nervously.

— I guess she hasn’t been here in a while, then.

— No, no, my boy. I haven’t seen Miss. Y/N since she was a fifteen years old child, running away from this house. Boarding school, she said. Then boarding school turned into university. Then she got a big job in the big city. Always an excuse not to come visit us. But I understand.

His voice, though, betrayed his sadness. He was lonely too, in this big house. If there was one person you wished you hadn’t abandoned, it was him. 

— Why did she go away, though?

— It’s not my place to tell you, my boy. It’s not my place to tell you. — He shook his head. Was he remembering what had happened twelve years ago?

— Hey, Y/N! — Jimin finally noticed you, and smiled awkwardly. 

You wished you hadn’t listened in. Now you knew more than you wanted to know. You knew Mr. Kim had missed you all those years. You knew Jimin was curious about your past — which made you regret bringing him to your hometown in the first place. Your mother always told you that curiosity killed the cat. That was maybe the only useful advice she had ever given you.

— Miss. Y/N! — The butler smiled at you. He seemed a bit better after yesterday, even though the same tiredness you felt on your shoulders was probably crushing him too. — How did you sleep?

— I slept fine. Big house, though. I’m not used to it. — He smiled fondly. Some things never change, and he knew that a little bit of you still needed to be tucked in to sleep in the mansion. 

You sat down beside Jimin, and the butler put a plate full of pancakes and a mug of hot cocoa in front of you. You preferred coffee now, and he probably knew it, but you guessed he didn’t want to give you caffeine. He always forbade you from drinking it, saying it was bad for your health. He wasn’t wrong.

— If you don’t mind, Miss, — the butler started, excitedly. — My boy Taehyung will be joining us shortly.

— Sure! I do hope you have enough pancakes, though. — You joked, and he smiled.

— I always do, Miss. — He was right. Mr. Kim’s ability to plan things ahead bordered on the supernatural.

You thought about Taehyung for a second. The bright-eyed boy with a big smile you’d met as a child, who would always tease you for being so anxious all the time, but who also protected you from everything that could possibly hurt you. The man you met the night before, with dark hair and big eyes, and a sad, solemn aura. They didn’t seem like the same person at all. A lot had changed while you were away. A lot more than you thought. What had happened to Tae?

You never had many friends as a child. Your parents, particularly your mother, were very scared of letting their only child get hurt in the real world. They had money, power, and influence, and with that comes enemies — powerful enemies, who wouldn’t mind using a child to get what they want. You were homeschooled for a big portion of your childhood. Back then, you only had Taehyung. Mr. Kim had lost his daughter shortly after his grandson was born, you knew that much — and although Taehyung’s dad tried his best, he could use some help from an old wise man. So Mr. Kim would often bring the small child with him to work. Your father hated it, as much as he hated every single one of your mom’s staff — he didn’t bring the coin home, though, your mother did. So every day, you’d play with Tae. And although he could very much resent you for everything you had and didn’t want, and everything he wanted and didn’t have, he never did. 

From what you’ve heard, after you left, Taehyung replaced you in the big empty house, and in your mother’s heart even. And you were grateful for that. 

— My boy, did you sleep well? 

Mr. Kim’s words burst the bubble you had created for yourself, deep in thought as you were. You turned around to see a tall man with tan skin. You zoned out of the conversation happening around you once more as you took in the features you remembered from your childhood, and the way they had adjusted to adulthood. He had dark brown eyes and dark brown hair, and a very warm smile. He was dressed formally, probably ready to be out the door for his job right after breakfast. It suited him well. He looked so much like the old Taehyung from your childhood. Tae smiled at you fondly, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. He looked sorry for you.

And most importantly, he looked absolutely nothing like the man you saw the night before.

— I’m really sorry for what happened to your mom. — Taehyung said, taking you out of your mind once more. You shook your head and smiled at him.

— It’s okay. I’ll get through. — He sat beside you, getting ready to eat his own pancakes. — It must be hard for you too, though. How are you holding up? I know my mom was very close to you. — He shrugged.

— I’ll get by. Do you need help with anything? Grandpa already did most of the arrangements for the funeral while you were traveling, but I’m sure there’s stuff you need to do.

— I don’t think so. — You thought for a little while. — Oh, wait, there’s my mother’s will. And all the legal stuff. I’ve heard you’re a lawyer. — You chuckled. — I promise I’ll pay you. — He nudged you with his shoulder.

— Absolutely not. — By this point, he was done with his pancakes, and was already standing up to go to work. — We’ll talk when I get back, okay? I’ll get everything done for you.

He hugged you goodbye, and you couldn’t help but be grateful for the Kim family. Without them, you wouldn’t even know where to start. As Taehyung left and Mr. Kim started going on a rant, which were sometimes about his amazing grandson, sometimes about your mom, and sometimes about something else, you let your thoughts carry you away again. To the boy you talked to last night. Who was he? You were sure you were neither dreaming nor hallucinating. He was there. Or maybe he wasn’t. Either way, you thought it was better not to mention him, just in case everyone looked at you like you’re insane. Maybe you were.

At that moment, though, Jimin was staring at you with something else in his eyes. Maybe it was confusion, or discomfort. You couldn’t quite tell. As Mr. Kim went to another room to talk to some of the staff, you tried talking to him. 

— Hey, Jimin. — You said from across the big table. — Are you okay? You seem a little out of it today. — He shook his head affirmatively, but you weren’t convinced.

— It’s okay, don’t worry about it. — He scratched the back of his neck. — Do you have any work for me to do today?

— Oh. — You had to think about it again. Jimin was always running errands for you, but being back home meant everyone was always running errands for you. It was a bit overwhelming, to be honest. — I guess you could call the office and tell them I’ll be switching to home office for the next two months. I’m sure they’ll understand, all things considered. — Jimin nodded.

You always hated to admit it, but you got your job mostly because of your mom. She was friends with the man you worked for. And because of that, because he’d be sad for the loss of your mother, he’d probably be okay with giving you more time off than he’d give any other employee.

Although you always avoided taking advantage of the privileges you had, you needed some time to figure everything out right now.

— So. — Jimin started, catching your attention again. — Are you close to Mr. Kim’s grandson?

— I guess I used to be. We haven’t talked in a very long time, though. — He nodded, suddenly relaxing a tiny bit. You took a mental note of how weird that was.

Jimin stopped asking questions about your past then, probably aware that you didn’t want to answer them. His growing interest, though, was starting to get you thinking, but you were sure you were just being paranoid.

[palettes-and-prompts]

First, I have to say I'm a big fan of your work! 💖 Second, I was wondering if I could request some prompts for a female character that's devious and crafty but hides her real personality behind an innocent mask please?

You sure can! Also, I love characters like this.

Dialogue Prompts

1) "Would you mind helping me do it? This is way too heavy for me to carry." 2) "I wish I was as smart as you, you always know what to do." 3) "You may have everyone else fooled, but you can't fool me." "I have no idea what you're talking about, I'm just here with my friends." 4) "I know a con artist when I see one, and you? You're a good one. So what can I get you to drink?" "Cherry coke with extra cherries please!" "Alright, and what do you really want me to get you?" "Whiskey neat." "I'll add the cherries anyway since you wanna play innocent." 5) "Wow! That sounds really complicated, I don't think I could do all that." "It's really easy actually, want me to show you how it's done?" "Really? You'll show me?" "Of course, anything for you." 6) "What should I get? I like this one but I really like this one too. I can't get them both, I only have enough for one. Which one do you wanna see me wear?" "Baby, you know you only have to ask, I'll get you both of them." "You don't have to." "I want to, I like spoiling you." 7) "You do that little innocent act in bed?" "Don't talk to me like that." "I'm curious, they eat it all up, right? Just wondering if you're able to keep it going when they take you back to their mansions." "Why do you think they're still with me?" 8) "Look at that, looks like I was right, you're not so innocent after all." "You saw right through me?" "Pretty easily." "The other know?" "You going to kill me if they don't?" 9) "What are we doing here?" "Look at them, so desperate, they're the perfect people to steal from. Desperate and so naive. You and me are going to be rich. Follow my lead." 10) "You really hate me that much that you think I'm capable of doing something like this?" 11) "You really think I'd kill someone, do you really not trust me that much. I thought you said we were friends." 12) "Cut the shit, where'd you really hide the money?" "What money? I really don't know what you're talking about? I'm just Person A's assistant." 13) "How'd you know it was an act?" "Six inch heels aren't exactly what I'd say embodies innocence." 14) "I've been watching you from the side this whole time, playing innocent, playing perfect so you wouldn't notice me watching. You really should be doing background checks on your staff, especially the good looking ones. They've always got something to hide." 15) "Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just incredibly happy to see me again, detective?" "What have you been up to, Person A?" "Following the law like a good abiding citizen." "Uh huh, so I wouldn't find any money in your room or a bag full of wallets or anything?" "Detective B! Are you accusing me of breaking the law? I would never do such a thing." 16) "Watch yourself, Person A, I've got my eyes on you." "Oh yeah, do I look cute from this angle? Or do you prefer to have me in a different angle? Maybe bent over the hood of your squad car?" "How about in a pair of handcuffs thrown in the back?" "Officer B! I never knew you were so kinky!" 17) "I can't talk you out of jumping off the roof can I?" "Afraid not." "You'll die from this height without someone to catch you." "Think I don't have a plan?" "I think you have a death wish." "Oh, detective, don't you know cat burglars always land on their feet?" 18) "I see right through your cutesy act. This one is already mine, I've been working on this for three months. So walk your ass out that door before you fuck this up for me." "Three months? I could have had this guy for everything he owns in a day. You must be a shitty grifter." 19) "There's something about you that tells me you're more than a pretty face." "Oh yeah, what might that be?" "The gun in your pocket." 20) "Can you help me? I'm lost and don't know which way I'm going." "Sure thing, where are you trying to get to after you steal my wallet with this terrible tourist distraction." "Saw right through me, huh?" "Pretty face and clever ruse, but you a terrible actor/actress." "Like you can do it better?" "Watch and learn, amateur."

Regular Prompts

1) A is taught by a mother figure in their life to be polite, look pretty, and keep their mouth shut but ears always open. They're taught to be a good listener and taught to fight if they ever need to. To be more clever and work harder than any man they know, but always seem naive in front of everyone. 2) A's always been good at their job at being a spy until Person B sees right through them with a glance. When they can't stop thinking about them they try their hardest to make them see they're a normal person who's really naive and not manipulative. But B never buys it and tells them they have a tell. A then obsessively thinks about what it could be until they confront B in the night pissed off and clearly tired but very alert. B just tells them they read people for a living an that they're also a spy. 3) A is a con artist who's very good at charming everyone they meet, especially men. They're always racking up tens of thousands of dollars a night going to benefits thrown by millionaires. B is a millionaire who constantly sees them at benefits but never rats them out when they steal. When A chats when them all night they end up really hitting it off and when B's dancing they lean in close and ask if they're really interested in them or if it's the money they like. A doesn't steal from them and tells them they'll give them an answer at the next benefit. (Bonus if they end up falling in love and A teaches B how to steal more and make it look legal like they have.) 4) A is a burglar who seduces men and gets them to take them to art museums and show them all the art pieces and explain them. B is a detective who's been trying to find them for months. 5) A is a good looking model who plays dumb with mobsters and sells information to people for a price. B is a detective hiding undercover in the group who falls for A but can't make a move because they'd be endangering them. (Bonus if they both fall hard for each other.) 6) A is a smart person who acts as arm candy for men in the mafia. A plays dumb around them and lets them self get pampered by men while they're constantly avoiding sex/relationships with anyone. B is one of the members of the mafia who don't fall for A's act and treat them like a member rather than someone who's clueless and naive. 7) A is an actor/actress who can't find work but they manage to use their talents to be a great grifter. B is the one person who catches on fast and decides to recruit them with their gang of grifters and give them a place to call home. 8) A is a con artist who's main goal is to take down Person B who trained them to be great at what they do since they betrayed them. (Bonus if it's a game of cat and mouse for the whole story and the two end up falling hard during the chase. Maybe it even ends with A tricking them to get B to chase them back.) 9) A is always hanging around bad people, playing innocent and getting bad people to want them. Whenever they get them alone they flip the script and go completely bat shit and murder the ones they lure. It isn't until A meets B who tells A that they we're only pretending to be bad to impress them that they begin to do more research and make sure they're more careful with who they lure in with their looks. (Bonus if B is a murderer too and knows A's the one killing and knew exactly what kind of person they were and that's why they were attracted to them.) 10) A is a grifter who meets grifter B trying to score the same thing they are. While competing for it they become aware of the other person's skill and decide they can work together for the same thing and that they'll split it before they part ways. But when the grift is over they're sad to leave each other, especially if they've had some romantic moments, and decide to stay and work on more things together.

[redgillan]

Missed Chances - Part 7

Steve Rogers x Reader ♀️ [// Bucky Barnes x Reader for now]

Summary: 13 Going on 30!AU - Steve Rogers is crazy about you, but he’s afraid his feelings are only one sided and being one of your best friends, he doesn’t want to ruin your friendship… On his 13th birthday, he makes a wish and wakes up in the body of his 30 year old self. The problem is, you’re no longer a part of his life.

Word Count: 3,005

Warnings: The creep is back

A/N: No, this series isn’t dead. In this chapter the reader and Steve discuss her wedding dress and I really wanted to give you a dress you could picture in your heads. So that meant doing a lot of research to find a cut that would flatter all body types and a colour that would look good on all skin tones. It kind of smothered my muse, hence the long break. I hope you enjoy this :’)

“You fell asleep on his couch,” Sam repeated, shaking his head with a bewildered look on his face. A second later, he began laughing hysterically.  

Bucky looked around the bar, smiling awkwardly at the patrons who were staring at them. With a cringe, he took a large gulp of his lukewarm beer. Sam expertly dodged the peanut Bucky threw at him.

“Okay, let me get this straight.” Sam stopped laughing. “You drank two bottles of fancy-ass wine, passed out on the couch and let your girl alone with a super-hot billionaire.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much what happened,” Bucky grumbled.

“You’re an idiot.”

Bucky couldn’t help but agree with him.

Sam was Bucky’s only friend. They had met a few years ago when Bucky was a rotisseur, a chef in charge of roasted meats. Sam kept sending his dish back, saying it wasn’t properly cooked, until Bucky had enough and served him raw lamb with a little note that said ‘cook it yourself’.

It hadn’t been professional, but it had made him feel a lot better. Somehow they became friends after that. Go figure...  

“You could have married her three years ago,” Sam continued with a pointed look.

“A City Hall wedding?” Bucky scoffed. “No, she deserves better than that.”

Sam frowned at him. “You need to get off your high horse, man. I got married at City Hall. Granted it’s less flamboyant than a fairy tale wedding, but it doesn’t matter when you’re in love. You only need each other.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “I work 12 hours a day, six days a week, Sam. We rarely see each other and we live in a crappy studio apartment. The least I can do is give her a perfect wedding.”

“Whatever you say,” Sam shrugged. He was tired of having the same conversation again and again. “That deal you made with her company... I told you it was too good to be true.”

“You said it was legit,” Bucky reminded him.

“Yeah, it is, but I don't think you've thought this through. They offered to pay for your wedding if Steve Rogers agreed to create your girl’s wedding dress. Rogers said yes, and now their numbers are going up-”

“But it’s a good thing. She’ll keep her job and we’ll get married,” Bucky interrupted him.

“Dude, there’s a billboard in Times Square with your face on it,” Sam continued, undeterred. Bucky whined, he had seen the ad. It wasn’t exactly low-key. “You three are everywhere; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube... Rogers gave interviews to Good Morning America, Fallon and Ellen. The entire country knows about you, your fiancée and your former childhood best friend turned superstar.”

“You’re right, it’s a little crazy right now,” Bucky admitted. “But it won’t last. People will find a better story. She’s happy. That’s all that matters.”

Sam could have argued that you didn’t look happy the last time he saw you. In fact, you looked tired, stressed and a little disappointed. But he knew better than to tell a man he couldn’t make his girlfriend happy.

“I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

Bucky had no idea what he was doing. Things had been crazy lately, and he couldn’t deny that it was strange to share his thoughts and memories with complete strangers. It was part of the deal. Nothing was private anymore.

“A girl asked for my autograph yesterday,” Bucky revealed, a small smile on his lips. Sam raised a brow at that. “It took me completely by surprise, I just wrote ‘BUCKY’ in capital letters on a blank piece of paper.”

Sam choked on his beer, and coughed several times as the liquid fizzed out of his nose. Bucky pushed a napkin across the bar as Sam’s whole face scrunched up in a mix of pain and laughter.

“That fucking hurts,” Sam said, his eyes shiny with tears. Bucky looked strangely proud of himself. “You’re gonna kill me one day.”

With a mouthful of beer, Bucky got off the stool and threw two twenties on the counter. He took his jacket from the bar and made a show of crossing his fingers at Sam’s comment.

“Ass,” Sam countered, following him out of the bar.

*

Today was the day, your first Bridal appointment. You were beyond nervous, and the fact that this was all business wasn’t helping your nerves. Natasha was sitting next to you, typing away on her tablet while on the phone with Nick Fury. You wished you were that good at multitasking.

Things were moving fast. Natasha had already booked a band, and hired a photographer and a videographer. You were on board with everything, and even pitched the idea of a karaoke entertainment at the reception. She called you a genius and wrote it in her little notebook.

The magazine was thriving, the numbers growing. The first article they published was an exclusive interview of Steve Rogers and a little interview of you and Bucky –to get to know the happy couple.

The following month they revealed that the ceremony would take place at Bucky’s childhood home. It was something you had both agreed upon a long time ago, and Nick thought it matched the whole reunion theme.

Sometimes it felt like it was more their wedding than yours, but you thought I’d be rude to complain since they were paying for the entire ceremony.

“M. Rogers will see you now,” Steve’s assistant appeared before you, pulling you out of your thoughts.

Natasha waved Scott closer. He was standing near the elevator, FaceTiming with his daughter. He saw Natasha, nodded, and quickly wrapped up his conversation. The three of you followed the assistant to Steve’s office.

As soon as Natasha stepped into his office, she began directing everyone into position. Scott and you got so used to being bossed around that you both complied without question.

“Boys, move the couch closer to the window,” she said, looking around the office. “I prefer natural light for the pictures.” Then she turned to you. “This place is a mess, let’s tidy up.”

Steve grumbled something under his breath that made Scott laugh. Natasha gave him a sharp look and they both returned to their task. Once the place looked decent enough, you took a seat on the sofa next to Steve.

Natasha was telling Scott what to do –the kind of pictures she wanted for the Instagram, Twitter and Facebook as well as some pictures for the next article. Scott nodded while he adjusted the camera settings.

“Is she always like this?” Steve whispered in your ear.

A shiver ran down your spine. “Yes, she’s the boss,” you replied with a small laugh.

“She’s scary.”

You were both laughing quietly when you heard the sound of a camera shutter. Steve shifted awkwardly as he met your gaze, his face flushed red. You understood his discomfort.

“A little warning would have been nice,” you told your co-workers.

“Sorry, but the picture looks great,” Scott said, giving you a thumbs up.

“All right, we only have an hour so listen carefully,” Natasha began. “We’re going to take a few pictures and two can pretend you’re working on the dress. Act natural, but don’t forget to smile and don’t look at us. Then we’ll leave you two alone so you can start working on the dress. Questions?”

You both shook your heads. “No, we’re good.”

“Perfect,” she clapped her hands once, “let’s get to work!”

It was a little strange to pose without making it look like you were posing. Natasha was shouting directions at you and Steve while you tried to smile at each other.

Sit straight!

Steve, you’re hiding her face.

Hold that position, the light is perfect.

Finally, after twenty agonizing minutes, she announced that she had everything she needed. You sent up a silent prayer when she left the room. Scott packed up his camera and hurried out of the room when Natasha called out his name.

You slumped back against the sofa and sighed. Steve let out a small laugh as he sank into the cushions. He turned his head to look at you and smiled.

His smile caught you off guard. In that moment, he looked exactly like the boy you used to love and it made your chest tighten painfully. Life could be so cruel sometimes.

“We should probably start working on your dress,” he said, sensing your sudden anguish. He straightened up and fiddled with the sketch pad and mechanical pencil, giving you some time to pull yourself together. “So, do you have an idea of what you’re looking for?”

You sat on the edge of your seat. “Not really. I don’t know how these things work. How are we going to do this?”

Steve was only thirteen, though he looked like he was in his early thirties. He didn’t know anything about fashion, but it was his job and he had to do it right. He had gathered as much information as he possible on Bridal appointments. Internet, so helpful!

“We can look at some wedding dresses,” he told you, sliding a few magazines toward you. “Tell me what you like and I’ll make a sketch. Then my team will make a muslin. It’s just a mock-up. We’ll add the details later. How does that sound?”

He caught your eyes and saw the look of relief on your face. “Sounds great.”

You slowly flipped through the pages of the first magazine, pausing occasionally to show him what you didn’t like. You didn’t want to wear a crinoline, it made the skirt too poofy. The princess style looked beautiful on these models but you didn’t think it matched your personality, and it seemed really unpractical.

Steve listened carefully, jotting down notes in his notebook. “How do you feel about a mermaid-style dress? Remember when your mom took us to the open air theatre? We saw the Little Mermaid and you said it was the best movie you’d ever seen.”

“Yeah.” You giggled. “We were what? Nine, ten years old?”  

“Something like that,” Steve replied with a fond smile.

“Well, I hate to disappoint my nine-year-old self, but I think I’d prefer something a little more like the Muses in Hercules.” You turned the page, only to be distracted by a stunning gown. “Like this one!”

The dress fit closely, hugging the model’s curves in an elegant yet sensual way. It looked right out of a peplum movie.

“Oh yeah, that’s a um...” Steve closed his eyes shut and tried to remember the name of this particular type of dress. “It’s a sheath column dress!” he exclaimed with a huge triumphant smile.

“I like that,” you said, oblivious to his sudden outburst. “Do you think it’d look good on me?”

“Absolutely,” he said a little too quickly, then he cleared his throat and gave you a sheepish smile. “We have your measurements, it will look perfect.”

You made some modifications to the dress in the magazine. With Steve’s help, you chose a boat neckline instead of the heart shape neckline featured on the model.

You hesitated between two colours; alabaster which according to Steve would look good on anyone, and diamond white which was the perfect colour for an outdoor wedding.

“Silk is a good choice,” Steve approved while he finished his sketch. “You might be a little cold though, but we’ll figure something out.”

“Oh, don’t bother,” you said with a wave of your hand, “Natasha has already ordered ten outdoor heaters. It’ll feel like we’re on a tropical island.” Your laughter died in your throat when Steve showed you what your dress would look like. “Steve... that’s.... wow.”

He looked at his drawing with furrowed brows. “I think I messed up the proportions but-”

“It’s gorgeous,” you interrupted him. “I love it!” You took the sketch pad from him to get a better look. This was your dress. Your wedding dress. It all seemed so real now, it made the butterflies in your stomach dance. “So, it’s happening. In six months I’m going to be Mrs Barnes.”

“You can keep your last name,” Steve shrugged. He had been working so hard lately to pass off as a real fashion designer that he had almost forgotten you were going to marry Bucky. He fought against the urge to rip that stupid drawing in half.

“I know,” you said, “it’s just... a little weird, but in a good way.”

A knock at the door made you both jump. Natasha and Scott were back, and judging by the look on Natasha’s face, she must have received some good news.

“We posted that picture of the two of you giggling,” Scott said with a big smile. “People on Instagram are so kinky. You guys should read some of the comments, they’re priceless.”

“Scott,” Natasha said, her tone warning him to drop it.

“It’s crazy, some people even ship you two together. They want you to marry Mr America. That’s his nickname, Mr America! How cool is that?!”

Oh, that couldn’t be good... You really hoped Bucky wouldn’t read these comments. He wasn’t a big fan of social media, and he was too busy to even open the app. Though Sam would definitely call him if he read anything that seemed a little odd.

“Is that the dress?” Natasha asked as she picked up the sketch pad. Her eyes widened for a second before she smiled at Steve. “It’s beautiful. I look forward to seeing it on the bride.”

Steve’s secretary entered the room and informed him that his next appointment had arrived. He shook hands with Natasha and Scott, then turned to you, smiling hesitantly. A handshake seemed too formal, but he wasn’t sure you’d let him hug you.

He opened his arms to you and cocked his head to one side in silent question. You found his bashfulness endearing. He looked so young. You took a step forward to hug him.

“Thank you, Steve, for everything,” you said, making sure Natasha and Scott couldn’t hear you. Steve was warm and muscular, and yet incredibly soft. “You didn’t have to do all this. I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m glad I found you,” he replied before releasing you. “I’ll see you soon.”

“The magazine’s throwing a party next month,” Natasha began as Steve walked the three of you to the door. “Our numbers are skyrocketing. This calls for a celebration. I’ll send you the details. It’ll be the biggest party of the year.”

When you got back to the waiting room, the secretary told you that Steve’s chauffeur would drive you and your colleagues to your apartments. You took a seat and tried to process what had just happened.

Natasha looked ecstatic, and you couldn’t understand why you felt so miserable. You needed to be alone with your thoughts.

“I’ll be back in a sec,” you told Natasha who nodded distractedly.

The waiting room was nicely furnished with comfortable leather sofas, fashion magazines on the marble tables –your magazine was on top of the pile- and a fancy water dispenser near the restroom.

You grabbed a cup and filled it with room temperature water, sipping it slowly as you looked around the room.

“Braceface!”

You felt a shiver come down your spine, the sound of his voice was like having your entire body dunked into ice cold water. He moved into your line of sight, a bright smile on his face. Had he always looked this terrifying?

“Hi, Brock.”

“So you remember me,” he said with a sickening smile, his tongue sweeping over his bottom lip. “Sweet.” He paused. “I heard you were getting married.”

“Yeah.”

“If you ever get bored,” he said, stepping into your personal space and handing you his business card. “I love married women, they’re so desperate for a good time.”

You felt trapped, like the day he had cornered you in Steve’s kitchen and asked if you wanted to have sex with him. You could feel the fear building up inside you.

You obediently took the card, your body automatically kicking in to self-preservation mode. Do what he says and he’ll leave you alone.

This part of the waiting room was hidden from view, meaning no one could see you right now. Brock had no shame, coming after you like that even though he knew you were getting married.

You wanted to scream, but you couldn’t move.

“Step away from her.”

You couldn’t see her, but Natasha’s voice held authority as she stood behind Brock with a seemingly calm demeanour. Brock took a step back, raising his hands in mock surrender.

“We were just talking,” he said.

She didn’t even spare him a glance. She searched your face for any sign of pain “You okay?” You nodded, not noticing the tear falling down your cheek. “We’re done here.”

She took a step forward and slung her arm around your shoulders, shielding your body with hers as you moved past Brock. You felt your heartbeat slowly returning to normal as Natasha ushered you toward the elevator.

You slowly came back to your senses, feeling a little embarrassed that you were –once again- the damsel in distress.

“That guy’s a dickhead,” Scott said, glaring daggers at Brock’s retreating figure.

“That guy is the co-founder of the brand, and a big name in the fashion industry,” Natasha mumbled, pressing the ground floor button. “He’s also a notorious creep. I’ll make sure we won’t run into him again.”

“You gonna have him whacked?” Scott asked, his eyes widening.

Natasha crunched up her face, clearly grossed out and confused. “No! I’m going to schedule our meetings at a different time. Have him whacked,” she repeated with a scoff. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“It’s just the way you said it,” Scott shrugged, “it sounded ominous.”

The elevator door slid closed while Natasha and Scott were bickering, but you weren’t listening to them. You wanted to go home.

You wanted Bucky to hold you close and snuggle with you for the rest of the day. But, more than anything, you wanted to know why Brock fucking Rumlow was still working with Steve.

[bangtan-gal]

Hello There (M)

Kim Taehyung Short Story By: Liffy

Warnings: Smut, fluff, angst, super fucking cliche, explicit sexual content (I would say 18+, but I can’t stop you horny seventeen-year-olds, can I?) There’s also Jin x Reader

Synopsis: a gorgeous, drunk stranger shows up on your doorstep one night and invites himself in.

Bad boy!au neighbors!au

Word Count: 12k

Rain hit the windows of the car as you pulled into the driveway. It was such a terrible day to move, rain was pouring down non-stop, your emotions were on a wild roller coaster, and you had no one to help you move in. Hell, you were completely alone—you moved to a city three hours away and your friends were all busy with work and school. You probably wouldn’t see them until the next holiday.

Of course, maybe it was better you completely cut yourself off.

You sigh, hitting the steering wheel as you stared at the small yellow townhome before you. It didn’t look bad, but you couldn’t really judge until you were inside. You had been so desperate to move, to escape, that you disregarded doing walk-throughs. And it was all because of that asshole who broke your he-

You forced your thoughts away from him and from all that. You barely felt the rain when you stepped outside, letting the water soak into your sweater. The boxes weren’t heavy and you didn’t have many, according to the pamphlet the house was completely furnished, so you opted for leaving bigger appliances with your roommate. You had made an agreement that if it turned out there was no furniture, you could come back and get it, but something in the back of your head told you that you wouldn’t have have the guts or energy to go get it.

You rushed to the door, the rain finally starting to get to you. Your hands shook as you fumbled with the keys. Cold burned through your body and you barely managed to unlock the door. When you shoved the door open, a loud squeak came from the hinges. You winced, knowing that if you didn’t get that fixed immediately, this place would become a nightmare.

It wasn’t a lie—the living room and dining room was completely furnished. Of course, some essentials were missing; like a microwave, a dishwasher, and some ceiling lamps. You set the box down with a sigh and looked around.

Looked like this was going to be your new home.

∞∞∞∞∞∞

It’d been two weeks since you moved. The first three days you had interviews non-stop, until you got a confirmed job as a medical assistant at a small nearby hospital. You quickly learned that Jinju was much different from Seoul. It wasn’t small, but after five years of living in Seoul, you had gotten used to constantly crowded streets, hard-to-get jobs, and a never-ending work day.

You wished you could say that it was easy to adjust, but it wasn’t.

You found it impossible to sleep without the sounds of cars rolling past your window, sirens wailing, and music blasting from one of the nearby apartments. It was silent, but in a deafening way. Work was mostly boring, you didn’t have very many patients, and since you were still knew to that hospital, the nurse you worked under didn’t let you help out very much. It was awful, not being able to drown yourself in your work so you wouldn’t suffocate from your feelings.

Everyone was nice—which some might take as a good thing—but in your mind they were all too nice. Your car had broke down one day, resulting in you being two hours late to works, and you didn’t even get questioned. You worked the day normally, without even one dirty look sent your way. It was unnerving. It was boring. You hoped for something exciting to happen.

You were currently driving home from the grocery store, drenched in sweat and other bodily fluids from the work day. It was a late Friday night, but the roads were empty. You couldn’t help but think of Seoul—how the city would be lit up with music and people—not a deathly silent hollow. There were a few clubs open, but they screamed empty. Memories of countless nights of partying invaded your mind and you couldn’t stop the small scream that escaped you.

“This town is awful!”

Throughout the weeks, you’d regretted not doing your research before moving here. You regretted moving to a town where you had zero friends, a town that was nothing like Seoul. Busan would’ve been great—you had plenty of friends there that hadn’t been involved in your life and it was just as rowdy as Seoul. Tonight, you found yourself regretting moving here even more than ever. A Friday where you didn’t work the night shift and where the city was empty.

In your mind, Jinju had seemed to be the perfect place to start over, but you seemed to forget about your personality, your habits. Although you were a generally shy person, you weren’t introverted. You loved the outdoors, you loved the feeling of music vibrating through your anatomy as you bounced on the dance floor.

Once you arrived home, you sat in the kitchen for a while, picking at your nails. It was getting close to ten o’clock, but you weren’t even feeling remotely tired. You grabbed your phone and broke your promise to yourself. You opened up Instagram, scrolling through your feed. Your old roommate, Ji-Ae, already found a new one and from the  looks of it they were getting along just great. You detested the bitterness that swept through you as you stared at the happy faces of all your old friends.

Then your heart throbbed when you stopped at one picture. You bit your lip, quickly shutting off the phone and throwing it down. Your heart starts pounding and your eyes start to sting as tears threaten to spill. You get yourself a glass of water and lean against the counter as you slowly sip at it. The thoughts slowly dissipate as you watch the street.

Thirty minutes later you’re dozing on the couch when a noise has you perking up. You frown when you hear the sound of a car pulling up and loud laughter. You shouldn’t be surprised—it’s a townhome and of course you’d have a neighbor right next door—but you honestly thought you didn’t have one. The past two weeks you haven’t seen or heard anyone or anything. No car, no person, no activity.

“Whatever, it’s not like it’s my problem,” you mutter and your head falls back onto the couch.

But it quickly became your problem.

Keys jingled outside your door and you heard a frustrated groan when whoever it was tried to open the doorknob. Then they started knocking, a low laugh coming from them and then a loud hiccup. They grumbled a name and continued to knock loudly. You frown and stand up, slowly creeping over to the door.

When you open the door, you find yourself face to face with the most gorgeous boy you’ve ever seen. His skin is smooth, his eyes are bright, and his hair is a deep brown. He doesn’t even seem to notice you as he stumbles past you, muttering something about keys under his breath. You open your mouth is question when the boy collapses onto your sofa with a groan.

“Wha-?”

You shook your head, forcing yourself out of your stupor. Your feet scurried across the carpet as you rushed over to shake the boy but it was too late. He was completely wasted, snoring lightly on your couch. You blinked and tried to shake him awake, but he waved you off, accidentally hitting you in the face.

He sneezed loudly and then went back to softly snoring. Disbelief rushed through you—did a super hot, drunk guy just barge into your home and collapse on your couch? What was going on? Who was he? Your lips whitened as you pursed your lips and leaned over him, trying to get a good look and maybe recognize him. Was he from work?

You were met with long lashes, pink lips, and a light spray of freckles. His ears were pierced and you could see tattoos creeping along his collarbone and wrist. His hair was messed up, but in a weird way, it was cute. He let out a little snort and rubbed at his nose and then tried to bury himself even deeper into your couch. You cringed at yourself when you realized you were smiling.

“He’s a random guy—a handsome one—but  still some random, drunk boy! What are you doing?” You hissed at yourself as you backed away into the kitchen. You watched him from there, confusion flooding you. What in the world was going on?

A bitter feeling swept through you, if you were in Seoul you could’ve just texted one of your friends and they would’ve come and helped out. Hell, you had a roommate in Seoul, she could’ve helped.  

You pinched the bridge of your nose and sighed. He seemed harmless and if you wake up before him in the morning, it’ll be fine. You grab a blanket and drape it over him and this time when you mutter goodnight to the home, there’s someone to receive it. Kind of.

You wake up in the morning with a groan and look at the time. It’s close to nine thirty and you groan again. After several failed attempts to go back to bed and sleep most of the day away, you flop out of bed. You trudge across the carpet and to the kitchen, your mind set on a cup of coffee. It takes almost all your energy to figure out whether you want a latte or just regular brew. A smile blooms on your face as the steam rises from the machine and you can smell the coffee. The pajama shirt you wear is accurate: coffee is your addiction.

You hum to yourself as you stir in the caramel and creamer. It seems to be a good day, the sun is out and only a few clouds dot the blue sky. The tree outside your kitchen window is still, signaling that there’s no wind. Maybe you could go for a walk.

“Hello there,” a deep voice murmurs.

A scream falls from you and you jump, accidentally swiping the mug off the counter. Dismay sweeps through you as you watch it hit the kitchen ground, ceramic spraying everywhere and coffee spreading over the blue and white kitchen tile. You whirl around, eyes widening when you see a messy-haired boy standing in the entrance of your kitchen. His eyes are half closed, dark circles resting under them. His face is pale—in a sickly, tired way.

You open your mouth and then close it. He continues to just stare at the destroyed mug that lays at your feet. A blush rushes over your cheeks and you fight the urge to start smacking your head. You had been so desperate for coffee that you forgot about the wasted young man that seemed to think your couch was his bed.

“Er-hi,” you squeak out, grabbing a rag to quickly wipe up your mess. You loved that mug, it was a gift from your best friend, but maybe it was best you started destroying memories of your past. You dumb the glass in the trash and rinse your hands, trying to stall time long enough to think of an actual conversation.

“I’m assuming we didn’t?” His voice is so deep and it sends shivers through your body. You turn and watch as he awkwardly motions between the two of you. Heat spreads over your ears and along your cheeks and you quickly shake your head. He nods in understanding and fixes his jacket as he looks around. You can see the confusion shimmering on his face but for some reason you can’t find the words to open your mouth and explain what happened last night. “You don’t have any pain killers, by any chance?”

You blink and then nod, if he was drunk enough to pass out in your house like he owns it, he must be in excruciating pain. You fumble through your cabinets until you find it and toss him the bottle. You hand him a glass of water and then shift from foot to foot. You’d had a couple of one-night stands in your life, but this well… it might’ve felt like one, but it wasn’t. Do you offer him breakfast? Coffee? Or do you just kick him out and hope he finds his way home?

“So, how did I end up here?” He asked, making himself at home as he sits down at your dining table. You frown slightly at the gesture, but choose to shove away your annoyance. He was here because of his irresponsibleness, but you’d been in his place before so you figured you should at least try to be nice.

“You kind of just… showed up drunk at my doorstep,” you explained with a shrug as you started another cup of coffee. “You seemed to think I was someone else and then… decided that this was your house? You passed out on my couch and I didn’t have the heart to kick you out.”

Nor did you have the help to kick him out, but he didn’t need to know that.

He frowned and stared at his water. His eyebrows furrowed and you couldn’t help but admire how the sunlight danced across his face. Dammit, he was gorgeous. Too bad you met under such weird circumstances. He pursed his lips and looked around, recognition flickering through his dark eyes.

“Uh, coffee?” You asked. He blinked at you and nodded. You quickly walked over with another mug and set it down it front of him.

“Thanks. I’m Taehyung by the way,” he said, sending you a small smile. You hate the way your heart flutters at the gesture—fuck he’s adorable.

“Y/N,” you reply softly, grabbing your own mug. You don’t join him at the table, instead you lean against the counter and watch him over your cup as you sip at the warm beverage. By the way his lips quirk up into a smirk, you can tell he knows your watching him, but chooses to ignore you. He sips at his coffee, his eyes fluttering close in pleasure at the taste. You find yourself strongly relating to that feeling.

The two of you finish your drinks in silence and no matter how hard you try to, you can’t take your eyes off him. You wish you could convince yourself that it’s not because of his looks, but you know that’s the main reason. You’re still confused about this boy and how in the world he ended up at your doorstep. You assumed he wasn’t driving and if his friends dropped him off, wouldn’t they know where he lived?

Was this just an awkward chip in your life that you could later laugh about as reminisce about it to friends?

“Well, I oughta get going,” he says as he stands up. “Thanks for the medication and coffee… and for not just rejecting my ass last night and letting me freeze.”

You nod and bite your lip as you lead him towards the door. He licked his lips, revealing a tongue piercing, and then smiled. You watched as he walked down your porch. Taehyung does a small double take, a laugh of disbelief escaping him. He turns around and waves at you, before walking along the driveway and up the porch on the other side. Your mouth gapes open as you stare in shock.

The drunk stranger was your neighbor.

Maybe you shouldn’t have asked for something exciting to happen.

∞∞∞∞∞∞

It seems that Jinju was just happily offering you mishap after mishap. Your car had broken down a week ago and today it decided to pull the same crap. This time though, when someone pulled over to try and help you start your car, it sputtered and then gave out. You saved your loud scream for when the man left and then called the tow truck. There was no reason for your car to be doing this, it was still fairly new and it had gotten a basic repair right before you moved. The town just wanted to watch you suffer, as if you hadn’t already suffered enough.

By the time the tow truck showed up, you had called in work and told them that you wouldn’t be able to come in today. They were understanding—as always—and you weren’t even assigned extra hours. The ride to the shop was awkward, the driver attempting to start conversation, only to be shot down each time by you. You were furious. You were sitting in your yellow scrubs, in a grimy tow truck, and driving to go get your a car a repair that it shouldn’t need.

Maybe the town was trying to get you to leave.

When you arrived, the garage was mostly empty, but men milled about, overalls and t-shirts covered in oil. It was something straight out of a move: bulging biceps, broad chests, and tattoos left and right. They were working on cars and bikes, loud music blaring. A blush spread over your cheeks when you saw the sweat that dripped along their arms and chests and darkened their shirts. Shit, they were all good looking and it wasn’t oka

The man who drove you over called over a man. He was broad shouldered, with black hair that swept over his forehead. He was very handsome, despite the exhaustion that pulled at his face and the sweat that stained his neck and hair, it shined through. He smiled at you and you almost became a pile of puddy right at that moment.

“Your car broke down?” He asked once he was close enough for you to hear. You nodded, not trusting yourself with words at the moment. He walked towards your car and immediately popped up the hood. He bit his lip as he looked through, moving random pipes and unscrewing caps to check the insides. You didn’t know a thing about cars and as he started to spout off things that could be wrong, you just listened in awe.

“Of course,” he said, turning to you with a heart stealing grin, “I can’t find a for-sure diagnosis unless you agree to go on a date with me.”

You blink, tilting your head in confusion. “But uh…?”

“Oh come on, Jin, stop flirting with the customers, would ya?” A familiar voice interrupted. You looked over your shoulder, eyes widening when Taehyung approached. He was staring at the man before you, but when he met your gaze, his face mirrored yours.

The two of you just stared at each other, both shocked to see each other again. You hadn’t seen Taehyung since that day, despite the fact you looked at their door every time you came home and had developed a weird habit to look out the window every few minutes. Now, here he stood before you, a tight black tank top hugging his figure, with glistening biceps and the same messy hair.

He wasn’t completely covered in tattoos like you’d assumed—he had a ring of roses on one wrist and a ring of thorns on the other. There was black and red ink running along his collarbone and disappeared beneath the collar. You looked away and instead met Jin’s inquisitive stare. You blushed under the heat of both their gazes and opted for staring at your sneakers.

“Hyung, I need help!” Another voice interrupted the silence. A boy with black hair came bounding over, whining at Taehyung. Black stud earrings shone in the sun as he tossed his head around. You studied him and couldn’t help but feel that he was too innocent to be working in such an environment.

“Hmmm, okay Kookie,” he muttered and then glanced at you, throwing a quick wink. “See you around Y/N.”

You didn’t reply as he was dragged off by the younger boy. You turned to Jin, your smile tight as you awaited a diagnosis for your car.  The confusion dissipated from his face and the same smirk from before covered his face. He crossed his arms and leaned back, tilting an eyebrow up. You chuckled, actually shocked that he was serious about that date.

“Seriously?” You giggled, searching his face.

“I don’t want a pretty girl like you to escape so quickly,” he said softly and you didn’t realize how close he was until he tucked a piece of hair behind your ear. If you weren’t red before, you were definitely now.

You agreed to the date and tried to fight the butterflies that erupted at his smile. Afterwards he explained what was wrong with your car—or at least tried to. He could obviously tell that you had no idea what he was saying, but he seemed to find it amusing and a low chuckle would fall from his pink lips every time you would just blink in answer.

You spent the rest of the morning at the garage, sitting in the waiting room, flipping carelessly through magazines until Jin came storming in. He was covered in even more grease, but the bright smile on his face would make you think that he was covered in chocolate. He told you he was finished and ushered you out towards your car.

“So, I’d ask you for a date tonight, but I’ve already made plans with friends…” he said with a sad sigh, shaking his head over-dramatically. You couldn’t help but laugh.

“Why don’t you just invite her along?” Taehyung popped into view, toweling out his hair. Both you and Jin blinked, before the man turned to you with a pout. You weren’t really sure if you wanted to—it felt awkward to be around the other boy, considering the circumstances you met.

“It’s at my place, so you’ll sort of be there whether you want to or not,” he pointed out with a shrug and with Jin’s pout growing, you couldn’t say no. You reluctantly nodded, but a smile pulled at your lips when you saw the man’s childish joy that burst forth.

You couldn’t help it, he was too cute.

You weren’t sure what to bring or what time to show up actually. The boys had just told you it was Taehyung’s and that Jin would be there. Hell, you wouldn’t know anyone else that showed up. Suddenly, you felt stupid and wondered if you should just find an excuse to not come. Jin had left his number in your car, so you could easily give him an excuse.

Except for the fact that the man who was holding the social lived right next door. You didn’t know Taehyung that well, but if what you saw the morning after his drunk episode was anything like his real personality, there would be nothing stopping him from coming over and dragging you to the party. So, that’s how you ended up trying on over hundreds of outfits to figure out what worked.

You went for jeans and a simple t-shirt and fixed up your makeup and pulled your hair up. You didn’t want to wear something too fancy and if you somehow ended up underdressed, you lived right next door. You grabbed a bottle of wine from your cabinet and then hurried out.

Almost the second you knocked on the door, it opened. It wasn’t Taehyung who answered, but another man you’d never seen before. He was grinning and his grin only grew when he saw you. His hair was dyed red and just like every other guy that Taehyung knew, he was gorgeous. You opened your mouth, unsure of what to say and then just opted for offering him the wine bottle as he ushered you inside.

“You must be Y/N? I’m Hoseok, Tae’s roommate,” he explained and then giggled. “I heard about Tae’s drunk shenanigans in your home. I do profusely apologize for that, I should’ve gone looking for him when he didn’t come home after his friends texted me.”

You thought you imagined it, but a dark shadow seemed pass over the boy’s face when he mentioned his roommate’s friends. Then his face immediately brightened up and he showed you to the kitchen and set down your bottle. Their house was set up similarly to yours.

“So, why did you move to Jinju?” Hoseok queried as he got several bowls down from the shelves. He placed them along the counter, filling them with various snacks. You bit your lip, wondering what to tell him. When he saw your hesitation, he told you that you didn’t have to share and instead told you about why he was living in Jinju.

“I work in pharmaceutical sales and originally was in Incheon, but then the clinic I worked for got another branch here and decided to have me move here. That was when I met Tae actually—I seemed to be having some really bad misfortunes, my car had broke down and the house I was supposed to move ended up getting pulled from the market.

“Tae fixed up my car and that was when I found out that his roommate at the time would be moving out in a couple months so I asked if I could move in. Worked out and the three of us lived here for a while and Yoongi was actually gonna stay… but his job called him elsewhere,” he murmured, sadness rolling through his voice at the last sentence. You could feel the sound of loss in it. You brushed your fingers along his knuckles and smiled sympathetically. He returned the smile and then pulled away to continue laying out snacks and drinks.

“Could you get some of the glasses?”

You tried to reach for the cups, but they were on the highest shelf and you weren’t exactly tall. You were up on your toes, your shirt stretching up as your arm reached above your head. Then you felt it, something slightly damp pressing against your back. A warm breath brushed down your neck and you froze.

Taehyung’s face came into view as he reached over you to get the glasses. His hair was wet and he smelled clean and fresh and… leathery. You didn’t realize that you were leaning in to smell him until he pulled away and you almost toppled over. You cleared your throat and tried to pretend that you weren’t just sniffing up the boy. A smirk had spread over the boy’s face, but you were too distracted by your thoughts to notice.

The sound of people entering had you looking up in excitement. Two other boys entered, neither of whom you recognized. Both had blonde hair, but one was much taller with most of it shaved off, and the other was short and his hair was curly. Both were gorgeous and you started wondering if this whole friend group was made up of model-worthy people.

“Please Joon, she was definitely into me,” the shorter one huffed as he flicked the man’s chest. Neither one noticed you as they dumped bags of snacks and games on the counter. The taller one, Joon, snorted and rolled his eyes.

“Get over yourself Jimin, she was practically falling in my lap when I was trying to get her to pay, but if you want her, she’s all yours,” he huffed and started emptying the bags. Both boys were covered in tattoos and piercings, just like Taehyung. You weren’t sure whether to say hi or just try to pretend like you weren’t there until someone introduced you.

You turned around, deciding to just start setting up the other things. Only then did you realize there was nothing for you to do. Hoseok was like a work machine and Taehyung had taken away your one job. So instead, you just stared at the empty countertops, feeling like an actual idiot.

“Oh shit, I didn’t realize we were inviting girls.”

You whirled around, meeting both the boys’ curious stares. A hand lifted on natural instinct and you just waved. You mentally face-palmed yourself when both boys just waved back, the shorter one trying not to laugh while the other’s eyebrows furrowed. With an internal sigh, you prepared to introduce yourself, but were saved by the sound of the door opening and someone storming in.

Jin rounded the corner, carrying a pack of beer with a big smile on his face. He grinned at both boys and then saw you. A squeal—something similar to a little girl—escaped him and he practically pranced over to you. He wrapped you up in a hug and you didn’t return it because you were too shocked. You weren’t expecting that.

Hell, he hadn’t even taken you on that date yet.

“Y/N!” He chirped and then turned to the boys. “Have you met Y/N?”

“Nope,” Jimin said with a grin and held out a hand for you to shake. You quickly accepted it and then shook the other’s. You were certain you looked like the epitome of awkward as you pursed your lips. You stuck your hands in your pockets and rocked back and forth on your feet.

“So, are you new here?” Joon asked, running a hand through the mohawk. “Um yeah, I just moved here several weeks ago,” you murmured, trying not to hide behind Jin as they focused their attention on you. Hoseok also entered the kitchen, smiling at the boys.

“She’s actually our neighbor. She’s the one whose door Tae showed up at,” the man said with a laugh. Jimin burst out laughing and Taehyung chose to enter the kitchen at that time, the younger boy from the garage following him. Jimin glanced at the brown-haired boy and his laughter just grew louder.

“Wow, you invited the girl that you scared the crap out of, Tae? You must have no shame!” The short boy squeaked, wiping away fake tears. Tae blushed and glanced at you. He shrugged and didn’t try to explain himself as he quickly grabbed a beer and opened it.

“Oh,” the boy, Kookie, spoke up, “and it gets better because Jin’s asked her out.”

You didn’t think it was possible, but Jimin’s laughter got louder and shriller. He held his stomach and when he started to fall onto Joon, the man just stepped out of the way and let the blonde sprawl on floor and finish his laughing fit. You couldn’t help but chuckle.  It was a weird situation, wasn’t it?

The rest of the night went similarly to that; the boys making fun of one another and there was a constant stream of laughter. You quickly found most of them to be over-dramatic and full of attitude. When you were playing UNO, Jimin repeatedly threatened everyone with murder if they tried to stop him from winning.

He lost every time.

At the last game, the blonde finally lost it and tackled Jungkook to the floor, attempting to strangle the younger boy. Everyone ignored the two as they fumbled around on the floor, Jimin screeching about how he should have won and it was Jungkook’s fault for throwing plus fours at him like they were dollar bills.

It was getting close to eleven and you sighed, exhaustion starting to catch up to you. You ended up calling it and night and wishing the boy’s goodnight. You had an early shift in the morning and didn’t want your late night to rub off onto your patients. Jin offered to walk you to your door and you happily accepted.

The two of you paused in front of your door and you felt like a young teen for a second as you could feel your heart speed up. Would he kiss you goodnight? You blushed when he studied your face intensely and then a small smiled pulled at his lips. He reached down, cupping your cheeks. You closed your eyes, preparing yourself for the feeling of his lips on yours, only for his warmth to softly press against your forehead.

“Goodnight Y/N.”

∞∞∞∞∞∞

As the weeks passed, you and Jin went on dates as often as you could. You and Hobi grew closer and you were practically living at the man’s house. One of the things you immediately noticed was the lack of Taehyung. He was occasionally there, but it felt like you were in his house more than he was. Hoseok obviously enjoyed your company, he worked his job from home most of the time, but he didn’t get many calls, nor did he have to do paperwork, and since Tae was never home, he was always bored.

You tried to make some female friends outside of the boys, but found it hard. There were sometimes girls at their social nights, but none of them were particularly nice towards you. It felt weird having more guy friends than girls.

You soon learned why Hobi didn’t like Tae’s friends. Jin had come over one night and three of you had been watching a movie, when a group of semi-drunk people stumbled into the home. They reeked of weed and none of them seemed to understand what manners were. Taehyung wasn’t as much of an asshole as them, but he was ruder than normal. He ignored Hoseok when he tried to talk to him in private and openly gagged at the sight of you and Jin cuddled up together. In the end, you said goodnight to Hoseok and you and Jin finished watching the movie at your house before he left.

Work was still slow, but you didn’t mind too much. It was better than your old job in Seoul, constantly running back and forth, doctors screaming demands at you and patients in hysterics around you. Sometimes you missed the rush, but you started to get used to the calmer vibes of Jinju.

“So you do have a boyfriend, Miss Y/L/N?” The little girl asked. You chuckled and nodded as you checked her vitals. “Is he cute?”

“Very cute, do you have a boyfriend?” You tease, quickly typing the results into the computer. You watched out of the corner of your eye as the little girl perked up. She shrugged and then frowned. “I dunno, there’s this cute boy in my class… but he’s always so mean to me. My mom says that it means he likes me, but that doesn’t make sense,” she pouted and then like a drama-queen, threw her hands in the air and collapsed back on the bed. “Maybe he’ll be nicer to me when I go back to school. Is your boyfriend nice to you?” You laugh, thinking about yours and Jin’s last date. You hadn’t brought proper shoes for a hike, so the man had forced you to ride on his back the whole time so you wouldn’t hurt yourself. Your cheeks heated up and you ducked your head.

“Yes, Jiwoo,” you say. The girl pouts and goes on a rant about how the boy obviously doesn’t like her. You listen intently, you’re lunch break was soon and you wanted to avoid any doctors so you could have the whole break to yourself.

When the time came, you bid goodbye to the girl and let her parents know that she’d be clear to leave soon. You stumbled over to the front desk to tell the receptionist that you were taking your break. The woman, Yuna, looked up and grinned and then blinked, asking you to wait for a second.

“Ah yes, you have a visitor. In the ah—well, right over there.”

You blinked and turned around, searching the seats  for someone familiar. A smile spread over your face when you saw Jin sitting there, looking awkward in the tiny seat. A tiny smile was on his face and when he saw you, he bounced to his feet and tripped when he tried to rush over. You chuckled when he finally made it over and the two of you shared a quick kiss.

“Hmmm, what are you doing here?” You murmured, watching him under your lashes.

“I brought you lunch, I was gonna stay and eat with you, but they need me back at the garage,” he explained, handing you a small box. You accepted it with a grin and thanked him softly. You loved Jin’s cooking and your mouth started to water from the scent that wafted from the box.

“Are you coming tonight? Hoseok is throwing another game night,” he asked, wrapping an arm around your waist. You nodded. He kissed you goodbye and kept waving until he exiting the building.

You arrived late to the party, unable to shower, but you had time to change into clothes. You stepped into Hoseok’s, bursting into laughter when Jungkook ran up to you, trying to hide behind you as Jin shook a spatula at him. When the boy tried to run around you and escape, there was a loud smack as the spatula quickly made contact with the boy’s ass. He yelped, screaming for Hoseok to save him.

You hugged Jin, thanking him once again for the lunch. You met Tae’s gaze from across the room and were slightly surprised to see him. You hadn’t seen him since that night with his friends and that had been two weeks ago. He didn’t look different or anything, but maybe you were shocked that he wasn’t drunk. He offered you a weary smile, but you could see annoyance flickering across his face.

“How was work today, Y/N?” Hoseok asked when he saw you. He was setting up a game and you couldn’t help but notice that his smile was brighter than normal.

“Well, I got to talk to a little girl about my boyfriend,” you said with a giggle, pinching Jin’s arm. The man grinned and slung an arm over your shoulder. “You seem really happy, Hobi, what’s up?”

“Yoongi’s coming tonight,” Jungkook piped up for him.

Yoongi was the only one of the friend group that you hadn’t met. You knew a little bit about him, from what you could pick up in conversations. Apparently, he was a well-known, underground rapper. He used to be Tae and Hobi’s roommate, until his job forced him to move Incheon. You couldn’t quite figure out his and Hobi’s relationship; whether they were lovers or best friends. It didn’t matter, he made Hoseok happy.

“And thank god, Jimin isn’t coming!” The maknae piped up again, fist bumping the air. You snorted as Taehyung smacked his head and told him to stop lying about his hate for Jimin.

Namjoon and Jimin owned a tattoo and piercing barn together. You had originally thought they were a couple, but just turned out they were close co-workers who were, in Namjoon’s words, “stuck together for eternity and it’s tearing apart my ability to live.” You found out that Joon did Tae’s tattoos and you were amazed—the tattoos always looked amazing, but knowing that Joon was the artist was weird in a sense.

You played a couple of rounds of Go-fish and Sword Girls. Hoseok kept looking at the door and the clock, his teeth working his lip as he waited for the rapper to arrive. Jin was extra touchy, cuddling up to you and pressing kisses to your shoulder and head repeatedly. Tae looked more annoyed than normal and he kept making faces at you and Jin. Jungkook was the same—a ball of energy that was being unnecessarily vicious in the games.

When the doorbell rang it was like a bomb went off. Hoseok let out a scream and shoved Taehyung out of his way so he could get to the door. Tae also popped up, looking the happiest he had the whole night. You turned and watched as the door opened. A man with light blue hair entered and you looked away when the two hugged; it felt like you were seeing a private moment.

Hoseok dragged the man into the living room, bouncing on his toes. Tae hugged him and Jin waved. Hobi introduced you and then breezed over it, talking non-stop about everything. The game was forgotten as the pair sat on the couch and conversed. The rest of you got up and migrated to the kitchen, trying to pretend like you weren’t watching out of their corner of your eyes and eavesdropping.

“Well, as much as I’d like to say this night will continue, it’s already ended,” Taehyung said and you felt uncomfortable as his gaze was fixed on you. He dragged his gaze away to look at Kook. “You wanna stay here tonight or do you have the early shift?” The boy said he had to leave and then bid everyone goodbye. You tucked yourself into Jin and tickled his sides. It was still an early night and you didn’t want him to leave yet. Taehyung looked away from the two of you, clearing his throat and mindlessly sipping at the beer he held.

“Wanna go back to my place?” You asked, figuring the two of you could just watch a movie. The man nodded and went go grab his coat. You said goodbye to Taehyung and quickly left that you didn’t see the way the boy slammed down his bottle and the frown that took over his face. He clenched his hands into fists and grit his teeth.

You and Jin watched a romcom, but at some point the two of you became less interested in the movie and more interested in each other. You moaned into his mouth as you grinded down on the obvious erection he was sporting. You pulled back with a gasp, your heart hammering as the man’s hands slowly ran up your sides. He pulled you back down, pressing a rough kiss to your lips. He rutted his hips up into yours and you grasped his shoulders.

He hefted you up and the two of you struggled to your room. You let out a breathy laugh when you fell back onto the bed. He tore off his shirt and you admired the expanse of milky skin under the material. He climbed a top you and you whimpered into his mouth when he positioned his knee between your legs.

“Fuck,” you hissed.

∞∞∞∞∞∞

You woke up the next morning with a smile on your face and a blissful ache between your legs. You could hear Jin whistling in the kitchen and utilities clanging around as he prepared breakfast. You stretched, letting out a mewl as your muscles pulled. You got up and threw on a shirt and shorts.

You walked out to the kitchen and pressed a kiss to the boy’s cheek. He gave you a side hug and then went back to focusing on the food. You stumbled over to the couch and sat down, but the second you did there was a knock at your door. You grumbled and got up, going over to the door and wondering who the hell would be here this early in the morning. When you opened the door, you were shocked to see Tae standing there, looking exhausted and his hair a slight mess.

“Ta… what are you doing here?” You queried, not stepping back to let him into the house. He glanced around you, almost like he was trying to see into the house, and then his eyes ran over your legs. You suddenly realized how underdressed you were and became aware of the several hickies that covered your neck and shoulders.

“Um… we’re out of coffee and I don’t mean to be annoying… but I’m desperate and I don’t think I’ll be able to function without it,” he stammered, scratching the back of his neck. You blinked in disbelief—this boy was really here just for a cup of coffee?

Of course, you couldn’t judge him. You were addicted to coffee as well and had three cups every morning. With a sigh, you opened the door further and let him in, forgetting that Jin was in the kitchen. You didn’t see his expression when he saw the boy; his eyes widened and then narrowed and a dark look took over his features. He practically threw himself at your dining table, a sour feeling roiling through his stomach.

If Jin was shocked to see Taehyung, he didn’t voice it or show it. He just glanced over his shoulder and then went back to working on the food. You quickly made a cup of coffee, desperate to get the boy out of your house. You could feel tension in the air and you hoped it was just your over-imaginative mind that was putting it there.

Unlike the first morning Tae had been in your house, he chugged down the coffee, so fast he almost choked on it. He quickly thanked you and then raced from your home. You watched in confusion and then shrugged, turning back to Jin. He didn’t seem to care that the boy was gone and finished preparing the breakfast.

After a nice breakfast, the man bid you goodbye and left for work. You couldn’t rid the smile from your face; the moment felt so surreal. Waking up to him making you breakfast and spending the early hours together and then leaving for work. You blushed when the thought of him returning home after work struck your mind and scolded yourself for getting too far ahead of yourself. You’d barely been dating for a month—you shouldn’t be thinking of that.

In the later morning, Hobi asked you to come over so you could actually meet Yoongi this time. But the way the boy texted you, it sounded like more of a SOS. Apparently things had changed so much since they saw each other and it was more than a little awkward. You felt it in the air the second you stepped into the threshold, Hoseok over-excitedly greeting you at the door and the stranger standing silently in the kitchen with a cup of coffee.

You did a double take.

They had coffee. So why had Taehyung come barging into your house just for the sake of coffee? You frowned, studying the counter to see that, in fact, their coffee machine was definitely stocked up. It was weird and there was an odd feeling in the back of your mind, but you couldn’t seem to form a coherent thought around it.

“So, Y/N, this is Min Yoongi. Yoongi, this is Y/L/N Y/N,” Hoseok chirped, forcing you from your thoughts. You smiled at the man and waved. He offered you a small smile back and then the room fell into silence. You opened your mouth and then closed it, looking away.

“You work at the hospital, correct?” The man said, leaning back against the counter as he studied you.

“Yeah. I’m a RNA. I didn’t graduate college, so I couldn’t get a degree to become a registered nurse,” you explained, “although I don’t regret it. I do get paid less, but the work isn’t as gruelling and I typically get easier patients. You… uh, you’re a rapper, right?”

He studied you for a second, almost like he was trying to gauge your exact thoughts on his job. You squirmed warily under his stare, but it was cut off when Hobi pinched the man’s elbow. Yoongi winced, throwing a quick glare at his friend, before smiling at you with a real smile.

“Yeah. Although that’s more of a part-time thing for me. I write and produce music most of the time,” he murmured. Then he turned to Hobi, a nervous look twitching over his face. “Could we go see Namjoon and Jimin?”

“I’m down, I’ve been wanting to get one of my tattoos fixed up for a while.”

You froze and for some reason your heart started racing. You wanted to turn around and meet his gaze, to challenge him about the coffee, but for some reason you couldn’t. You weren’t sure if he noticed you, but you heard Yoongi ask him if he had a good shower and a low chuckle coming from Hoseok.

“Well, this is good—Yoongi can say hi to those two, you can do your tattoo, and Y/N can finally see the tattoo barn.”

You turned around, refusing to meet Tae’s gaze and opening your mouth to argue with Hobi, but something in the man’s gaze stopped you. You swallowed and nodded, following the three boys out of the house. Yoongi looked tense and Hoseok had a mischievous smile on his face, but the way his fingers were fidgeting proved that he was also nervous.   

You and Taehyung sat in the back of Yoongi’s car, the both of you avoiding each other. The car was bitterly silent and no one dared to breathe a word. The ride was awful, almost suffocating. There was tension between Hobi and Yoongi and the way the two get glancing at each other, with Hobi’s eyebrows furrowing and the ladder’s lips pursing, you knew something was up. You wondered if it was because of the two boys you were going to see. Did Yoongi not get along with one of them? Or was it something else? When the four of you arrived, you all got out. As you approached the door right behind Hobi, Tae grabbed your wrist and pulled you back. You wriggled against him and then whirled around. “What?” You snapped.

“You’re gonna wanna give them a few minutes,” he muttered, eyes slowly moving to look through the glass door.

You blinked and followed his gaze. You couldn’t see through the glass, but you could see silhouettes moving.

“Why?” You whispered back and then the door opened and Namjoon stepped out. The tall blonde looked stressed, but he didn’t say anything to either of you guys as he stepped off to the side.

“Some things happened between the three of them right before Yoongi left—none of us know exactly what—but I think it had something to do with Jimin and Yoongi’s relationship,” he explained under his breath, side-eyeing Joon. “Sometimes I wonder if it was the real reason he left and just used music as an excuse.”

You pursed your lips, taking in that information. Jimin and Yoongi were in a relationship before he moved and Hobi was involved. A dark feeling rolled through your stomach and you had a vague idea of what had happened. The three of you stood out there for ten minutes, before you slowly entered.

You entered last, trying to meet Hobi’s stare, but it was focused on the ground. Yoongi stood beside him, arms crossed with a pissed expression on his face. Jimin greeted you guys with a smile, pulling you in for a side hug, but there wasn’t the usual bounce in his step.

“You know where to go Tae,” Joon said, barely sending a glance his way as he quickly went to stand beside Jimin. “I’ll be over in a few.”

You didn’t want to go with Tae, but the boy grabbed your wrist and dragged you along behind him. You wanted to go comfort Hoseok, but maybe he was right to let them work it out for awhile. Tae flopped down in a chair and when you went to sit in the stool, he pulled you into his lap. You went rigid, trying to fight your way out, the boy was adamant.

“Joon’s gonna sit there,” he muttered, his mouth unnecessarily close to your ear.  

“Then I’ll just stand,” you tried to argue, but he wasn’t having it. You felt stupid as you sat on his lap—not because of the awkwardness, but because you weren’t completely opposed to the idea. You knew you should’ve been, but it just felt right to be right there.

When Joon walked in, he didn’t mention anything about where you were sitting. If he found it weird or disrespectful, he said nothing. He took Tae’s arm, wiped it down, and the two had a quick conversation of what had to be fixed. You watched as he set up the ink and then got a tight hold on Tae’s wrist before bringing the pen down. The second the needle was pressed into his skin, the boy’s other hand tightened around your waist. You don’t know why you did, but you wrapped your hand around his. You weren’t creeped out by the needle—you worked with them everyday—you were more intrigued by the liquid-like movement as Joon fixed the rose design.

It took about fifteen minutes to do the tattoo and at some point you weren’t even aware of the fact that you were on Tae’s lap. You had relaxed into him and just watched the needle move. The look of concentration on Joon’s face was gorgeous. You really made a mistake when you looked back at Tae to see his teeth digging into his bottom lip and his head thrown back, eyes pinched shut. Your cheeks flushed red and you looked away, trying to rid the image of your mind. It wasn’t a M rated situation, but by the look on his face you’d think he was getting a bl-

“All finished,” Joon murmured, “you don’t have to pay for this one, since I was the reason it got messed up in the first place. Wait for the ink to dry.”

“That was cool,” you muttered, finally glancing back at Taehyung when the tattoo artist left.

He chuckled at the twinkle in your eyes.

“Have you never seen that before?” He asked teasingly.

“I never went with my friends when they got one and I never got one,” you muttered and shifted on his lap. Now that it was over, you didn’t feel the need to stay in his lap anymore. You tried to get up, but he kept a steady arm on you. You wiggled, trying to escape. “Come on, Tae.”

“Don- don’t do that sweets,” he hissed.

You froze, but it was too late. You could feel him, pressed up against you. His arm had loosened on you and you knew that you could’ve leapt out of his arms, but you were just frozen. Too many thoughts were racing in your head and you hated the fact that you enjoyed that you were the reason he was this way. The feeling of him pressed against you was too good and you felt heat spread along your cheeks and down to your stomach.

You glanced at him over your shoulder. He met your gaze, nerves evident in his stare as he searched your gaze. Your thoughts were going too fast for you to keep up and the ideas that came to your mind were terrible, but you wanted to do them. A crazy adrenaline high rushed through you and you found yourself leaning in and pressing a kiss against his lips. He stiffened up, but within seconds was returning it.

His hand tangled itself in your hair and he pulled you closer. Your hands fell on his chest and you turned around so you were straddling his waist. A whimper fell from you when he bit your lips and you could feel the cool metal of his tongue piercing sliding along. You opened your mouth and the feeling was just too good, there was something about him. You grinded down on him unintentionally and he threw his head back, letting out a soft groan.

“Fuck sweets,” he hissed, glancing at you.

You blinked and then quickly got off his lap, rushing towards the car.

∞∞∞∞∞∞

“So the two of you kissed?” Hoseok asked in disbelief. Taehyung groaned and nodded, burying his face in his hands. Why did he let that happen? Y/N was dating one of his friends! The girl had opted for getting a ride home from Jimin who had decided the escape the second he could.

It was awful—he’d managed to hide his boner with his jacket, but it refused to go away—he ended up having to jack off when he got home. It didn’t make sense, no girl ever had that much control over him before. It was like he was tightly wrapped around her finger—hell, he’d probably clean her bathroom floor with his tongue if she asked.

“Shouldn’t you be mad at me or something?” Tae huffed, glancing at his hyung. The man shrugged, running a hand through his hair.

“I’ve been the side-chick before Tae,” he murmured softly, “maybe I should be mad… but I understand what it feels like.”

He opened his mouth but shut it when Yoongi entered the living room. The man had been distressed, but now he seemed to have relaxed slightly. He grinned at Hoseok and sat down beside him. Tae watched the two interact, suddenly starting to understand the circumstances of their relationship.

He couldn’t help but wish that someday him and Y/N could be that close.

“And then in the morning the only reason you went over was to see if Jin was still there?” Hobi queried and Taehyung nodded, throwing his head back.

“I just… gosh this is stupid,” he muttered.

“Well,” Yoongi huffed, “mind you, Jin is still Jin. If what I’ve heard is correct, this has been his longest relationship, but he’s normally with girls for a couple weeks. What’s to stop him from cutting her off soon?”

Taehyung wished his heart hadn’t sped up at that idea. It was true, Jin wasn’t exactly known for… permanency. Of course, none of them really were, were they? Jungkook had never been in a relationship and it was a total shock that the boy wasn’t a virgin. Hoseok occasionally went on dates, Jimin hadn’t had an actual relationship since Yoongi left, Namjoon was private about that part of his life, and Taehyung… hell, he only slept around. What was to say he was any better? “Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to date her afterwards,” Yoongi interjected again. Tae glanced up and couldn’t help the frown that came to his face. The blue-haired man just shrugged and when the brunette looked to Hobi, the man refused to meet his gaze. He sighed.

“Well, shit,” he grumbled. He got up, grabbing a coat and heading for the door. When Hobi asked where he was going, he didn’t reply. He’d rather drink his feelings away and get high than deal with it.

He started up the car, heading towards the broken down part of town.

∞∞∞∞∞∞

You hated the night shift. It was empty and lifeless the whole time, no one has ever been wheeled in here, blood gushing from multiple wounds. You couldn’t help but miss the emergency nights you’d had in Seoul. Yes—they were stressful and sometimes caused you to wonder why you ever decided to take this job—but there was always a rush of adrenaline that came with it. Here, you just sat at the receptionist desk, sipping at coffee, and staring at a blank screen.

“Fucking hell,” you groaned, leaning back in you chair. You had taken an extra shift in hopes of forgetting about what had happened at the Tattoo Barn and to, ashamedly admit, avoid Jin. You tried to tell yourself it was because you were too guilty to look him in the eye, but you knew better.

You just didn’t want to see him because after what happened with Tae… you started debating the way your heart raced.

But since the hospital was empty and you had no personal patients, you were left alone with your thoughts and the reception desk. Yuna’s son was sick, so you offered to take her spot instead. You figured it’d be better than just sitting in the hospital, but considering that nobody checked in or out, you were just staring into space. You groaned again and let your head fall onto the counter.

You glanced at your phone and pressed your finger to the home button. You sighed when you saw the message from Jin, telling you good luck. He’d always texted you on your other late night shifts, but this time your heart just didn’t flutter. “It’s just because he’s done it so much now that I’ve gotten used to it,” you thought aloud. You sighed and pinched the bridge of your nose. Wrong. You had a feeling that if Taehyung texted you, your heart would probably explode. “Emotions shouldn’t change that fast though! I really liked Jin, how can I so easily switch to Tae! Hell, I think at some points I hated that boy.”

You frowned again, there was a thin line between love and hate, wasn’t there?   

“But I don’t love him… do I?”

You went to take a sip of your coffee, but as you brought the cup to your lips you spilled it as a loud shriek split the silence. You jumped up from your chair, almost toppling out of it. A girl covered in tattoos stumbled in, an arm slung over her shoulder as she dragged someone in beside her. You hurried over, wrinkling your nose at the strong scent of weed and alcohol.

“What happened?” You asked when you saw blood and saliva drip from the boy’s mouth.

“I-I don’t know! One second we were all fine and then somebody said something and a fight broke out and I… oh god, there’s so much blood,” she sobbed and you glanced at her and then over your shoulder. You didn’t have your pager on you so you couldn’t call a doctor or a nurse, but you figured you were experienced enough to take care of him for five minutes.

“Help me take him to a room,” you said quickly and grabbed his other arm. The two of you dragged him to the nearest room and dumped him onto the bed. The girl continued to sob and then disappeared into the bathroom, the sounds of retching echoing through the room.

You pulled back the boy’s hood, blinking when you saw a half-passed out Taehyung. You held in your gasp, staring at the open cut that ran over his eyebrow and cheek. His lips were busted and a bruise was starting to form on one of his eyes. Blood was dripping from his lips, dark red sliding down his chin and along his neck, staining the gray t-shirt he wore. He reeked of weed and beer and there were blood spots along his shirt.

“Okay, Tae, I can do this,” you mumbled.

You rustled through the cabinets, pulling out the gauze, antiseptic, needles, and stitches. You may have not graduated, but you’d spent hours learning how to clean wounds and stitch when you dated your ex. He’d done underground boxing and was part of the reason you majored in nursing.

You pressed the gauze into the cut on his forehead, watching as he winced and his eyes flew open, deep eyes meeting yours. He didn’t recognize you, his eyes were still completely dilated, but you were glad to see he was awake. You washed off the blood, cleaning out the wound, and then sanitized the needle. Your teeth tore into your bottom lip as you leaned over him, trying to ignore the way your hands shook.

It took several minutes, but you managed to tightly close up the cut. You cleaned up his lip and then lifted up his, wincing at what you saw. You’d seen awful injuries on your ex, but maybe it was the fact that this boy didn’t choose to get himself hurt. Bruises lined his ribs and stomach and whoever he was going at must’ve been wearings rings. Tiny cuts—nothing too bad—were spread over over the expanse of white and blue skin.

You cleaned up the cuts and then backed away. You didn’t bother to see if the girl was still there or if she’d left. He had to have internal bleeding, especially if he’d been coughing up blood. You’d need a doctor for that.

“Stay awake for me,” you whispered, brushing a thumb over his cheek and before you could overthink, pressed a quick kiss to his cold lips.

When you returned with a doctor and a nurse, you were shoved out of the way as they wheeled him out and to the surgery ward. You sat alone at the desk, arms crossed over yourself. You sighed, fingering your scrubs and then reached for your phone. You debated calling Jin, but then decided against it.

“Hobi? Hey, um… there’s been an accident with Tae,” you mumbled into the phone, trying not to let the sound of your tears through. The man replied in a flurry of cusses and random words and you could hear him fumbling around in the background. The only thing you got from it that he would be there soon.

And sure enough, he was. The red-haired man came running in, Yoongi hot on his heels. He asked you if he could see his roommate, but when you shook your head, he opted for nearly leaping over the desk to hug you. He wasn’t crying, but he was shaking like crazy. You bit your lip and then decided against fighting your emotions. You sobbed into his chest, pulling at his jacket.

You knew why you were so scared, you knew why it hurt to even see him like that, but you kept it inside and didn’t say anything. Several minutes later the other boys arrived. The seven of you sat in silence as you waited for the surgery to finish and for Tae to come up from under the anesthesia.

Morning came and you woke up, your neck sore and head pounding. You fell asleep against Jin in the uncomfortable waiting chairs. Hoseok shook you awake, saying that Tae was finally up and the nurse said he could see him as long as a staff member was present. You groaned and then led the man towards his room. You stepped in, avoiding the brunette’s stare.

Silence filled the room for only a moment before Hoseok exploded.

“You dumbass! God, you should be super fucking glad that you’re already injured or else I would actually beat you. How many times have I told you that those people are terrible influences and that you shouldn’t hang out with them? It’s an actual ass miracle that one of them had the brains to not let you bleed out all over the floor. What would you have done… what would I have done if you died?” He snapped, his voice breaking once he finished his rant. He marched over to the side of Tae’s bed and you prepared yourself to step in, but the older man just stared down at his friend. Hoseok sighed and then fell into the chair beside the bed. “I’m so fucking glad you’re alive. We all are.”

You nodded and finally found the guts to approach the bed. The boy glanced up at you and you smiled weakly at him. He blinked and then glanced down at your hands that fidgeted with the bed sheets. His hand reached out for yours, but when he stopped halfway you reached forward and grasped his cut up hand. You stroked your thumb over his knuckles, feeling the broken skin with a shudder.

“You gonna say anything?” He asked with a broken laugh. You shrugged and then sat down on the edge of the bed.

“I don’t think I need to reprimand you…” you said softly and then met his gaze. “But I swear, if you ever bleed on my scrubs again I’ll fight you at 3 AM.”

Tae smiled and then looked down at your intertwined hands. Part of you knew that you should pull your hand away, you were still dating Jin, but you couldn’t find the strength to do it. Then you sighed and glanced out the window. The sun was out and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. You smiled.

3 weeks later…

“Hello there.”

You sighed and glanced over your shoulder as Taehyung approached you. You were struggling to take your groceries into your house. The boy grinned at you when you dropped your keys for the umpteenth time and when you just pouted at them. He slowly walked over, picked up the keys for you, and opened the door. You hated the way that he stood so close.

You waltzed into your house, the boy following you. It was a late Friday night. You’d been trying to avoid Tae since his accident, but you were nice to him when you saw each other. Of course, you’d also been avoiding Jin, and you hated the relief that had swept through you when your boyfriend told you he was going home to visit his parents for a week.

“What do you want, Tae?” You murmured quietly, glancing at him over your shoulder. Your eyes gravitated towards his lips, but you forced yourself to meet his burning stare.

“Can’t a friend say hello once in a while? I mean, you did save my life… that sort of makes us buddies for life, right?” He said with a grin, sitting down at your kitchen table like he owned the fucking place. You frowned at him and fought the urge to flip him off.

“Don’t talk like that,” you snapped, practically throwing your groceries on the counter. A low chuckle came from him and you despised the shivers it sent down your spine.

“Right, I forgot that we could never really be friends… because of that incident,” his voice dropped an octave when he reminded you of that night. You pursed your lips, pinching your eyes shut.

His roughs hand gripped at your waist, the two of you tumbling back onto the hospital bed. He hovered over you, his lips ghosting yours with a coy smirk. You glared at him, locking your hands in his hair and pulling him close. Your lips crashed together in a blaze of teeth and tongues.

“Is it just that hard to look at me and not remember that?”

He practically ripped off your pants, his fingers immediately pressing into your folds through your panties. You whimpered, your hips bucking up into his touch. He groaned, pressing kisses down your neck. He moved your panties to the side, one thick finger dipping into your core. You both groaned at the feeling and he pushed in, curling his fingers right into the perfect spot. You mewled beneath him, begging for more.

“Don’t play this game with me, Tae.”

He stretched you out, wasting not time adding two more fingers and scissoring them inside you. Your hands tangled themselves in his hair and you watched his face as he focused his sole attention on the way his fingers pumped in and out of your pussy. He grinned at the sight of your juices leaking out around his thick digits, staining the sheets and your panties.

“What game do you think I’m playing, sweets?”

He pressed the head of his cock against you, glancing at you one more time. His teeth dug into his lip and he pushed in swiftly. You gasped at the feeling and he let out a deep breath. You arched your back, trying to someone take him deeper even though it didn’t feel possible.

“God sweets, you’re so tight.”

He started thrusting slowly but as you continued to whimper underneath him, begging him over and over to go faster, he complied. His thrusts became rough and he was so fucking precise with his movement. Almost all the way out and then right into your cervix, yours hips smashing together.

“I’m dating your friend, Taehyung!”

“Oh, ruin me Tae!” He grinned, nipping at your neck. His thrusts became more erratic as your walls tightened around him and the both of you were approaching your highs. He gasped, whispering a praise under his breath. You squirmed, tightening around him and white exploding in your vision as you came undone beneath him. He jerked his head back, release filling you up.

“You didn’t seem to care about that then.”

The two of you laid side by side in bed. His arm was wrapped around your waist and your head rested on his shoulder. You’d attempted at cleaning up, but you were still covered in sweat and the both of you reeked of sex. You sighed, glancing up at him.

“This can’t happen again, Tae,” you murmured, tracing patterns on his chest.

“But why—”

“You know why,” you huffed, sitting up in bed. You pulled your scrubs back on, glancing at him over your shoulder. “We won’t talk about this, ever.

“It’d be best if we try not to see each other often after this.”

He opened his mouth again, but you beat him to it.

“Dammit, Tae, get out!” You snapped, your hand slamming down on the table. His eyes widened as you glared at him. You so desperately wanted to be with him, constantly, but you couldn’t. He would ruin you.

Hell, he already had.

“Just leave Tae… I don’t want…” you trailed off, fighting back the tears that built up. “I don’t want anything you have to offer.”

He sighed and you turned away as he left.

Hello there.

A/N: lmao, I’m sorry, I know this isn’t the ending you wanted