#There are none in the whole house and I have nowhere else to put coats either

[the-busy-ghost]

Alright so today was supposed to be the day I got my flooring put in but in a morning that has included a (probably false) Carbon Monoxide alarm, wherein I have probably also irritated the hell out of my neighbours (which is worse, I hate not being liked), I am desperately trying to look for the positives.

So here’s a hook:

Is it bigger than I expected? Yes. Do I now need to buy spring door stops so that it doesn’t take chunks out of the wall? Also yes. Is it even in the most useful position? No. 

But I have a hook and that is Something.

[simplyotometrash]

Hello!! I really love your writing!! It's so enjoyable! So, may I request some scenarios of the brothers finding the reader wearing their clothes, please? Thank you in advance! ♡♡

I love the whole partner wearing the other's clothing thing, so this was super fun to write!

Brothers x Gender-Neutral MC

Genre: Fluff

Warnings: None

MC Wearing Their Clothes

Lucifer:

Good luck finding anything to wear that isn't either his dress clothes, which is basically all he owns besides his uniform and his coat.

Let us say that he left his coat on his bed one day. I feel like he wouldn't always have it draped over his shoulders if he's just at the house.

You walked in, looking for him, and saw the coat. It was ripe for the picking.

Lucifer is about 6'3 and that coat hangs around his knees. You are drowning in that plush coat, it's so large on you. Unless you're close in height to him, of course. But for the sake of these headcanons, we're going with a short MC.

Anyway, you put on his coat and leave the room to go about your business around the house.

You weren't planning on going anywhere after all.

Lucifer walked out of his study after a few hours to see you in the hall wearing his coat.

He couldn't hide the smile that formed on his face at the very sight.

"If you wanted to wear my coat, all you had to do was ask."

He couldn't contain the chuckles at the sight of you having to work to keep his coat from dragging the ground.

Mammon:

He was in an absolute panic trying to find his beloved leather jacket.

Mammon couldn't figure out where it had gone! It was in his room when the two of you went to bed!

He woke up, you were gone, and it was nowhere to be seen!

Listen, he's not a morning demon and sometimes common sense fails him. He didn't put two and two together.

He rushes to your room and barges in.

"MC, have you seen my-" His eyes practically pop out of his head when he sees you wearing his jacket.

"Does it look good?" It was a bit big on you, Mammon is 6 feet tall after all.

"I...uh...well, it looks fine on ya! It looks better on m-me." He couldn't keep a straight face or maintain his usual tone.

You looked so good in his coat. He was going to have to buy you a matching one in your size.

He didn't actually get his coat back until you decided to give it back. He couldn't finish asking you to take it off because he was too busy staring at you and tripping over his own words.

Leviathan:

It was hard to get his clothes without him knowing. Borderline impossible.

I headcanon that Levi is autistic like I am. He is very particular with his clothes and isn't one to leave them lying around.

He had taken his cardigan jacket off during an intense gaming session, though, and tossed it into his tub bed. He knew it would be safe there.

He didn't plan on you coming in to see how he was doing and then putting on his jacket.

Levi went to take a break after playing several rounds with his online friends. He was starting to catch a chill, so he wanted to put his jacket back on.

Only to find you sitting in his tub wearing his jacket.

Blushy Levi activated. He wanted to be mad at you for wearing his jacket but it was impossible. You looked so cute!

Levi tried and failed to form a sentence several times while you waited patiently for him to find his words again.

"W-why are you wearing m-m-my jacket?"

You climbed out of the tub, the cardigan jacket now brushing against your ankles (this thing goes to just below HIS knees after all).

"I came in to check on you. Since you were busy I planned to wait. It's a bit chilly in here and saw your jacket and so I put it on. Do you mind?"

"I-I don't mind. Just...d-don't wear anyone else's clothes, okay? And ask me next time!"

Satan:

Look at Satan and tell me he wouldn't own a plethora of comfy sweaters. If you say he doesn't then how does it feel to be wrong?

Satan has plenty of cozy sweaters to choose from, he just really likes his light green V-neck sweater.

He had a feeling you were borrowing his sweaters, but he didn't plan to mention it if there was no reason to do so.

And then came in after a shower to you wearing his usual green sweater.

He couldn't deny that you looked awfully nice in it. He had never thought to imagine you wearing that sweater since it was the one he wore all the time.

"I see someone has stolen my sweater."

You laughed and shrugged your shoulders. "It's awfully comfortable. It's really soft, too. I can see why you like wearing it so much. Do you want me to take it off?"

He stared at you and put his hand on his chin in thought.

You decided not to wait for his answer, since he was clearly thinking about it, and moved to remove the sweater.

"No, no. Keep it on. I got caught up admiring you. If you want to wear my sweater, all you need to do is ask."

Asmodeus:

Yeah, good luck grabbing any part of his normal attire to wear without him knowing.

Asmodeus keeps track of his clothing. His clothes don't come cheap after all. He can't afford to leave anything lying about for someone to grab.

Let's say, though, that you put on his scarf while he was in his bathroom. He hadn't put it on yet but it was laid out neatly on his bed.

He walked out of his bathroom after doing a little light makeup, as you were going on a date, and he saw you wearing his black scarf.

Asmo giggled at the sight and walked over to you.

"I see I've got a clothing thief on my hands."

He didn't try to take the scarf off of you. In fact, he moved to adjust the scarf neatly on your frame so it didn't look sloppy.

"Don't you want it back?" You looked at him in mild confusion before he brought you over to his closet.

"Now, darling, I have multiple scarves. I just really like that one. I have another black scarf exactly the same as that one in case I ever lose the first."

Leave it to Asmo to be prepared for anything.

Beelzebub:

Literally, all you needed to do was ask him and he would have let you wear any of his clothes from the waist up. You wouldn't fit into his sweatpants, he's 6'4 and an absolute tank.

He was coming in from his morning jog, so his jacket was still in his room where he had also left you sleeping.

He didn't look when he grabbed his pajamas off the bed and headed off for a quick shower.

Beel saw when he returned that you were curled up in his jacket, face partially covered. You probably got up briefly when he left for his jog and put it on.

You looked so cute and peaceful that he didn't have the heart to wake you. He climbed back into bed and laid down with you. It was a weekend so you didn't have to go to RAD anyway.

You woke up for breakfast a little while later and your boyfriend was already awake.

"Morning, Beel," you yawned, pushing your hand through the fabric until it found its way through the sleeve so you could rub your face.

"You look really cute in my jacket. Did I wake you up when I left?"

"Nah, I woke up while you were gone. I missed having you to snuggled with so I put on your jacket instead."

He offered you his hand as you got up. "Wear it for as long as you want. I don't mind."

Belphegor:

It isn't hard to snag his jacket(cardigan?) from him. You just have to wait for him to take it off.

He gets annoyed when napping if it's on and has one of the buttons done up. He doesn't think it's very comfortable.

You put on the cardigan before settling in next to him. His head was now on your lap as you lazily scrolled through your phone.

His cardigan was so warm and cozy. You could understand why he liked it so much. It was a bit like wearing a blanket, especially if you put the hood on.

He woke up some time later and saw from his one open eye that you were wearing his cardigan.

Belphie yawned before opening both eyes to look up at you from his spot in your lap.

"Got cold, huh? Sorry, it's easier to sleep when it's colder."

You snorted and ran your fingers through his hair.

"It was fair game since you ditched it for a more comfortable napping experience. It's very nice to wear. Super soft."

He made no move to sit up from your lap, merely smiling up at you. "Wear it all you want, I don't care. I've got you to keep me warm if I get cold."

[fruitcoops]

I think it would be really interesting for leo and sirius to talk ab how they both didn’t go to college and how they both joined the nhl at 18 but had v different upbringings

Ooo, I like this one! I’m always down for some Cap and Knutty bonding. SW credit goes to @lumosinlove!

TW for mentioned bad parenting

“Kinda weird, isn’t it?” Leo said, breaking the nighttime silence after many long minutes of just their breathing. Sirius hummed in question. “Starting all this so young.”

Sirius made a noncommittal noise and Leo shifted, never taking his eyes off the sky. There was too much light pollution to see the stars properly in Gryffindor, but the roof of the rink didn’t have a bad view; the planes flying overhead brought pinpricks of brightness to the indigo blur.

“Was it hard for you?”

He heard Sirius’ coat move. “Was what hard?”

“Starting the NHL at eighteen.”

There was a long beat of silence. “Sometimes.”

“I didn’t know if I would make it,” Leo confessed, still barely above a murmur. Nobody else was around, but it didn’t feel right to talk in normal voices. The whole world was muted, save for the noise of the city below them. “There was just so much to do.”

Sirius laughed softly. “I hate to break it to you, rookie, but that doesn’t change.”

“How do you deal with it?”

“Before, or now?”

Leo thought for a moment. “Both.”

“Before, I would go home and shoot pucks until I was too tired to stand up. Sometimes I would read.” It wasn’t a secret, but it still made Leo’s heart hurt to remember. Nobody as kind and hardworking as Sirius deserved that. “Now, I make myself some food, take a shower, and steal Re’s softest hoodie.”

Leo could hear his smile in the dark—it echoed his own. “Nothing better, huh?”

“Nope.”

“Finn’s fit me best,” he mused. “But Lo’s smell better.”

“Ah, he finally discovered deodorant?”

“Shut up,” Leo teased, elbowing his ribs. Sirius laughed a little louder; in the light of the streetlamps and the absence of his granite-hard focus, it was easy to remember that he was only 26. Leo had worshipped him as a kid, but now he just saw Sirius for what he was. His captain, who guided him through the playoffs even when his personal life was crumbling apart. His older brother, though Sirius certainly wouldn’t think of him that way. His friend.

“Really, though, it’s important to have those connections,” Sirius said when they both calmed down. “Being alone is good, but only if you know you have people to talk to when you need them.”

“Was it easier when you weren’t living with someone?”

“No.” The answer was immediate.

“Sometimes I want the apartment to myself.” Leo lowered his voice unconsciously, then sighed. “It’s not because I don’t want them there. I just need to be alone. Wash the dishes. Clean my room. Call my mom.”

“You should tell them.”

He turned his head slightly; Sirius was still scanning the sky. “Is that what you did?”

“It took a couple hiccups, but yeah. If one of us needs some alone time, the other will go to the grocery store or take a walk, maybe hang out with friends. You just have to make sure your boys know that it’s not personal.”

“You’re freakishly good at sage advice.”

Sirius snorted. “Merci, rookie.”

“I’m not a rookie anymore.”

“Yeah, you are.” He raised his hands, as if outlining a marquee. “The Eternal Rookie, starring Leo Knut.”

Leo stuck his tongue out, feeling rather petulant about the whole thing. “Watch it, Cap, I’m gonna sic Dumo on you.”

“My own father?” Sirius gasped dramatically. “How could you?”

“Did you ever get homesick?”

The question was out of the blue—he didn’t blame Sirius for faltering. Honestly, Leo was kicking himself for asking in the first place, though he had been keeping it in for ages. Unspoken rule of the Lions #1: Don’t ask Cap about his childhood.

“I…” Sirius fell silent once more.

“I’m sorry,” Leo apologized, and he meant it. “That came out of nowhere.”

“I missed Regulus,” Sirius continued carefully without acknowledging him. “But no, I didn’t get homesick. I didn’t have time, or a real reason.”

Alone in a new city, finally out of a horrible living situation, but desperately missing the little brother he left behind… Leo couldn’t even begin to imagine going through it when the NHL by itself was already overwhelming to his teenage brain. He scooted an inch closer until their shoulders touched. “I get homesick every couple of months.”

“You have a kind family.”

“Have you even met them?”

“At the party.” Sirius’ smile was practically audible. “Your mother was very excited to see me.”

“Oh, god,” Leo groaned. “What happened?”

“She—“ He broke off with a laugh. “She was very nice, I promise, but I think I surprised her because she squeaked when I said ‘hello’.”

Leo shook his head. “Did you sneak up on her?”

“I’m six two, I can’t sneak up on anyone!”

“You walk like a fucking ghost, dude! It’s creepy!”

“Okay, rude.”

“I swear, you and Loops need to be belled like cats,” Leo huffed.

They lapsed back into comfortable quiet for a few more minutes as a train rattled past on one side and the metro busses rolled down Main Street on the other. It had taken Leo a long time to figure out Gryff’s layout, and even longer to get used to the sounds of the city.

“What does it feel like?”

Leo blinked, unsure if he had heard correctly. “What?”

“Being homesick.” Sirius shifted again and folded his hands over his stomach. “I didn’t notice much of a difference in practices when I started the NHL, and going back to my parents’ house wasn’t my exactly a highlight of my year.”

Curiosity overrode his tact and reasoning skills. “You never asked Logan?”

“Non. It was different, with him. He had already left to go to college before I knew him, and spent four years away from his family.”

“Right.” Leo forgot about that on occasion. That Finn and Logan might be five years older than him, but they had only been rookies a year or two prior. Not everyone went straight from their city select team to an official draft. “It’s hard to describe.”

Sirius made an understanding noise, but he couldn’t entirely mask his disappointment. Leo licked his lips and tried again.

“It’s like a piece of you isn’t where it’s supposed to be. And it keeps tugging on your chest, but you never know when it’s going to start and stop so you just… deal with it. You ignore it some days and you think about it other days.” He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “The hard days are when you remember you can’t go back to the way things were before. I don’t even call my mom sometimes, ‘cause I know it’ll make me sadder.”

“The way things were before?”

“Yeah, like—like all my classmates are in college, and I’m laying on a roof with one of the most famous hockey players in the history of forever.” That drew a light laugh from them both. “I’m gonna go back to my reunion in a couple years and have literally nothing in common with the people I used to be friends with.”

“Sometimes I wish I went to college,” Sirius said. “But I would have missed so much if I did. I don’t think I would have been happy there.”

“Finn and Logan get weird about college.” Maybe he shouldn’t be talking about it, but Leo had the feeling none of their conversation would leave the rooftop. “It was hard for them, with all their shit.”

“Re does, too.” He recognized the sad edge in Sirius’ voice; it was the same as his own. “For a different reason. It started good, and ended bad.”

“I’m glad I missed out on that,” Leo said, biting down the urge to scream at the universe for putting their significant others through so much hardship at an already-difficult time. None of them deserved the pain they went through. “Besides, it’s not like we need degrees to play hockey, and we’ll have plenty of money afterward.”

“I never thought about my life after hockey until my ankle.”

“My parents always pushed me to make sure I wanted to do the NHL instead of more school.”

“You’re lucky to have them.”

“I wish you did.”

The words hung suspended between them before Leo could swallow them back down, somehow dangerous and calming at the same time. It wasn’t like he had never thought about it before; he just hadn’t said it out loud. The first time he had seen Sirius’ parents across the rink had given him a case of the heebie-jeebies so strong he had to shower twice. All the times after that just made him angry.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Sirius’ voice was quiet, but not upset. “You’re not the first person to say it. I’m glad you feel like you can be honest with me.”

Leo frowned. “Well, yeah. Obviously.”

“I try really hard to not be an asshole captain, so it actually does mean a lot.”

“I don’t think you could be an asshole if you tried.”

The barking laugh that split the night startled Leo so bad he nearly jumped out of his skin; Sirius clapped a hand over his mouth, though he was still snickering. “Sorry, sorry, I just—holy shit, I forgot you didn’t know me before. Mon dieu.”

“You weren’t that bad,” Leo protested. “Pots said you used to be grumpier, but that’s it.”

Sirius shook his head, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “I was such a dick. There’s not a single picture of the whole team where I’m smiling for about two years and I was such a stickler for the rules.”

Leo gaped at him. “You followed rules?”

“To the fucking letter. It was awful.”

“What happened?”

Sirius shrugged. “I got friends. Idiot friends who did things like showing me the easiest way onto the roof. Pots used to drag me up here every Friday.”

“Really?”

“Ouais.” Mischief flitted over his face. “He skipped date night with Lily once on accident, and she tracked us up here like a bloodhound. It was terrifying.”

“What did you do?” Lily was one of the nicest people Leo knew, but he knew better than to get on her bad side.

“Lied to her face while James hid behind that strobe light.”

“Did it work?”

“Are you kidding?” he snorted. “She called me a liar and suggested getting a better best friend. That was after she told James he’s better have something nice planned for their next date if he ever wanted to get in her pants again.”

“And yet you didn’t listen to her.” Leo tsked. “Of all the people on the team, you chose the hot mess.”

“Trust me, rookie, James had his whole life figured out compared to me.”

“Did you…” Leo trailed off and but his lip. He had pushed his luck a lot already; who knew if one more question would be the tipping point? “Did you ever think about coming out? Even just to Pots.”

Sirius didn’t hesitate. “After every single game.”

“For seven years?”

“Up until the day those pictures were leaked. Even more after Re and I were together.”

“How old were you when you knew?”

“13. You?”

Leo exhaled slowly. “I’m not sure. I think I had an idea of it as a kid, but didn’t really get it until I was in high school. My parents were even more worried about the NHL after I told them.”

“They worry a lot about you.”

“Only child, and I was going for a wildly unstable career path with no guarantee that I would ever see the ice.”

“They’re proud of you. More than you know.” Sirius’ watch beeped. “It’s ten o’clock. Are you supposed to be home?”

“I should probably make sure my boys haven’t burned down the apartment.” Neither of them made an attempt to move. “Can we do this again sometime?”

“Of course.”

You’re like a brother to me, he wanted to say. I don’t know who else I can talk to like this. “Thank you.”

“Any time. We don’t have to do extra practice beforehand, either.”

Leo nudged him gently. “You’re the best captain ever.”

“You’re the best rookie, rookie.”

“I’m not a rookie.”

“Yeah, you are.”

Yeah, I am, he thought as they laid side-by-side in silence once more with the past behind them and the future ahead. And if I end up like you, it means I did something right.

[rosiehrs]

kissing lessons | rosé

group ; blackpink  genre ; fluff 

pairing ; cheerleader!!rosé / fem!reader

summary ; roseanne asks you for kissing lessons to help impress the person she had a crush on. little did you know she only used it as an excuse to lock lips with you.

warnings ; mentions of sex, swearing

a/n ; this is the first thing i’ve written in approximately 4 months so it’s very rusty but i’m pretty glad i’ve managed to finally write something – woo! also not proofread xx

word count ; 2.7k

“i need kissing lessons.”

was the first thing she said to you when she entered the room. you looked up from your book in shock, “you need what now?”

“i need kissing lessons. from you.” she repeated. you examined her, looking for any sign of humor on her face, but there was none. right before you, stood the school’s most loved and popular girl, roseanne park. the both of you weren’t that close as you were one of the middle class, average kids while she was up there, rich and popular. she always tried talking and being friendly to you, you found it odd at first as she would just come out of nowhere and suddenly ask you about your day, but you’ve grown to appreciate and love her small acts of kindness. she looked down at you with a tight-lipped smile and hopeful eyes. saying you were speechless was an understatement. did the head cheerleader and long time crush really ask you to give her kissing lessons?

“okay, hold up. could you fill me in really quickly? why on earth do you need kissing lessons?”

“It’s silly, but i kinda like someone..” she began, looking away. she tried hiding it, but the biggest smile was plastered on her face and you knew whoever this ‘someone’ was – was really special. you were flattered, but even more hurt. you had no place to be hurt as you were even closer with your locker than you were with her, but you couldn’t help it. you were more than glad that she asked you to help her improve her kissing skills, but knowing she wants you to help her impress someone else really managed to hurt your heart a little. “ms park has a crush! who’s this special someone?” you asked in a teasing tone. roseanne rolled her eyes and sat down next to you. “i’m not telling you, but i just really need your help.” she stared at you, basically begging with her eyes.

“i would love to, but you didn’t answer my question. why would you, roseanne park, the heartthrob of the school, need kissing lessons? from me?”

“because i’m pretty fucking inexperienced and have kissed like 3 people in my life? and those three people have barely given me anything more than a peck, oh and the kisses that went further made me down a whole bottle of mouthwash afterwards.” you couldn’t help but laugh at the girl’s words, “also because i’ve heard you’re a pretty good kisser, but i’m not telling you where i got that information from.” you felt your cheeks burn with embarrassment, although you were very flattered, you didn’t know how to react. 

“come on, y/l/n. i’m not asking you to help me get better at sex- although i wouldn’t mind doing that with you-” you threw your rubber at her, making her giggle. “you suck.” you replied, making her smile. “i might be sucking something soon-” 

“park! shut up!” you scolded. she laughed at you and shook her head. “so? what do you say, y/n?” 

nodding and closing your book, you straighten your posture. “alright roseanne park, i’ll give you kissing lessons.”

roseanne looked at you with bright eyes and a wide smile, “yes! oh my god, thank you, y/n!” she replied, bringing you into a tight hug. “i owe you.” she whispered.

“you bet you do. now get your ass up and let’s get to class.”

–––

you spent the whole day worrying, it only just processed in your mind that roseanne wanted you to help her with her kissing. meaning you’d have to kiss her. panic rushed through you, holy shit. you were going to kiss roseanne park. the last period had just come to a halt and you packed your things slowly. your mind was all over the place and you didn’t know how to feel. once you stepped outside the classroom, the blond herself linked arms with you and dragged you out of school. “let’s get outta here, y/l/n.”

you let out a light chuckle as you got into her car, not long after she got in. “um, so my parents are out of town right now. should we head there?” she asked, looking at you through the rear view mirror. everything was just so bubbly and confusing, were you really about to do this? with roseanne park?

her voice snapped you out of your little mind debate, “y/n? you alright?” 

“oh no, yeah i’m fine. your house is fine.” you replied, making her giggle. “loosen up, y/l/n, i’m not gonna bite you.” 

“yet.” she smirked, you immediately looked at her – a beautifully elegant laugh escaped her lips. “i’m kidding – unless?” you smacked her leg, masking you blush away with a playful scowl. “just drive, park.” roseanne smiled and started the engine.

–––

the both of you sat down on her bed, placing your things down. rosé bounced down on the bed, excitedly, using the both of her hands to slap the mattress. “now how would you say i should improve, miss y/l/n?”

smiling sheepishly, you fixed your things. “now i wouldn’t know yet, miss park.”

“okay, so find out. i really need to impress this person.”

you kept your head down, trying to hide the disappointment on your face. she really needs to impress this person, this is just to help her with the person she has feelings for. and god, did you hate to think about it like that. but your heart was pounding and as much as you hated to admit it – you were excited to finally feel roseanne’s lips. “geez, easy, tiger. give me some time to prepare my lips or something.” you replied, making the aussie laugh. “well hurry, i need these lessons asap.”

“girl, what are you planning to do with your mystery lover? i’m pretty worried,” roseanne smacked your shoulder before grabbing her lip balm. “put it on.” 

you removed the lid of the stick and applied it onto your lips. she looked at you, as if she was waiting for you to do something. her eyes were almost screaming, “come kiss me already.”

“y/l/n, do i really have to make the first move here?” she teased, making you roll your eyes and lean in. you placed your hand on her jaw as she placed hers on your cheek. slowly but surely, the both of you started to lean in. you closed your eyes, waiting. it felt like forever until her lips finally touched yours. it felt like everything had just stopped, you knew you had to give her pointers and ways to improve on how she was kissing, but all you could focus on was how soft her lips felt against yours, how addictive the tingles felt. your lips moved against each other softly and elegantly. you were so caught up in the moment – you were running out of air, so that’s when you finally pulled away. she rested her forehead on yours, out of breath like you were. 

finally opening your eyes, the both of you stared at each other for what felt like hours. trying to really find out what the both of you were thinking. “i-” you started, your mind was blank. the only thing on your mind was the way her lips felt on yours, how soft, how sweet and how addictive her lips were. “well- i just.. you-”

“fuck, am i that bad?” she asked, worried. you were shocked, “no! god, no. you’re good, really good. i- i just don’t know how i’m supposed to help you after that.” you laughed, making her do the same. you went completely blank, you just stared at her, examined her. you really saw how beautiful and elegant she looked. “come on, y/l/n, give me something. like.. like how you felt! was i too soft? was there too much teeth? tongue, even?” she asked eagerly yet nervously. the tone of her voice and the look on her face was just beyond adorable. you giggled at the girl’s actions and shook your head. “roseanne, relax. you were great, it was – how do i say this without being creepy.. perfect? you don’t need any lessons, park.”

“oh come on, y/n. you don’t have to sugar coat it, give me the truth. go into details.. please?”

details, she wanted details. well shit.

“um, alright.. um, it was soft. but not in a bad way, it was sweet, gentle. perfect idea of a first kiss. i don’t- i don’t know how else to describe it. you’re good. end of story, park.” your words put a smile on her face, it made her feel proud, happy. “oh really?” she smirked, earning herself a smack on the arm. “shut up, rosie. you asked for the truth and i gave it to you. i’m gonna go home now..” you stood up, but was immediately pulled back down. “nuh uh, you’re not leaving. it’s been like 10 minutes, i just- i wanna improve. maybe go out of the kissing, how was the position of.. my hand? my body?”

you got to thinking, might as well give her something, right?

“okay well, maybe when you hold their cheek. just..” hesitantly, you leaned in and held her cheek in your hand. “before leaning in maybe just..” you caressed her cheek with the soft pad of your thumb making the girl blush a bright shade of red. “then when you kiss them, you could pull them closer.. like this-” softly, you pulled her closer to you. you were barely an inch away from her lips and you could feel her hot breath. everything you did made you feel so, so weak. you felt so vulnerable being this close to her. it felt unreal and you felt as if everything was just perfect at that moment.

roseanne’s eyes were glued to your lips and just couldn’t shake the feeling off, it felt so right. “should i try it on you?” she asked, breaking the silence. you cleared your throat and backed away. “um, yeah.. yeah go ahead.” you sat up straight as she brought her hand to your cheek. gulping, she caressed your cheek exactly how you did. her eyes were glued to your lips, she began nibbling on her bottom lip before pulling you closer and placing her lips on yours.

fireworks, butterflies, that was all you felt. her lips moved against yours, gracefully. before she could get carried away, she pulled back, staring into your eyes.

“i-..”

“was that good?”

“y-yeah, it was good.”

the awkward silence ate the both of you up, making you stand up. “um, i’m gonna get home. good first lesson, you’ll be fine, park.” you grabbed your things until she stopped you by grabbing your hand. “wait! i.. could you possibly.. give me more lessons? i don’t think i’m at my best yet.”

“oh, uh- yeah. sure, yeah, alright. just.. text me.” you replied, giving her an awkward smile. she nodded before standing up. “i’ll, can i drive you home?” she asked. “oh! no, please. it’s alright, i’ll just call an uber-”

“no, i insist! it’s the least i could do after you agreeing to help me out.” you were about to protest as she grabbed your bag and your hand. “come on, ms good kisser.” you giggled as you let her drag you out. 

––

“okay, what on earth is going on between you and chaeyoung?” joy, your beloved best friend asks. “i- nothing, i’m just giving her kissing lessons..” 

“you’re WHAT?!” she yelled, making you flinch. “sooyoung! be quiet!” you scolded, pulling her back down. “how long have you been giving ms. head cheerleader kissing lessons?!” she was shocked and offended - clearly. “just a few weeks.. relax.” 

“how could i possibly relax when i’ve just found out my best friend has been making out with the school’s most popular girl?! you bitch! why haven’t you told me?!” she slapped your arm, angrily. you couldn’t help but laugh at your best friend’s actions. she’s been there for you since you were 3 and you’ve pretty much told her everything that’s happened in your life, whether it’s when you had your first kiss or that one time you stepped on gum and you had to walk barefoot the whole day. “i didn’t tell you because i knew you’d tease the shit out of me!” you protested.

“well yeah, alright. understandable, but y/n?! you’ve been making out with the love of your life – how does it feel?” she replied, smirking at you. “shut up before i smack that smirk off your face.” sooyoung laughed and shoved you. “i hate you! why would she need kissing lessons? and why would she get kissing lessons from you?” she asked, disgust evident on her face and the tone of her voice. “she said she really wanted to impress the person she likes, and also i will quite literally-”

“y/n! wait up!” a familiar sweet voice called out for you. you and joy turned around, seeing the said girl running towards your direction. she had her hair in a tight ponytail and was wearing her cute, perky and hot cheerleading uniform. “hi cutie,” she greeted, making you smile. “hey chae.”

“um, i was wondering if i could have another lesson? today, after school maybe?” she asked, but it sounded more like she was letting you know. “sure,” you agreed, smiling. “alright, see you around.” she then walked off, swaying her hips and her ponytail along with it. your eyes were glued onto her and joy just couldn’t hold herself back. “oh my fuck, you whipped motherfucker.”

“shut up, chicken joy. let’s just get to class.”

“do you even know who she likes?” joy’s question really caught your attention. you’ve been giving roseanne kissing lessons for about 3 weeks and you still have no idea about who she has feelings for. “oh, um.. well-”

“ha! you don’t! you know what that means,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows. “no, i don’t know what that means, park sooyoung.” 

“ah, you lovesick fool.”

––

you and rosé walked into her room casually, putting your things down and talking about your day at school. you laid down on her bed, staring at the ceiling as she talked about how these boys stole her box of apple juice at lunch.

“hey.. you alright?” she asked, obviously concerned about your sudden silence. “yeah, i’m fine. i’m actually just curious about something.” you said it that way so she would ask you what you were curious about. you hated bringing things up out of the blue, it was just easier this way. 

“oh sure, what’s up, sweetcheeks?” she rested her head on her palm as she laid on the bed, looking at you with such intent.

“who.. who do you like? who means so much to you that you’d be willing to get kissing lessons from me?” the question froze roseanne up. you saw how her shoulders tensed up and how her face fell. you watched as she sat up and cleared her throat. “um.. can you come here, please?” she asked quietly, patting the space next to her. you pushed yourself up and crawled to the space next to her. “what’s up?”

“um.. how do i say this..” she fiddled with her fingers and nibbled on her bottom lip. she was nervous and you could see it. “hey, are you alright?” you asked as you placed your hands over hers to calm her down. chaeyoung looked up and pulled you in for a kiss. 

soft, gentle, passionate. it didn’t matter how many times you kissed her, it always managed to blow your mind. her tongue entered your mouth softly, she pulled you in closer with her left hand on your cheek and right hand on your waist. the lessons you gave her really paid off, she was perfect. she tilted her head to the side to deepen the kiss. once again - it felt like everything around you was floating and you were just on cloud 9. every time roseanne’s lips were on yours, you felt as if everything was just perfect. like nothing could be better. she softly pulled away with her hand still on your cheek. 

“it’s you.”

[tyb1]

If It’s The Right Thing To Do.

Part 1

Words: 2118

Character: Seth Clearwater 

 Note: let’s imagine your Sam’s little sister 

Series List

Dialogue prompt: “What? Why would I want to go over there? If I go over there Sam would smell vampires all over me. Aren’t you guys traitors anyway.” I scoffed, I was two seconds away from hanging up the phone on him since they did leave me behind.”

*this is my first twilight imagine so be nice :)*

I stretched every muscle in my body to grab my phone that was sitting on the desk by the bed. I looked at the caller ID but it was from a number that I didn't recognize. My mom always told me not to answer those calls but I did anyway. I had the sudden urge to be bold today.

"Hello?" I rolled back on my bed to finish the stale popcorn that was at least 3 hours old.

"(Y/N)!" the voice spoke frantically over the phone. "(Y/N)....is this (Y/N) (Y/L/N)!"

I sat up on the bed trying to stop my heart from beating out of my chest. The voice sounds panic so it caused me to be panic. The voice from the phone sounded so familiar but I couldn't put my finger on it.

"This is she....why?"

(Y/N)! This is Jake! Listen, I need you to make your way over to the Cullens house!"

"What? Why would I want to go over there? If I go over there Sam would smell vampires all over me. Aren't you guys traitors anyway." I scoffed, I was two seconds away from hanging up the phone on him since they left me behind.

I heard Jacob huff over the phone. Then the phone sounded like someone grabbed a piece of paper and started crumbling it over the microphone. I lay back down on my bed the anxiety in my chest slowly fading away. "Listen Jake I don't have time for games I-"

"Shut up the hell up Jacob! (Y/N)! It's Leah, get your ass over to the Cullens now!" And just like that, the phone hung up without any explanation as to why I have to go to the Cullens.

I sat my phone back on the desk. There was no way in hell I could go to the Cullens. For one Sam wasn't on patrol tonight and two he would smell them on me if I ever decided to come back. "Those are two good reasons for me to stay in tonight." But why would they call me to come over to the Cullens when they knew for a fact I wasn't allowed near them........."

Seth

I jumped from my bed throwing on a hoodie and some pajama pants. I could barely maintain my breathing, There was something wrong with Seth I just felt it in my soul. Something bad probably happened to him and I wasn't there to prevent it.

I slowly walked out of my room seeing that all the lights were off. The door to Sam's and Emily's room was slightly opened. The sound of Sam's snores filled the air. I slowly closed the door then crept down the hallway to the keys.

"We only have one chance to let's make the most of it," I muttered to myself, I grabbed the keys from the shelf while trying not to step on the wood that creaked. I quickly made my way to the back door closing it softly.

"Okay, now the easy part is over." All I had to do now was get in my car and drive to the Cullens. What I was doing right now could coat me all the respect the pack has for me. If I stepped off this property Sam could label me as a traitor right along with Jake, Seth, and Leah.

"It's now or never if Sam hates me for what I'm doing so be it. Seth needs me right now." I mustered up all my courage to drive off the reserve. The drive to the Cullens was so agonizing. The only thing I could think about was the fight that caused us to be distant. We've never fought and when we did we'd make up instantly. This time I was the cause of it, his heart broke in front of me and I did nothing about it. I never meant to say the harsh words but I wanted him to hurt just like he was hurting me.

*Flashback*

I ran behind Seth as he ran behind Jacob. He claimed that he was leaving my brother's pack to join Jacobs pack because "it was the right thing to do". At first, I thought he was being delusional but now that I'm running after him I knew he was being serious.

"Seth come back!" He stopped running causing me to bump into his toned back.

He grabbed my shoulders trying to turn me back towards the reservation."No (Y/N)! I have to do this, go back to Sam!"

I bit his hand then shoved him away."I'm not staying there unless you're with me, Seth!" He shook his head then ran farther into the woods.

"Seth if you leave me then I'll never forgive you!" I began to cry then the cries became sobs. I watched him through my blurry vision as he stopped mid-run. I knew if he stepped foot off the reserve onto the Cullens I would never see him again. Sam would ban me from ever seeing him again because he turned his back on the pack.

Jacob appeared behind a tree watching the whole situation."Seth, are you willing to go against your family, the pack, and your sister?"

Seth turned to Jacob with fire in his eyes. "If it's the right thing to do."

"You'd even turn your back on (Y/N)?"

Seth turned to me, staring into my eyes. It was like I didn't recognize him anymore. Those bubbly brown eyes of his were no longer the same.

"Like I said if it's the right thing to do."

My whole world stopped. Hearing those words come out of my lover's mouth felt like someone just gutted my heart out. My heart was telling me to say one thing while my brain was telling me to say another.

"Seth Clearwater, I hate you!" The words felt so wrong but so right at the same time. I turned my back to him so he wouldn't see me cry anymore.

"You don't mean that (Y/N)! You love me!"

I turned to him with pure hate in my eyes. "I can't love someone who's dead to me."

I ran as fast as my legs could take me. I heard him running after me screaming his voice cracking every time he called out to me. I never looked behind he was a traitor now and he said it to the world, his back was now turned on me.

*EOF*

I wiped the tears from my face as I drove farther off the reserve. Seth and I bond was stronger than any other relationship in the pack. We went from friends to lovers to enemies by force. Now I have to face him. It'll be the first time we've spoken in 2 months.

I got out of the car with my heart pounding profusely. I looked up at the house, Jasper, and Emmet stood at the door to greet me. I nodded to both of them then made my way to the living room. Jacob was sitting on the couch nervously shaking his leg while Bella was pacing back and forth. A piercing scream came out of nowhere. Everyone turned their attention upstairs to where the scream came from. I knew something was up when I saw Rosalie with a guilty expression on her face.

"What happened......why did that sound like Seth?" I didn't bother to sit nor make friends with them. I walk straight into the living room each step I took became bolder and bolder. I sat there staring at them but no one was talking so I decided to make my way upstairs where the scream came from.

Jacob ran to grab me before I could make it to where Seth was. I turned to glare at him as he tightened his grip around my arm."(Y/N)! Wait! Don't go up there not just yet....wait until Carlisle gives us the clear."

"Then tell me what happened to him, Jake."

Jacob sighed, "Listen Bella and I got into an argument things got a bit out of hand and Seth got hurt."

"How did Seth get hurt?"

"Bella accidentally threw him into a tree."

I shot a glare at Bella. "How do you accidentally throw someone into a tree!"

"(Y/N) I honestly didn't mean to. I'm so sorry I don't know what else to do." Bella walked over to me with an apologetic look. The glare that was cast upon my face never left.

I looked around at all the Cullens and Jake "None of you tried to stop her. You just let her throw someone who is so innocent and pure into a fucking tree."

I left without saying another word to them. The journey to the room felt so long but yet it was so short. I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans before I knocked on the door. I heard groans from the other side of the door. My heart sank when I heard him scream again. The door opened revealing Carlisle and Esme, they were both smiling sweetly at me.

Esme hugged me which I gladly returned back. "(Y/N) it's so good to see you. I'm sorry that we had to meet again in unfortunate circumstances."

"I know, I would come to visit more often but my brother would have my head." I began to shift uncomfortably on my feet. I tried to peek behind them but Carlisle's tall built body blocked my way.

Carlisle coughed, "We're trying to make him as comfortable as possible but you can have a minute with him." He stepped aside letting me into the room. "We also gave him some morphine to ease the pain so he may be a tad bit sleepy."

I nodded my head before I entered the room. My gaze was fixed on the floorboard. I was too scared to look at him.

"(Y/N), I'm so happy to see you."

I gasped when I saw his bruised chest. I ran over to the side of the bed where he laid. The little skin that was showing was now purple, blue, and swollen the rest was covered with bandages. I went to touch his arm to comfort him but he pulled back screaming out in pain."Seth! Are you okay? Oh my god look at your chest!"

"(Y/N) you actually came!" I could tell from his eyes that he was still in disbelief that I was standing in front of him.

"Of course I would come." I began to run my hair through his hair trying to make him as comfortable as possible. I sat down near him being careful not to touch any of his body parts.

"I'm tired (Y/N)...please stay here until I wake up."

I jumped from the bed staring at him as if he had lost his mind. "There's no way I can stay here without Sam knowing that I am missing Seth, I have to go back."

He placed his bruised hand on top of mine trying to intertwine them. Seth had a genuine smile on his face, "Don't go, stay here. I'll deal with Sam once I wake up."

I sighed as I looked back and forth between the door and Seth. I didn't want to leave him but I couldn't afford Sam coming out here dragging me back home. Everyone would look at me with disgust if they smelled the Cullens on me.

"Seth I honestly don't know if this is the right thing to do."

"Trust me (Y/N) it's the right thing to do."

I laughed at his corny remark. I knew without asking him, that was our way of making up since the fight. Seth rolled the blankets off of him ushering me to get under. At first, I wanted to reject but I knew he would somehow convince me that it was okay. I rested my head on the pillow that was next to his. I immediately relaxed once I felt the heat from his body come upon mine.

Seth sighed, he tried to roll over to face me but I placed my hand on his cheek to stop him.

"What are you trying to do?"

He grunted, "I'm trying to apologize for what I said two weeks ago."

I placed a chaste kiss on his lips, he laughed sweetly then kissed me back.

"I guess I'm forgiven."

"I could never be mad at you Seth Clearwater."

If I was being honest with myself I was actually contradicting myself.  At first, I was really mad at him. I even went as far as to rip up our pictures. Now looking back I actually regret everything I said to him and did. "Seth I'm sorry too, I should have never said the things I said."

He laughed, "It's okay, I could never be mad at you (Y/N) (Y/L/N)"

[lovethisletters]

Dating Grell HC!

Hi! SO sorry for taking this long, irl stuff got in my way but I’m finally here! Agreed, finding Grell content is kind of difficult, and though they aren’t my favorite character, I do enjoy their personality. Before we start, I would like to clarify that I wrote this with gender neutral pronouns for Grell since I’m kind of confused: in the manga and anime sometimes, characters will refer to them with: He/Him pronouns, they refer to themselves with: She/her but their wiki refers to them with they/them pronouns; so, if someone could clarify that for me (and provide a link that confirms is cannon) I would be beyond grateful!

Word count: 1220

Keys: Y/n = Your name.

Summary: Grell starts to feel in a way they have never felt before.

Warnings/Additional notes: none…I think(? But I tried to keep it neutral for the reader too, since pronouns weren’t specified.

Grell being a reaper they have little to no time on their hands, so most probably they met you at work.

They were the one to approach you first by practically throwing themselves at you going on a ramble about how GORGEOUS you are.

I think that at the beginning their feelings are more like a simple crush that will fade away with time or mindless lust that is set to disappear the moment they get to have sex with you.

So, until that happens you will have to deal with practically a cat, they get all touchy: rubbing their cheek against yours, hugging you enthusiastically (like how a child would hug a stuffed toy) begging for attention constantly and even directing not so subtle innuendos at you.

But overall Grell is someone fun and pleasing to be around (especially if you are feeling a bit down) their bubbly and dramatic personality is just so contagious you can’t help but smile!

So that’s why you don’t push them away as harshly as Sebastian or William would

And I feel like that’s why they get a little bit more interested in you.

Even though they identify themselves as a masochist, that does not mean they enjoy being treated poorly all the time, they know their personality is…hard to cope with, but Grell appreciate when someone would still make the effort to get along.

So, when you don’t just…you know…kick them in the face every time they approach you (cofcofSeb&Willcofcof) they feel more comfortable being themselves around you, since no matter how eccentric they might be, you always continue the conversation in a kind manner.

Grell is someone who’s VERY emotionally driven, to the point I think it must be hard for them to differentiate certain emotions like: anger to frustration, sadness with deception and romantic love to lustful attraction. I feel like for them there’s no grey area, is either love or hate so in the beginning this might cause your relationship a bit of trouble.

As your relationship grew closer you started to notice a change in Grell’s behavior: They started being a bit more serious (still as theatrical as ever but different none the less)

They suddenly seemed to have become aware of what personal space is supposed to mean, the hugs became relatively short, the innuendos stopped almost completely and when the two of you started talking, Grell was eerily quiet.

This probably would make you feel like you might have angered them in some way, but don’t worry…the truth is..Grell is just confused.

Lust driven love is all they’re ever known, but their feelings for you have changed, evolved if you may. The only thing they know: is that they like you, but not in the way they like Will, Sebastian or Undertaker, no. They like you in a different way…a deeper way.

So please be patient and let them figure it out on their own.

BUT tbh I don’t think they figured out on their own…I just think they where in the phantomhive manor one day (just to tease Sebastian or double-check these newfound feelings were indeed different) But Ciel just felt so uneasy since he had never seen Grell so quiet and deep in thought.

—What is wrong with you, Grell?—His words condescending as ever.

—Pay no mind to them, master. The reaper is just hopelessly in love—Said Sebastian with a smirk creeping on his lips.

Sebastian’s words were almost eye-opening to them. “Love? Was it truly the right word to describe this feeling?”

Yes, yes it was, they knew the moment they went back to you that day.

Saying that you were surprised when Grell suddenly appeared at your house, late at night, pinning you to the floor by giving you the BIGGEST hug in your life, after weeks of not seeing each other since apparently, they were ignoring you, was a severe understatement.

—What has gotten into you, Grell?— you questioned, caressing their long red hair.

—Oh! Y/N my love! I love you!—You smiled, Grell had finally come back to you.

—Ha Ha Ha, I love you too, Grell!—Grell froze in place.

You thought they were messing around with you like countless time before, so you just responded in the usual joking manner.

—No, no, no! You’ve got it all wrong my dear!—For the first time since you had known them, their expression turned serious and gently took your hands in theirs.

—Y/n you are probably the only person I have ever felt this strongly, I feel like if you were to die today, I will die with you! Y/n my dear…I love you! This are my true feelings…Won’t you accept them?

Such sweet words, spoken with the most profound sincerity.

You couldn’t help but tear up a little (Which made Grell panic a bit)

—Yes, Grell, I love you too, so please accept this feelings of mine as well.—The hugh that followed was not only an acceptance but the seal of a promise, the true love kind of promise.

From here onwards you can see a change in Grell’s behavior towards you (in a positive way that is)

Dating Grell means you get to see them in a whole new light.

They are much more sincere (still dramatic as ever but a bit toned down)

They allow themselves to be vulnerable with you, no longer hiding their worries under a carefree and almost indifferent facade.

You become a safe place they can come to when things get difficult or simply when they just feel tired and overwhelmed with their reaper duties.

Something that stays pretty much the same in your relationship is how much attention-seeking they are.

You have to put on hold whatever you’re doing ‘cause those things can wait but Grell don’t.

“Nee~ honey, pay attention to me!” is a phrase you might hear often if you even dare to pay attention to something else when they are right beside you!

Grell will 100% shower you in kisses constantly.

Cuddles! Cuddles are a MUST with them.

Be prepared for Lots LOTS of PDA, they don’t care if it’s not the appropriate time or place, they need to show you how much you mean to them now!

I feel like they are the type to pull you closer and start dancing or reciting a dramatic dialogue of some romantic play they recently saw, out of nowhere in the middle of the street.

Grell also loves when you touch, caress, braid or brush their hair, is just so adorable! (If you want to turn them on, just pull their hair a little and see what happens ;)

If you have long hair, they will do the same but if you don’t expect them to go wild with how much flower crowns, hats, hair pins, etc they gift you.

Matching outfits! They even gifted you a red coat like theirs!

Grell loves when you let them do your make up! (if you wear any that is, otherwise they would allow you to do theirs) and it goes without saying, they are so good at it! you always end up feeling like royalty.

Theatrical pet names!

Sometimes they would allow you to borrow their Death Scythe (even if is for ridiculous things like idk cutting bread lol) but shhh, don’t tell Will!

Theater Dates!

Kisses, TONS of kisses (they love when you bite their lips, if you do; you might even hear them moan)

Overall, Grell is just so happy to have someone like you in their life and they will demonstrate it to you every chance they get.

♡♤♡♤♡♤♡♤

If you spot any misplaced pronouns, please let me know! I will correct it asap! just know that I didn’t do it with any ill intention and that english is not my first language and perhaps that’s why something might have slipped! as well grammatical errors, I’m trying to polish my writing in this language so calling me out on any mistakes helps me a lot!

I will forever thank you if you go check out my other profile: @aileysmirnov​ where I post things about my OC: edits, one-shots, imagines, art, etc. If you like Greek mythology and the bat family maybe you would like her as much as I do!

Anyway! Thank you for reading!

[bvccy]

Tenderness and Ferocity | 3. The Dream and the Third Day

Pairing: Winter Soldier!Bucky Barnes x Hydra!Reader Fic Synopsis: The Winter Soldier is starting to make stupid mistakes in the field, which is Bucky's way of trying to wrest back control and sabotage his handlers. Hydra brings a new doctor to figure out what's wrong with him and fix it. As she spends time with him, she becomes fond of the Winter Soldier, and he becomes fond of her. Bucky has other ideas. Or, a fic in which the Winter Soldier is the good guy and Bucky is actually the bad guy. Warnings for this chapter: Angst, Smut, Noncon Word count: 2334 Read on AO3: [link] [Previous Chapter] [Fic Masterlist] [Next Chapter]

"Life in essence can only be sustained because of the discontinuity. Why else does one sleep? Not to rest, but above all to forget. [...] If one could prevent mankind from sleeping, I am convinced that a massacre without end would ensue; it would mean the end of history." — Emil Cioran

All the useless gadgets clattered, without clattering, to the floor. The exposed skin of her back shone against the pressing dark, under a light that wasn't there. Her arms stretched out in front of her to grab the table, to clench in little fists, to crawl away from him... He clasped both her wrists in one heavy hand while he held her by the hip with the other. The stranger looked unfamiliar and out of place, yet boyishly handsome, a lissome thoroughbred cut from pale stone.

He'd already yanked her shirt halfway down her back, leaving a delicate pair of peachy straps to cut into her shoulders as she tried to pull herself up and away. With his other hand, he raised the black flag of her skirt inch by hurried inch. Two flesh hands, pawing at her squirming silhouette.

Those legs that had teased him so were now buckled in a tangle of red lace, at once parted and constricted and leaving her fully victim to him. Above her he loomed, then leaned, slowly down to feel her warmth, his dark green shirt sticking against her back.

In a voice dry with disuse he taunted her to say that she wanted it, to beg for it, though he sounded utterly disinterested and his eyes — he couldn't actually see his eyes, but he could hear that same disuse and disinterest ringing in their glare. She whimpered underneath him but said nothing, insulted from both directions by his grimy touch and transparent insults.

"Ignorance is bliss, isn't it?" said the stranger — but not to him, nor to her — as he buried his face in her fragrant hair and his hips into hers and himself into her... But no relief came, nor satisfaction, and it felt like no matter how close he got to her, couldn't be further away.

He battered and battered and broke through, with great delight at just the effort, and he made tremors rise then relent in her tense legs. Her high heels tapped against the floor in a trembling rhythm that undercut her plaintive moans until he stopped, and settled inside her, and laughed against her shoulder in a harsh exhale. He taunted her over how she sounded, how she felt, how he felt in her.

The more she withdrew, the more aggressively he followed, always fighting her and pulling the fight out of her in honeydew dollops that had nowhere left to go but to seep and stain his nice trousers. Her shoulders went up in a useless attempt to hide, but he squeezed her wrists in warning and bit her shoulder, the nape of her neck, anywhere he could reach that would punish her until she learned to stay still.

"Oooh yesss, that's it... I hate you so much." he laughed in manic joy, eyes falling closed against her throat.

The hand that held her hip squeezed her closer, pressing her so desperately against him like he was trying to crawl up inside and never leave. She whined in pain, muffled by her arms and the table. The stranger cooed against her ear and teased against her hips, turned her inside out and back together, discordant with her mewls and wails as he clung to her and she unconsciously to him the more his galloping pace opened her up and brought her out to meet him.

He wasn't so much pleasing himself as punishing her, and only interrupted his focus to laugh or hiss at some new-discovered throbbing, a frisson to rub against, a frothy surrender that he worked hard to push through until she took it again.

"I'm gonna kill you," he snarled down at her. "I swear I'm gonna kill you..."

No amount of resistance could carry her through his punishing thrusts, and no surrender was enough, and it all went on and on until the threads holding her up started to unravel, leaving her a blushing rough and bloody shade that the stranger could claim as an extension of himself. He rubbed away the parts that weren't base and grimed up what was left. Only thoughtless sounds came out of her now as she struggled to fit him, and fit into him.

The stranger heaved hotly with the effort of holding still, feeling over and through her deliberately and seeking still more, pressing his body down to suppress her new, aching, wet shivers.

With a pain melting through her surrender, down, down into pleasure, she tried to plead with him and she moaned his name, his real name, but after the first flush of recognition he stopped caring because he knew he wouldn't remember it anyway and —

Wait, why wouldn't he remember it?

Eyes shot open only to be greeted by the cement ceiling of his cell. The Soldier sighed and turned his head, looking at the corner where the bulbous little camera was. He looked to the door and saw the parting screen still closed shut — he was awake too early. With a groan, he turned over in his cot and pressed the cold metal hand where he ached.

On their third session, after the guardsmen left, he stepped into the room to find a collection of strange equipment and wires on the table, and a mix of subtle scents coming from two wooden containers. She sat in her chair, waiting for him with a smile, her sleek legs crossed together tightly. She wasn't wearing her lab coat anymore.

"Good morning." she said as they closed the door. "Come on in, sit down. None of this stuff is going to hurt you, I promise."

Reluctantly, he obeyed, his boots sounding slow and heavy through the room as he made his way toward her. He let himself fall in the seat and rested his hands on his tense thighs.

"It's just a GSR monitor. I'll only strap these around your fingers, you won't feel a thing." She demonstrated by wrapping one around her finger, wiggling, holding it up for his doubtful eyes. He had no choice anyway, so he rested his right arm on the table. She took his hand and opened the palm up, holding it gently while her other hand went to a little tube and scooped up a salty-smelling goo.

"For conductivity." she explained as she rubbed it just barely in his tough skin. "Be grateful it's not an EEG, otherwise I'd have to rub this stuff into your scalp. You'd look like a punk that got lost in the rain." she laughed, but it died quickly as the Soldier frowned and shifted in his seat.

Then she took two of the straps and wrapped one around his index, another around his middle finger, and turned his palm back down. She clicked the machine on and it beeped in confirmation, beginning a reading of his skin and what was going on underneath.

In plain terms it was a rudimentary lie detector, meant to scan for stress and some primitive emotions. Maybe he knew that or he didn't, but she could tell she had to work him into it, calm him down before she could get an accurate reading of what moved him.

"Do you know what time it is?"

"You have a watch." he grunted, looking at the worn leather strap around her wrist.

"Yes, but do you know?" she smiled.

"0803 hours."

"Yes. Do you know where we are?"

"Headquarters Alpha 3."

"Good. Do you know what day of the week it is?"

"No."

"Did you sleep last night?"

"Yes."

"Did you have any dreams?"

"No." he said with a sardonic smile. The line on the monitor moved ever-so-slightly, but it could just be a reaction of their tiff about it the other day. Or, he was lying to her again.

They spent the rest of their session with him strapped up to it while she made use of a couple of boxes and the little things inside. With eyes closed, he had to guess what she placed between his fingers: a piece of velvet, silk, a pocket watch, a cufflink, a snow globe.

The edge that separated the Asset from whoever he was before was smudged only so slightly, by necessity, the way it was with all the other soldiers in the program — they could still talk, after all, and read and write, and still employ the complexities of hand-to-hand and armed combat, all things they learned in a past life and used now for Hydra's ends. What made her soldier the best was how sharp that edge was, how steady — until it wasn't.

He retained good coordination, if his finely drawn clock was anything to go by, a steadiness that an unbalanced brain would have found difficult. They had tried, with past soldiers, to split the two brain hemispheres physically, severing the membrane that bridged between them in an effort to isolate the old soldier from the new.

The right hemisphere housed contextual perception and feeling, while the left was honed and focused and precise. They even grew to slightly different sizes, in parts, even though the skull that covers them is evenly shaped. It remained in mainstream medicine a mystery, one that Hydra explored with relish.

But all that resulted from their experimental surgeries were monstrous malfunctions. As it turned out, the left hemisphere dominated most of the body even when separated, and Hydra's soldiers were left imprisoned in the right brain, at best controlling one arm and some eyesight.

Removing the whole left hemisphere also didn't yield any improvements, even after recalibrating what remained. There were even more extreme experiments suggested, but they were deemed too damaging to put the soldiers through, too harmful for staff morale, and too uncertain in their results.

It was clear that a successful subject had to keep all his faculties, all the useful memories in whatever form, while imposing the dominance of the right hemisphere over the left. In a way, the Soldier had been there all along, growing with the unwitting owner of that body, learning, judging for himself and reaching, inevitably, different conclusions.

There always was something slightly more sinister in the right hemisphere, which only emerged when it was freed from the left, or when the left was in a dream state and its control dropped. So it was clear which side Hydra drew its soldiers from, when it freed that part of them with their infernal brain-machines.

The wavering of that edge also explained why her Soldier had such excellent memory, remembering even obscure European countries well, but also their capitals, which Hydra never saw fit to teach him. And as she went through more little things that stood out against the strictures of their base and his missions, it emerged that, though steady, the line that separated her Soldier from someone else was kept at his convenience.

The man underneath was generously lending his memories of what fancy little cufflinks and snow globes felt like, just so the Soldier who had never seen them before could give the right answers. But what she needed to figure out was how much of the control was the Soldier's intention, and how much was unconscious reflex. If the man aimed to sabotage his missions, would the Soldier even know? Worse, if he wasn't aware of anyone else sharing his brain, could he really control him?

Would he want to?

For Hydra, her mission was simple: root out the part that dissents, make it submit. They were too focused on efficiency to know what they were truly asking for. They had no idea how bad it could get, or how good...

"That's enough for now. You can open your eyes while I get the next batch, we're almost done. This last bit is just some food tests."

"As long as it's not from the mess hall."

She was halfway to the sink, a small wooden crate in her hands, when she started laughing. "I promise it's not. So it's true what they say? Way to a man's heart..."

"Is through his rib cage."

Her laughter rang through again, but he kept his eyes straight ahead, focusing on the sound of her running her hands under the water, arranging things on a plate, and wiping her hands dry on the threadbare cloth that hung there.

"Close your eyes now." she spoke as she stepped closer from behind. The plate clinked as it met the metallic table, right by his hand, and he smelled and felt the heat of her as she stood right in front of him.

"I'll give you some things to taste, and you just tell me what they are. And they're all pretty soft. Alright? First one. Open..."

Something was nagging him from the back of his brain again, jeering at him for the childish position he was in, but he couldn't think of anything to feel ashamed over.

"Strawberry."

"Good. Now, swallow and... again..."

"Grapes."

"That's right. This next one is a bit, well... Just open and tell me."

He bit into a soft and shapeless thing that tasted like, if anything, a green paste. "I don't know what this is."

"Avocado. Maybe you've never had it before. Better make a wish, then."

"What?"

"Never mind. Open for me again..."

"Mint?"

"Yes, that's a mint leaf. It's perfectly safe, you can swallow. Now, this one will come in a spoon, so open wide." She let the cloying thing slip on his tongue and the taste spread in his mouth in a way that was familiar but unusual.

"Tastes like... roses."

"Yes, that's rose petal jam. If the Director only knew what I spent my funding on, spoiling you..." she giggled, but it died quickly as he kept frightfully still and his jaw tensed. From the corner of her eye she saw the GSR give an angry twitch.

"Right, one more and we're done. Open, and tell m—"

"Plums."

[heavensturtle]

Day 7: Free Day

A short fic for Day 7 of Xie Lian’s Birthday Week!

- - -

Note: So, I realize I’m posting this on day 9, I could just not keep a schedule this week.

Also, if you know me at all you know I need rules, free days are not good for me. So, my self-imposed prompt for today is writing about Xie Lian’s fears in a modern AU.

Also, this is again unedited. Good luck!

Spoiler alert: This is an AU, so technically no spoilers today!

- - -

It begins, as it always does, with the sound of rain on the roof.

Xie Lian rises from the futon where he’s been napping and races to the front closet to pull out the buckets he keeps expressly for this purpose. His hands are already shaking.

“Should have…” he scolds himself, should have fixed this weeks ago.

The small, dilapidated house on the edge of town was barely habitable when Xie Lian moved in a few months ago, but even so, it had been a vast improvement over where he’d been before.

Xie Lian hadn’t exactly minded sleeping in cars or in doorways or on the couches of friends who weren’t his friends any more. He hadn’t exactly minded the looks or the way people would turn and walk the other way when they saw him taking a rest from collecting bottles for the recycling center.

He hadn’t exactly minded, but he hadn’t exactly not minded, either.

Xie Lian runs to the guest bedroom, which is currently furnished with a bed, a nightstand, and a slowly growing wet spot on the wooden floor. Xie Lian places a cracked bucket underneath the drip.

For a long time the bed had just been a mattress placed directly on the floor, until one day Hua Cheng had turned up with a hammer and nails and proceeded to turn some scrap wood Xie Lian had been collecting for unspecified projects into a bedframe that looked like it belonged in a catalog. He’d built the nightstand almost as an aside. And suddenly, the room was transformed from poor to tastefully spare.  

Xie Lian has more drips to catch, so he rushes to the hallway to place his second bucket, and as he does so he catches sight of the painting Hua Cheng gifted him (Hua Cheng claims to have found it at a thrift store, but the signature in the corner, when Xie Lian had removed it from its frame one day, looked suspiciously like Hua Cheng’s name). He rushes to his bedroom to catch another drip, then to the kitchen, where the table Hua Cheng built out of more scraps fills the empty space by the oven, making the room feel cozy.

He’s just placing the last bucket under the drip by the back door when he hears the sound of the front door unlocking.

“Gege, are you home?” Hua Cheng calls. Hua Cheng has a key to the house; Xie Lian had insisted on giving him the spare when Hua Cheng had installed the lock only days after meeting Xie Lian. Hua Cheng had refused for several more days, saying Xie Lian should give it to someone he trusted, not seeming to realize that that person was him.

Hua Cheng should just let himself in, but instead he waits by the open door. Once, Xie Lian had pretended not to be home, just to see what would happen. Hua Cheng had closed the door, locked it again, and left, and Xie Lian had been left with an odd sense of bereavement.

“San Lang!” he calls, emerging from the little room by the back door to greet Hua Cheng. He runs across the main room and skids to a stop in his stockinged feet just in front of Hua Cheng, unable to contain his smile. Hua Cheng smiles back and holds up his hand as though to steady Xie Lian. When he sees Xie Lian isn’t going to fall over, he drops it. Xie Lian feels a little bereft.

Then he remembers the leaks.

“Ah, San Lang, maybe you could come back tomorrow? Now’s not a good time…” but he has nowhere to be, and can think of no reason why Hua Cheng shouldn’t also be here.

“Ah, but gege, I found something I wanted to try to cook with you?” Hua Cheng holds out a bag of groceries, and Xie Lian’s throat tightens.

Xie Lian spent years eating food picked out, or thrown out, by others, but when Hua Cheng brings him food it’s a categorically different experience. Hua Cheng asks him what he likes and dislikes, and doesn’t seem at all impatient when Xie Lian doesn’t know how to chop onions or peel a tomato or any of the rest of it. He simply puts his hands over Xie Lian’s and shows him.

“Oh! Uh-” Xie Lian stops talking, because a new drip has just begun, right over his head. A drop hits his forehead and rolls down to the tip of his nose.

“San Lang…” he feels his face grow hot. This is too much, Hua Cheng is going to see the buckets and realize just how poor of a caretaker Xie Lian is. With anyone else, Xie Lian wouldn’t spare it a thought. But Hua Cheng isn’t anyone else.

“Gege,” Hua Cheng chuckles, reaching out and wiping the drop from Xie Lian’s nose. For a terrible second Xie Lian thinks he’s about to lick it from his finger, but then Hua Cheng wipes it on his shirt and Xie Lian lets out a sigh.

“San Lang, this is just-”

“Your roof giving you trouble?” Hua Cheng finishes.

Xie Lian hangs his head. He really can’t look at Hua Cheng.

“I’m sorry, my house isn’t really suitable for company right now,” he admits.

Hua Cheng makes a small noise, and Xie Lian looks up. Hua Cheng is giving him an inscrutable look.

“Gege. If you want me to leave I will, but if this is about your roof, it’s really no problem at all, we can just fix it tomorrow.”

Xie Lian shifts uncomfortably, but it’s still raining hard, and he’s sure that Hua Cheng is getting cold in the doorway. Xie Lian is.

He moves to the side. “San Lang, please come inside.”

Hua Cheng beams, steps inside, and opens his arms. His coat is open and Xie Lian slips his arms inside when he goes to hug Hua Cheng, avoiding the wet exterior of his red peacoat.

Hua Cheng makes a soft choking noise.

“San L-” Xie Lian starts to pull back, but then Hua Cheng is pulling the edges of his coat around Xie Lian and Xie Lian’s house isn’t that cold but being cocooned inside Hua Cheng’s coat feels better. He lets out another sigh.

“It’s warm in here,” he mutters, and Hua Cheng wraps his arms around him.

“Gege, what’s this about?” Hua Cheng asks.

“I’m just glad you’re here,” he says.

Hua Cheng tightens his hold.

“Oh! San Lang! Your dinner,” Xie Lian extracts himself from Hua Cheng. Then he  picks up the bag of groceries that’s been discarded by Hua Cheng’s feet and takes it to the kitchen. Hua Cheng comes in a bit later, coatless, as Xie Lian is unloading everything onto the kitchen table. Xie Lian notices that Hua Cheng is wearing a black shirt that looks very good on him.

Hua Cheng has brought ingredients for at least three different meals, but tonight he wants to make the Korean version some sort of chicken dish. As they’re about to start putting things into the frying pan, another drip starts, just above the stove. The raindrop sizzles on the hot pan.

“Oh no,” Xie Lian buries his face in his hands. This really is too embarrassing.

Hua Cheng, who is standing next to Xie Lian ready to pass over ingredients, laughs delightedly.

“Gege, it seems we need another bucket to protect the food.”

“San Lang, please,” Xie Lian begs, the sound muffled.

“It’s fine, we can use a lid, and after tomorrow you won’t have to worry about it.” Hua Cheng pulls out a lid that’s much too large. “A little rain-hat,” he explains, holding it above the pan. He’s smiling at Xie Lian like he’s immensely pleased with himself.

Xie Lian stares at that smile for a long, quiet moment. Then: “I can’t.”

“Can’t what?” Hua Cheng sets the lid on the pan. A drop hits it and rolls off the side.

Xie Lian watches the drips landing on the lid, avoiding Hua Cheng’s face.

“San Lang, you’ve been so kind, but I can’t let you keep helping me.”

“Why not?” Hua Cheng’s voice sounds tinny, but maybe that’s just from the blood pounding behind Xie Lian’s ears.

“Because I don’t live here,” he admits, letting out a shaky breath.

Hua Cheng puts a hand on Xie Lian’s wrist, and Xie Lian turns to meet his eyes.

Hua Cheng is staring at him intently, focused. He can see Hua Cheng’s throat bob as he swallows.

“Gege, you do live here,” he says, “This is your home.”

Xie Lian shakes his head. He’s trembling now, and he knows Hua Cheng feels it because Hua Cheng takes hold of his hand and holds it, tightly.

“Actually, I’m homeless.”

Xie Lian doesn’t remember ever feeling afraid before, but in this moment, with Hua Cheng holding his hand and the frying pan gently smoking on the stove, he’s terrified.

He has something to lose, now.

“It’s not my house,” he goes on, “I found it. I, well, I moved in shortly before I met you. And I’ve just been waiting this whole time for someone to come take it away.”

He braces for the moment when Hua Cheng lets go of his hand. For when he asks what, exactly, Xie Lian was doing before he broke into someone’s house. For when he gets up and walks away.

None of that happens. Instead, Hua Cheng starts rubbing Xie Lian’s palm with his thumb. “They won’t take it away,” he says quietly.

The warmth radiating from Hua Cheng’s hand competes with the cold gripping Xie Lian’s heart. “How do you know?” he asks.

“I checked.”

“You- what?” Xie Lian’s mind is tripping over itself, trying to understand.

“I knew you were squatting when I met you, gege. You didn’t even have a lock on your door. So I checked the laws. You have squatter’s rights. You can stay in this house as long as you want to. You just have to take care of it, and after five years it’s yours if you want it.”

“You knew?” Xie Lian feels limp, all the nervous energy drained out of him.

Hua Cheng smiles brightly and tugs on Xie Lian’s hand until Xie Lian moves closer. Then he wraps his arms around Xie Lian, holding him close. Xie Lian presses himself against Hua Cheng, feeling Hua Cheng’s heart beating rapidly like it’s his own.

“Of course I knew. So I installed a lock. And helped you level the floors. And tomorrow we’ll fix the roof, and then we can start building your garden beds. And then, we can start filling this house with whatever you love most.”

Xie Lian swallows hard. The words slip out before he can stop them:

“With you, then?”

Hua Cheng laughs, a deep rumble that Xie Lian wants to never stop.

“This is your home, gege. But I’d be honored to be a part of it.”

Xie Lian smiles, hiding his face in Hua Cheng’s shirt.

“You already are.”

[1025cherrystreet]

New Home for the Holidays!

happy holidays! and merry christmas to whoever celebrates it!! <3

disclaimer: kinda scared ngl, this is my first piece of writing i’m putting on tumblr. i usually use wattpad (my username is the same it is here if you wanna follow me!), so i’m still learning how to do this lmao. hope you like it! any feedback is appreciated!!!

also... i didn’t really proofread this bc i got impatient and wanted to post it before christmas lol :)

warnings: none, just fluff ;)

gf!y/n spends christmas with harry and his family.

You hear the faint chime of the doorbell ringing from inside the house as you nervously pick at your fingers down at your side. Harry notices the small action, quickly taking your hand to intertwine with his, shooting you a small smile in hopes to calm your nerves.

And it does. For a moment. Until the door swings open and Anne appears on the other side. What finally does put your anxiety to rest is the big, warm hug she pulls you into, a splitting grin adorning her face. You chuckle in surprise (mostly at the fact she hugged you first and not her own son), but return the kind action, nonetheless.

"Oh my gosh! Y/N, my dear, you look gorgeous as always!" She says pulling back just enough to look at your face.

"Thank you! You're looking quite good yourself, Mrs. Twist." You return either a kind smile.

"Oh, none of that. I've told you before, call me Anne," She looks at you with a knowing and playful scowl, waving you off.

"Wow, hello to you too mum," Harry mutters from next to you, plastering a fake pout on his lips.

She softly scoffs, releasing her hold on you and moving to embrace her son.

"You look gorgeous too, Harry. Is that what you wanted to hear?" She jokes, the familiar smirk she holds reminds you of the one your boyfriend pulls so frequently.

When they release from their tight squeeze, Anne steps inside and holds the door open before speaking.

"Well... Don't want you two to freeze out there, come in! I was just fixing a cuppa,"

The warmth of her home heats your frozen fingertips as you enter and your glad to be out of the snow. You love the snow, but since growing up not experiencing it often where you lived makes it a little hard to bear in times like these. You couldn't remember many times you've had a white Christmas before (probably could count on one hand, if your honest), but you've always remembered them being the best ones.

You've always loved the holidays. You loved the cold weather and the time with family. You loved you're yearly family tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve night and taking a picture on the staircase in your childhood home the next morning. You loved making hot chocolate and watching you're family open the presents you got them.

You loved the holidays. But, what you love more than anything, is that this year you get to spend them with Harry.

You've been dating for two years now, but last Christmas, you spent it with your own family, as did he, because it was a bit too soon in y'all's relationship to make that step. However, this year Harry extended the invitation for you to join them and after talking with your parents (and your brother, albeit he didn't care one bit) you accepted the invite. Of course, not without making sure you wouldn't be imposing at all. And with Harry's reassuring words of, wouldn't have asked if we all didn't want you there, and besides, baby, it wouldn't be Christmas without all my loved ones, would it?, you started packing for London.

Harry shrugs off his coat as you both stand in the foyer and you follow suit as a voice shouts from the kitchen.

"Are they here?" A familiar sister calls out excitedly.

You and Harry enter the kitchen and he's immediately pulling Gemma into a bear hug. You look at the sight and smile fondly, noticing her boyfriend, Michal, behind them, but not before worrying for Gemma's breath support as Harry noticeably squeezes tighter.

They let go of each other and she playfully scowls at him, swatting his arm. To which Harry dramatically holds his arm, draining an, ow, that hurt!, receiving an eye roll from Gemma before Harry moves to greet Michal, and his stepdad, Robin.

"Hi, Y/N! It's so great to see you, feels like it's been ages," She greets you in turn, having enough of Harry's antics already. You return the greeting, along with the one to Michal and Robin, and before you know it, you're all deep into conversation.

Harry takes up spot right on your side like a leech. If you were being honest, it took you awhile to become accustomed and comfortable to how openly affectionate Harry is with you in front of his family and friends. At first, it was just small touches and light squeezes when the two of you would go out with Mitch and Sarah. The actions not bold enough for you to scold him, but just enough to make your cheeks turn pink. Not long after, the touches turned into sweet kisses to your cheek and draping a protective arm around you almost every time y'all went out. Which wasn't a problem until you realized how many stares your friends shot you when you started to get too comfortable in his warm embrace, most of the time opting to daze out in Harry's comfort than pay attention to conversation. So then, when the little affections turned into koala-esque cuddling into your side and planting heart-stopping kisses to your lips in front of Gemma and Anne this past summer, you decided to tell him to reign it back just a tad. It wasn't that you didn't like it! Quite the contrary, the sweet scent of his cologne that would flood your senses as he settled so close to you made your head fuzzy, and the pecks along your neck or on your hands or on your cheeks left you incapable of being present.

Of course, your loving boyfriend pouted a bit at the fact he claims, you don't want my kisses, but quickly got over it when you dropped to your knees before the boy to press kisses somewhere he couldn't complain about.

However, despite all of your protests to PDA, you can't help but relinquish your resolve as you melt into the couch with Harry between your legs, head resting on your tummy. The whole family (which includes you now!) is settled into their comfy spots in Anne's living room as Miracle on 34th Street plays on the TV, everyone having changed into their fuzziest Christmas pajamas. The realization when you saw Harry, Gem, and Anne had matching pajama bottoms made your heart grow tenfold and your eyes glaze over in complete fondness.

The smell of kettle corn popcorn (as Harry made it since he knows it's your favorite) and cinnamon candles fill the room. Anne and Robin are together on the couch perpendicular to yours against the wall opposite of you and Harry as the two of you are laid out taking up the whole space on y'all's blue sofa, while Gemma and Michal have cuddled up on the floor, sharing the big bean bag off to your left since they were the last ones to join the holiday movie marathon.

You love the dynamic of Harry's family. Much different than the chaotic mess of yours, and although you still love your family very much (despite their constant need to be obnoxiously loud for no reason whatsoever, fight over little things, and ignore each other on a daily basis), you admire how calm their presence is. You're family is just so... loud. And that's not necessarily a bad thing! The running joke of your family is that no one in it is capable of whispering...well, except you but you all blame it on the anxiety. But even so, your parents and brother have always argued. Over everything. Very rarely is it about something important, and seldom does it get out of control, but your family's way of showing affection is very...unique? Y'all aren't openly nice and polite all the time. As confusing as it might sound, y'all show your love in bickering. The love is more underlying than it is direct in show.

But that's why you can't get over how quiet this house is right now. Not one fight over someone breathing wrong has broke out and Harry and Gemma actually get along and enjoy each other's company. They're like... friends! The concept is crazy to you and you can't help but get just a tad bummed how your family doesn't just sit around all cuddled up, and how they'll get something for you while their up so you don't have to move from your comfy spot, or how Anne will just hug Harry out of nowhere. But the more you think about it, you realize that it's probably because Harry wasn't around much, always touring and traveling the world. He never got the time to playfully bicker with his family. So, as everyone is quiet in their comfort, you take it all in, happy that you're given the chance to experience their household dynamic.

Your fingers play with Harry's hair, running them through the long brown curls, still as wonderstruck at how soft his hair is as ever. Hearing him softly hum when you gently tug through a thicker curl.

"You're so effortlessly beautiful, ya know that?" You whisper to him, the sound of the movie, thankfully, covering you're affection from everyone else.

You can just spot the smitten little grin that grows on his face, and despite not having the angle to see, you just know his precious dimple is making a showcase right now...and that's enough to put a smile on your own face.

Instead of replying in words, he only turns his head to place a soft, melting kiss upon your thigh. Making heat surge through your entire body, in turn, making your heart warm at his love.

As y'all sit and watch the movie, you start to subconsciously braid your boyfriends hair. Starting by sectioning (albeit, a bit lazily) his hair into two big chunks, then separating three strands from the top of his head, you start braiding the pieces, adding a bit more hair as you go. He eventually caught on to what you were doing and you thought he was going to stop you, truthfully. But to your surprise, he only started rubbing gentle circles into your legs with his hands in a calming manner, causing you to release a content sigh.

When you get to the end, you tie off the finished braid with a hair tie from your wrist before moving to the other side of his sectioned head. It surprised you how long his braids are! They come down about a few inches below his chin, much longer than the only other time you had saw him in braids, which was when Lou did them right before he went on stage to perform. Now, your braiding skills aren't as refined as Lou's are, her skills making yours look rather sad, but you're having a blast doing it and that's all that matters. Not like he's going to go perform after this, right?

After securing the second braid in a hair tie, you lean forward and place a kiss to the top of Harry's head, causing him to tilt his head to look at you with a big smile on his pretty face.

Since you're sat up already and hovering over his face with him still in your lap, you press a quick, searing kiss to his lips, watching them curve into a splitting grin. You smile back at him, just admiring his features.

Despite being able to feel the loving stares from Gemma and Anne in the room, your focus is still on Harry.

“I love you,” He whispers, bringing a hand up to gently stroke your cheek.

“I love you too, bubs.” You return, because you do. You love him so much it hurts sometimes.

Looking at him now, surrounded by his family, you think you have never been so happy in your entire life. You’re so lucky to have him in your life, and you know he knows he’s lucky too.

But most of all, you’re so glad you decided to spend this Christmas with him.

[humbughana]

After.

JJ Maybank leaves the kook princess bruised and broken one night and now it’s time for revenge.

Warnings: kind of really dark themes? violence, cursing. domestic abuse. Very unhealthy coping idk.

She loved him. 

She was never supposed to but she loved him more than herself. 

She was willing to lose herself to love him. 

And lose herself, she did.

~

Lucy Everson was the prized Kook princess on the island; a sweet girl that everyone seemed to love and know. She was never hateful or violent towards the Pogues, as everyone called them. She even felt rather indifferent towards the whole rivalry. You could even call her perfect; the word was whispered around her so often by so many she learned to hate the word but also to embrace it. 

But all of this was before.

Lucy had crossed paths with none other than JJ Maybank, the infamous trouble maker on the other side of the island. And it didn’t take long before their first meeting that she felt butterflies in her stomach when she saw him or when he smiled at her. Sure, it was an unorthodox pairing but for the first time in her life, she didn’t really care. But she began to forget about everything else. Lucy would have put anything on hold for this boy, ignoring any warnings that he was dangerous; even from her three best friends. Rafe, Topper, and Kelce told her over and over to get away from him but she only distanced herself from her little trio in response.

They just didn’t understand, their hatred for JJ was too strong for them to see what she did. But she saw him for who he really was. Lucy saw the boy that had an abusive, drunk father. The boy that just needed someone to care and she cared more than anyone. 

But this was still before. 

Before she found herself in a position she never would have even thought of. 

Now she felt foolish for disregarding everyone that had warned her so easily.

                        he’s going to end up just like his father luce.

It made her so angry the first time her father had said those malicious words to her but now she felt like an idiot. 

Now, she found herself sitting on the edge of her bed with the police sheriff downstairs and a medical examiner knelt in front of her. Her mind spun at the difference of a few hours and a couple of drinks could do to a person.

 To her person.

The flash of the camera went off again and she flinched as the woman in the white coat apologized, “will you remove your sweatshirt for me?” The lady's sweet voice filled the silent room and Lucy listened. 

Listened like she should have done all along, she thought bitterly to herself. The woman's face dropped slightly, her smile sliding off for a moment as she looked over her bare torso before recovering a moment too late. 

A dozen flashes later, she slid her sweatshirt back over her head and took the lady’s hand and followed her downstairs to see her parents sitting at the dining room table with a set of police officers. Lucy sat in the seat she was led to, still in a daze until someone said her name.

“Lucy, tell us a name. Please sweetie.” her mother pleaded with tears in her eyes, “Just say the name and we can help you.” 

She thought back to the hours prior to this moment in mourning. Her heart weeping at the loss of her boy. How he lost himself in his own rage and took it out on her; something she thought she could handle until he laid his hands on her. The way her entire body ached but no worse than the hole in her chest. And she was angry, so angry that he used her in that way. The way he just left her in his yard-

“JJ Maybank.” 

~

“Luce,” her mother cracked open her door to find her daughter still just sitting on the edge of her bed, still covered in bruises, “Rafe is here to see you.” It was a question, she could say no but there was no one she wanted to see more in this moment but her friends so she nodded slightly and her mom was relieved.

Lucy heard him before her door opened again, the louder footsteps outside her door before it pushed open to relieve the hulking boy in the doorway. His eyes scanned over her quickly, his face tightening before stepping further into her bedroom he had been hundreds of times before, “Hey Luce.” 

She couldn’t help but burst into tears. 

Rafe was immediately next to her, wrapping his arms around her, carefully not knowing where she was hurt and let her cry into his chest. It hurt him to see her so broken and bruised, the girl that only brought smiles and love everywhere she went. How someone could do this to her was hard to even think about.

“I’m sorry,” she cried, “I should have listened to you guys.” His chest caved in at the sound of her guilt and sorrow, his hand running through her hair in a soothing manner. He tried not to let the rage he felt for the pathetic excuse for a human that he had warned her about but it wasn’t about him right now, “It wasn’t your fault Luce.” He rested his chin on top of her head, “It wasn't your fault.” he repeated softly. 

Minutes past before she pulled back, looking up at her best friend, “Does everyone know?” She couldn’t help but ask; and maybe she already knew the answer. Rafe sighed, “You know how quick things travel around here,” It was true, there was rarely anything that didn’t go unnoticed and the entire police station in front of their house certainly started a wildfire.

“Topper and Kelce?” Lucy asked, wondering where the rest of her boys were and Rafe actually cracked a smile, “Waiting outside.” 

Lucy let out a little laugh that relieved some of the tightness on Rafe’s chest, “Go let them in,” She hit his shoulder lightheartedly to which he smiled softly and disappeared out of her door. The smile from her face dropped when she was left alone, now too busy thinking of everything wrong. How wrong this whole situation was. How wrong it was that she wondered if JJ was okay when she certainly wasn't. 

How wrong it was that she wanted him to suffer as she was now.

But three goofy looking boys crammed through her doorway with large grins to cover up their grimaces, holding bags of sweets and movies that she loved. Topper pulled her into his arms first as if she would break; Top was always the sweetest of them all, he put his whole heart into everything and perhaps cared too much sometimes. 

Kelce threw an arm over her shoulders next and pulled her onto her own bed where the other two boys made themselves comfortable as someone had turned her tv on. Lucy was only grateful that she didn’t have to be alone tonight. Rafe’s hand settled onto her ankle when he lounged at the foot of her huge bed, Topper laid next to her and Kelce sat up leaning against the wall her bed was wedged against. 

“Thank you guys,” She whispered into the dark as the opening credits began to which Rafe seized her calf and Topper kissed her temple. “We’re always here for you, Luce.” Kelce smiled warmly at her. 

~

Lucy awoke with a gasp in her dark room as a dark figure cursed under his breath, “Shit Luce, it’s just me.” She looked around the empty room, the tv was off and she must have fallen asleep through the entire thing. Topper and Kelce were nowhere to be found, they must have already left and Rafe seemed to be on his way out. Panic settled in her chest as he stood up fully off the bed finally, “Get some sleep Lucy. I’ll be here tomorrow.”

“Don’t leave, please.” She blurted out during his goodbye and Rafe stared at her for a moment. It certainly wasn't a weird thing for them to have sleepovers but he knew she always preferred her space, “Are you sure?” Rafe asked after a beat of silence and Lucy nodded a bit frantically, he didn’t miss the panicked look in her eyes and she was just glad he would stay for her.

Lucy sighed in relief as he nodded and turned to pull off his shirt and tugged his jeans down his legs. He went into her closet and came out wearing a pair of his own sweatpants she had stolen from him. When the bed jostled and he settled into the space next to her she breathed out, “Thank you.”

“Of course,” His hand found hers under the covers and twined their fingers together, she closed her eyes finally feeling at peace, knowing he was next to her.

~

“We’re going to have to launch a full scale investigation, Mrs. Everson.” 

It felt as if the air had been sucked out of the room and replaced with a searing fire that burned her insides with rage. Her hands shook as she squeezed them into fists under the table. How did this happen? 

“Who did you speak to?” Lucy cut in finally as they shifted the conversation to the next steps. The Sheriff had come to inform them that JJ had conflicting witnesses that didn’t agree with her own statement. Someone had lied for him, it seemed. Maybe she already knew who it was, or rather who they were.

The man only sighed deeply, “I cannot disclose that just yet.”

“Bullshit!” She slammed her palms on the table, “Who lied?” Lucy demanded and her mother blanched at her daughter's display of anger that had never been seen before, “Lucy, please calm down.”

“Fine.” She got up and stomped to the front door before anyone could stop her and slammed the door in her wake. Jogging to the drivers side of her door, Lucy jumped in right as her father ran outside yelling for her to stop. No, she was going to get answers if no one would give them to her and maybe she was looking for a fight to dull the pounding that never seemed to stop in her ears. Her foot pressed further down on the gas, both hands tightening on the wheel as she neared the destination. 

Lurching to a stop, Lucy jumped out of the car and marched up the ramp into the empty restaurant, “We’re closed-” a lady she didn't recognize mumbled but Lucy ignored her, walking further into the unopened space. 

“Lucy?” She turned to the sound of her name to see Kiara’s mother who looked at her in horror; maybe news didn’t travel as fast as Rafe said or perhaps her daughter was telling pretty little lies again. So she smiled warmly, “Mrs. Carrera, I was just looking for Kiara.” The dazed mother just pointed in the right direction and Lucy followed the point of her finger until she found the infamous little group of Pogues minus the one she was rather familiar with. 

“Oh shit- Lucy,” John B stood up noticing her first and the other two stood quickly as she neared them, close enough for them to see what their beloved friend did to her, what her beloved boy did to her. 

Kiara looked at her in horror, Pope matching her expression, “What are you doing here?” John B asked finally, trying not to look at her.

“Which one of you lied?” Lucy asked softly but her words were sharp enough that Kiara paled considerable along with the rest of them. Lucy met the girls eyes with fire in her gaze, “Well? Who was it?” Lucy raised her voice, frustrated with their blind loyalty, “Or was it all of you?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking-” John B started but Lucy just about screamed, “Don’t lie to me!” They all blinked, Kiara nearing tears now as she looked at her, “I’m sorry,”

“You’re sorry?” Lucy laughed lowly, her ribs still healing and hurting from her yelling, “No you aren’t.” she shook her head but smiled slightly, “But you will be.” 

“Is that a threat?” John B narrowed his eyes at her but Lucy cut her eyes to the girl that would be the easiest to break, “Do you see what he did to me?” Lucy asked softly, “Did you think it was just a little bruise? Maybe he accidentally pushed me?” Kiara squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head and repeated the same useless words., “I’m sorry-”

“I will blame you for the rest of your life if your little lie gets him off. I will make your life a living hell.” Lucy pointed her finger at the trembling, crying girl and John B stepped in front of her, blocking her view. Lucy snorted, “You all deserve each other, truly, Lying, pathetic, Pogues.” Lucy, for the first time in her life seethed the word with such malice even she was surprised. But then the door slammed open and Rafe stomped in, taking in the situation.

“Lucy, what are you doing?” Rafe asked cautiously, ignoring the hateful looks he was shot. “They lied for him. Now the police have to do a full investigation because now there are words against mine.” Rafe clenched his jaw at the news and noticed Kiara crying in the back as Lucy cut her eyes to the girl once again. Rafe saw Lucy’s face settle with soft, quiet rage before she spoke.

“Maybe he’ll finally look at you for this Kie. I saw the way you looked at him when he was with me. Maybe he’ll fuck you, too. And then maybe he’ll beat the shit out of you and leave you in his front yard.” Lucy laughed and it made Pope look sick and John B had the sense to stand down, “What a fucking love story, Kie. You truly deserve it.” Lucy shot the sobbing girl a sarcastic smile before turning around, “You have one chance to go and retract your statements or you will regret ever opening your mouths.” 

Rafe filled with pride as his girl walked with her head held high out of the restaurant as he shot the Pogues a look at told them she only spoke the truth before turning to follow her outside. 

Rafe had no problem giving them exactly what they deserved if they didn’t listen to her. None of them did, she had them all wrapped around her little fingers.

Lucy climbed back in her car after Rafe told her he’d follow her home with a proud grin. She let the rage and hate fill her chest throughout the drive and when she jumped out of her car at her house it was as if a veil had been removed. 

This was after. 

Now it was time for revenge.

And this is no place for a love story.

xx

[kipscorner]

Headernotes:

- THIS IS A LONG POST! - Anything in Parenthesis, feel free to change or remove - Feel free to change pronouns to match - Thank you for reblogging and using! <3

“(Name), can you explain again what we're doing?”

We're kicking off our fun, old-fashioned family Christmas by heading out into the country in the old front-wheel drive sleigh...to embrace the majesty of the winter landscape...and select that most important of Christmas symbols.”

“We're not driving all the way here so you can get one of those stupid ties with the Santa Clauses on it, are we?”

“Some jackass is riding my tail.”

“(Name)! Don't provoke them!”

“Burn some dust here. Eat my rubber.”

“Eat my road grit, liver lips!”

“(Name), stop it! I don't want to spend the holidays dead!”

“Will you just take it easy, (Name)? I'm in complete control.”

“(Name), we're stuck under a truck!”

“Do you think I don't know that?”

“For Christ sake, I didn't do this on purpose!” 

“My toes are numb.”

“I can't feel my leg.”

“(Name), that thing wouldn't fit in our yard.”

“It's not going in our yard, (Name). It's going in our living room.”

“She'll see it later, (Name). Her eyes are frozen.”

“Hey, (Name)! Where do you think you're gonna put a tree that big?”

“You've got a lot of nerve talking to me like that.”

“I wasn't talking to you.”

“It looks great. A little full. A lot of sap.”

“Did I tell you I talked to my mother?”

“They've decided they're coming for Christmas too.”

“You're forgetting how difficult it's gonna be having everybody in the house.”

“(Name), they're family. They're not strangers off the street.”

“Yeah. And about my mother accusing your mother of buying cheap hot dogs. And your mother accusing my mother of waxing her upper lip.”

“I want to have Christmas here in our house. It means a lot to me. All my life I've wanted to have a big family Christmas.”

“The question is, what will you do with that bonus? Gonna blow it on yourself, I hope.”

“Oh, my God, you're putting in a pool.”

“Layman's terms. None of that inside bullshit jargon nobody understands.”

“Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Kiss my ass. Kiss his ass. Kiss your ass.Happy Hanukkah.”

“Wouldn't be the Christmas shopping season if stores were less hooter--Hotter than they are.”

“You have your coat on.”

“There is a nip in the air though.”

“Can I take something out for you?”

“'Tis the season to be merry.”

“Folks! Folks! Folks! Merry Christmas!”

“Look at how big you've gotten!”

“They're not sleeping in my room. I'm gonna go crazy.”

“We're gonna have the best-looking house in town.”

“Come on, unravel these. You have to check every bulb. Got a little knot here. You work on that. I'll get the other box.”

“Would it be indecent to ask the grandparents to stay at a hotel?”

“We're all making sacrifices, (Name).”

“Well, I don't know what to say except it's Christmas and we're all in misery.”

“And why is the carpet all wet, (Name)?”

I don't know, (Name)!”

“I hope nobody I know drives by and sees me standing in the yard, staring at the house in my pajamas.”

“Talk about pissing your money away.”

“Let's get in where it's warm.”

“Now, look, if you need any help...give me a holler. I'll be asleep.”

“Where the hell is that cold coming from?”

“I want to take off these clothes, sit with a glass of wine and kiss your body.”

“Are you out here for a reason, or are you just avoiding the family?”

“Do you honestly think I would check thousands of lights if the extension cord wasn't plugged in?”

“You deserve a home like this to spend Christmas in.”

“You taught me everything I know about exterior illumination.”

“I hope this adds to your enjoyment of the holidays.”

“You got a kiss for me?”

“Better take a rain check on that. (pronouns) got a lip fungus they ain't identified yet.”

“We named him that because he's got this sinus condition.”

“You pet him and he'll love you till the day you die.”

“If I woke up with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn't be more surprised then I am right now.”

“After that long drive, we could use a little private time together.”

“(Name), help me get some hot chocolate. It's cold.”

“A little tree water ain't gonna hurt him. Before we left, he drank a half a quart of Pennzoil. Boy, when he lifted his leg the next morning…”

“It's a crying shame the older kids couldn't make it.”

“She's got these big horns growing right out above her ears. Yeah, she's ugly as sin, but a sweet gal. And a hell of a good cook.”

“Can I refill your eggnog? Get you something to eat? Drive you out to nowhere and leave you for dead?”

“Oh, that there? That's an RV.”

“Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm in the middle of an important call. Get me somebody. Anybody. And get me somebody while I wait.”

“We're gonna fly down the hill with this stuff.”

“You know that metal plate in my head? I had to have it replaced because every time (Name) revved up the microwave...I'd piss my pants and forget who I was for a half-hour or so.”

“Nothing like waiting till the last minute, huh?”

“What are you doing up, sweetheart?”

“You shouldn't use that word.”

“I don't think he should be nervous and you shouldn't be either. Because if you're good, Santa knows it. If you believe in him and you believe in your mom and you believe in your...Your dad. If you've been good all year round, Santa is gonna bring you something.”

“Well, I happen to know for a fact that Santa Claus is real. And in the next couple of days… somehow I'm gonna prove it to you.”

“It's good you came to stay with us.”

“I think you'd better go back to bed now.”

“Aren't you having any breakfast?”

“Oh, the silent majesty of a winter's morn. The clean, cool chill of the holiday air.

And an asshole in his bathrobe emptying a chemical toilet into my sewer.”

“It's a sewer. If it fills with gas, I pity the person who lights a match near it.”

“Merry Christmas. Shitter was full!”

“In seven years he couldn't find a job?”

“(Name) and I want to help you give the kids a nice Christmas.”

“This isn't charity. It's family.”

“If you don't tell me what they want, I'll go out and get it on my own.”

“Is your house on fire, (Name)?”

“No, those are Christmas lights.”

“Don't throw me down, (Name).”

“Oh, that was fun. I love riding in cars.”

“Oh, dear. Did I break wind?”

“You shouldn't have brought presents.”

“This box is meowing.”

“(Name)? (pronoun) passed away 30 years ago.”

“They want you to say grace. The blessing!”

“I told you we put it in too early.”

“I heard on the news that a pilot spotted Santa's sled on its way from New York.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you, (Name)?”

“If he keeps it up, it will be his last Christmas.”

“Look what you've done to my tree!”

“It was an ugly tree, anyway.”

“I'm sorry if I've been a little short with everyone lately.”

“...I didn't have enough in my account to cover the check.”

“I can't swim, (Name).”

“(Name), that's the gift that keeps on giving the whole year.”

“If this isn't the biggest punch in the face I ever got. Goddamn it!”

“I wanna look him straight in the eye and tell him what a cheap, lying, no good, rotten, four-flushing low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed ignorant, bloodsucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless ignorant, bloodsucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless heartless, fat-assed, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is! Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol?”

“He's got that crazed look in his eye.”

“Turn that thing off and get in the house!”

“Aren't you a bit sorry we didn't get a Christmas tree?”

“Well, where you gonna find a tree at this hour on Christmas Eve?”

“Could you just keep it in mind the next time you go berserk?”

“I didn't go berserk. I simply solved a problem.”

“You couldn't hear a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant.”

“I'm gonna catch it in the coat and smack it with the hammer.”

“I'm going in with him.”

“You just march right over there and slug that creep in the face.”

“I can't just attack someone.”

“Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm

holiday emergency here.”

“We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap-hap-happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fuckin’ Kaye.”

“And when Santa squeezes his ass down that chimney tonight he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nut house.”

“Worse? How could they get any worse? Take a look around you, (Name). We're at the threshold of hell!”

“You losing your temper with the whole family only makes things worse.”

“Are you gonna recite The Night Before Christmas?”

“No. It's your house. It's your Christmas.”

“You about ready to do some kissing?”

“I'm sorry. This is our family's first kidnapping.”

“I'll be more than happy to take the rap on this.”

“If you wanna come in, you are gonna have to break down the goddamn door!”

“Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!”

“I did something I shouldn't have, and these people called me on it.”

“It's Santa Claus!”

“She thinks she sees Santa.”

“No, it's the Christmas star. And that's all that matters tonight. Not bonuses or gifts or turkeys or trees. See, kids...it means something different to everybody. Now I know what it means to me.”

“That ain't the frigging Christmas star. It's a light on the sewage treatment plant.”

“Merry Christmas, honey.”

[anauthore]

A Cigarette for Your Thoughts? (Kenny McCormick x Reader) {SERIES | One}

Summary: You run away from home. You hide from rumours. And most importantly, you give second chances.

Pairing: Kenny McCormick x Reader - South Park

NOTE: Every part of this series can be read as stand-alone, or as part of the series itself! If you don’t want to read each part on Tumblr, feel free to check out links to the work on the below websites:

Wattpad | Quotev | AO3

Fic Below the Cut | Next Part

The night was dark, not even the reflection of the thousands of stars making the slightest bit of difference. You sat on the cold ground with your back against a tree, your face tilted toward the blackened sky as you breathed out, calming yourself and trying your hardest not to make much noise while the hot tears rolled down your cheek.

You squeezed your arms, digging what was left of your nails into your windbreaker that did nothing to shield you from the cold. It happened again, as it always does, but even expecting it didn't help you really cope with it; your mom was arguing with whoever she was dating this month, their drunken stupor unfortunately interrupted by your presence as you walked through the front door.

That was all it took- one slap across the face later and you were gone, cold and alone at a train crossing on the far side of town. You'd been there through sunset, and you were sure you would fall asleep under the canopy to the sound of crickets.

You stretched your legs out in front of you and sighed, eyes closed, before the sound of approaching footsteps put you on alert. You quickly formed an excuse in your head- 'sorry officer, I'm just waiting for my mom to pick me up'- but once the figure got closer you recognized him.

Kenneth McCormick. Kenny, the school's plug for nearly any drug you wanted. Kenny, the kid so poor that South Park had canned food drives for his family. Kenny, the most perverted playboy troublemaker in grade 11.

Had you really ended up that far away from your side of town? You began to scramble to your feet, but the startled gasp emanating from next to you stopped you in your tracks.

"Jesus fuck- Sorry, I didn't see you there."

You apologized quickly, albeit quietly, and mumbled something before starting to stand again.

"No, it's alright," Kenny shook his head, an unlit cigarette appearing in between his right index and middle fingers seemingly out of nowhere. He paused for an uncomfortable amount of time, tilting his head before he speaks once more. "Hey, aren't you- don't you live on the other side of town?"

You nod, confused. "Uh, yeah, how'd you know?" 

He shrugs. "I see you get on the bus from Mr. Mackey's window."

You stare blankly at him. Although it was somewhat creepy... you couldn't help but feel a little flattered. You were average at best; you hung out with a few other people, each equally as unnoticed by everyone else as you. You weren't in any notable clubs, sports, or teams  and you got decent enough grades: nothing to warrant being noticed by anyone, let alone someone that was easily recognizable by the entirety of the school.

He ignores your expression and rummages through his hoodie pocket for something. "So, why did you end up at this end of town?" He pulled out a lighter that looked to be on it's last ends, the paint chipped so much that you couldn't tell what colour it had been.

"What makes you think I 'ended up' here?"

"Sweetheart," the hints of a smile wiggled their way onto his expression before he placed the cigarette between his lips, lighting it and taking a puff in one go; "no one decides they want to come here unless they're looking for drugs, and you don't strike me as the type to throw your life away like that."

He plopped next to you, smoke calmly floating upward as you mulled over his words. What if you did want to throw your life away? It wasn't as if you really had anything left here: South Park was where you had lived your whole life, and although everyone else had mountains of stories to tell, you had nothing but the tales of your mom's iron fist and her many, many boyfriends.

After a moment, you spoke again, softer now that he was right next to you. "What if I wanted to? Buy something, I mean."

He laughed softly, shaking his head. "Then I doubt I would've found you just sitting here."

You looked away, a little embarrassed at your retort. He was right: if you were here to buy, you wouldn't be curled up against a tree, shivering in the cold of the night.

He puffed again on his cigarette, glancing at you only when he was sure you had been eyeing him for a little bit. He flicked ash off onto the ground and offered the smoke your way.

"Do you smoke?"

You hesitated, but decided that you really had nothing else to lose. 

"Now I do."

Kenny puffed air through his nose in a quiet laugh, watching you with a smug smile as you took it and breathed in- and then immediately had a coughing fit.

He chuckled, scooting closer and patting your back to help you catch your breath. You grimaced, repressing a shudder.

"I take it that this isn't your thing."

You shook your head, breathing again to clear the smoke from your lungs while you watched the lit end of the cigarette glow dimly. Once you were satisfied with the air to smoke ratio, you raised the stick up to your mouth again.

"Pull it into your mouth this time, then inhale. You won't cough as much."

You took a mental note and followed what he said, and he was right; you held it in and exhaled when you thought it had been in your system long enough, the back of your skull beginning to tingle as the nicotine worked it's magic.

He must've noticed you relax, because he gave you a thumbs up and fished another Pall Mall from his hood.

It was silent again, neither of you speaking and instead getting lost in the world of tar and probable lung cancer.

When one of you did speak, it was again on the topic you thought you'd managed to avoid, but you guess not. 

"Why all of a sudden?"

"Why what all of a sudden?" You puffed on your cigarette some more, getting a hang of not choking every time you did so.

"Did you choose to," he gestured to your smoke clouds, "start that." 

You shrugged. "Why did you?"

    “One word: Stress. Lots and lots of it.”

You nodded in agreement. “Me too, then.”

He nodded back, and again you both were left to each other’s company and the patterned inhaling and exhaling. Once your cigarette had turned into a nub, you threw the butt under your foot and rubbed it into the asphalt with the toe of your shoe. Kenny hadn’t finished his, yet, you’d noticed, so all you had left to do was to make small talk or lean against the tree again.

The quiet was too much for you, you quickly realized, and so, even though you weren’t much of a talker, you started to talk.

“So, what’s it like? Being popular, I mean.”

He laughed, flicking ash away again. “You think I’m popular?”

“Everyone does.”

He shook his head again, denying it. “Nah, that’s just ‘cause I’ve been lifelong friends with Cartman and his little posse. I’m nothing special- just another McCormick working his ass off to get the bare minimum only to end up addicted to something or other.”

You gave him a look, somewhat concerned. Sure, you knew he wasn’t the best apple in the bunch, but to hear him talk about himself so self-deprecatingly surprised you. He was always somewhat douchey around everyone else, constantly flirting with girls and making fun of anyone else around him- including teachers and parents. He must’ve noticed your sympathy, because he quickly apologized.

“Sorry. That got a little deep.” He stomped on the butt of his cigarette just as you had before. “Nah, it’s okay. Everyone knows my name, everyone knows my game. Nothing else to say about that, really.”

You accepted that he wasn’t going to elaborate any more than that.

“What about you, huh? What’s it like, being invisible? No offense.”

You cracked a smile for a split second. “None taken.” You pulled your legs in to sit indian-style. “It’s alright. No one notices when I slip away- not even my parents. My friends are good, but like- I dunno. They’re like anyone else. More like ‘acquaintances’, I guess.” You shivered, what little heat you’d been keeping trapped under your legs dissipating since you’d changed your sitting position. Kenny noticed, raising an eyebrow.

“So, you came all the way here without a decent coat?” You could sense judgement in his tone.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t have time to grab one between my mom’s boyfriend and my mom ganging up on me.”

His eyes widened a little bit and he glanced to the side. “O-kay. Noted.” Then, he began to shed his jacket, offering it to you by the hood. “Here. I’m plenty warm, plus I have a house over there I could go to if I got too cold. You need it more than I do.”

You didn’t accept it at first; you tried to say no, but he insisted, and you weren’t going to refuse twice. You were freezing, and the night was only going to get colder.

You pulled it on, and you could tell he’d worn it constantly- and not just because it was the only thing you’d ever seen him in. The fur it was lined with was short and stiff, and the pockets were ripped on the inside, not to mention the stains that spotted it. It smelled like cigarette smoke and alcohol, and of course, like a high school boy. You zipped it up and pulled on the hood, not as cold as you’d just been.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

And it was left like that for a long time. At least, long enough for you to doze off and get woken by Kenny standing over you, gently shaking your shoulder.

“Hey, you shouldn’t sleep out here.” 

You rubbed your eyes, looking up at his silhouette. “I can’t exactly go home, Kenny.” Your voice was groggy and you sounded annoyed. Still, he didn’t seem to be disturbed by your sudden change of face. Instead, he almost seemed to have empathy towards you. You weren’t sure if you liked that or not.

“I know.” He repeated himself again, trying to word his question so it didn’t seem so out of place on the dark street you sat on. “I know. Do you want to come over? It- I can find a place for you tonight.” He stared at your unwavering expression for a moment before he spoke again. “You really shouldn’t sleep out here.”

And he was right. You shouldn’t- 

So, you stood and followed him back to his house. The one that was falling apart- that smelled like cigarettes and other pungent drugs that made you wrinkle your nose in disgust- that put up a decent fight against the cold beginnings of Winter in South Park.

[forasecondtherewedwon]

Schwarzenegger Holiday

Pairing: Peter Parker x Michelle Jones (Spideychelle) Rating: E Word Count: 11,874

Includes the following prompts:

snowed in

making latkes together

“You didn’t think I’d let you spend the holidays alone, did you?”

Summary: When MJ’s granted a sudden visit to the safehouse where Peter’s been hidden for six months, she’s... nervous. What if he doesn’t want her to come? What if he doesn’t like her that way anymore? She has 24 hours to figure out what they are to each other and make peace with it. That’s the plan. Until they get snowed in.

MJ’s leg is jumping in the backseat of the SUV, the bop of her foot barely audible over the thickly-packed snow grinding under the tires. Anywhere else, this large, white vehicle would be conspicuous, but she supposes it’s fading in pretty well against this wintery backdrop. Probably less visible from above too; she quits bouncing her foot long enough to unbuckle her seatbelt and slide over to glance up at the sky, until the driver brusquely reminds her to keep her face away from the windows.

She’s dying to snark back and ask what the darkly tinted windows are for if they aren’t good enough to conceal the face of the vehicle’s occupants, but this guy kinda scares her. He’s something more secret than the Secret Service. If Nick Fury (the real Nick Fury this time, apparently—she has a whole backlog of questions and complaints that there wasn’t time to bring up during the handoff) hadn’t done an extra security check on the driver before sending MJ off with him, she’d be really worried right about now. Her suitcase is in the trunk and she’s clutching the box May gave her to her hip, wondering how she’ll be able to use its contents for self-defence if the need arises. Tear open the bag of flour and throw it in the guy’s eyes maybe?

Her strategy with the flour is sturdy, but there’s something else in this box for which she has no plan. There wasn’t time for her and May to discuss it, like there wasn’t time for MJ to interrogate Fury on where exactly he was while Peter was grappling with Quentin Beck all over Europe. Time, time, time. It’s been months, actually, since any of them seemed to have enough of it. She’s curious to know how the summer, fall, and now early winter have passed for Peter. He doesn’t even know she’s on her way. Nervous, MJ bites at the skin around her thumb nail. She hopes he’s happy to see her.

When Jameson totally fucked up her first date (and her new boyfriend’s whole life), Peter fled. He had to. Luckily, he’s being protected—so MJ’s been told—though the trade-off for safety is isolation. If it were her, she’s not sure she’d mind being handed an extended stretch of time to catch up on her reading, but she knows Peter’s different. Peter needs people. (She needs Peter.)

MJ knows that May Parker misses her nephew desperately. That’s why she tried to get the woman to go in her place, but everything with these Super-Secret Service assholes has a reason and a rhyme, even when the Scrabble tiles for Peter’s situation clearly spell ORANGE. May visited him for his birthday. Ned spent the weekend over Thanksgiving. Taking time away from work and school qualifies as a ‘noticeable absence’ and those need to be minimized. In the plainer terms May used when she explained the circumstances (at the same time that she proposed MJ take a trip to see Spidey the Desperado), none of the people formerly known to be close to Peter Parker can draw attention to themselves. They’ve been watched on the street, questioned by reporters, photographed by tabloids, and otherwise surveyed by who knows what methods operated by who knows whom. The last is MJ’s assumption; she isn’t stupid.

Apparently, becoming Peter’s girlfriend right before his identity was leaked to the world bumped her up to the third most important person in his life. She’s yet to learn whether Peter views her that way. The people protecting him do not have a schedule coordinated with him, so this trip wasn’t his call. Windows of opportunity open and close, schemes are adjusted, and girlfriends get left on doorsteps hugging boxes with the ingredients for latkes, crossing their fingers for a warm reception. MJ hasn’t figured out what she’s going to say to him after six months of nothing.

Then again, that’s basically how their friendship in high school went until her crush on him stopped crushing her enough to allow her to get the occasional insult out.

If he’s gotten over his feelings for her or just isn’t in the right headspace to entertain her, this is going to be awkward. At least it’s only until tomorrow. The same driver (for security reasons, blah blah) is picking her up before noon. One night of struggling to transition from dating back to just friends would, ultimately, be bearable for her, if that’s what Peter needs. She’d be able to talk it out with him without pining for their quick first kisses on Tower Bridge. Or their sloppy make-out session in the airplane bathroom when they woke up from their nap with half the ocean still to cross and the sudden feeling of relief that they were both alive. Yeah. MJ could definitely put that stuff behind her. In fact, maybe it’s better not to think of it at all and go into this visit assuming Peter’s feelings have cooled in light of other priorities. That way, this can be a night away from home hanging out with a friend, and not being left undisturbed with Peter ‘Where’d Those Abs Come From?’ Parker in the middle of nowhere.

She upends the mixing bowl in the box over that other item May included.

After so much doubling back and zigzagging down what have to be the most deserted roads in Upstate New York, the driver rolls to a stop in the shadow of a cabin-like house. It’s too house-like to attract the attention of wandering hipsters thirsty for cottagecore, but too cabin-y to suggest anything beyond temporary residence. MJ judges it to be a convincing safehouse. She climbs out, hefting May’s box, and accepting her suitcase from the driver. He moves much more swiftly, evidently uninterested in assessing the dwelling’s façade. Probably not his job. Even with her arms full, MJ steps precisely in the man’s footprints in the snow, just to see if her overexaggerated precaution will get under his skin. He ignores her. By the time she reaches the porch, he’s already completed whatever secret handshake or password exchange or retinal scan he had to do with Peter and is brushing past her, back to the milk-white SUV. She turns and stares after him, her last tie to civilization (until tomorrow), squinting against the light glinting off the snow.

Eventually, when the vehicle is gone and everything’s quiet, MJ accepts that she’s stalling. Eyes lowered, she faces the open door.

She starts at his feet. Red socks, the wool bobbled, the toe of the left twisted slightly like he put it on wrong and didn’t fix it. Her throat’s thick as she scans up his legs, in sweatpants, and remembers them encased in the Spider-Man suit as he crouched on the streetlight and watched Jameson blow his life apart onscreen. Hovering by his thighs are his hands. Oh, his hands. Though MJ’s gripping the box and suitcase with all her might, she’s recalling the gentle way he fit his fingers between hers. With a shaky breath, she can’t wait any longer and her gaze darts up to his face. Peter’s wearing this look she’s seen in videos of soldiers being reunited with their dogs—specifically, she’s seen it in the eyes of those dogs. The look is mushy and wet-eyed and begging for an eyeroll, possibly some verbal ridiculing, and instead, her heart reacts by flopping around unfamiliarly inside her chest. Him, is the sound of its thumping as it stumbles into her ribs. Him, him, him.

“Hi,” she says, voice coming out high. “Don’t hug me. The porch is wet and I’m holding a box.”

“I see that.”

He speaks. MJ’s mouth twitches into a relieved, silly smile. She’s missed the sound of his dork speaking so much that three words have her tripping over the threshold, almost slipping as her snow-slicked boots hit wood floor.

“The box is from May,” she explains, putting her back to Peter in order to set it down and to collect herself all over again. She’s here. He’s here, right where he’s supposed to be and where she was expecting him, but looking at her like that and with a jawline erupting in a faint scruff. It feels like a million years since she saw him last. It feels like a day.

“Can I hug you now?”

The suitcase she just drops.

MJ whirls to throw herself into Peter’s arms, hiccupping a relieved breath when he squeezes her close. Before she shuts her eyes to concentrate on the sensation of him solidly in her grasp after so long apart, she gets a glimpse of the living area beyond, the unlit fireplace. It’s homey and she isn’t sure if that makes her sadder, knowing he’s been living here alone. His hands slide over her back and she realizes she’s been hugging him a long time.

With a tight, uncertain smile, she draws back, cupping his shoulders, then dropping her hands to swing at her sides.

“Are you surprised to see me?��� MJ asks. She already knows he should be, but she has to do something besides just stare at him.

“Yeah.” Peter laughs. “Take off your boots and stuff, come sit down.”

He’s smiling at her even as she’s fumbling to untie her laces.

“Sorry,” he laughs again. “I’m not trying to stare. I’m just not used to—”

“People?”

“Well, I see some people. I get supplies. But not super often and not people I… know.”

She saw how his face went pink before settling on that final word.

“You didn’t think I’d let you spend the holidays alone, did you?” MJ teases, now shrugging out of her coat. She didn’t notice that she forgot to zip it up when she got out of the SUV. She stuffs her gloves down the sleeve and passes it to Peter to hang on a hook by the door.

“I didn’t really think that was anybody’s call,” he admits.

His tone is joyfully unconcerned, but she frowns a little, experiencing second-hand frustration at the way Peter’s life isn’t so much being lived right now as run.

“I didn’t either.” She shrugs. “But your Avengers handlers, or whatever their job titles are, contacted me through May, so I figured I might as well come out. Not that I didn’t want to see you. I did. I really wanted to see you.”

God, now she’s probably come on too strong, overcorrecting after worrying she sounded like she could take or leave being reunited with her boyfriend.

“I really wanted to see you too,” Peter assures her. His expression softens. “We didn’t get a lot of time, before.”

“I’m only here until tomorrow,” MJ warns.

“Oh, no, that’s perfect. That’s great. I wasn’t expecting you at all, so this is incredible.”

He goes to grab the box, but she shouts, “No!” Peter stares at her. “Uh,” she says, “can you take my suitcase instead? I don’t know where to put it.”

“Sure.”

She follows him into the living room in her sock feet, wishing she packed slippers.

“The floor can be cold,” he says before she can voice her regret. “I have slippers around here somewhere that you can wear, and it’s warmer when there’s a fire. We can light one tonight, if you want.”

“That sounds nice,” MJ agrees.

“You can put that down in the kitchen.” He points her through a door. “I’ll just take your bag to the bedroom. The, uh, second bedroom. There are two bedrooms. I wasn’t gonna put it in my room. I don’t want you to think—”

“Peter, it’s fine.”

He nods jerkily and walks, glancing back once. She spies the promised slippers and shoves her feet into them before racing into the kitchen. Instead of systematically emptying the box and laying out each item, MJ rifles desperately through to the bottom and grabs the thing she avoided the whole way here. What was May thinking, including condoms in the care package? Well, logically, she can guess. Peter, mostly alone, opening the door to discover his girlfriend, arrived for an overnight stay. Yes, she can see exactly why May wanted to take precautions on their behalf because MJ definitely didn’t think of that and she doubts whoever brings Peter his updates and frozen pizzas has thought to equip him with prophylactics. They’re mostly concerned with keeping him alive and out of the hands of the authorities, not getting him laid.

Knowing Peter will return any moment, MJ looks frantically around the kitchen. She thinks she hears his footsteps. Shit. She yanks a pullout drawer open and chucks the box of condoms in next to the Cheerios, hitting the drawer shut with her hip as Peter walks in and grins at her. She plasters an anxious smile on in response.

He joins her at the counter and they begin to unload the box.

“Wait,” he says, partway through, “is this the stuff for latkes?”

“Mhmm. May told me she didn’t want you to miss out on any of your regular holiday traditions, even if she couldn’t be… Peter?”

MJ observes him, sympathy wringing her heart like a wet washcloth. He turns away from her and raises a hand to his face. She hears a sniff and assumes he’s wiping at his eyes and cheeks. She reaches out, hesitates, overcomes, lays her hand on his shoulder.

“I told her it should’ve been her coming instead of me,” she mumbles.

“No, no,” Peter assures her, still facing away, “I’m so happy to see you, MJ, seriously. I just miss her.”

“She misses you too.”

When he turns to face her, eyes still shining, MJ rewards his vulnerability by taking his hand.

“It’s not fair,” she tells him.

“It’s what’s gotta be done,” Peter says with a resigned shrug. “What I want isn’t as important as fixing this mess so I can go back to being Spider-Man. People need me.”

“You’re people too. There are people you need. That’s part of your humanity.” She’s ramping up now, arguing on his behalf with no one there to argue against. “Without that humanity, you wouldn’t be a good Spider-Man. You wouldn’t be a good guy. Protecting you shouldn’t just be about sticking you somewhere and watching you by satellite or whatever! Exposing your identity is a psychological attack and Nick Fury and the rest of them should be doing everything to ensure you can weather this storm psychologically, including keeping you connected to your family and your friends and—"

“My girlfriend.”

MJ exhales.

“Maybe not her,” she jokes. “She might just come in here and rant at you about reducing your stress, which is kinda counterproductive.”

“If I could listen to you rant every day, I’d be happy.”

She flushes and busies herself with putting May’s gifts away, probably all in the wrong spots, but Peter never corrects her, just works quietly alongside her until there’s nothing left in the box. Because she wasn’t permitted to bring her phone, MJ checks the time on her watch. It’s early afternoon.

“What do you do all day?”

Peter’s face lights up.

“You wanna see the room?”

“I recognize that look. This has something to do with Ned, doesn’t it?”

Her hypothesis is proven right when he leads her down the hall and opens a door to reveal a room housing a dozen Lego models. Everything’s probably Star Wars related, but she’s lost beyond the Death Star.

“Ned,” she says.

“Ned. He brought them when he came. I’ve done them all… well, a few times each.”

“I know I should be delicate with you because you’re a genius hermit, but, Parker, that’s so lame.”

Peter laughs out loud.

“That’s not all I do. Come on.”

He takes her hand (it doesn’t seem like he’s thought for a second about scrapping their relationship) and they walk back to the living room. On one of the couches, he has his Spidey suit laid out. But it’s freaky, like a skinned animal, with the innards of its tech exposed and skinny screwdrivers scattered on the floor nearby. He’s been tinkering. Because they have nothing else on the agenda, he explains the maintenance he’s done, more features he’s discovered. The list of protocols and capabilities seems almost endless. Watching him speak so enthusiastically, she wonders if maybe this is Peter’s version of holing up with a tall stack of books.

“No tracker in the suit?” she asks when they sit down at opposite ends of the remaining couch, legs stretched out and resting against each other.

“Nah. All that stuff’s turned off.” He lays his arm along the back of the couch and tips his cheek against it. “Where do your parents think you are right now?”

“At Betty’s.”

Her family knows she pines for Peter, but they don’t know she’s been granted this opportunity to see him. She doesn’t know what they’d say. Like the majority of New Yorkers, they like Spider-Man and don’t believe that he murdered Quentin Beck. That doesn’t mean they’d want her as involved as she is—though involved feels like a strong word when she hasn’t seen him since the day he was exposed and had to ride the first leg of this journey with a blindfold on. Seemed pretty antiquated. Her parents just want her to be safe, like how May wants Peter to be safe. MJ recalls the condoms. Ok, not quite the same.

“They think we’re in some kind of study lockdown, prepping for a decathlon thing in January, phones off,” she continues. “Betty doesn’t know I’m here, but Ned told her enough that she’ll lie for me if my parents call her. I’m thinking of promoting her.”

“How’s the team doing this year?”

MJ studies him. I spend every practice thinking about you even more than Flash talks about you, she thinks. I went home and cried the day Mr. Harrington told me I’d have to fill your spot. Nobody’s as smart as you. I’m bored without you. Sometimes I worry that I’m not a good captain and I just want to talk to you because I know it’d make me feel better, but you’re not there.

She pokes her toes into his thigh.

“Decent,” she says. “Flash wanted our name changed to the Midtown Spider-Men, but Mr. Harrington said no.”

When Peter groans and tucks his face into his arm in embarrassment, MJ does what she’s been too shy to do yet: she moves down to his end of the couch and kisses him as he turns his head to look at her. He holds her securely around the waist as she darts back in for a second kiss, a slower one. There’s no one around to spy, no one to interrupt. Everything in her zings upward like a hurled snowball and the kiss gains momentum. It’s not as hasty as the one on the flight home—it’s deeper, more grownup somehow. The prick of his facial hair enhances that adultness. For her, this is a kiss that says she’s been surviving without him, but now that they’re together, she prefers catching up this way rather than with words. They kiss like they can’t be stopped. MJ cups the back of Peter’s head, then his face, as their mouths nudge and coax, their tongues tracing each other’s lips before retreating. They separate to breathe and she presses her face to his neck, letting him hold her as she sits, still twisted with her feet on the floor, wearing his slippers.

“That’s one of the toughest things to do without,” he tells her. “I forgot it felt that good.”

“Too good,” she says wryly, lifting her head.

“Hey, based on what you were saying about my psychological needs, I’m due something ‘too good.’”

Really, it just isn’t possible not to think about the condoms as she smiles at him and chews the inside of her lip. Having sex with Peter is something she’s contemplated. She contemplated it when she watched him play trombone with the marching band during football games, and when he smiled as he walked down the hall at school with Ned. She contemplated it when she silently observed his late entrances to decathlon practices, and when she muffled her moans in bed at night, fantasizing about him. They kissed in London and sleeping together went from a daydream to an inevitability; they separated in New York and it went back to a dream. But now…

She’s only here for one night though. It’s too soon. When MJ kisses Peter, she knows she wants to keep going, but she doesn’t want to do anything impulsive and hurt them both more when she has to leave tomorrow. They need to think about this together. She should probably tell him about the condoms, so they have all their metaphorical cards on the table. And yet, she’s not able to jump from a single reunion kiss to asking if he wants to have sex on one of her future visits (if there are future visits). It’s not organic. It feels like working out their romantic plans on somebody else’s schedule. That makes her feel gross, cheated even.

MJ sags back from Peter and asks him to give her a tour of the rest of the house.

—

She’s rubbing the skin off an onion when, pausing in the grating of a potato, he turns to her and suggests something that proves he has gone a little screwy living alone: he wants to cook the latkes in the fireplace.

“You have a stove,” she points out.

“Yeah,” he agrees, now grating vigorously.

“We cook these in oil, right? You want to put a pan full of oil on an open flame?”

“We don’t fill the pan to the top or anything.”

“Ok, right, but still,” MJ persists. “Oil. Fire. A house you kinda need to stay standing because, one, it’s your secret hideout, and two, the sun’s gone down and it’s freezing outside and we’ll be cold without shelter.”

“How could we be cold if we had a burning house to stand next to? Kidding.” Peter grins at her. “It’ll work, MJ. I’ll be careful.”

“You will? No way am I letting you do this alone.”

“Aww.” He leans towards her and kisses her cheek.

“I didn’t say that to be romantic. I’m genuinely worried that you’ll set the place on fire.”

“I know.”

They continue preparing the batter and, after pouring oil into the heavy pan May packed for this, MJ warily hands it off to Peter. He carries it into the living room, where he lit a fire half an hour earlier. Setting the pan down away from the fire, he retrieves his nanotech suit and tugs his sweatshirt off to put it on, extoling its temperature-control virtues. He’s sure it can withstand a little heat. After all, it handled the cold of space no problem. MJ watches him nervously.

At least the fire’s died down some, so when he grasps the handle of the pan to hold the base over the heat, there aren’t any flames licking up his arm. Once the oil’s sizzling, Peter withdraws the pan so that MJ won’t have to reach into the firebox to distribute the batter. She spreads each glob out quickly to avoid melting the spatula. And, after standing way back because the oil pops from the pan to splatter Peter’s metal sleeve, it doesn’t go terribly. Though some of the latkes seem overcooked to her, he assures her he likes them better crispy. The way he says it has her touching the lump her black dahlia necklace makes beneath her sweater.

They return their latke paraphernalia to the kitchen, then settle on the couch again to eat.

“Good?” MJ asks. She likes them, but she’s never eaten a potato pancake before, so she has no frame of reference.

“Best ever.”

She smiles at Peter, watching him chew for a minute.

“You’ll miss this house’s fireplace when you’re back home.”

“This is my favourite meal in a long time and it has nothing to do with the fireplace,” he says. Her heart genuinely skips a beat. With quiet pleasure, she goes back to eating.

At home, she has her phone and her books and the TV—so many reasons to postpone loading the dishwasher. Here, there is no dishwasher and MJ realizes it’s really nice to dry while Peter washes the dishes by hand. Until he somehow cuts himself on the grater, bleeds in the water, and they have to leave the remaining dishes in the sink for a rewash while she forces Peter to the paltry selection of first aid equipment in the bathroom. Thankfully, the nick in his finger is small enough to cover with a single band-aid. She glares at him the whole time.

“I don’t even need this!” he says. “It’ll be healed up by the time I go to bed.”

“Keeping it clean until then won’t hurt you. Just take care of yourself, please?”

MJ isn’t aware that she’s pleading until she glances from his bandaged finger to his face and takes in his expression. He’s looking at her like he’s starting to get that she cares. Really cares. Cares more than it would take to come all the way out here just because someone else arranged it for her and provided the ride.

“Ok,” Peter gently agrees.

Without the usual evening distractions of a night at home (and after MJ refuses to construct a Lego Star Destroyer, whatever the hell that is), Peter pulls out the checkers he found on day two of his stay. Apparently, he was stir-crazy enough by then to raid ever nook and cranny of the house in search of entertainment for his overactive mind. They sprawl out in front of the fire. Neither of them know the rules, so he stacks his checkers into towers while she lays down patterns and skips them across the board. That devolves into deciding to create a single high stack, which devolves further into attempting to flip the checkers of the collapsed tower into the air with their thumbs, like tossing a coin. Peter flicks one as MJ’s leaning forward and it drops straight down the front of her sweater. He makes an offhanded joke about retrieving it and they laugh until their eyes meet and they remember that they’re alone, that it doesn’t have to be a joke. They scatter the last of the checkers scrambling to get close to one another.

She kisses him fiercely. The fire makes one side of her body hot, one of her eyelids glow orange before her closed eyes. Every time they do this is one time closer to having to let him go, but MJ isn’t interested in that right now. His neck is warm under her palm and her foot slips on the empty checkerboard when his fingers hook behind her knee to draw her leg towards him. They aren’t in each other’s laps yet, but it’s close. She’s getting used to the scratch of his scruff against her cheeks, chin, and upper lip. Can Peter feel her sweating when he slips a hand up the back of her sweater? Is his shiver as she moves her leg over his more than a sign that he wants to scoot closer to the fire? Pulling back from the kiss, she lets him strip her sweater off. The checker plonks out. He smiles as he spots the pendant hanging against her t-shirt. He groans more than he did cutting his finger as she takes his hand and places it on her ribcage, urging him with her eyes to reposition his palm where they both want it to be. MJ watches him swallow. Looking down, she sees firelight rippling in the flower’s black glass and Peter’s hand rising to cup her breast. She leans into it and grabs the back of his neck for another kiss.

As she’s psyching herself up to straddle her boyfriend’s lap, there’s a trill from nearby.

“What was that? I thought you didn’t have a phone.”

MJ releases Peter and—it’s not her fault—her gaze skims down his body as he stands. There’s a noticeable bulge in the front of his sweatpants.

“It’s an alert,” he says, tone so serious that she feels bad for staring at his erection. She only sneaks one more glance as he unearths a tablet from amongst the tools he’s been using to fiddle with his Spider-Man suit. Two glances.

“What happened?” she asks. “Are you in danger?”

“I’d protect you if there was any danger,” Peter promises, not looking away from the screen. He says it like it’s obvious, but the statement floors MJ, preventing her from quipping back about being able to protect herself. “But it’s not that. Just the weather.”

He tilts the screen in offer and she rises to stand next to him, looking at a swirling graphic.

“Snow?”

“Mhmm.”

“But it’s already snowed,” she says. “This is worth sending you an alert about? How do we set this thing to ‘do not disturb unless someone has a missile locked onto this house’?”

“Jesus, MJ.”

She shrugs.

“Or just a shifty-looking mail carrier driving by. Whatever. I don’t want to be narrowminded in my assumption of the appearance of a modern assassin.”

“Sometimes the people looking out for me go overboard about the wrong things,” he allows. “Looks like the snow isn’t coming until around three in the morning. We’ll be asleep. It won’t bother us.”

“It’ll bother me if I have to hear that sound again for no good reason.”

Peter tosses the tablet back onto the couch.

“I’m supposed to keep it on, but we can ignore it.”

“Yes,” she agrees, the heat of the fire around the level of her knees inspiring new heat to rise higher. “Let’s ignore it.”

“We can just get ready for bed. You’re probably tired from the drive today, right?”

And he’s looking at her so honestly, so innocently, that MJ finds herself nodding at his solicitousness. He’s too busy being kind to appreciate that she wants to stay right here by the fire and rub up against him until she sees stars. But maybe he doesn’t think they’re there yet. The timeline of their relationship is slightly fucked up, what with Peter having to flee the city as a fugitive. Have they been together the past six months or is this their second date? Maybe shyly holding hands is still their speed and MJ is majorly jumping the gun in wanting to pull his pants down and get a better look at what she started by putting Peter’s hand on her boob.

So, he puts the fire out and she brushes her teeth, then changes into her pajamas in the second bedroom. The house has central heating, meaning it’s still warm, but the walls and bedspread are bland, there’s no atmosphere without the hearth. MJ realizes she’s kept Peter’s slippers all day when she sits down on the edge of her mattress with a sigh and kicks her feet free. He’s right, she should be tired. The travel and the overwhelming joy of getting to see, hear, and touch him should make it easy to crawl into bed and let the sound of the wind—it’s picking up, carrying snowflakes—lull her to sleep.

MJ doesn’t even get the blanket folded down before she’s up, opening her door and crossing the hall to Peter’s room. Her hand hovers over the doorknob, then raises, ready to rap on the door instead. No, fuck it, she twists the doorknob and steps into his bedroom. Peter’s lying on his back in the dark with his eyes wide open. She leaves the door open behind her so the light he left on in the bathroom (in case she needed to get up during the night) can continue to show her the look on his face. The look of relief.

“I was gonna come to you, but I wasn’t sure…” He trails off.

“That would’ve been ok with me,” she assures him, holding her arms as the chill of standing around in a t-shirt starts to get to her, “but I don’t mind coming to you.”

“Come to me then,” Peter says, pushing back his bedsheets and shifting over.

“I missed you so much,” she gasps.

“I missed you.”

She strides to the bed and feels his arms tug her close even as she’s still drawing the blanket over herself. Peter hugs her hard and it’s ok that it’s horizontal because he’s also held onto her a hundred feet in the air, the two of them swinging between buildings. Any way he wants to hold her is ok.

What MJ thought, when she barged in here, was that they’d have some dramatic, fiery scene with passionate kissing and creaking bedsprings. She regrets undervaluing Peter’s warmth. As a person, but also physically. Cuddling into him beats slipping between cold sheets in the other bedroom. It’s nice to be wrapped around him in a moment that isn’t immediately following an attempt on his life, knowing that he isn’t going to leave her this time. Though she’s the one who’ll have to leave the next day, trusting Peter to stay put while she sleeps is what gets her to start drifting. This is better than having him as a captive napping buddy on the airplane. No motion sickness. They’ve already landed. He kisses her temple and she ducks her head into his chest, imagining she can count his heartbeats instead of sheep, knowing the steady glug of her own heart means more to him than he could tell her in words alone.

—

This morning is not last night.

The first thing MJ does is raise her head to squint at the time on the digital clock next to Peter’s bed. The second thing is pressing her mouth to his as he mumbles a sleepy, “Good morning.” It’s 6am, a disgusting hour at home, but here, a perfect time to start the day, and seize that day, as she is seizing a fistful of the t-shirt he slept in. She can feel him smiling. She can feel him reacting in lots of ways.

When she doesn’t slow the kisses, loosen her grip on the front of his shirt, or draw back entirely in embarrassment, Peter pulls her beneath him. It’s a lazy motion, like a cat swiping at something with a paw. His weight rests comfortably on top of her. Shifting around rucks her t-shirt up, so she drops a hand to his waist and slides his up too, until their skin meets from their ribs to the bands of their pajama bottoms. Her boyfriend groans and gropes for her thigh, hiking it against his hip. The noise and the blatant display of want (in addition to the erection now pressing directly between her legs) have MJ rubbing against him excitedly. She attempts to simultaneously kiss him harder and get his shirt off over his head. They struggle together, laughing, and once it’s gone, Peter drops back onto her with fervour.

His hands grip her hips, skim her waist, get tangled up in her hair. MJ catches one and guides it beneath her t-shirt. Their gazes lock and he seems to buck against her involuntarily, lightly squeezing her breast. With an airy moan from her, their kisses turn rabid. Their hips rock agonizingly out of sync for a minute—maybe less, maybe more, her mind isn’t on the clock anymore—then his erection strokes firmly up the center of her and they figure it out. They have to. She’s suddenly hellbent on feeling that again and, honestly, Peter doesn’t look any less devoted when their kisses are forced to stop thanks to the violence of their clothed grinding.

She comes first, clutching his back and his shoulder. He comes with a sharp flick of his hips that brings to mind the way he looses a web from his wrist. Kinda the same principle, she concludes, feeling the dampness of his pajamas against her abdomen before he flops to the side with a blissful, disbelieving sigh. MJ stretches out her legs and curls her toes. A grin creeps up her face.

“Good morning,” she replies.

Peter lets out a solo laugh.

Then he just says, “Wow.”

Still smiling, she buries her face in his pillow and lets him move around her as he gets up for the day.

“It’s early,” she says, lifting her head at the creak of him pushing the bedroom door wider.

“I know.” He stares at her adoringly. There’s no other word for it. “Being in bed with you is… too good. If I stay, I’ll go back to sleep, and I don’t want that. I want to see you as much as I can before you go.”

MJ’s smile fades. Right. That.

“And you’re walking out of the room,” she points out.

“Because I have to take a shower,” Peter laughs. “A short shower. Then you can shower, or not shower, and we’ll have breakfast and make the morning last as long as we can, ok?”

Can she just make him tuck himself into the box of kitchen stuff she brought and take him back home with her? Being apart from him again—willingly turning her back on this house and making new tracks in the snow—feels impossible. They aren’t supposed to be apart. But MJ nods, knowing it’s easier on them both that way. She watches him head towards the bathroom and reminds herself that this stay with him has already meant more to her than she anticipated.

She’s in her room gathering toiletries and clothes when she hears Peter shut the shower off. That’s on purpose. She doesn’t need to wonder any more about her lack of restraint today; seeing him walk back into his bedroom soaking wet and likely dressed in nothing but a towel would definitely test her. His presence in her thoughts as she shampoos her hair under the low pressure of the showerhead is sufficiently distracting. She braids her hair when she’s done, simply to focus herself with the task (and because she didn’t bring a hairdryer and accepts that her boyfriend’s probably not hiding one here someplace). Pausing at the door, she takes a deep breath, determined to look him in the eye and not just stare at the floor and blush because he’s touched her skin and brought her to orgasm. She smiles to herself in a moment of private congratulation.

Peter would probably hear her approaching footfalls no matter what, but with his too-big slippers flapping on her feet, MJ’s prepared for him to be looking at her when she makes her entrance into the kitchen. She’s not prepared for the box of Cheerios sitting on his table. Shit. Only now does she remember the condoms and where she stowed them. As she looks on, trying to think of what to say, Peter cheerfully pours himself a bowl and adds milk.

“Two things,” he says while she shuffles cautiously into the room. “First thing: you won’t believe what I found in with the cereal. Talk about a prize in every box.”

“Loser,” she mutters, rolling her eyes even as her cheeks flush.

“Super weird that that’s not the biggest thing I have to tell you, but I definitely want to get back to it, but, second thing, it snowed.”

She narrows her eyes.

“Uh, yeah, I remember.”

“Ok, well, it really snowed. Serious snow. Big, high, white and drifted snow.”

“You’ve slipped into song lyrics.”

“I got an alert,” Peter says, lifting the tablet he showed her the night before from the table.

“I didn’t hear anything.”

“It came through when you were in the shower, though it is harder to hear the noise from down the hall.”

MJ gives him a questioning look.

“I might’ve been on my way to the bathroom to, uh, see if you needed anything,” he explains, blushing guiltily, “when I heard it and had to come back out here.”

“Is this your handlers overreacting again?” But even as she asks, she turns towards the window. Of course, for security reasons, the blinds are down and the curtains are shut. “Can I look?”

He nods and she crosses the kitchen to take a quick peek, not wanting to jeopardize his safety. The level of the snow dips down near the side of the house, but the drift rises steeply. Within a few feet, it appears high enough to come up to her hips if she waded outside. And it’s still falling.

“There’s a lot of snow out there,” MJ informs him in a mildly panicked tone, snapping the curtains back into place.

“Mhmm. Cheerios?”

“You should be eating the eggs I brought you while they’re fresh,” she counters.

Her comment is half-hearted and distracted though and she too goes for the cereal. Between spoonfuls, Peter, across from her when she sits down at the table, unspools the consequences of the heavy snowfall.

“So, obviously, this isn’t an emergency, but it’s not ideal. You’re probably gonna have to stay another night.”

“Ok,” MJ says slowly. “Another night. But my parents are expecting me home tonight.”

“I’m sure Fury or somebody’ll get in touch with May and have her make something up. Trust me, nobody wants any questions to come up that’ll lead back to me.”

“What’s the ‘probably’ depend on?”

“Hmm?” He slurps the milk off his spoon.

“You say I’d probably have to stay tonight. Does that depend on how much more snow we get?”

“Um, yeah, that and a couple other things,” Peter says vaguely. MJ frowns at him.

“I came all the way out here to be with you, Parker. I could not be more in the middle of things than I am right now. Tell me what you know.”

“You’re right, you’re right.” He lets his spoon clink into his bowl. “So, the snow for sure. I mean, I’m guessing they have something heavy-duty that could plough the road if they had to, but getting a plough here would be conspicuous thing number one and having this rural road cleared when the rest of the area won’t be would be conspicuous thing number two. If you left that way, I’d have to leave too, get put in a new safehouse—”

“I don’t want to cause that big of a problem,” MJ assures him, finally pouring out her own bowl and trying to find some comfort in breakfast.

“You’re the furthest thing in the world from a problem,” Peter says with a quick smile. “But alright, so, with the alert, they suggested another option.”

“Which is?”

“To airlift you out.”

She bites down on her spoon as her jaw tenses.

“I don’t, um, really enjoy heights.”

“Yeah,” he laughs, “I remember.”

“You dropped me and it wasn’t funny.”

“Aw, that was months ago. Can’t we laugh about it now?” Her expression is his answer. “I actually did figure you’d feel that way. This would’ve been a helicopter, no landing, just somebody coming down a ladder to grab you and help you up into the chopper.”

“Don’t say ‘chopper’ like you’re Arnold Schwarzenegger. You’re way too much of a dork to be using that word. And yes, before you ask, I am criticizing you to mask my fear over how horrifying that sounds.”

“I told them no.”

“Wait… I thought… you didn’t have communication, right? Like, that’s why you can’t talk to your aunt.” Or me, MJ tacks on internally.

“Oh, it’s not a conversation. They just send through the planned course of action and usually I don’t have a choice, but this time I could basically give them a yes or no, proceed or no-go, you know?”

She sighs shakily.

“Thank you for not making me do that.”

“Well, based on the weather, they could ask again, so you always have a chance to change your mind, if you want.”

Peter’s not meeting her eye.

“Why the hell would I change my mind about dangling from a helicopter in a blizzard?”

“If you wanted to go,” he says quietly. “You’re the other thing this plan depends on. Like you said, your parents are expecting you and—”

“Peter,” MJ says, “the fact that I’m not being subjected to an extreme chopper rescue is only the thing that I’m second most grateful for. Getting to spend more time with you is number one. If they don’t have to draw attention to this house, and if your aunt covers for me, that’s great.”

Looking up, he gives her a mostly-convinced smile. Seeing it, she knows she has to press further. She taps her slipper against the top of his foot under the table.

“I hope it snows for a week,” she says firmly.

Peter beams. He lifts his cereal bowl and holds it out to her.

“Cheers,” he offers. After a derisive snort, she taps her bowl against his.

They eat in a comfortable silence for several minutes. Blocking out the death-defying premise of the recent plan, MJ considers the ramifications of staying put. She trusts May. May will know what to say to her parents, she’s very compassionate—and hopefully a believable liar. Well, MJ figures she’d have to be, with Spider-Man under her roof. School’s on winter break, so she doesn’t need to worry about an alibi for her teachers, though the flu would’ve worked as an excuse. It seems like she’s good from every angle. Resting her cheek against her hand as she scoops the remaining Cheerios onto her spoon, she observes Peter and feels herself smiling just to see him in front of her. His face in real life is still sorta miraculous.

“So,” he begins when she grabs his bowl (the guy’s been doing his solitary dishes for months—she doesn’t mind helping out), “I have a really important question.”

“Still a no to the helicopter.”

MJ has her back to her boyfriend, placing the bowls in the sink, when he responds.

“Should I shave?”

She turns, frowning in confusion.

“That’s up to you.”

“Well, see, maybe I would’ve this morning, except I promised I would be quick in the bathroom, and then anyway, I figured you’d be leaving soon and there wouldn’t be that many more opportunities for us to—”

“Oh my god,” she says as she catches on. “Please stop.”

“But if it bothers you,” Peter presses, rubbing the back of his fingers up his stubbled cheek, “when we’re kissing…”

“It doesn’t. It’s different, but… I’m good. You don’t have to shave for me.”

“Hypothetically though, if we were kissing for a longer period of time, I wouldn’t want to hurt your skin.”

“God, Peter, how long are you imagining we’d be kissing for that my face would be damagingly abraded?”

“Then,” he says, spreading his hands to their apparent future possibilities, “what if it wasn’t rubbing against your face?”

Spinning away from him, MJ stares with wide eyes at the wall above the sink.

“Does the idea of me kissing your neck freak you out?” Peter asks her back. “I don’t have to do that.”

Her shoulders slump as she laughs.

“My neck,” she murmurs to herself. “He meant my neck.”

“What do you— oh.” Goddamn enhanced hearing. “Uh, well, I-I didn’t know you had stuff in mind.”

“I don’t have anything in mind,” she says, turning to look at him.

Peter grabs the Cheerios and gets up to put them away. Holding her gaze, he pulls the box of condoms out of the drawer as he slots the cereal in.

“These showed up when you did. Unless some assassin broke in and left me a really sickening present.”

“I didn’t pack them, your aunt-slash-wingwoman did.”

His expression changes several times as he digests that.

“That seems like something May would do,” is what he lands on.

“It’s… thoughtful of her. Responsible parenting,” MJ agrees stiffly, trying to deal with the visual of Peter casually holding a box of condoms. Cool. Fine.

“So, the thought of… It’s just May making sure, in case anything… Yeah. I got it.”

But that’s not quite right.

“I’ve thought about it,” MJ blurts. “Not for this weekend, because I only expected to be here a night and this is something we should, you know, discuss.”

“Totally,” Peter says eagerly.

“I just don’t want you to think I haven’t…” She waves a hand.

“Thought about it,” he finishes.

“Yeah.”

“Me too. I’ve thought about it. Like, a lot,” he divulges with a relieved laugh that he quickly concludes with a clearing of his throat. “A normal amount.”

“That’s good,” she assures him. Her gestures feel gawky, her features feel misplaced on her face.

“I’d definitely be up for discussing it, especially after, uh…” Peter ruffles his damp hair as his face flushes. “…this morning.”

MJ’s suddenly made up of thoughts, so many thoughts that there’s no room for words, no possibility of speaking. This morning. Uh huh. Valid recollection on her boyfriend’s part. This morning was fantastic and kind of but not wildly unexpected and certainly closer to the sort of thing they’d need those condoms for than the few times they’ve made out have been.

“That makes sense,” she says, voice weak when it finally comes out, along with plenty of nodding. Too much nodding, really.

He sets the box on the counter.

“We could talk about it now.”

“We could do that,” MJ agrees, pulse accelerating with every additional second he spends looking at her. “The thing is, it’s early, it’s really early, and if we talk about that now, we’re gonna lose the whole day.”

Peter’s eyebrows raise.

“God, yeah, you’re right. You know, I think I’m, like, oversimplifying this discussion in my head because, yep, definitely, if you have a lot you want to say about it before—or if, even!—we, uh, proceed, then you should absolutely take the whole day to just get all your thoughts out there. For sure. I… yes. I support you and you should take all the time you need. More than a day! You could definitely take more than a day, obviously. You know that. I hope you do. Whatever you want, MJ.”

“I actually just meant that if we started talking about it, we’d lose the whole day to doing it.”

“Oh.” He sits with that thought for a minute, eyes roving the kitchen ceiling. “Why would that be a problem?”

He asks with such genuine confusion that MJ has to laugh, and that relaxes her.

“If we can’t think hard enough to determine why it’d be a problem, it’s a problem,” she reasons. “I want to think this through. I want us to both be ready. That alone—” She points at the condoms. “—doesn’t make us ready.”

“Ok. We’ll completely forget about them. No problem.”

Fueled by the intense focusing power of sexual tension, they pass the morning learning something that may actually be checkers as it was intended to be played. Anything around them making sense is an accident, as far as MJ is concerned, and mastering the probably-rules of the game isn’t really a win because it means they have to scramble to find something else to distract them. Peter takes up a post on the ceiling, cross-legged, and lets the body of his Spider-Man suit dangle down while he retools something in the hands. When he puts on the mask and starts talking to Karen, MJ quits watching him and goes into the kitchen to make them an early lunch of an extra-large omelette. It seems like a nice idea to curl up and eat together until Peter touches her hip a certain way and she looks at him too long. They force themselves to sit on separate couches.

After lunch, he digs out some non-Stark-tech supplies, like paper and pens. He lights a small fire and she draws. Once he starts paying more attention to her drawings than to his stuff, she draws for him, pulling her legs back so he can share her couch. She crafts caricatures of their friends, plays them across the page in short cartoons that are semi-faithful to the boring goings-on of their lives at Midtown this fall without Peter. He falls asleep with his head resting against the back of the couch and she executes swift sketches to capture the softness of his features. She doesn’t know how long his supine pose will last. She never knows how long anything will last, with him. He stays asleep, so MJ leaves her drawings and steals into the Lego room, disassembling at will. Peter’s a little panicked when he walks in half an hour later, but sorting the pieces she’s jumbled will give him something to do while she takes her own nap, she reasons.

But where to? The spare room doesn’t call to her in the slightest and returning to his bed will bring thoughts that’ll only keep her awake. She needs to revive after their too-early morning; she troops back to the couch and passes out with the warmth of the fire near her feet and the jangling of plastic Lego bricks in the other room.

The rustle of paper is the first thing MJ hears when she wakes up. She can’t remember dreaming last night, but during her nap, her subconscious played a short film of the two of them giggling as Peter cooked his Spidey suit in the fireplace. Weird. She blinks, tracing the sound to her boyfriend, cross-legged on the floor with his back against the couch as he flips through her rough portraits of him.

“Maybe you can do one of you,” he suggests without looking back at her. “And I can keep it when you leave. I don’t have any pictures of anybody.”

She hesitates a moment, then leans to wrap her arms loosely around his shoulders from behind.

“How’d you know I was awake?”

“I heard your breathing change.” A pause. “It sounds pretty creepy when I say it out loud, but I’m just doing what you do.” Peter twists to look at her, putting his hand over the back of hers on his chest. “Observing.”

“Right.” MJ glances down abruptly. “Like with the cereal drawer this morning and what you observed in there.”

“I hate to tell you this, but it sounds like you’re gonna talk about the thing you said we shouldn’t talk about.”

“I found clarity in unconsciousness.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means our problems don’t just disappear. Obviously.” She waves one hand in front of him, indicating the room where Peter’s presumably spent most of his waking hours since arriving here. “We have to solve them.”

“Is it… us having sex… a problem?”

“I don’t want it to be. I just want us to be, you know, in agreement. Not rushing into anything.”

“I think…” Peter sighs and shifts so he can look at her without contorting. She withdraws her arms from him and sits up, crossing her legs in her lap, planting her elbows on her knees. “I think we’re not gonna get everything we want. How can we, with these conditions? I don’t even know when I’m gonna get to see you again. We can wait, which is alright with me, but I can’t tell you how long we’ll be waiting for.”

“I’m not asking.”

“Because you know I have zero control here,” he says in a tone full of more irritation than she’s seen him display yet. “I don’t even choose what I eat for breakfast! It’s not like they’ve asked me to write up a grocery list. I am so sick of Cheerios. Out there, I was helping people, but stuck here… I don’t know, MJ. I’m basically powerle—”

She folds forward and kisses him, grabbing his face to hold him in place for a few extra seconds until his lips copy hers and quit trying to form the rest of that word.

“No,” MJ insists, face still close to his, “you’re not. And just so you know where I stand…” She takes a deep, terrified breath, pushing out the only truth she’s ever had trouble articulating: “…you are everything I want.”

Peter’s eyes are awed and hopeful as his gaze darts across her face.

“What about what you said about not rushing?”

“That was for your benefit. Personally, I can’t rush what I’ve already decided.”

“Especially not when May sends you here prepared, I guess,” he checks with a coy smile.

“We don’t have to do anything else,” MJ emphasizes, sidestepping the dork’s comment. “It’s amazing just being with you—and I will deny I said that so bluntly if you ever tell anyone.”

She smiles so he knows she’s teasing. He still jerks his head back in mock offense. Suddenly, his expression clarifies to… horror.

“You don’t wanna do this because you’re worried, do you?” Peter demands. “Not because you think I’m gonna forget about you or stop caring about you like this?”

“No.” But she averts her eyes because she did have that concern on the drive here yesterday, right up until they hugged. “I’m not trying to use sex for anything. If… if you did stop… and you wanted to be just friends again, that’s not something I could prevent. I realize now that I can’t focus on that possibility because—”

“Because it’s not a possibility at all.” He ducks his head until her gaze is trapped by his. Shaking his head, Peter says, “I’m sure about you, MJ. I’m not sure when I’ll be home or if the world—or even just the neighbourhood—will still want a Spider-Man by the time I can be that guy again, but I know the first thing I’m gonna wanna do when I get back is give you a kiss. Not as friends.”

“What about now? Do you want to kiss me now?”

“I always wanna kiss you.”

Right as he stretches towards her—seemingly poised to prove what he said—MJ jerks back. Peter looks up at her quizzically.

“Anything while I was asleep? Any alerts? I don’t want a whole team to come storming in here while I’m taking your pants off.”

It takes her boyfriend a few seconds to get his words out.

“I-I don’t want that either,” he says, voicing cracking as his cheeks redden. He shakes his head. “No alerts. Nothing. That means no change to the plan for you to stay here tonight.”

“Good. I was sorta getting used to the idea. They would’ve had a fight getting me out of here.”

She raises her chin confrontationally and Peter grins.

“And some people think Spider-Man’s trouble. They should meet his girlfriend, who marches in with a box of condoms and won’t leave until he sleeps with her.”

MJ gapes at him.

“That’s not what I did.”

Peter pushes up to his knees, smiling as he cradles her face in his palm.

“It’s basically what you did.”

“You massively oversimplified the events of the past—” She squints and makes a guess. “—thirty hours.”

“I was hitting the highlights,” he argues, sliding his hand to the back of her neck to draw her down to him.

Her laugh is as brief as one of her quick heartbeats as Peter’s fingers stroke her neck and he angles his head.

“Is that how you’re going to tell this story to our grandkids?”

The mirth falls from both of their faces; they absorb her facetious quip in the same instant. Then, their mouths slam together—MJ diving down, Peter surging up. Though she has the high ground (and doesn’t say as much to the guy with a roomful of Star Wars Lego), he builds momentum out of nowhere, driving her up until he’s hovering, then lowering, on top of her. She’s holding him as tightly as she can as they continue to kiss hard.

On instinct, she assumes, their bodies copy the morning’s posture with her thigh against Peter’s hip. He grasps it and presses his hips to hers. MJ swipes her tongue along his when she feels him hardening between her legs. This was always only a maybe, she thinks, eyes moving fast behind her lids as they follow the red glow of the fire that the movement of his head is causing to shift across her face. But this definitely feels like they know where they’re going. Somebody’ll need to go get the condoms from the kitchen at some point. Peter swings his head to kiss down her neck and MJ sighs. Yeah, at some point.

These clothes might not come off as easily as the red suit on the opposite couch, but his eagerness compensates for the fact that he can’t just tap his chest to drop everything to the floor. When both their top halves are bare (as with anything, Peter does not mind lending a hand in undressing her), he pulls MJ up so he’s sitting with her straddling his lap. He groans into her mouth as she traces the muscles of his abdomen and she hops forward to nudge her hips into his again.

“If I don’t go now,” he pants, “I don’t know when I’m gonna get up to grab a condom.”

So, he’s been thinking the same thing she has. MJ smirks.

“You should probably get one,” she encourages.

But he has her jeans undone and her hand down the front of his sweats—still over his underwear, for the moment—before he manages to repeat his words with any resolve. She throws herself aside and stares into the fire, licking her lips to chase the memory of his mouth’s pressure, while he scurries to the kitchen. His naked torso is beautiful in the glow when he jogs (dork) back in.

“You think it’s safe to leave that?” MJ asks, nodding towards the fireplace. “My preference would be not doing this on a couch the first time.”

“Second time?” he jokes.

“Maybe,” she says seriously, just to see the dumbfounded look it puts on his face.

“Yeah… we can, yeah… It’ll be fine. So, you wanna… my bed?”

“The traditional yet practical choice.”

He happily sighs out his, “Yeah,” and she wonders if he heard anything following her agreement to a theoretical second round. Probably not—he spoke staring at her boobs.

“What if I carried you?” Peter blurts as she’s about to stand.

“…I can walk.”

“Yeah, but… can I carry you?”

She watches him for a moment as he awaits her answer. She’s watched him so many times, but never while he was waiting for her, trying to find something to grasp in the silence, this guy who’s more than human and always flitting from one web to the next. MJ ends his freefall.

“Ok, Peter.”

As giddy with nerves as she was on their first date when he held her tight and wrenched her off her feet, she stands. He steps in close, taking her face softly between his hands, kissing her. She hops into his arms the second he lets go and laughs at Peter and herself when the action tips him back. He holds on though, pulling her thighs in snugly around his waist before catching her back to press her to his chest. MJ’s scared to kiss him as he walks them to his bedroom; arms wrapped behind his neck, she stares at him instead. They’re about to do this. He’s going to be inside her.

“You got it?” she checks once he’s sat her on the edge of the bed.

Peter plucks the condom from his pocket to show her. MJ nods in acknowledgement and he sets it on the nightstand. With a condom nearby—this assurance that they are responsible people and can therefore do whatever the fuck they like—she reaches for his hand and draws him in. Kissing, she scoots back and he crawls over her. She gasps when he moves his mouth enthusiastically to her neck and he jerks his head up with a self-satisfied expression.

“The sheets are cold,” she lies defensively. Peter just smiles and burrows his face back into the warm crook between her neck and shoulder.

“They’ll get warmer.”

MJ can’t believe it when she’s the one being stripped out of her pants first (her boyfriend is such a willing undresser). She feels vulnerable, between the sheets in only her underwear, but she’s determined enough to relocate Peter’s hand from her waist to her breast. He thanks her in a passionate mumble that raises hairs on the back of her neck as he darts in to kiss her firmly. Parting her thighs, she thanks him in return, for the kiss or the way he’s kneading her nipple between finger and thumb or something, relieved when he lowers his hips and she can feel his erection under his sweats. Fuck, a week ago, she was trying to convince herself that she’d be lucky and get Peter back next year. This is the greatest surprise.

Though she doubts she could knock the wind out of him, he huffs when she squeezes her thighs to his hips and unbalances him, rolling him over and landing on top.

“Wow, you wanna do it like this? I mean, yeah, awesome.”

Sitting astride him, MJ rolls her eyes.

“I just thought it’d be easier to get you out of your pants this way, since you seem like you’ve forgotten that you need to actually take them off.”

Peter shakes his head rapidly.

“I just didn’t want to rush you, like you said. Or freak you out or scare you,” he rambles.

This idiot.

“Why would I be scared? Are you concealing a weapon or something?”

“No,” he jokes with a goofy smile, pressing his hips upward, “I’m just happy to see you.”

“You so did not deserve those condoms.”

“Didn’t I?” Peter asks, the two of them working his sweatpants and boxers down. (She’s touching his thighs. His bare thighs. Jesus.)

“No. Huge mistake. You’re not mature enough for this. I’m going to tell your aunt.”

As long as MJ keeps talking, dropping onto her side and slipping her own underwear off is just a background thing that’s happening while she speaks. Her heart is hammering.

“Oh, are you?” he questions, running a warm, tentative hand down the curve of her naked hip.

“Mhmm. She’ll be really disappointed in you for, uh, wasting supplies.”

“Maybe I could make it up to you and you could forgive me.”

Peter’s fingers trace low over her belly, making her stomach flinch with the anticipation. He touches between her legs, the contact the subtlest flirtation. The look in his eyes says he doesn’t know what he’s doing either, but that he wants to do it together. Holding his stare, she rolls onto her back.

He proceeds when she widens the space between her thighs. His touch feels… fine, but not exciting, and MJ wonders if it’s because she’s watching him, possibly making him nervous. She closes her eyes and instinctually angles her head to press her forehead against Peter’s shoulder. Gradually, he strokes her with more assurance and she quietly mutters “yes” each time he does something that feels good. By the time he’s gotten her seriously wet and turned on, she’s gripping the sheet with one hand and his wrist with the other, urging him to go faster. Her body’s not satisfied but humming as Peter jolts recklessly across her to snatch the condom. He kisses her right as she’s opening her eyes at the disturbance.

“Yeah?” he asks, dick in hand.

She nods, breathing quickly and needing him to act before the sensations he’s stirred up dim.

“Yeah.”

It’s out of character, how slowly he moves next. He’s capable of care in abundance, of course, but patience? Caution? Restraint? None of these are words that would come to mind if someone asked her to describe her boyfriend. They cling to each other as he works his way deeper in incremental thrusts. Because he’s trembling, she holds him tight. She probably would regardless. Things almost stall, but then he gropes between them, locating her clit, and her clutch on him squeezes and releases, allowing him to suddenly slide all the way home.

“Fuck,” he says softly, head hunched down beside hers.

MJ rubs her hands over the quivering muscles of his back, certain the two of them are generating enough heat to melt the snow around the house and all the way up the road.

“I’m gonna come if I do anything,” Peter says in a desperate tone. “I can’t move.”

“You can move.”

“No. I… I wanna take care of you. MJ, please.”

Between them, she finds his hand and guides it in rubbing her clit. His body’s held taut above her and she turns her head to meet his searching eyes. Her neck arches involuntarily at her first unexpected moan and Peter clamps his eyes shut like it’s all too much. So she watches his tense, determined face while manipulating his fingers over her. When she’s close, coating his cock in her arousal many times over, MJ tells Peter to open his eyes. Then, she begins to rock her hips, letting him glide in and out. Their hands continue to stimulate her until she orgasms with a wet cry and pulls his fingers away. They hold hands hard and he thrusts with crazed strokes, coming with an understated choked noise.

He hasn’t quit shaking when he climbs off of her to deal with the condom.

“I don’t know,” Peter says, sliding back into bed and allowing her to weave her limbs around his. She smiles at how baffled he sounds.

“You’re ok.”

“This feels like shock, like I get after a bad beating.”

She sighs exasperatedly at this news. She might’ve suspected his secret identity for a while before he confirmed it, but she doesn’t know everything, isn’t in on all the missions and outcomes yet. When he gets home—after all this bullshit—she’ll demand to be kept in the loop.

“I guess you’re just overwhelmed.”

“That felt really fucking good,” Peter confesses in a low, stunned voice.

MJ starts to giggle and can’t stop. Tears stream down her face, into her hair, onto her boyfriend’s skin. He laughs too, but holds her greedily all the while. It reminds her how temporary this is.

Except, no. It’s not. No one can stop them from remembering this after she goes and he stays. No one can stop them from making plans, having hopes. Days are temporary, like snow, but feelings can last. How she feels about Peter definitely can. She’s made it this far and, on his end, so has he. On impulse, MJ kisses his forehead.

“I know what’ll help. Something to eat. We can see what else you have that can be cooked in the fireplace.”

“Frozen lasagna?” he proposes.

“Why not? Let’s try it.”

[sweetestlamb]

Stronger Part 4 (A New Day Has Come)

Summary: Mun-yeong spends some time with someone important and a gets a surprise.

Author's Note: Got an annoying comment on this story yesterday and it motivated me to write lol so thanks! Hope you guys like and comments, that motivate me even more 😉🥰 nothing like love to drive out hate! The story is coming to an end unfortunately, I'm thinking 2 more chapters maybe three. If I had time I would drag it out for 9 😂😂 but schools start Monday so there goes my life. Happy reading y'all.

Solitude gripes at her insanity, tearing her apart until she succumbs to the thoughts that plague her mind of her inadequacies and how insignificant she is to those around her.

Being around Sang-tae oppa fills a portion of the void in your chest but his presence only reminds her further of another that she's dreadfully missing, his messages overflow her phone now. Taking a swift turn from condescending to something sweeter and more pleading. It takes every ounce of restraint in her body not to open them, relying on the bits she can see in the previews. Fully turning a blind eye to him is beyond difficult for her, every atom of her being is calling out for him.

She has dragged herself from the car too many times, desperate to run to him and soothe his pain, eager to see what he wants to talk about, maybe just maybe he's ready to apologize and unclench the clamp he placed on her heart that day on the beach.

But.

What if he isn't? What if he wants to share more of his past with her in the hopes that she'll overlook all that came before. In the past that might have been the case, she had been ever forgiving, something that only he was privy to. But his words ring in her ears- one time event, get lost- invading her dreams and taking the place of her mother's floating figure terrorizing her nightly.

Somewhere along the way she realized that she puts him first, his emotions and comfort have taken precedent over her own and when she'd searched what exactly that meant the answer made her head spin.

A four letter word that most humans will experience except Ko Mun-yeong.

She's much too selfish and destructive to be ever love or be loved by another, she knows that know. When he'd finally opened up to her, there'd been a plethora of emotions that clawed to the surface and vengeance had been one of them, it wasn't enough that he was sharing his darkest secrets because of everything she'd been through to get there. It was as if he'd stabbed her in the chest, left her bleeding only to return and patch up her wounds, too much had occurred and the scarring remained.

So she left in the middle of the night, abandoned that godforsaken place, stuffing expensive fabrics in a vintage Louis Vuitton luggage set, eager to escape the dead silence that rang out in the castle without the Moon brothers pumping life back into it.

In the end she didn't go far, finding a guest house that reminded her of that brief getaway with him, she paid for the week and turned off her phone fielding persistent check in calls from Sang-in. Gang-tae hadn't tried to call merely texting that they should talk and it was almost laughable that despite his seeming desperation he still seemed reluctant to go the full mile. Only her deep rooted sadness stopped her from chuckling at her circumstances, what a tragic mess.

She didn't let his current persistence fool her, fool me once shame on you fool me twice, well everyone knew the rest. It was time she stopped looking like a fool. Regardless of what she felt for him she knew that that this couldn't be, he'd been right all along.

I hope I never see you again.

So much heart ache could have been prevented if she'd heeded his warning. So she was doing it now, her anger had fizzled off tempering into bitter acceptance.

He would give up soon enough, that was his style.

The woman in charge of the guest house steers clear of her and the first day she lays carelessly on the bed roll, not even bothering to comb her hair. Simply, being. It's intoxicating and new, her phone remains turned off tossed to the side as she thinks about nothing- ignoring the way that nothing something has deep sad eyes and a bowl hair cut. She's trying to think about nothing and that's what counts.

She has food delivered and it's strange to eat something that isn't a Subway sandwich after all the food Sang-in as been bringing her and temporarily guilt forms in the pit of her belly, he's probably going crazy trying to locate her but she's just not ready. She's still tired. Bone chilling fatigue.

The next day she walks down a dirt road, her long white dress dragging on the ground, dirtied but the thin material allows a passing breeze to wash across her body and she's content, staring at the sky and thinking of nothing. She spots a lone bird sitting in a tree and wonders if all the other birds have left it behind, whether it has nowhere to go and no one to see. Then she berates herself for worrying about a bird, all this time alone is pushing the limits of her sanity.

The days bleed into each other, dawn folding into dusk with watercolor skies and earthy morning dew.

She tries to write but it's hard to get any words down that aren't depressing and she can't think of any morals or lessons besides don't let anyone in.

Then she tries her hand at drawing, a portrait of her twisting a deer's neck.

The guest house keeper asks her if she hates bears the next day and that's the end of that endeavor.

The week is coming to an end and she's no where closer to knowing what to do, maybe it's time to go back to Seoul, leave this all behind like a bad dream.

When she finally deems herself mentally prepared she turns on her phone, pinging and vibrating from all the forlorn messages, sputtering in her hand as she watches in shock. As expected Sang-in has called and messaged and threatened, she smirks at his empty threats, heart slightly warmed.

Ju-ri, Seung-jae, Sang-tae, and him. All their names flash on her screen. Surprising her, as she'd never expect them to notice her disappearance. Much less reach out to her. Strange. But she writes it off, maybe Sang-in had roped them all into it. With trepidation she opens her messenger and responds to one, keeping a promise, with a few presses and a selfie she sends the message and closes the phone with a sigh.

Done.

The next day the clouds are smoggy ash grey in the sky, darkening the skies into something fierce and she pulls on a sweater and forgoes an umbrella welcoming the storm. Electricity swelters in the thick air causing a sheen of sticky perspiration to cling to her skin. She dons a simple sleeveless mini dress and sandals, trekking to the familiar dirt road.

She walks for hours, aimlessly without a care or worry in her head. Thoughts of him still push their way in at times but she's come to accept that as her baseline, once she returns to Seoul he will be nothing but a faint memory of the time she dreamed too big.

The first drop of rain on her skin makes goose pimples explode across her flesh, fat and chilled as they cascade from the atmosphere. Turning her head up towards the heavens she grins bitterly at nothing, her whole life has been nothing but rain, the moment is oddly fitting.

Mud splatters to her feet coating her toes in sloshy brown that slides between her toes, drenched from the downpour she slowly walks back no haste in her movement, steady footsteps despite the speed of the rain as it pelts against her.

The guest house comes back into sight as she meanders to the gate, vaguely remembering that she'd pulled it shut yet the doors now swing open. Blaming that on the rain she steps through, pulling it shut behind her continuing to stride to the steps.

As she hears the sliding door she eyes catch a figure blurry through the watery sheet in front of her eyes, the voice calling her name stops her in her tracks, no longer able to pretend that it's a mirage.

Her eyes aren't deceiving her, there he is. Once again finding her in the rain, except this time she doesn't need to be saved, she'll be the one doing the saving. For them both.

She takes him in, the rain soaking his hair flat onto his face, clothes plastered to his body as he stands eerily still, dark pools intensely taking her in as well.

After the slight hiccup, she continues walking taking off her sullied sandals and tossing them to the side and then she places her hand on the door, prepared to enter and forget what she saw. Ignorance is bliss.

"Mun-yeong."

All he has to say to get her heart pounding like a drum, she screams in her mind. That time spent apart should have made this easier, why didn't this feel easy? All the fatigue that she'd been running from hits her like a freight train crashing through her passive wall.

"Get lost."

He moves to block her way and her rage simmers below the surface.

"I've been worried about you. We all were so worried. You can't just leave like that, why did you go without saying anything?" His voice is wavering between anger and something softer, more human that makes his voice crack on the last syllable.

"Move."

She's not ready to assess what his being here means, what his voice and his concern mean. None of it makes sense and she's going to file it all under: unexplained phenomenon.

"Can't we talk first, please?"

"I don't want to talk." She sidesteps him, reaching once more for the door.

"Mun-yeong let me explain, let me make this right. I'm sor--"

"Shut up. I said I didn't want to talk. Go back you saw me, I'm alive you don't need to say anything more."

She's not sure she'll be able to contain herself if he says anything else, she's already dangling off the cliff. She can't allow herself to fall and burst apart.

"No! Why are you pushing me away? I need you! I told you I needed you I meant that, you can't just run away damn it."!

She stares blankly before her throat croaks and laughter tumbles from her lips. Deep belly chuckles that shake her body viciously.

Then quick as a switch the laughter stops.

Diamond hard gaze locked on his bewildered face before she speaks, "You think you're the only one who wanted? Do you? I wanted you to stay. I wanted you to fight for me, to let me in. I wanted you to see that I was hurt and apologize and mean it. You think a kiss is enough, you think telling me everything is enough after you break my heart? It's not!" Her voice pierces through the cacophonous drone of the rain beating the world, crying its heart out.

He jolts at her pained cries, fingers reaching for her but she immediately moves out of reach feeling naked and raw under his stare.

You broke my heart.

She's shown too much of her cards already, it's too late to bluff.

So she'll take a page from his book.

Throwing the door open and slamming it shut, holding it tight.

He doesn't try to open it. She sighs in relief leaning back against the hard wood, feeling all the fight evacuate her body.

He's probably gone. You pushed him too hard. Who are you to reject him? No one else will ever tolerate you.

Her thoughts don't scare her, just like Gang-tae had chosen his brother and the life he knew she was doing the same, choosing herself and the loneliness she'd grown accustomed to. Why give him another chance to throw her away he was clearly capable of it, it was only a matter of time she wouldn't change. Couldn't change. Immovable object.

The rain falls and falls, washing everything away and making the world anew. She lays on her back wondering how far he's gotten in this downpour. How had he even found her? All questions she'll never get the answers to.

Sleep tugs her eyelids shut as her thoughts swirl until they too fade to black.

Hands held high over her head, she pulls her tired bones feeling the tension melt with each stretch. Gathering clothes to take a much needed bath she carelessly tugs the door open only to jump back when he almost tumbles into her room.

What.

"What? What are you doing here?" She shrieks, avoiding collision by the barest inch.

"Waiting for you."

She blinks at him, taking in his drenched clothes-noting his shivers- and the dark circles that sink into the skin beneath his eyes, resembling a raccoon.

Had he slept outside all night? And if he had was he insane, why didn't he go back home?

"Why didn't you go back? Are you crazy? You can't sleep outside in the rain!"

She blushes at her outburst, slapping a hand over her traitorous mouth. He merely looks at her, she overlooks the tender glint in his eyes.

Stepping forward he grabs her hand, she fights to pull her appendage away but he tightens his grip which contrasts immensely with the softness in his eyes.

Voice like warm honey he answers, "Because you're here and I.....need you. I'm not going anywhere."

The sun shines brightly outside as a new day rises somewhere in the distance a lone bird's call is answered by another.

[sapphoslibrary]

part 2 of isla’s backstory. read part 1 here!

Panic clouded Isla’s mind instantly. She sat frozen on her bed, staring at her parents’ limp forms on the floor in front of her. Every rational thought fled from her mind, hidden by a thick curtain of unrelenting panic. 

“Oh my… god,” she breathed to herself, her heart pounding in her chest. Her whole body trembled as she gasped for air. The room was closing in on her, the light blue walls decked in movie posters slowly suffocating her. 

Only one thought broke through the panic taking over her: I killed my parents. 

Isla cried out as the words reverberated in her mind in an endless loop, over and over, a single sentence flaying her alive. Oh my god. I killed my parents. Her world shattered beneath her hands-- her hands that held magic, the very thing that was ripping her apart. Her hands that killed.

Slowly, like she was stepping onto a carton of eggs, Isla stood from her bed. She didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what to think. She tiptoed toward her parents. They looked pale, but not… not hurt. 

Isla held her breath as she timidly grasped her mom’s wrist, checking for a pulse. She let out a breath as she felt a slow, steady beat against her fingers. After a moment, she dropped the hand like it had burned her. It felt cold. 

She sank to her knees beside her parents, sobs tearing through her into the eerie silence of the room. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I never wanted this. I’d change it all, in a heartbeat, if I could.” 

Isla gasped and sprang to her feet a moment later. She didn’t know when, or if, her parents would wake up. She couldn’t be around when they did. She had to go, now. 

There was no time to pack. Isla left her home with only the clothes she wore, an extra hair tie, a coat, and a pair of old sneakers. She ran out the front door, her eyes fixed on the ground as tears continued to fall steadily from them. 

Snow covered the ground, the thick January wind whipping Isla’s ponytail back and forth, obscuring her vision further. She stopped at the end of the driveway, glancing around desperately, trying to think of anywhere she could go. But she was a criminal, maybe a killer, and definitely a sinner. There was nowhere for her. 

Isla cried out into the wind and impulsively turned left. She walked down the sidewalk quickly, like she had somewhere to be, but didn’t run; running would only arouse suspicion. The freezing air broke through her thick coat, chilling her to the bone, making breathing a nearly impossible task. 

She walked until she couldn’t anymore. It had to have been hours since she left; hours of walking numbly down the winding sidewalks, dodging anyone she knew, putting as much distance between herself and her parents as she could. Finally, she stumbled upon an abandoned house on the other side of town. 

The damp wood stairs creaked as she climbed up to the front porch. Isla tried the door, and groaned in frustration when she noticed it was padlocked. She sank into a cushioned bench by the door instead, and finally, finally took a break.

She folded forward, collapsing in on herself with a sob. The mind numbing panic was beginning to subside, creating room for a freight train of debilitating horror at what she’d done. What she’d become.

For so long, she was the perfect daughter. Straight A’s. Mass every Sunday without fail. A good girl with a bright future full of college degrees and opportunities. It was all in the past, now, never to be seen again. 

Now, she was everything but that. She hurt, maybe killed, the people who raised her, who loved her like no one else could. The people who kicked her out like none of it had ever happened when they found out what she was. 

Isla cried harder as she went to war with her own mind. She tried to force the thoughts down, but it was impossible. She couldn’t think of anything else, and she couldn’t deny it any longer: she was a witch, the very thing her parents spent their whole lives hating with a burning passion. 

She thought maybe she’d be different. Maybe finding out their daughter, who they loved unconditionally, was a witch would change their minds. What a fucking naive thought. 

Isla jumped when she heard footsteps approaching, the small noise of boots sinking into the snow. She glanced up, instantly pulled out of her thoughts. Finally, she thought briefly.

A little girl, no older than five, stood alone and frightened at the bottom of the stairs. She wore only a pair of leggings and a sweater, her boots practically breaking at the seams. Her cheeks were flushed as she shivered, and Isla’s heart broke for her. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” Isla said gently. She wiped her tears and stood, stepping slowly down the creaky wood stairs. She stopped on the third from the bottom and sat, eye-level with the little girl. “What’s up? Are you lost?” 

The girl shook her head. “Not lost,” she said, her voice raspy. She sniffled. “Just going back to my mom.”

Isla nodded. “Okay,” she said. The girl was far too young to be out here all alone, and by the look of her ratty clothes, Isla guessed she didn’t have many other options. She felt a protective pull toward her. “Hey. Why don’t you take my coat?” She offered, already pulling it off. 

The girl looked shocked. “R-really?” She whispered, her teeth chattering. 

Isla smiled and nodded. “Really. You’ll catch a cold otherwise, and I don’t think either of us want that for you at all,” she said reassuringly.

The girl shivered and nodded. Isla wrapped her coat around the girl and held her shoulders for a moment, looking into her wide green eyes. “Keep that on, okay? It’ll keep you warm and safe,” Isla said softly. The girl smiled gratefully.

“Thanks,” she said, already walking away. 

Despite her exhaustion, Isla smiled ruefully to herself. Even if her entire world was falling apart, even if she was miles away from home with nowhere to go, she was grateful she could do something good out of it. Even if that was just giving up her only protection against the harsh cold. She figured she’d regret it later, but for now, she was content with her decision.

She didn’t have the energy to crawl back up the stairs, back to the cushioned bench she’d sat in before. Isla just curled up on the stair she sat on, wrapping her arms around herself as she shivered violently.

As snow began to fall all around her, Isla allowed herself to fall apart. 

[exosmuttytalk]

Just Dance

Characters: Chanyeol, female OC

Genre: Fluff, hurt and comfort (kinda?)

Word count: ~2400

Summary: Following a round of her favorite videogame, Chanyeol makes the best effort to prop his girl up.

A/N: Originally, this was going to go a different route with a different main character, but then I thought about my friend @blogmariasan​ and wanted to write something for her ~

How cute does he look in that gif tho

The rapid beating of your heart in your ears and the loud music coming out of the speakers were strong enough for you to miss the noise the front door made when it turned on its hinges. Or the rummaging at the hall as he left the keys at the usual spot on top of the dresser and hung his coat on the hanger.

“Oh, so that’s what you do when I’m not at home, hmm?” his voice came from the doorstep to the living room, where you had moved the coffee table out of the way to make enough space for your workout, standing in front of the TV. “Fraternizing with our enemies.”

The high amount of energy your body stored at the moment combined with his voice startling you sent you practically flying across the room and into the sofa that had been pushed backwards. Sweat dripped down your back and you could feel blood rushing to your already flushed face.

The subject of dance came up fairly often in conversations with Chanyeol, who would sometimes need reassurance when he compared his own dancing with some other of his band mates, but who you’d never let watch you dance. Not on purpose, of course.

Dance is one of those things that do not matter to normal people. Everyone’s been to a club or a party at least once, has made a complete fool of themselves and then has gone home, hopefully having had fun. Not you.

When you were a kid, almost all your female classmates had enrolled in some sort of dance classes: ballet, regional dances, hip-hop, you name it. You knew many people who were part of an amateur band that learnt and performed their favorite artists’ dances. You weren’t one of them. At those end of year performances at your primary school, you’d always be left at the back, fulfilling the inconspicuous roles of trees, random animals, or the time when you had gotten quite a share of the spotlight as a door knob in a musical version of Alice in Wonderland. Coordination was just not your forte.

Everybody who knew you knew that as well. Including your boyfriend, who had found out about your slight incompetence when it came to being a protagonist and to moving your body in a graceful manner quite early in the relationship, when he had taken you as his companion to a family wedding. As enthused as always, he dragged you across the room to the dance floor, and knowing many of his family members were scrutinizing your every move, you had no option but to dance with him. Thankfully, one of his uncles was a nurse and was able to examine your ankle and determined you had only sprained it. As soon as he heard that, all the worry he had been sporting on his face since he saw you trip and hit the ground, disappeared. It was instead replaced by a slight mocking expression that only grew bigger when his grandma patted him in the back and told him you were nice but he needed to teach you to keep a bit of balance. What a beautiful family introduction.

Wasn’t that funny though? You wouldn’t trade your life for anything in the world, but you would have preferred if dance wasn’t such an important aspect in your partner’s life. Being energetic as he is, Chanyeol would usually blast music while at home, didn’t matter to him whether it was his own music or someone else’s, and dance around while doing chores. He’d do it in the car as well.

“Dancing is very fun, baby, you still haven’t found the perfect song for you.”

Just watching him prance around the house made you unbelievably happy, but you never let yourself get into it. As much as you watched and enjoyed every single one of his performances, and for many of them, you’d learnt the whole choreography, you didn’t allow yourself to get carried away beyond a gentle sway.

The thing is you loved dancing. You actually loved to the point it was your main form of exercise. Who doesn’t love getting carried away with their favorite music? You just were aware of the quality of the movements you produced, so you refused to do it in front of other people.

“I wasn’t doing anything with your enemies! And they’re not your enemies, you’re just petty!”

You stood back up and forcefully pulled the sofa back to its original place. Then, you turned off the game console without even worrying to save your progress and left the controller on top of the table a bit more harshly than necessary and left the room in a huff.

When Chanyeol asked you to move in with him, you knew you wouldn’t have as much privacy as you used to do living in your tiny one bedroom apartment, but you didn’t particularly mind it. By that point, you had already spent plenty of time at each other’s homes and he was an easy going person, so you felt at home. Besides, his busy schedule kept him out of the house most of the day; so you felt at ease. Even more so when you discovered, in a party with his band mates where he pulled it out as an entertainment safe bet, that he had unlimited access to one of your favorite videogames. So now, whenever he was out and you wanted to exercise, you’d turn it on and dance on your own, enjoyed yourself and bumped into enough stuff around the house Chanyeol would always enquire about the bruises on your legs.

His brows furrowed when he heard your snappy tone and you made your way out of the living room.

“Babe? What’s wrong?” He followed you into the bathroom where you struggled to get out of your sweaty workout clothes while at the same time avoiding his gaze from scanning your flushed face. “You’ve already been living here for long enough, you can use anything here whenever you can, you know that?”

“It’s not that!” You responded, annoyed and in the verge of tears.

He waited for you to come out of your t-shirt to grab your hand and pull you back into the bedroom, where he sat in the middle of the bed, cross legged and making a space big enough between your legs for you to fit in comfortably. You flinched when his fingers started sliding down your still damp back in soothing movements, but couldn’t help but dive into his comforting hug.

“So now you’re gonna tell me what’s got you all up in arms today, hmm?”

“I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Yeah, but you know keeping bad things in will get you nowhere. Why are you angry? You seemed so happy when I came in.”

“I am not angry…” you said in a low tone while you tried to hide your face against Chanyeol’s chest.

“So what is it?” He cupped your face in his hand and raised your head to look at you. As soon as his eyes fixed on yours, you felt another wave of heat hit your cheeks. “Are you blushing?” You could almost hear the gears grinding in his brain as he connected the dots. “Is it because I caught you dancing?”

You let out an undefined sound that served as an affirmation and took your eyes away from him.

“I remember how embarrassing it was for you at Hee’s wedding, but there’s no one else but me here. You can enjoy yourself without a problem!”

“It’s not that… I can’t dance in front of you.”

“But why not, baby? I will do it with you, it’s fun!”

“I just…” you hesitated, but the expression on his face as he waited was enough. “I am a bad dancer, okay? I know that.”

He nodded with caution, not wanting to make you feel worse with his acknowledgement.

“Is there a problem with that?”

“Of course there is a problem! You dance for a living”

“Well, I do other stuff too, but it’s a pretty big part. What does that have to do with this?”

“I love you, okay? I really like seeing you perform and I know you love what you do. But sometimes I wonder if I’m good enough for you,” you finally confessed.

“What?” his voice was higher pitched than usual to express his confusion. “Where is this all coming from?”

“I sometimes think…maybe if you see how bad I am at this, you will compare me to your other friends who also dance and think you can do better than me.”

“Are you really telling me you’re scared of me leaving you for someone who dances better than you?” his voice kept raising in disbelief.

“Well, if you put it that way! Just listen to me! You are always around people who are more talented, better looking and who have more interesting lives than me. I have none of that. How am I supposed to feel!?”

Chanyeol leaned back into the mattress and pulled your body along with his, so in the end, he was lying across the bed on his back with you on top of him, resting you face against his t-shirt. You rose up your gaze at him and saw him staring at the ceiling with a blank expression, while his fingers never stopped drawing random patterns against your bare skin.

“You know, when I first got into this I was an awful dancer.”

“What?”

“Yeah, in comparison with Jongin or Sehun, there’s nothing I can do in terms of dancing even now. They were so much better than I was, and not just because of their natural talent. I’m a terrible dancer. My legs and arms feel too long to be controlled and collected as they are when they dance. All that you see now is the result of years of practice.”

“I have never been too self conscious about it because I trusted myself enough, but I remember there was this girl at the training centre who always made comments about my dancing. She was a bit older than I was and she used to tease me about it all the time. She wasn’t very nice.”

“Is she still mean?”

“Oh, maybe she is. I haven’t seen her in years, I ended up debuting with the guys but she never got to that point, despite the fact she had been training for years at that point.”

“That’ll serve her right,” you shrugged.

“Yeah, well. I try not to think a lot about it, because I can still hear her snickering while I performed.”

“I’m so sorry about that,” you hugged him softly from your position and his arms returned the favor around you.

“It’s okay. The thing about this is that I know how you feel. I know how hard it can be to face the world, expose what you have and to be confident enough that it’ll be good enough. But some people around us are more than willing to tear us down over our smallest mistakes, so it’s quite unfair that we do that to ourselves too. That’s what helped me get over it.”

“Yeah, but now you are a quite good dancer and get paid to do so! Why would I show something I know I am bad at?”

“Because you actually enjoy it! Allowing yourself to enjoy things is part of being kind to yourself, and that’s something you need to work on.”

You let out only a soft sigh as a response.

“You know you’re the most beautiful thing that’s ever been in my life, right?”

You propped your head up by resting your chin against his chest, looking him on, silently. His hand caressed your hair.

“Sometimes I have bad days too. Sometimes I’m sad or angry. Or frustrated, because I am not getting where I want to be. But then, I come home and see you around. Maybe you’re in the kitchen, or you’re working on your laptop, or playing with the dog. Doing whatever. Just by being there, you make my day brighter. You make me smile and laugh. You support me when I need to. You get me in ways barely no one else does and I get inspired by you daily.”

His confession left you speechless for a while. Of course, you knew you were in with Chanyeol for the long run. You’d gone through terrible enough times together when your relationship was made public, so now you weren’t going to give up and neither was him.

“You’re so beautiful and so good I don’t even care about other people anymore. Yeah, I have many beautiful friends and coworker. But they have nothing against you, doesn’t matter how much prettier you think they are. Besides, my grandma loves you very much despite your stellar introduction to the family; that can hardly be beat.”

A small tear managed to slide its way down your cheek when you closed your eyes and laughed wholeheartedly to the mention of his grandma, but he didn’t notice. Just seconds after he’d finished his speech, he’d sat up on the bed, kissed your forehead and started rummaging through the closet.

“Here, wear this one!”

He tossed you one of his older t-shirts, with the name of his group written on the back, worn out and soft, before stripping off his own work clothes and searching for more comfortable stuff.

“I’m a bit rusty lately, so it’s a good thing you were already working out, we can help each other.” You were still sitting on your bed, t-shirt in hand but in your underwear, not sure what to do. His head popped up behind one of the doors when he noticed you hadn’t moved and his eyes scanned up and down your poorly covered figure, with a cocky eyebrow raised and a smirk. “Or we could head into the shower and I could teach you some of the moves we do under artificial rain… but only if you want, of course…”

_________________________

A/N: It probably wasn’t made clear enough, but the song OC was dancing at the beginning would’ve been a BTS one, if those were included in the game, which I’m not sure of. BTS and Exo are not enemies and they probably even get on fairly well with each other, so take it just as a joke

Other Chanyeol shenanigans 

Holidays   (OC/One Shot/Fluff-Smut)

Experimentation    (Chanbaek/One shot/Fluff-soft smut)

MASTERLIST!?