#and i stopped on the day before her birthday so until now i haven't seen teenage xoey and i was DYING to see her

[citrlet]

you can have a little teenage xoey. as a treat.

[readychilledwine]

Small World Pt 2

Summary - After discovering you and Azriel share much more than a mating bond, your relationship grows stronger as tensions between you and your aunt seem to grow higher.

Warnings - implied emotional and mental abuse, second child syndrome in a not good way, we find out Nyx is an asshole, unrequited love, slight smut, use of daddy

A/n - a potentially cliff hanger ending because I haven't decided 100% how this ends

Peep Part 1 Here 💙

Azriel stared at the dress box sitting on Rhysand's desk and nicely folded Illyrian leathers. He couldn't remember the last time he had worn them. The last time he had used a siphon. The leathers were fitted for 7, something Azriel immediately knew would no longer work.

His powers after removing the precious stones had gone wild. His shadows were different now. They were more aware, able to span wider distances, and able to recruit more shadows into his network to join them.

He had spent 5 years alone meditating and learning even more control over them, over what they could do, over how deadly they actually could be.

7 siphons would not be enough.

And he didn't understand how Rhysand did not see that.

He finally spoke, gesturing to the box. "What is this?"

Rhys was settled in his chair, trying to maintain his composure as Cassian stood near the bookshelf to mediate if needed. "We're going to the Court of Nightmares. My daughter's engagement has spread like wildfire, and dear Keir wants to host a party in her honor."

A breathy chuckle left Azriel's lips before he could stop it. "So my fiancée will be dressed like a goddess while I am in leathers at a party to mock us?"

Cassian shifted slightly. "We've always worn leathers to Hewn City, Az. It's to honor our heritage." Rhys just inclined his head to Cassian and nodded. "Y/n wears leathers."

"She has never worn a single set in the 2 years we've been together. There isn't even a set in her closet."

"There's several sets in her closet here," Rhys said quietly. "All set up for pink siphons. 14 of them." Cassian and Azriel couldn't help their chuckles. "Imagine a blonde Illyrian with pink siphons, Azriel, its quite the sight." Rhys smiled fondly, eyes glimmering with pride despite everything. "She's-" he looked up, searching for the perfect word for his daughter. "She's my everything. And I've done a horrible job showing her that."

Azriel sucked in a deep breath. "I won't mediate this, Rhys. This is a you two thing. Not an us three thing."

Azriel knew now why you were estranged from your family. Nyx was their golden child. Constantly praised, admired, in the spotlight. He was, and still is, their reminder of how they had almost died to pass along their love. He could do no wrong, never be wrong, and was treated as such.

You, on the other hand, were the second child. The significantly younger one Nyx learned to plant blame on and watch as you were scolded and seen as "the problem" as you had told him you were now addressed as in Hewn City and Illyria. You had been raised by Ness more than Feyre and Rhys, passed off to them until your powers bloomed at 16, and suddenly your father found you interesting again. With a lack of a spymaster, he exploited you, forcing you to touch people and feel their emotions, when they lied, their stories. Forcing you to live trauma over and over of females clipped in the mountains, of tortured traitors in dungeons, of Nesta's dark phase.

You locked your powers so far away one day, so deep inside you that even you hardly could access them unless you actually wanted to. It had been just before your 18th birthday that happened. And then the fight that sealed the casket happened. Rhys had verbally lashed you. Attacked you for refusing to let him use your "one worth" to keeping his family and court safe.

Your father had said he saw you as useless, and everyone else just stood by watching.

Like they had with Nesta.

Only you were just a child. Not a head strong warrior, a goddess in fae form.

You packed the basics and spent the night on the streets in a dark alley.

Even if you and Rhys magically fixed things, even if you forgave but not forgot, Azriel would never. How you were raised, how you've been treated, it forever will taint his vision of Rhys, Feyre, and Nyx. The abuse they unleashed on you, they'd never make up for.

Rhys nodded, eyes glancing to the doorway as footsteps approached. "I would never ask you to fix my relationship with her when I need to fix my relationship with you as well. I just need you to know I love her. That she will always be my girl."

"You have an odd way of showing her your lo-"

The door opened, and you stepped in, immediately going to Azriel's side and eyeing the box. "Dad. Cassian." You opened the lid and nodded. "Well. At least it's sparkly."

Rhys cocked his head. "You don't like it?"

Azriel watched as you paused. The bond flared with conflicting emotions. Anger, hurt, longing. How long had it been since Rhys held you? Since he told you he loved you without you having to earn it. "No, I like it. I just know what this means. You never give me nice things unless Hewn City is involved." The last sentence trailed off quietly, and pain flooded the bond.

Rhys looked down, nodding as he scratched the stubble growing on his face. "I am sorry. I just-"

"Please don't. You never mean it." You grabbed the box. "I will wear it and find jewelry." You turned to Azriel. "Elain would like to speak with you. She said something about a garden you two planned together and how I'll never understand the love you two share. How it breaks bonds and shakes worlds."

The relationship between you and Azriel had been messy since dinner two weeks ago. You two had your first fight over, of course, Elain and her rekindled love, lust, whichever felt appropriate at the moment for Azriel. He ignored the constant letters, the random headache powders, the message coded flowers.

He had reached out to Lucien, asking the male what had happened. According to the new Lord of Day, Elain and he had tried for 5 years, but the damage had been done. Lucien didn't trust Elain, Elain spent most of their time comparing the two of them, and nothing Lucien gave her was enough. He had been the one to reject the bond, and after 7 years, he had found himself heavily involved in a relationship with a now fully fae Vassa and Jurian.

Rhys and Cassian both gave him gentle looks of concern as he held your hand, preventing you from walking away. He stared Rhys in the eyes, doing something he felt Rhysand had never done to prove a point. "I'd rather go home with you, so if you were planning on winnowing, we might as well go together." He picked you.

They watched as all tension left your body, as security eased into your face. "Then let's go home." Azriel grabbed the leathers, nodding to Rhys and Cassian before following you.

Azriel's elbow locked around your neck, hand squeezing your hip as he pinned you below him and continued taking you from behind. You both had no interest in heading to Hewn City, so you had distracted him, walking into your shared bedroom in just a pretty blue silk night gown offering to give your body to him for what he had done, the message he had sent.

You were supposed to be getting ready, but instead, Azriel was growling above you, pumping into you carelessly. Your toes curled at how deep he was hitting, at how good he felt, how good he felt every time. "So close," you whispered. "So fucking close-" You were moaning his name when the knock on the door came.

A shadow rushed to him, curling his ear as he paused. "It's Elain," he muttered. "She's relentless." You whined below him, hips wiggling to get friction back. "Baby,"

"Please," you begged. "It's been weeks, I've been so good, please, daddy."

Azriel felt his cock twitch at the use of the name. He'd longed for a moment to erase the memory of what happened, and you had just given it to him. He felt you moving your hips, doing the best you could while pinned to the mattress to fuck yourself on his cock.

You were his focus, the rest of the world melting away as he heard your moans turning into screams of his name. You sounded so pretty coming for him, crying for him, begging for more for less for everything as oversensitivity took over. You especially looked pretty dripping his seed when he pulled out of you. Once again, he had chosen you.

You two laid there, holding each other until claws came for both of you. Scratching angerly as your mental shields and causing you to bury your head into Azriel's chest. "We need to get ready unless you want him showing up here next," Azriel played with your hair, scratching your scalp lightly. "Let's see how many siphons I blow through."

After 2 sets of siphons being destroyed, you were currently dragging Azriel down the streets of Velaris and to your brother and father's tailor. You knew she'd be able to fit and dress him in seconds and that he'd look every bit handsome as he deserved. You were pissed when you saw he had been gifted Illyrian leathers and not a suit. Your father was out of touch with Azriel. With you.

"Helena," you smiled at the older female. "We need help."

Azriel felt stiff. Staring at the doors of Heen City as a shocked page boy ran to inform Rhys and Feyre of the late arrival. You two were about to upstage them in their own court. The guests of honor arriving late and being introduced after the Lord and his Lady.

You would have upstaged them by yourself anyway, though. Azriel admired you one more time. Rhys had picked well, though you both would never admit it. The dress had a see-through bodice of black lace and floral applicates with thin straps. It led to a satin skirt that was tight and then flared out to your hips. The left leg had a high slit, showing the toned beautiful skin Azriel was begging to cover in his kisses. You had picked a simple necklace, a single tear drop shaped sapphire with matching earring and a matching bracelet. Your ring sat on manicured nails painted a soft shade of pink to white coffin head tips. Heels graced your feet, the red underside flashing when you walked. "Gods, you are stunning," he finally whispered out in a hoarse voice.

"And all yours," you looked at him, adjusting the lapel of his jacket. "Forever." Your mask slipped on as the doors opened, a collective gasp ringing through the room over who was on your arm followed by whispers.

Azriel knew this song and dance, walking you into one thousand eyes staring and gawking. He hated seeing you like this as you were ushered to the dance floor. The first dance of the night had been delayed, and the fae were restless.

Once you were centered on the floor, you turned facing him, eyes cold and distant as you disassociated from this place. He placed a hand on your hip, leaving his other to his side where both of your sat.

It was unfair of Feyre and Rhysand to expect you to do this traditional waltz, but you followed Azriel's steps as the music began, that first note echoing in your bones and soul. Your parents had claimed your first dance with your mate. The first true dance you two would ever share, and it had to be done in front of hundreds of fae who spat your direction when the Lord and Lady were busy.

Azriel had decided he hated this side of you. He was studying you like a project. You were a different female down here. Cold, uncaring, forced into this role of the High Lord's daughter.

Did these fae know you took far too much creamer in your coffee?

That you were afraid of storms?

That you only ate fruit pastries because you found chocolate too bitter?

You were Rhysand through and through with that mask on. But inside, inside Azriel knew you carried the very light of what your grandfather built. You were a true dreamer, and you could rattle the very stars themselves if your father would just give you the chance.

If Rhysand would just believe in you.

Azriel decided in that moment what the answer to your happiness was. He'd take you tonight and you two would leave.

Fuck expectations.

Fuck the rules.

Fuck your family.

Azriel would pick you for the third time today, and you two would leave.

He just had to get you through this visit at Hewn City first, and as he watched Elain shatter a champagne flute in her hands, he knew that was going to be a mission all on its own.

General Taglist:

@hnyclover @glitterypirateduck @slytherinindisguise @mischiefmanager @bloodicka @starsinyourseyes @the-sweet-psycho @mariahoedt @rinalouu @sarawritestories @starryhiraeth @starswholistenanddreamsanswered @cumuluscranium @loneliestluvr @eternallyelvish

Azriel-

@elle4404

Small World Taglist-

@amara-moonlight @iimichie @acourtofbatboydreams @justasillylittlegoofyguy @janesalvarerelochanarcheron @hungryforbatboys @sidthedollface2 @hunt1bryce

[sinnersweets]

DogDay x Reader part 15

<-----part 14

I slept for about four hours before DogDay woke me up saying he needed to head out and that I should go home and rest up. I didn’t want to leave but I needed to run errands and make some calls. DogDay then carried me to the cable car and continued to hold onto me while we waited. “So, what are you going to do about CatNap?” “I can’t talk to him now but later tonight I’ll have a word with him. I’ll also talk to Sarah; see if she knows why he’s acting like that.” I nodded and leaned into his chest. I started thinking about some stuff; that is until I remembered something very important. 

Its Damians birthday today. 

“Oh my gosh! It’s Damians birthday today!” I looked up at DogDay and said, “I can’t leave, it’s his birthday and I wanted to spend it with him.” “Oh man, I had nearly forgotten about his birthday; but Angel you’re not looking the best right now. I think you should just go home and rest up there.” I shook my head no and said, “I can rest up in the infirmary. I need to tell Damian happy birthday and tell him the good news.” With a heavy sigh DogDay nodded and carried me inside Home Sweet Home and had one of the doctors look at me. 

--------------- 

Surprisingly I didn’t break anything, just had bruises. The doctor gave me Tylenol and was about to leave when he suddenly said, “I hear you’re taking Damian.” I swallowed the pills and replied, “Yes, I take him home tomorrow.” The doctor smiled and nodded while saying, “He’s a good kid, always past the tests with flying colors. We were this close to having him-” The doctor suddenly stopped talking and laughed nervously. “Having him what?” I asked. “Nothing, I misspoke. Get some rest Ms. Y/N.” The doctor quickly exited the room before I could say anything else.  

--------------- 

It had been two hours and already I was feeling much better. Laying down was starting to bore me so I decided that I would go out and try to find Damian. 

When I exited Home Sweet Home, I spotted Hoppy playing hopscotch with her group and KickenChicken playing duck duck goose with his group. I couldn’t help but smile. Seeing them interact with the kids made me feel happy. I would miss them both, even if KickenChicken did hit on me from time to time. Hopefully DogDay will convince them to leave here and come with me. 

Hoppy spotted me and called me over to her group. “Hey Y/N! Wanna play some hopscotch with us?” I politely declined and asked her if she had seen Damian. “Oh yeah little dude! I think he and DogDay are in the Playhouse.” I could feel my palms getting sweaty just thinking about going back into the Playhouse. Three hours of hiding and not getting caught. “Y/N? You okay?” I shook my head and focused back on Hoppy. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. On second thought, I think I will join you for a game.” Hoppy smiled and said, “Atta girl!” She then took my hand and led me over to her group. 

--------------- 

Once I played a few games of hopscotch KickenChicken then called me over to play a new game with his group. I really wanted to go see Damian, but he hasn’t come out of the Playhouse yet. With a heavy sigh I agreed and KickenChicken held onto my hand and led me to his group. 

“Ms. DogDay!” is what KickenChicken’s group yelled out when they saw me. Even though I wasn’t in uniform they still called me that; it was cute. “Hello.” I waved at them with my free hand. “Looks like I don’t need to introduce you Ang- I mean Y/N.” I gave a small smile to KickenChicken. “Thank you for using my name, now can you please let go of my hand? Your feathers are making my hand itch.” “Oh sure, sorry.” KickenChicken then let go of my hand and I softly scratched my hand that he was holding. 

I looked around and didn’t see Emily around. Thinking back to when I was with Hoppy I didn’t notice Edward around either. “Hey Kicken, where’s Emily today?” “She hasn’t been scheduled in a couple of days, not sure why though... In fact I think most of the helpers haven't been put on the schedule; you and Sarah seem to be the only ones here.” “Huh, I wonder why.” KickenChicken shrugged his shoulders and said, “Makes no difference to me. I can handle these kids all on my own. Now to our game.”  

KickenChicken decided to play red light, green light which I was all for it. I was chosen to be the one who says the words while he and his group tried to get to me. I headed up to the duck pond and turned around before saying, “Red light green light one two three!” I quickly turned around and everyone froze in place. I then turned back around, repeated the words, and turned around even faster next time. Some kids moved up a little bit while others moved and got out.  

“Red light green light one two three!” When I turned around, I was surprised to see both DogDay and Damian playing along. DogDay was the closest one to me while Damian was a few feet behind him. I swallowed hard as I knew that DogDay would get me. I slowly turned back around and said, “Red light- AHH!” “I gotcha Angel!” DogDay picked me up and gave me a gentle squeeze. “Haha, seems like you did.” DogDay then put me down and I smiled over to Damian and walked towards him. “Happy birthday kiddo!” I held out my arms towards him and he happily ran up to me and hugged me. “Thank you, Ms. Y/N. Mr. DogDay said you needed to speak with me?” I looked over to DogDay and he gave me a thumbs up. “Uh yes, I have a present for you.” Damians eyes gleamed with joy. “We’ll be down the hill when you’re done Angel.” Before he walked away DogDay kissed the top of my head and ruffled up Damians hair a little bit. “Talk to ya later Y/N.” I heard KickenChicken call out to me while he and DogDay walked down the hill together. 

I took Damians hand in mine and I led him over to the duck pond. “Go ahead and have a seat.” I said gently to him. Damian sat down and looked at me with patience but also curiosity. I took a seat next to him and suddenly felt nervous telling him that I was now his mom. “So um, how is your birthday going so far?” “It’s alright. Mr. DogDay gave me another card.” “Ah yes, he told me that’s what he normally gets you. Not to sound rude to DogDay, but I think my gift is much better than that.” Damian smiled at me. “Okay let me not stall anymore.... tomorrow will be our last day here because I have officially adopted you and I am taking you to your new home tomorrow.”  

Damian just stared at me for a couple of seconds before he said, “You mean you adopted me? And I get to go with you?” Suddenly Damian started crying. “Damian are you-” I was cut off when Damian jumped on me and gave me a very tight hug. “I can’t believe I finally got adopted! You're my mom now! Does that mean Mr. DogDay is now my legal dad?” I cleared my throat and chuckled nervously while saying, “No, me and DogDay are not married.” Damian looked at me and said, “But is he coming with us?” My heart sank when he asked that. “Not right now. I am trying to make it possible so that he can come with us; and everyone else too.” I then explained what my plan was to Damian and I’m not sure if he fully understood it, but he smiled and seemed excited about it. 

--------------- 

Once I finished talking with Damian, I led us both down over to DogDay. When we reached the bottom, my phone started ringing and I handed Damian over to DogDay while I checked to see who was calling me. “Hello? Yes, this is her. Uh huh. Really? That’s wonderful! Yes yes I’ll be there in an hour! Thank you!” “You seem excited Angel.” I squealed in excitement as I said, “I just got a call from the city and my request for a plot of land has been accepted! I need to head over there and start planning everything!” “Really? That’s amazing Angel!” “I don’t know what that means but yay Ms. Y/N! I mean mom!” 

I hugged Damian goodbye and stood on my tippy toes and gave DogDay a kiss on his nose. “I’ll call you after I finish, okay?” DogDay smiled lovingly at me while saying, “I already miss you Angel, but I look forward to your call.” “Bye mom! See you tomorrow!” “Bye, I love you both!” “We love you too!” I waved goodbye and headed over to the cable car, excited to get started on my project. It’s all coming together.  

A/N: THANK YOU FOR 500+ FOLLOWERS!! TRULY NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD EVER GET THERE! I LOVE ALL OF MY FOLLOWERS <3

(If you wanna be tagged in the next part lemme know in the comments!)

@my-anime-garden

[hussyknee]

Red, White & Royal Blue: Collector's Edition Henry PoV bonus chapter by Casey Mcquiston.

(transcribed from the page pictures posted)

This is the coda to the end of the book, so don't read it if you haven't read the book first. Sadly, the Collector's Edition doesn't seem to be available on Kindle so. Arrrr matey.

Download link for file at the end.

....

HENRY

“I am not asking you to believe in it, or even to like it,” Henry says stonily. It’s been a long morning already. He is beginning to perspire. “I am simply asking you to show a modicum of respect.”

“To–to your quiche?”

“Yes. To my quiche.”

Bea puts down her tape gun and wipes her eyes. “Pez!”

“Yes?”

“Henry says he’s going to make us a quiche!”

Pez’s squawk of a laugh bounces down the stairs. “Pull the other one!”

“I make them all the time for Alex,” Henry insists. “They are perfectly edible.”

“So, when you promised us breakfast if we got up early to help you.” Bea says, “you meant that you were going to make us breakfast?”

“Yes!” Henry says hotly. “Stop laughing!”

“I’m sorry!” Bea says. “It’s only that...well, Henry, the last time you cooked breakfast for me, you were twelve and you put a sausage in the microwave until it exploded.”

“That was your idea! And it’s been ages since then! I’ve studied, all right? I’m quite good now. Those pictures I send the group chat aren’t just for show.”

“Oh, aren’t they?” Bea says rudely, as if his incredibly generous offer to cook her a shallot-and-thyme quiche with mushrooms from the farmer’s market means nothing at all. As if he’s lived in this house for five entire years without learning to use its kitchen.

Perhaps if their lives weren’t so chaotic, if Henry weren’t flying out of New York every time Bea had a spare moment to fly in, he could have proven this to her earlier. But Pez, who lives mostly in the city now and visits so frequently he’s earned his own Secret Service code name (Cardinal, since Henry is Bishop), should know better.

“Percy Okonjo,” Henry says as Pez joins them, “you were here last weekend when I made mince pie. You loved it.”

“Did I?” Pez wonders aloud, with an annoyingly Bea-like lilt.

“Look at this apron!” Henry gestures to himself and the navy blue apron he’s wearing. Alex gave it to him for his birthday last year. “Would a man who can’t make a quiche have an apron like this? It’s monogrammed.”

“You’re royalty, babes,” Pez points out. “Everything you own is monogrammed.”

From the pocket of his serious-home-cook apron, his phone buzzes. Reinforcements. The FaceTime connects, and Alex says, “Good morning, love of my li–”

“Alex,” Henry interrupts, “tell them about my quiches.”

Alex pushes up his sunglasses and frowns into the camera. He looks so lovely with his faded T-shirt and jean jacket and shaggy hair. Pure American heartthrob, might as well have a cowboy hat on. Henry never does tire of it.

“Sorry?”

“Bea and Pez don’t believe I can make a quiche.”

“What? Have they seen your apron?”

“That’s what I said!”

“Henry’s quiches are great!” Alex says loudly, to the kitchen at large. “I almost never find shells in them!”

That sets Bea and Pez off again. On the screen, Alex’s face crinkles into laughter.

“Thank you very much, Alex, you’ve been a tremendous help,” Henry groans. “How are things? Florist this morning, wasn’t it?”

“Just finishing up.” Alex says with a grin. “Final approvals done. Everything looks great.”

With only one week until moving day and two until the wedding, it made sense to divide and conquer. Henry agreed to stay in New York and finish packing up the brownstone with help from Bea and Pez, while Alex, June, and Nora are ticking off the last of their checklists in Texas.

“Of all the surprises that wedding planning has brought us,” Henry says, “your ability to micromanage floral arrangements has certainly been...one of them.”

“You know I love to curate a vibe,” Alex says.

“That you do,” Henry agrees. “Where are the girls?”

“Getting donuts,” Pez answers before Alex can. He holds up his phone, open to a photo of June blowing a kiss while Nora fellates an éclair.

“Donuts!” Bea says. “Now there’s an idea!”

They spend the rest of the day drowning in cardboard boxes and bin liners, packing everything but the furniture and the downstairs television. Pez reminds him once an hour that they could pay someone to do this, but Bea is stubborn, and Henry is reluctant to let anyone else wade into all the intimate trappings of his and Alex’s life. It was bad enough explaining the contents of the trick drawer in their dresser to Pez, much less some mover he’s never met.

When it’s done, Bea puts A Knight’s Tale on in the living room and promptly falls asleep on Pez’s lap. Pez passes out too, but Henry stays awake, because Heath Ledger deserves an audience. And because he knows if he doesn't wake Bea and move her to the guest bedroom, he'll have to hear about her back spasms in the morning.

David hops up beside him on the loveseat, and Henry strokes the top of his snout until his little body relaxes into Henry's side.

"Nervous old boy," Henry hums. It still does seem like the ultimate irony that the dog he adopted for emotional support has anxiety. David has grown more and more worried all week, as more and more of his home disappeared into boxes. "We won't leave you, I promise."

The brownstone has been a good house for them. Sturdy brick walls, neighbors that actually let them be. Henry has loved it more than he ever loved Kensington, or at least as much as he loved Kensington when his parents both lived there too. Some mornings, when he comes downstairs to find Alex with the coffeepot and the kettle already on, he feels the way he did when his family all slept under one roof. This roof is quite a bit smaller than that one, but the feeling isn't.

So, perhaps David hasn't got entirely the wrong idea. It is hard to let the place go. For the past month, Alex has kept asking Henry why he's staring, and the truth is that he's been committing to memory exactly how Alex looks in every room. How the bannister fits in his hand, the place on the foyer wall where he always braces himself to pull on his shoes.

Everything that's happened in the past five years has happened, at least in part, inside this house.

…

It's seven months after Alex's mother's second inauguration, and Henry is wishing he had never even heard the word "credenza." Then he wouldn't have to decide where to put one. Alex is arriving in half an hour to help him move it, but Henry still doesn't know where. Across from the fireplace, perhaps? But what if he wants to put a sofa there? Does he want a regular sofa, or a sectional? Should it go upstairs, in his study? Or should he leave room for bookcases?

He longs to be back on a beach, sipping something from a pineapple.

It’s been a long, glorious summer since Alex packed up his White House bedroom, called Henry, and asked, "Do you want to get the fuck off the continent?" They did Dubai first, then Lagos. Rio, for old time's sake. Buenos Aires, paper lanterns in moonlight and Alex flirting with the bartender for free drinks. June through August became a lovely blur: Alex asleep against his shoulder on the plane, Alex throwing his Portuguese phrase book out the window of a speeding car, sand in unmentionable places, Alex Alex Alex. Endless runways and half-arsed disguises, swimsuits that got smaller and smaller until they simply didn't wear them anymore. Falling in love, the sequel, with fresh suntans and all the time in the world.

And now here they are in Park Slope, where Alex is renting the second floor of a brownstone two blocks from Henry's.

It's practical, they agreed, to live in the same neighborhood before they live at the same address. They've scarcely gotten a chance to date the normal way yet– if it can be called "normal" when their combined security teams are headquartered in an empty apartment down the street. Still, Henry wants this to last.

They've sprinted headlong into everything so far, but now he wants move slowly, in delicious increments. He wants to savor nights, minutes, firsts, to covet them and then let them dissolve on his tongue, like the sugar cubes he snuck off his gran's filigreed tea trays when he was small. He wants a life.

He wants someone to tell him where to put this damned credenza.

It's a vintage Broyhill Brasilia piece, walnut with clever brass drawer pulls. June helped him pick it out when she was in town with meeting her editor, but she never gave him any advice on where it should go. He hasn't ever been allowed to decide where furniture should go before.

So, it’s...there, in the center of the empty living room, the first piece in the entire house.

“Maybe you could start with a rug or two,” says Alex from the foyer.

Henry turns to find him with his keys in one hand and a paper bag in the other, smiling in a beam of mid-morning light, and, ah. Yes. There it is. That sweet, sharp gasp of nerves. The half second when he forgets how to use his mouth. If he knows nothing else, at least one certainty remains, which is that seeing Alex Claremont-Diaz in the flesh will always do this to him.

Alex in a photo is handsome, but Alex in life is a symphony. He’s refracted light with a cherry cola chaser. He’s got a Fibonacci jawline and a troublemaker smile and thick forearms built for posing in doorways with his sleeves rolled and thumbing corks out of champagne bottles. The first time Henry ever told Pez about him, he said, “God, but he’s lethal.” It’s only worse once you get to know him.

“Weird place for a credenza,” Alex comments. He kisses Henry’s cheek, then passes him a warm bundle wrapped in parchment paper. “Hope you like sausage-egg-and-cheese.”

“I don’t know where to put it.”

“Sandwich goes in your mouth, typically.”

“The credenza.”

“Ohhh, right,” Alex says, pretending to have just caught on. He winks. Henry sighs theatrically but accepts a second kiss, on the lips this time. “Why don’t you just put it right here?”

He points to his left, where a blank wall stretches from the front door to the foot of the stairs. It does, upon closer inspection, appear to be the exact right size.

“Oh,” Henry says.

This is where they overlap. Where he ends and Alex begins. Great gooey puddle of feelings, meet course of action; endless burning energy, meet point of focus. Agonies, meet your most obvious, most natural, most inevitable conclusions. It’s frightening sometimes for a person like Henry, who has spent his entire life pedaling his agonies about like baguettes in a posh little bicycle basket. What is he to do with them now?

Yes," Henry concedes, "I suppose I could," and Alex laughs.

...

It's the summer of 2022. Henry has opened his third shelter, and Alex has just finished bulldozing his first year at NYU Law.

A few boxes of books still wait at Alex's place, but otherwise, he lives in Henry's brownstone now. Their brownstone. A UT pennant beside a Chelsea scarf on the living room wall. A fridge full of Topo Chico and Bulmers. Two pairs of shoes by the front door, brown Barker derbies and Reebok trainers. Nobody could mistake it for anyone else's.

It's their first Chore Sunday (Alex's idea), and Henry has put the last of the laundry in the dryer. He's in the kitchen doorway, watching Alex unload the dishwasher.

Alex once told Henry the type of man he's typically attracted to: tall, broad-shouldered, pretty eyes, a little haunted. Bit of attitude and a smile that makes you curious. For Henry, it's never been so simple. He liked boys in his classes because they bothered with the assigned readings and fancied one of Philip's awful Eton friends because he could sail and smelled of cinnamon. The only thing all his Oxford boys had in common was that they didn't know how to speak to him. He's never had a type, and he's always been sure Alex was singular, anyway. Alex is unlike anyone he's ever met before or since.

But here, now, watching Alex bend to remove a salad bowl from the bottom rack, he is confronted with the hard truth. All those boys did, actually, share one trait.

"Are you gonna help me with this," Alex says without even an investigatory glance over his shoulder, "or are you just gonna keep staring at my ass?"

...

It’s Christmas 2022, their first since Alex officially moved in, and Henry is going to make a yule log if it kills him.

Perhaps he’s been too ambitious. He’s rather new to all. Growing up, he was rarely permitted in the kitchens, and he concentrated his uni diet on fast food and takeaway. He can make toast and boil an egg, and he’s got a deft hand with the coffee percolator and a gin swizzle from time to time. He knows about food– the finest foods, actually, he’s yet to meet an Englishman who can select a better brie– but he never learned to cook, until recently.

Recently, as in when Alex became too fanatically involved in his second-year coursework to remember to feed himself.

It began with force-feeding Alex a bacon butty twice a week. Henry’s arms suffered little constellations of grease burns, but bacon was easy. And those faded, so they didn’t deter him for long. Curiosity piqued, he taught himself the basics of pasta, how one can simmer almost anything with garlic and onion and butter and it will taste good over noodles. It bolstered his confidence enough to truly commit, and now, between hours at the shelters and video calls with his mum, he watches tutorial after tutorial on how to brown butter and roast chicken. Only half of what he makes turns out the color it’s meant to, but he loves it.

He loves walking to the market on the corner and hunting down specific ingredients from the family recipes June sends him. In fact, it’s become such a regular pastime that the paparazzi have cottoned on, which is why his mother finally forced his security team to hire an actual body double. Now some bloke named Angus with his height and build and nearly the same face goes on diversionary strolls while Henry peruses jarred chilies.

With all his independent studying, he was certain he could manage a dessert. He wanted to do something impressive, since they’ve convinced their families to let them host Christmas dinner. Only, his sponge has gone all wrong, and if he’s learned anything from Bake Off, he knows it’s not meant to have cracked in five places when he tried to roll it up. Paul Hollywood would have him pilloried.

“Think you might’ve left it in too long?” Oscar asks from across the kitchen island. He’s wearing his white elephant prize, a sweatshirt airbrushed with the slogan YOU CAN’T SPELL CONSTITUTION WITHOUT TITS. Inexplicably, Henry’s own mother brought that one. “Lookin’ kinda dry there.”

“I appreciate that you are trying to be helpful,” Henry enunciates, “but if you say one more word I may start crying, and then we’ll both lose some respect for me.”

Later, when Pez has persuaded him to “call it, mate, put it out of its misery,” he carries his disgraced platter of ganache and cake and marzipan out into the living room and lets everyone go at it with spoons. The house feels full to bursting, and not just because of the Christmas crackers. There are all three of Alex’s parents, Henry’s mum, June and Nora, Bea and Pez, Shaan and Zahra on speakerphone, occasionally an awkward Philip and Martha via FaceTime, and, because he had nowhere else to go for the holiday, Angus.

(“I don’t like him,” Alex muttered when Henry suggested inviting his own body double to Christmas dinner.

“Why not?”

“Because he looks exactly like you, but I find him deeply unattractive, and that freaks me out.”)

Ellen tells everyone the story of the year Alex got his first real bike for Christmas and knocked out his two front teeth by Boxing Day, which prompts Catherine to recite eight-year-old Henry’s letter to Father Christmas, in which he requested a leather-bound journal and a holiday to East Wittering so he could gaze at the sea. Bea pushes Henry behind the upright piano, and he takes requests for an hour. It only ends when Pez rewrites half the lyrics to “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” to be about his own lactose intolerance. No one wants to follow “tidings of Lactaid and soy.”

After the third round of mulled wine, when Alex’s parents have called their drivers and his mum has retired to the guest room, June and Nora find themselves under the mistletoe. Everyone whoops and whistles until Nora finally pulls June in by her Christmas-light necklace and kisses her to a round of applause. June's cheeks turn red, but she looks pleased as anything.

"I can't believe it took this long for y'all to finally kiss." Alex says, to which Pez bursts into laughter. "What?"

"Alex," he says fondly. He drains his glass and pecks Alex on the forehead. "You gorgeous, stupid little turnip."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Pez just shakes his head and strolls off to the kitchen.

"Wait," Alex says.

He frowns, like he does when he's trying to recall something incredibly minute and specific from his torts textbook. Then, suddenly, a light goes on, and his own mug is clunking on the lamp table, and he's running off after Pez.

"Pez, what's that supposed to mean?"

...

It's late morning the summer before Alex's last year of law school, 2023, and Alex is the first word out of Henry's mouth.

Truthfully, that's how he begins most mornings. On a Monday morning five time zones away, "Alex" pitched low to the screen of his phone. On a Friday when Alex's early lecture is cancelled, "Alex" in F major, muffled in the pillow as his body moves and the day stretches out before them. Half three the night before an exam, a hoarse "Alex," followed by, "turn the bloody light off and come to bed."

This morning, it's because David is barking at the door. A rainstorm is brewing, and if jet lag didn't have Henry dead under the bedclothes, the gray gloom would. Alex was the one who surfaced from sleep half an hour ago and blearily ordered three entire pancake breakfasts from some 24-hour diner a few neighborhoods over. He should have to get up and answer the door.

“Alex.” Henry mumbles, turning over.

Alex has got the quilt tugged up so high he’s only a shock of wild curls on white linens.

“Nnnghh,” Alex groans from the depths.

“Breakfast is here,” Henry says. The doorbell helpfully rings again. David howls.

Alex’s face appears, pouting. There’s a crease from the pillow down one of his cheekbones, a comet’s tail in a constellation of freckles. “Can you get it?”

Henry rolls his eyes but smiles. Inevitable.

He drags himself out of bed and pulls on the joggers and hoodie from last night’s flight. It’s not until he feels the breeze on his ankles as he descends the stairs that he realizes they’re Alex’s, not his.

On their doorstep, a pink-haired delivery girl is looking bored under her bicycle helmet.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Henry says. He fishes a crumpled bill out of Alex’s pocket. “For your trouble.”

The girl pulls a face.

“Got any real money?” she asks. Her accent reminds him a bit of Alex’s mum.

He blinks down at her hand, which is holding a twenty-pound note. “Ah. Sorry again. Er.” He snatches his wallet out of the bowl on the credenza and gives her all the American dollars he has.

“She’s gone, Davey,” Henry says afterward to David, who’s now fretfully circling the living room. “You’ve protected us from another fearsome home invader. Well done.”

He lets David out into the back garden to do his business, then carries the food upstairs. Shockingly, Alex is awake and propped up against the headboard.

“I’m getting too old for red-eye flights,” Alex says, rubbing his eyes.

“Love, you’re twenty-five,” Henry reminds him. He deposits the bag on the nightstand, and Alex wastes no time tearing through the plastic and tucking in to his breakfast. “And I’m older than you.”

“Yes, you are. But like... I get why we have to go to Philip’s kids’ christenings. The cousins, though?” He sets to work smothering his pancakes in syrup. “I mean, at least my cousins would stack their baptisms. One and done, baby.”

Henry opens his mouth, prepared to answer with one of a thousand things. That the tabloids will have even more of a field day than usual if he stops doing his chores, that there will always be a church dedication or a swan upping or an appointment for a top hat fitting, that he’ll always be obligated to have one foot in London and one day they’ll have to choose where to settle down. It’s far from the first time they’ve had this conversation.

But then Alex shovels a massive bite of pancakes into his mouth and says, “Anyway, I love you. Do you wanna have June and Nora over tomorrow? We can play Mario Party again. I wanna see them get in a fistfight. Oh, and my dad’s in town next week, and he said to tell you he’s bringing that book you asked about–”

And that’s when Henry knows: He doesn’t ever want to go back.

...

It’s the end of spring 2024, and Henry is not eavesdropping, per se. He excused himself to answer a call from Shaan, which really could not be avoided. Shaan has taken to his new life as a househusband with predictable aplomb, and most of his calls these days involve Henry getting to talk to a baby who is clearly destined to become prime minister. He simply can’t send that to voicemail.

It’s the first time they’ve had room in the schedule for his mother to visit since Alex accepted his law job, which Henry understands very little about but has been assured is the most strategic next step for Alex’s career long game. When Henry left the room, Alex was still trying to explain it to Catherine. It all sounds terribly prestigious.

He is just returning to the sitting room with a fresh pot of tea when he hears his name from around the corner.

“–and the next morning Henry and Arthur vanished,” his mother is saying, “and when Uncle Algie called, I told him that Henry couldn’t go on the annual pheasant hunt because he was violently ill, but actually Arthur had taken him to Rome for two weeks on the set of that go on ridiculous car heist film he was working on, the one with, oh, what’s his name–“

“Jason Statham,” Alex says promptly, through wheezing laughter.

“That’s the one!”

“Loved that movie,” Alex says. “I can’t believe Henry got to be on set.”

“It was all Arthur’s idea, but he was right to do it. Uncle Algie is a dreadful bore, and Henry despises his son. Guilford. Did you meet Guilford at the wedding?”

“Henry made sure I avoided it.”

“Yes, that’s for the best,” Catherine says daintily. “He has matured into an absolute dickhead.”

Henry wishes he was in the room to see the way Alex sputters out, “Oh my God.” Alex always forgets that Catherine went to uni and married a commoner from Sheffield.

And then Alex sighs and says, “When Henry and I get married–”

Henry manages to recover the teapot before he drops it.

It’s not a surprise to hear Alex mention marriage. They’ve been sorting it out for years: political logistics and Alex’s child-of-divorce anxiety and a thousand questions about a royal wedding neither of them actually wants to have. He’s already bought an engagement ring, even, and judging by how tetchy Alex gets whenever Henry tries to put his underwear away for him, he’s not the only one.

But it is the first time he’s heard Alex mention it to his mother. He dropped it so casually, so matter-of-factly, as if he’s been talking to her about marrying Henry for years. Henry supposes it’s possible he has been. Is this why Alex had tea with her in London last month and told Henry he wasn’t invited? Have they been conspiring?

They’re discussing hypothetical guest lists now, which cousins secretly hate one another and who wore an inappropriately large fascinator to whose birthday tea, but Henry isn’t listening anymore. He’s thinking of a cafe table in Rome, his dad waving over a second round of gelato.

In his memory, he’s nine years old, and his father is saying, Whoever you marry, Henry, make sure they think your mum is a laugh, because she is. She really is.

He clears his throat and finally rounds the corner. “Tea, anyone?”

...

It’s 2024, and nobody knows they’re engaged.

Granted, they’ve only been engaged for about three hours, but Henry is curious to see how long they can go. It feels nice to keep a secret that doesn’t have to be a secret. It’s more that they’re keeping it like a pet, or something especially beautiful from the garden that they’ve coaxed into a jar.

A record is spinning on the turntable, one of Alex’s, maybe the Joni Mitchell he borrowed from Bea. They’ve shoved their phones under the couch cushions and ordered a pizza the size of the moon, and now they’re sitting in the center of the living room floor, demolishing it. They kiss, then eat more pizza, then get distracted kissing again. Henry licks a streak of pepperoni grease from Alex’s forearm, which is a fantasy he didn’t know he had until he’s living it. They tangle up on the rug, and Henry decides he’ll take Alex sailing next weekend, or even out to the edge of the river, just to see him against a horizon.

Four-nearly-five years in, the main thing he’s learned is that Alex is a world without end. All Henry wants is to go on with him forever. To keep finding new favorite parts, to keep turning things over and studying their soft bellies and finding the best bits.

So, he will.

...

It snows on New Year’s Eve 2024. Alex looks out the window and shrugs off his coat.

The Young America Gala may be no longer, but Nora, June, and Pez aren’t to be stopped from throwing a New Year’s party, especially now that Pez has gotten his own part-time flat in the city. They’re the three fates of New York City’s holiday social circuit: birth (June, managing invitations), life (Pez, topless), and death (Nora, also topless).

“What if,” Alex says, turning to Henry on the foot of the stairs, “we don’t go to the party?”

“Nora will murder me,” Henry says. “She told me she’s not afraid to do that now that I’ve given up my title.”

“Murder is still a crime even if you’re not officially a prince.”

“Yes, but she said, quote,” he puts on his best American accent, “They can’t put me in the Tower anymore. Who’s gonna arrest me now? Mr. Bean?”

“Why don’t we just send Angus? It’s dark. Maybe she won’t notice.”

“Where’s your double, then?”

“We live in New York, I’m sure I can find a male model somewhere.”

“As always, sounding the very bass string of humility.”

“Is that fucking Shakespeare?”

“Henry IV.”

“I’m gonna give you a wedgie, you fucking nerd.”

In the end, it doesn’t take much to convince Henry to stay in. Lately, it never does. Alex texts June a flimsy excuse, and they toe off their shoes and relax out of their button-downs.

Henry does have to admit he’s exhausted, in the way that one only can be on the last day of the year, when every other day of the year piles way up behind it. It’s been a big one: Alex’s first law job, the endless press about Henry’s decision to surrender his title, the engagement, Bea’s wedding, the incident with the croquet mallets and the Dutch ambassador at Bea's wedding.

Sometimes Alex jokes that they squeezed it all into one calendar year because no headline can stick if there's another next week, but it's only half a joke. They've been bone-tired for months.

"I'm surprised you're the one who wants to stay home," Henry says. "I remember a young lothario who lived to ruin people's lives on New Year's Eve."

"Ruin?" Alex says. "That's not how I remember it."

"It certainly felt that way at the time."

They drift to the kitchen, past all the traces of the year. The dried flowers, the new scuffs on the floorboards. The box of bound manuscripts of Henry's first finished poetry-ish short-fiction-ish essay-ish collection. The holiday cards from senators and diplomats and old Texas friends, topped off with Alex's favorite of Rafael Luna and his astonishingly fit partner in matching Christmas jumpers. Henry would think Raf had been forced into it if it hadn't come with a case of beer and a note of thanks for letting him stay over the last time he visited Alex and had one too many tequila shots at drag bingo.

Alex withdraws a bottle of Clicquot from the refrigerator and says, "We're not washed, are we?"

“We're aging," Henry points out.

"That's right," Alex says, eyes immediately sparking at the opportunity. Henry preemptively sighs. "You're almost thirty."

"Almost twenty-eight is not almost thirty."

"It basically is. You're old. You'll be thirty a whole year before me. You'll be popping antacids and I'll be in the club, popping my p-"

"You're not even in the club now."

"I could be, I'm just choosing not to, because I don't want to deal with the snow. That's not aging, it's growth."

He slides Henry a glass of champagne and adds, "It's probably time for us to start talking about what's on your Do Before Thirty list, huh?"

Henry takes the glass and chooses going with Alex's bit over pointing out that he's entering his late twenties, not dying.

“I’ve done quite well on that front so far, actually,” he says. “Wrote a book. Started a nonprofit. Engaged to the love of my life.”

“Involved in an international sex scandal.”

“Shook the hands of all five Spice Girls.”

“Best dressed at the Met Gala.”

“Cried in the Water Lilies room at the MOMA.”

“Grew your hair out, then cut it all off.“

“Taught myself to make beef Wellington.”

“That one’s, uh, still in progress,” Alex hedges. Henry gives him an affronted look. “But, yeah! Definitely. And you got really good at scones.”

“That I did.”

“Right,” Alex agrees. “So what’s left? Streaking? Dropping acid? Having sex on our kitchen island?”

Henry takes a moment with that one.

“Having sex on our kitchen island?”

When the clock strikes the new year, the house is quiet. The timer on the light over the front stoop clicks off. The champagne bottle rests between two glasses on the edge of the sink, spent and sticky around the rim, a single soggy strawberry at the bottom of each flute. Miles out from their apartment, fireworks fight the snow over the East River, but in their kitchen in Park Slope, the only sounds are the two of them.

Henry, almost twenty-eight, presses his warm body to the cool marble and gets his midnight kiss.

...

“Do you know what today is?” Alex asks on a lukewarm September.

It’s 2025. He’s in the doorway of Henry’s study, where Henry has been all evening, answering emails.

“Hm? No.”

When Alex doesn’t immediately fill the silence, Henry looks up from his laptop screen.

“What is it?”

“Five years since the story broke,” Alex says.

It takes a moment for him to realize what story Alex means; there have been so many of them. But of course, he means that gigantic, terrible one. The one that changed their lives forever.

“Oh,” Henry says. He closes his laptop, leaning back in his chair and away from it. “Well. Hated that.”

“Yeah,” Alex agrees. “Zero out of ten. Would not do again.”

His tone is light and casual, but when he folds his arms across his chest, Henry can see his glasses in the front pocket of his flannel. It’s been months and months since the last time Alex didn’t feel confident enough to wear them.

For his part, Henry can remember much of that day, but not all of it. He remembers stirring sugar into his morning tea when Shaan walked in wearing an expression Henry had never seen before. He remembers Pez arriving like the cavalry in Gucci slippers, hustling Henry away from his handlers with the same graceful disdain he used to direct at Eton classmates who stared at them too much. He remembers Bea finding them in the music parlor and refusing to hear Henry’s apology, and he remembers Alex’s call and Alex’s arrival.

The funny part, though, is he can’t remember anything between Bea and Alex. He knows that Philip was involved, and there were stories on every news channel, and he spoke to his mother at some point. But the space in his memory where those hours belong is simply blank. His psychiatrist says it’s post-traumatic stress disorder, and Henry is inclined to agree, considering the two of them spent the entire following year recalibrating Henry’s anxiety and depression medication around the event.

Those hours will always be gone. There are things he will never get back.

Most of the time, though, when he thinks of that day, the second worst thing that's ever happened to him, he thinks of Alex's hand in his under a Buckingham Palace table. He remembers, clear as a bell, Alex's voice telling him they would survive it together. It happened to Alex too. It wasn't what they would have chosen, but it was what they received, and they've done their absolute bloody best with it.

He rises from his desk, crosses to the doorway, and gathers Alex up against his chest. Their size difference isn't that pronounced—Henry is taller but lean, Alex shorter but sturdy—but in moments like this, he's thankful for the way Alex's cheek perfectly aligns with the crook of his neck. He's grateful for how effortless it is to slip a kiss to Alex's temple.

Neither of them says anything else. It's all been said a thousand times, in speeches and through official statements and in the dark when it's only the two of them. It's enough to stand here in the center of the house, in the quiet, and let it hold their weight.

...

At the end of 2025, Henry has a bad day.

There's nothing specific that causes it. The days just happen like this sometimes, even with all the therapy and medication and supportive partnership and fulfilling creative projects in the world. There are other people, he supposes, who don't spend their lives waiting for the next bad day. He's had every bloody luxury but that one.

Alex comes home from work to find him curled up on the armchair in the study, staring out the window at the light-polluted night sky over the row of brownstones across the street.

“What are you doing?" Alex asks him.

"Looking for Orion," Henry deadpans.

Alex kneels on the rug in his tailored suit pants and rolled-up sleeves and rests his cheek on Henry's knee, the way he often does when Henry's in a mood. Henry's fingers slide into his curls. They've grown a bit longer in the past few months. Lately. Alex looks quite like he did when they met, except for the glasses and the stubble dusting his jaw.

“I’m tired of big law, “ Alex confesses. It would appear he’s in a mood too. “I know it’s only been a year and a half, but...I kind of hate it.”

Henry contemplates that, along with the dark circles around Alex’s eyes.

“You don’t have to do it, you know.” Henry tells him.

Alex looks at him like he did in that hotel room in Paris the first time they woke up together, like the only thing he knows for sure about what he’s being offered is that he wants it completely. It’s an intimidating look to receive, but it’s only ever improved Henry’s life in the end.

He kisses Henry’s knuckle, just below his ring.

“I have some ideas.”

...

In February 2026, a flu sweeps through Park Slope. Neither Alex nor Henry can agree on who gave it to whom first– Henry knows it was Alex, since he’s been up late consulting with his mum about a voting rights bill in Texas, and his immune system always suffers when he gets upset about Texas—but regardless, they’re trapped in the brownstone together for a week. At least Alex doesn’t have to work through his illness the way he usually does, since he resigned from his job last month.

Somewhere around day five, Henry realizes it’s the longest consecutive amount of time they’ve both been home in years. They always seem to be leaving or returning: rushing off to appearances, climbing out of security caravans in half-undone suits, meeting Cash at the curb at three in the morning with bags over their shoulders. It’s nice, in a way, to get reacquainted with this home they’ve built together.

While Alex naps, Henry paces the entire floorplan.

The first floor, with its long living room and the original beams and mantelpiece, which Henry had restored before he moved in, because he always has been precious about the history of things. Then the kitchen and the deep blue cabinets and the wide back window over the knotty pine dining table handed down from Alex's dad. Upstairs, on the second floor, the guest bedroom with all of his mum's preferred hand creams in the attached washroom and the sitting room with the shelf of swan figurines Pez started collecting years ago in a dramatic fit of June-related yearning. One more flight up to the top floor, with his study and Alex's office and the hall with their photo from Shaan and Zahra's wedding and, at the far end, their bedroom.

The bedroom is his favorite part of the house, and not only for the obvious reasons, no matter how much Alex tries to imply otherwise with suggestive eyebrows. He loves the high ceiling and the chipped plaster medallion of roses at the center. They picked out the bed together, and every morning that he wakes up in it, he gets to turn over and see Alex's loose pens and glasses wipes scattered atop the dresser and know that this, his life, is still real. Perhaps he likes the room best because it feels separated from every other part of the house, lifted up and bundled in, which is the first time he's ever been safe in a tower.

Most importantly, of all three levels of bay windows jutting from the redbrick front of the brownstone, only the one in the bedroom has a seat. They've filled it with velvet pillows and mossy green cushions, and once or twice a year, on one of their vanishingly rare slow days, Alex will climb in and fall asleep.

That's where he finds Alex when he eases into the room with a mug of soup in each hand. He recognizes the quilt wrapped around him: they slept under it in Alex's childhood twin bed the night Ellen won her second term, and then Alex crammed it into his suitcase and brought it back to Washington.

He stirs as Henry sets the mugs down on the dresser.

“Thanks,” he says in a hoarse voice.

Henry nudges in beside him, gingerly removing Alex's glasses from beneath his elbow before they get crushed.

"You know," Henry says, "I chose this house for the bay windows."

Alex blinks at him, fully awake now. "Really?"

"I thought you might like them. You always talked about the one you grew up with. Hoped they might make the place feel like home."

Alex smiles. "They do."

Henry looks at him in his quilt, sleep-mussed and flushed from fever and overdue for a shave, and he remembers that night in the yellow house in Austin. Before Alex led them back to his old bedroom, he peeled up the cushion in the living room window seat and showed Henry pages of elementary school scribbles still hidden there. And he told Henry that he thought once of hiding a picture there too, if only he'd had the nerve to tear it out of his sister's magazine.

Love, Henry has found, has a way of growing backward. You fall in love with a person in the present, and then every person you've ever been gets to fall in love with every past version of them. A sleep-deprived Georgetown freshman falls in love with an Oxford sophomore who's testing out undoing the top button of his shirts sometimes. A ruddy-cheeked teenager with his nose in a book loves a backtalking lacrosse captain. A boy comes home from school with perfect marks and sees a picture in a magazine, and the boy from the picture pauses on a palace staircase.

The crux of it is, he loves every version of Alex to ever sleep under that quilt. Everything else is mostly set dressing

"I'm having a thought," Henry says.

"Congratulations," Alex deadpans automatically. Then, "Tell me."

"This life we have here," Henry says. "This house. It's good, yeah?"

"Yeah, of course it is."

"But we could have a good life somewhere else too."

Alex frowns. "Like where?"

"Somewhere... farther from everything, maybe? Somewhere we could slow down, and things could be quieter, and you could do the work you want to do. I think I could use some time away from it all, honestly. Maybe I wouldn't even have to have a body double anymore."

Alex considers that for a long moment. They both know where Henry means, even if he doesn't say it. Besides New York and DC, and London on its best days, there's really only one place Alex would seriously consider living. They've joked about it before, but Henry's always thought it might be nice to spend a few years somewhere completely different than he's used to. A place where he could see the stars.

At long last, Alex sniffs and says, "You're gonna fire Angus? He was just starting to grow on me.”

...

“If you don't wake Bea up, you're gonna have to hear about her back spasms in the morning,” says a voice that is most certainly not Heath Ledger's.

Henry startles awake to find Alex leaning over his shoulder from behind the loveseat, curls everywhere. The room is dark, and the end credits are rolling.

"You're not home until tomorrow," Henry mumbles.

"Moved up my flight," Alex says. He's so close to Henry's face, he's gone a bit cross-eyed. His lips bounce off the tip of Henry's nose. "I missed you."

It's only been a few days, but the truth is Henry missed him too. He supposes he should be used to empty beds and time differences by now, especially when they began that way, but he suspects he'll never stop waiting at the door. You know what will be the best part of getting married?" Henry asks Alex.

"The line dancing."

"The way I won't have to miss you nearly as often."

Alex softens, then maneuvers himself over the armrest until he's draped across Henry's lap. David climbs on top of him and curls up on Alex's left buttock.

Letting go of the house has been hard, but this particular decision was easy, once they finally said it out loud. A gradual, careful withdrawal from public life, at least for a few years. They’ve given so much of themselves to the world and had the privilege of feeling a legacy take shape beneath them, but they need rest too.

It was June who convinced them, actually. Even now, there are certain things only June can say to Alex. Early in the spring, when she was finally transitioning out of her speechwriting job for Raf, she called Alex from Colorado and told him she was moving to New York to be closer to Nora and Pez, and she wanted to sublet the brownstone. When Alex pointed out that he was still living in it, she said, "We both know you've been looking at farmhouses in Austin for six months, it's time to shit or get off the pot."

(Henry loves his particular collection of Americans. They truly do say what's on their minds.)

The new house is beautiful. Henry's only seen it in person once, but the previous owner was a reclusive tech executive with shockingly good taste, so Architectural Digest featured it last year. He's had the article open in a tab on his phone for two months, and he scrolls through all those perfectly lit photos twice a day, getting high on possibilities. Lazy mornings in the wide sunroom, midnight dives in the lake. It's easy to imagine Alex mellowing into a brisket-smoking, tamale-rolling Texas dad out there, and it's just as easy to imagine them basking under cedar trees until their mid-thirties and then deciding they're ready for another round. The wonderful thing is, they can take their time either way.

It isn't a full release from their obligations, but it is the next step after formally relinquishing his title. More boundaries, more of their own rules about what they will and won't do. No royal wedding, but a private ceremony at the lake house and a honeymoon unpacking boxes. A job for Alex at a smaller firm where he can finally get his hands in the earth. A quieter life.

"You're right," Alex says. "You know what else is gonna be awesome about married-people life? We can have actual, real-life date nights. Just imagine it: free refills and bottomless chips and salsa."

"Oh, I've got another one," Henry says. “You can finally show me how to navigate an H-E-B."

“Baby, don’t talk dirty to me in front of company.”

“Please,” says a groggy voice from the couch.

“Hi, Bea.”

“Time’s it?”

“One in the morning.”

“Ugh.”

Grumbling and tugging a blanket around herself, Bea wakes Pez and the two of them head off to wash up before bed. The odds of Pez returning to the couch for the night or availing himself of their bed so that Alex has to sleep on the couch are just about even, based on six years of Pez falling asleep at their house. It’s a comfort to know that when they leave the brownstone and June moves in, Pez will still be making himself at home in it.

Downstairs, surrounded by boxes, Alex crawls out of Henry’s lap and slides a large shopping bag out from behind the loveseat. “I brought you something.” Alex says.

Inside the bag is a box made of the sort of heavy cardboard that augurs something expensive. He imagines Alex hurling his patched-up rough-ridden leather duffle into the overhead compartment of the airplane and then sliding this bag under the seat so carefully that there’s not even a crease in the paper.

He takes the lid off the box and unwraps layers of tissue paper to reveal a hat. A cowboy hat. It’s made of gorgeous, thick felt, with a cattleman crown and a satin lining. A nearly identical one has hung in Alex’s office since he moved in, though Alex’s is midnight black and this one is a warm, pale sand. Where Alex’s hatband has a small gold buckle, this one has a silver pin in the shape of an English rose.

“It’s a Stetson,” Alex says. When Henry looks up at him, his cheeks have darkened faintly. “I know it’s not really your thing, but you ride horses, and it’s kind of a big deal where I’m from to get your first Stetson, so I wanted to be the one to give it to you since you’re about to be an honorary Texan. You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want–“

“I love it,” Henry interrupts.

Alex pauses, then breaks out in a grin. “You do? I was afraid you’d think it was a joke.”

“It’s the least ridiculous hat I’ve ever been given,” Henry tells him. “It didn’t even come with a matching tailcoat.”

“Nah, but maybe we can get you some Wranglers,” Alex says.

“Some chaps, perhaps.”

“I just told you not to talk dirty to me.”

Henry laughs and kisses him over the open box, thinking of the next year of their lives. Sunday morning fry-ups, swimming holes, a wedding cake that doesn’t wind up on the floor. Tomorrow he needs to ask if Alex checked on the bakery while he was in Austin, and if they have any more packing tape, and whether Amy’s daughter has gotten her flower girl dress yet.

Tonight, though, Alex is home a day early, and the house is making all its soft, familiar night-time sounds around them. No one sees in through the windows. No one comes in through the gate.

“Henry,” says Alex.

“Alex,” says Henry.

“You and me,” Alex says.

“You and me,” Henry agrees.

End.

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[yeoosaangg]

Bad Idea || Kinktober - Day 3

pairing ▸ jung wooyoung × f!reader

now playing ▸ bad idea - dove cameron

⤷ ❝i've got a lot of sins, but you're my favorite.❞

genre ▸ college au, (one-sided) "enemies" to lovers, kinda angsty, smut

warnings ▸ mommy kink, dry humping, marking, degradation, biting, mentions of depression, self-harm, blood, attempted suicide, hospitalization

--------

You sit in a circle, bored out of your mind.

A bunch of drunk college students thought it'd be fun to play a silly party game called "Seven Minutes in Heaven".

The last pair of students came back with swollen lips and a few hickeys.

Typical.

Chaewon: Alright! Y/n, spin the bottle.

Y/n: I told you I wasn't playing.

Chaewon: Just do it once! You don't actually have to do stuff in the closet. Just wait until the seven minutes are over.

If she wasn't your friend, you'd punch her. But you sigh, spinning the stupid bottle.

It comes to a stop and you look up at the chosen one you'd be locked in a closet with.

Oh, fuck no! Absolutely not.

Chaewon: Off you two go! Try not to kill each other please.

Easy for her to say!

Wooyoung smirks, confidently walking towards the closet. You follow, putting as much distance between you and the boy as possible.

Hendery: Game starts as soon as I close this door.

Then he slams it shut, locking it from the outside.

Wooyoung: I see you’ve grown out of your baby cheeks.

Y/n: Is that a compliment?

Wooyoung: Just an observation.

Y/n: Whatever.

He chuckles.

Wooyoung: Haven't seen you since junior year of high school.

You cross your arms, staring at your feet. Why is he talking to you like you're old friends catching up. You just want to leave this stupid closet.

Y/n: For good reason.

Wooyoung: Why? We used to be great friends.

Y/n: Like you care.

Wooyoung: Of course I care.

If he did, he would've been there for you when you needed him the most. But he wasn't.

Y/n: Just shut up.

Wooyoung frowns. You never talked to him this way before, what happened? Why'd you drift so far away from him? When did you get so cold?

Wooyoung: Why do you hate me so much?

You scoff. There's no need for him to know, it already happened.

Y/n: Figure it out if you want to know so bad.

He whines quietly.

It'd be easier to clear the air if you'd just talk to him. Why are you being difficult?

He pouts, not liking how you're ignoring him. So he starts kicking your leg to catch your attention.

Y/n: Quit it!

Wooyoung: Not until you tell me what I did.

Y/n: Ugh, fine!

He smiles triumphantly, leaning forward with anticipation.

Y/n: Remember when I spam called you the night you went to Yeosang's birthday party?

He nods.

He was going to call you back when Yeosang took his phone away so he wouldn't be distracted. He meant to follow up with you, but you disappeared.

Y/n: Massive trigger warning, but I was going through a rough depressive episode and needed someone to distract me from doing something really bad.

Wooyoung's smile drops, his shoulders slumping in sadness.

Y/n: When you didn't pick up, I got upset and the bad thoughts got worse. My mom was home, so I couldn't do it there... But I ended up walking to the nearby bridge.

Wooyoung's stomach tightens, a few tears falling down his face.

Y/n: I took out the razor blade I had in my pocket and cut really deep into my arms. I threw it into the river below me and I climbed the railing.

Wooyoung's bottom lip trembled, taking your hand in his. You didn't pull away from him, which made him feel hopeful.

Y/n: Before I could jump, Haknyeon saved me.

Wooyoung: My friend?

Y/n: Mhm. He said his family was on their way back from eating out at a restaurant when he recognized me and told his dad to stop the car.

Wooyoung: I'm happy he did.

Y/n: I wasn't. But he never told anyone what happened. He covered for me and lied to my mom about what happened. He helped me get better until I fully recovered.

He should thank Haknyeon. His best friend wouldn't be here today if he hadn't been there to save you.

Wooyoung: That's why you randomly disappeared... Because you were in the hospital.

You nod, smiling at him.

Y/n: Very dark period in my life. I still have some days where I'm feeling icky, but not as bad as that day. I hope I never get to that point again.

Wooyoung: I'm sorry I wasn't there for you.

Y/n: You didn't know. But I still held a grudge 'cause you promised never to ignore me.

Wooyoung: And I wasn't! But Yeosang took my phone and told me to stop letting you distract me.

Y/n: Why would I be a distraction?

He clears his throat, feeling a bit embarrassed now. It's not an appropriate time to talk about that.

Hendery: Five minutes!

Right, they're still playing the game.

Wooyoung: Ain't no way that was two minutes. This feels rigged!

Hendery: Maybe if you weren't boring and kissed her, time would go by faster!

Kiss?!

Wooyoung: He's crazy.

Y/n: Yeah, but he's hot so it cancels out.

Wooyoung: You think he's hot?

Y/n: Well, yeah. But I wouldn't date him.

Wooyoung: Would you fuck him?

Huh?

Y/n: Why're you asking?

Wooyoung: I'm curious.

Y/n: No. We're both dominant types in the bedroom, it wouldn't work out.

He hums in acknowledgement.

Wooyoung: What about me? Would you fuck me?

Y/n: Do you want me to?

He shivers in place before answering.

Wooyoung: Yes.

Oh!

Wooyoung clears his throat, not expecting the conversation to have gone this route.

But he likes it.

Wooyoung: I've always had a crush on you. Ever since we met, actually.

Y/n: Damn. If you had asked me out when were were kids, I would've accepted.

Wooyoung: And if I ask you now?

Y/n: I wouldn't hate the idea.

Wooyoung: Do you want to go on a date with me?

Your smile beams, making his worries disappear.

Y/n: I'd love to, baby.

He giggles, hiding his face behind his hands. You coo, moving to sit next to him.

Wooyoung: Can I call you Mommy when we're alone?

Fucking hell.

Y/n: Yeah, baby. You most definitely can.

Wooyoung: Okay.

You can see him let himself go, letting you see the side of him no one else can see.

Wooyoung: Can I kiss you, Mommy?

Y/n: Come sit on my lap, precious.

He wastes no time sitting on your lap and wrapping his arms around your neck. His body melts at your touch, your lips dancing with his.

He angles his hips so his crotch rubs against your clothed heat. He softly whines into your mouth, loving the feeling of having you to himself.

Y/n: Baby, can I mark you?

Wooyoung: Yes, please. Want people to know I'm Mommy's.

You smile, pulling down the fabric of his hoodie. Your hot tongue licks the skin of his collarbone before you paint a few red marks on him.

You know they'll bruise later.

His hips stutter, loving how intimate and scandalous this was. Inside of someone else's closet at that.

Y/n: Look at you, so desperate for me. Mommy's little whore.

Wooyoung: Mommy, please.

Y/n: Please, what, baby?

Wooyoung hides in the crook of your neck as his rhythm picks up pace, whimpering at how good he's feeling.

Hendery: Three minutes!

Wooyoung quietly whines. He doesn't want this moment to end. He pulls down your shirt and starts biting your shoulder.

Y/n: I like that a lot, baby.

You moves your hands from his hips to his ass, giving him a hard squeeze. He chokes on his moan, not wanting Hendery to hear.

Y/n: Is my pretty boy feeling shy?

Thing is, he has no problem acting like an arrogant asshole all the the time. But when it comes to the bedroom, he turns into mush and wants to be held.

He wants you to reduce him to nothing but Mommy's fucktoy.

Y/n: Aww, look at you. What happened to the boy that was so bold and sure of himself just moments ago? Why do you seem so small now?

His brain short-circuits. Your tone was sickenly sweet and soft, but your words were mocking him. It's confusing his brain.

Y/n: What's wrong, baby? Is it too much to process with that little brain of yours, hm?

Wooyoung: I- Um, w-we... What's-

He looks so fucking cute. You want to fuck him silly, but that can wait for another day.

Y/n: Look at you, stuttering and tripping over you words. How about I shut you up, baby.

He gasps as you kiss him. He feels so good, loving the way you're holding him.

You hum, sliding your hand under his hoodie. You pull him impossibly closer, using your tongue to part his lips.

He quietly whines, rememberng where you guys were.

Hendery: One minute!

Y/n: How about you make yourself cum, baby?

Wooyoung presses into you, the friction stimulating you both. He inhales another moan, trying his best to keep his sounds at bay.

Wooyoung: Gonna cum, Mommy.

His muffled words were so cute, but you understand him perfectly.

Y/n: Go ahead, baby. Let it out for me.

His hips stutter, releasing inside his underwear. You cum at the same time, feeling your panties soak.

He whines, feeling sticky but so good.

Wooyoung: Thank you, Mommy. Was so good.

Y/n: Of course, my cute boy. Now, fix yourself up, We've got 15 seconds.

You smirk, watching him pull down his oversized hoodie over the front of his jeans. He wipes his face and fixes his hair just in time.

Hendery: Wow, you two really are lame.

Y/n: Thanks, Dery.

Hendery: You guys didn't even talk?

Y/n: What's there to talk about?

Your friend rolls his eyes and pushes you out of the closet.

Wooyoung immediately goes back into his confident and arrogant persona. But you know the truth.

Wooyoung: She's a buzzkill, dude. I need another drink.

They wrap their arms around each other and follow you back into the other room so other people can play the game.

---

a/n: yeah, idk. i think i'm incapable of NOT adding some sort of plot... the song barely has connection to the fic, i just like it. thanks for reading ‹𝟹

[pennyluna]

SECRET FRIENDS - Min Yoongi- One Shot

Pairing: Yoongi x Reader 18+🔞 (FT.. Jungkook, Mingyu, Hobi, Jimin, Yugyeom)

Wordcount: 2.164 ❤️

Genre: Same friend group Au - Secret friends Au - Secret siatuationship Au

Warning: This story contains strong language and VERY Spicy/sexual content. Be aware before reading.

After a couple of weeks of thinking, I decided to bring my best friend Cassie into my secret circle of friends, it had felt weird not tell her about it before, only the secret wasn't only mine but today I received a message from Jungkook, inviting me to a little weekend away in the countryside  , he felt bad that I was keeping a secret from my  best friend so he said II could bring her along. 

So here we are dropping our stuff in one of the bedrooms. My friend is a little mad at me because I didn't give her a heads up on who she was going to be meeting and because she is embarrassed she was wearing her Mingyu Tshirt when she actually shook Mingyu's hand. In my defence, I did not see it under her jean jacket and Mingyu did find it funny. 

Hobi is preparing the food shopping list so he can go with Jimin and Yugyeom to the supermarket, we are in a pretty small town so not many people would pay much attention to them.  

Mingyu and Jungkook were thinking about drinks but decided to make a tik tok video of a new dance while making Cassie record it. I knew they were going to get along and I am glad they are. 

I met Jungkook a while back while I was volunteering at an animal shelter, we clicked talking about animals, we became friends and soon he introduced me to some of his friends a few of them aren't here because of their busy schedule... There is one in particular that I am waiting for.. I haven't seen him in a while and I know he is going to be here but I can't wait.  Min Yoongi and I talked often when we were at the same gatherings, we had some things in common and he would make sure I felt comfortable and included, one conversation lead to another until one day we were celebrating Jungkook's birthday and after some drinks we ended up sleeping together. I felt incredibly guilty at the thought of ruining this new found friendship so I avoided Yoongi until we met again at a different gathering and we ended up slept together again, we decided to just keep it at that even though I caught feelings. 

"Yoongi Hyun is almost here!" Jungkook yells from the kitchen bar, looking at me with a smirk.  He knows about us, against his own will like he likes to say. He walked in on us doing the deed once when he thought Yoongi was alone in his room. Yoongi had to buy him a full box of banana milk as bribe for his silence and another one as payment for his trauma.

"Staaaup" I mouth at him while he laughs at my sudden blush.

I hear voices outside and I recognize his, he is greeting the boys that are on their way to the super market... I stay on the couch acting as nonchalant as possible but my heart is racing and I am sure it skips a couple of beats as soon as I feel him bend over the couch to level to my ear and whisper  "Hello beautiful.. its been a while!" I can smell his scent and feel his breath on my skin. I don't turn to look at him because I am sure our lips would connect and I have missed him so much, I don't think I would be able to stop at just a kiss.

........................................................

We had dinner and drink outside and now we are playing games, Cassie and the boys are getting along and she is smiling so much, I am worried her chicks will fall! We watch Jimin dance like a chicken as a dare for loosing at the latest game, Jungkook keeps winning and we are all obviously teaming up to make him loose at least once. Yoongi and I keep stealing glances at each other and my stomach keeps fluttering every time he smiles at me and I worry that the longer we keep seeing each other the more painful it will be for me when it ends. When he told me that he was coming this weekend, he also said we had to talk and I feel it is about ending it. 

MYG<3 : should we retire soon?

Me: I don't want to leave Cassie alone.

MYG<3 : She will be fine.

MYG<3 : I want to be alone with you.

Fuck. He wants to have that talk now. I take a break from replying to his messages. I am not ready but better now than later I guess. I tell Cassie that I will go inside for a while to make a phone call to my parents, those usually last long so she wont get worry if I'm gone for a while. 

Me: Okay, lets.

MYG<3 : You go first.

I waited for Yoongi on the second floor, once we were in his room we made small talk, its unbearable and I am feeling awkward so I decide to kick start the more serious conversation.

"So we should talk..." I start but he cuts my sentence with a kiss. I push him back a little putting my hands on his chest to keep the distance. He frowns at me with an inquisitive look.

"What's wrong?" he says placing a hand on my chick while tilting his head.

I think about pushing for the serious conversation but then think about how this will probably be the last time we are this close together, about how I might regret not enjoying him like this one last time and before I can change my mind I close the distance between us and our mouths clash. I expect him to stop me but instead he deepens the kiss and that's all I need to know before I start walking backwards to the bed maintaining eye contact and unbuttoning my jeans and letting them fall to the floor. Yoongi takes his clothes and walks to help me out of my hoodie leaving me in my underwear and biting his lips once he noticed I hadn't been wearing a bra!

He pushes me into the bed and gets on top of me, kissing me deeply and moving his hands freely around my body. I can feel his hard cock when he presses his crotch against mine. His mouth moves around my face and then  my neck, following a trail towards my breast and I cant seem to control my breathing or my racing heart. My head is cloudy, run by pure deep lust, the same one I can see in his eyes when we make eye contact while my nipple is in his mouth. His long fingers are now at my clit, rubbing it with passion and a moan escapes my mouth, he flips me around and pulls my butt up and removes my underwear. He starts making his way to my core starting from the back, delivering wet kisses to my butt and going lower until i feel his long tongue stroking around my entrance and then caressing my clit. My legs shake the more he plays around with my clit, I can feel the orgasm building and once his finger enter me, I cant hold it in anymore and let go. He lick me all over and then I feel his absence, looking towards him I notice the condom on his hand. My mouth waters at the view of his perfectly erected member and I get off the bed and drop to me knees, looking into his eyes I don't wait for him to oppose to this and guide his cock into my mouth, sucking hard and moving my tongue around the tip, earning me a grunt from him, I look up and notice he is hanging his head backwards, then my eyes fall to his free hand and I notice his closed fist... I know what that means, he is itching to hold my head and fuck my mouth, so I grab it and place it at the back of my head, letting him know that its okay to do just what he wants. I feel him thrust forward and I relax my throat to give him full access. I can hear his moans and grunts when I breathe and try my best to swallow around his cock until he stops me abruptly, gets me up and on the bed again, spreading my legs and putting the condom on before he enters me.  We always had great chemistry in bed, our sex was always hot and dirty but tonight there is also something else and its fucking good.  I can feel him inside of me getting frantic,  we have been going at it for a while and after several of my orgasms I can feel his trusts going faster and his cock throbbing inside of me, I know he is close. he kisses me through my latest orgasm and I feel the shock of it starting from my toes, the eye contact sealing it and after my high he pumps a couple more times inside of me before his glorious release. He give me a chaste kiss and then drops next to me. 

"Fuuuck..." he says while breathing heavily

I stay quiet for a while, afraid that if I speak the bubble will break and we will be forced to have that conversation, all while I only want to enjoy this moment.

He kisses my shoulder softly a couple of times and then clears his throat before speaking "I want to tell you something and I need you to listen to me" -FUCK, here we go and I'm not ready-

I hum in response and prepare myself for the worst.

"(Y/N)  you know I care about you and that we have been doing this for a while now..." His voice seems calm but somehow my heart keeps raising and my mind is imagining the worst "I can't do this anymore, the whole secret thing is hard and It is stressing me out.. so maybe we shouldㅡ " he pauses when I move to sit up.

"Right.." I exhale trying to slow downs my breathing "We should just stop this" I walk to my clothes

"What?" he shoots up and grabs my arm, his dark hair slightly wet by the sweat is now attached to his forehead and he looks gorgeous while standing there looking at me in confusion. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I understand, you want to end it. This secret is a problem and we need to end it before it becomes something bigger"  I say slowly and carefully.. his confused expression is starting to freak me out, he is looking at me like I just grew a second head and I become even more confused once he laughs drily.

"I never said I wanted to end it. I want us to continue seeing each other. Iㅡ" 

"Us hooking up sgain is only going to make it harder later one" I say

"Stop. Stop talking." he says, placing a hand to his chest and moving his hair from his forehead "If you would only listen to me, you would know that I don't want to fucking end it. I want you in my life and I thought about us being friends but  the idea of us being anything short that boyfriend and girlfriend kills me and I came here to ask you but... you don't want to?" He looks at me, his face pained and I start tearing up. 

This whole time I thought he wanted to end us, meanwhile he just wanted us to become something more. I can see him trying to find an answer on my face and when I find myself unable to speak, I throw myself at him, kissing him passionately, stopping to whisper in between sobs  "I do want us. I want us to be together. I want to be your girlfriend." and starting a second round of what we had just finished.

.......................................

Its the morning after and I woke up in between his arms, Yoongi and I spent most of the night having sex, intense and meaningful sex until we fell asleep. 

I am in the ensuite shower when he joins me and we go for another rounds, I am incredibly happy and he seems to be in the same state. Every now and then he tells me how happy he is I said yes and how much more relaxed he feels now that we are on the same page. 

We get dressed in between kisses, trying our best to not fall in the bed again because we need energy so we walk holding hands to the kitchen to get some breakfast and we can hear everyone is awake. We had decided to let our friends know about us because it was a good start not having to hide our relationship from them. 

"FUCKING FINALLY" Jungkook yells with a big smile when he sees us entering the Livingroom.

A/N: I hope you guys like this story. Sorry I haven't published in a while, I have been dealing with some personal stuff and with the publishing of my upcoming book so my priorities have been different lately. I will keep writing, I dont have set times but I will work on publishing at least twice a month. Loye you all and please stay healthy and safe.

[ddejavvu]

Good morning!

Requesting camboy Hotch - when one of his subordinates watches him (without realising it’s their boss) until the next morning when they notice they’re hotel room’s the same?

or something along those lines? just camboy Hotch being hot, pls and thank you.

today is multiverse monday! send me an au you can think of :)

this post is 18+, minors dni.

You have to admit, you've got a thing for forearms. Especially when they're partially covered by a rolled-up button up shirt, muscles and veins accentuated alike by the grip the man has on his cock. He's strained, trying to keep his pace slow so that the livestream doesn't end too soon. You're thankful for that, as the fatigue settled deep in your bones is making it hard to get off.

Not too hard, though, as the man's thick, rough thumb slips over his slit, collecting a bead of precum from his tip and smearing it down his length. His cock is thick, hard, and twitching as he tries containing himself, and the grunts coming from his mouth show just how hard he's trying to make himself wait.

The voice sounds familiar, but it's nothing you can place. You're sure you've never heard anything that low and raspy before, but the underlying tone sounds eerily familiar.

You realize you're lost in your thoughts, eyes shifting from the terribly ugly painting in the background back to the man. He's splayed out against the side of the bed, and you lament such an attractive man having such poor choice in decor.

You suppose you don't know if he's really attractive. You haven't seen his face, but his body alone is enough to make you sweat.

And sweat you do, beads of it gathering on your hairline as you keep yourself buried beneath the covers. Once your thighs stop trembling and you can ease your fingers out of yourself you retreat to the bathroom, hearing a similar flow of water in Hotch's room just next door. You're surprised he's still awake, as you'd been sent to your room an hour ago, but knowing him, he's still working.

You allow yourself a light scoff at his behavior, crawling into bed with even more exhaustion plaguing your body and a fond smile on your face.

--

When you step out of your room the next morning, running a minute late to the precinct, you're surprised to see Hotch's door open. You peer inside, already dreading the worst and expecting to see it ransacked, but he's pulling on his shoes, tie dangling over the ground.

He hears your footsteps and glances up at you, offering a tired smile.

"Y/L/N," He greets you, voice gruff from sleep. For some reason, your lower half decides to react to that, a warm pool gathering in your belly at his raspiness. You try ignoring it, throwing him an equally groggy grin.

"Hotch," You lean against his doorframe, "You're late too?"

"First and only time," He pledges, "I didn't sleep much last night."

"Neither did I," You mourn, eyes drifting around the room as he grabs his briefcase, "I didn't get to sleep until-"

You don't notice it at first. But there it is, the dreadful painting. The painting you'd seen only hours before, in the background of a porn stream. Of your boss's porn stream, holy shit, your boss is a porn star.

"Y/N?" He ducks down to meet your horrified gaze, eyes dim with worry, "Are you alright?"

You know now where you'd heard his voice. It had proclaimed 'wheels up in thirty,' nearly a thousand times beside your ear, and the sleep tacked onto it this morning matched last night's perfectly.

"Oh my god," You murmur, and Hotch's frown only deepens.

"What? Is something wrong?"

"No!" You barely save yourself, chest heaving slightly as you avoid his concerned gaze, "No. Everything is fine. I just- I remembered it was my friend's birthday yesterday, and I didn't call her."

"Oh," He hums, face barely letting up from its frown, now set for the day, "I hope she understands."

"Yeah." You breathe, turning on your heel and starting down the hallway without waiting for him to shut the door behind himself. He joins you in the elevator without another word and it's to your horror that you realize his sleeves are rolled up, a further reminder of last night that makes something deep below your belly purr.

"Hotch," You keep your eyes on the silver buttons in front of you, "It's cold outside."

"Oh?" He's not sure why you're making casual conversation about the weather amidst a serial killer case, "Are you warm enough?"

"You won't be." You inform him bluntly, "Roll down your sleeves."

He struggles to respond to the command, brows furrowed, "You're absolutely certain you're okay?"

"Yes." You nod at your reflection in the mirror, spouting it like a mantra, "I'm fine. Nothing's wrong."

"Alright," He grumbles, side-eyeing you as he undoes the cuffs of his sleeve, "If you need to talk, you can stop by my room later."

"Thank you," Your sentence is fractured, split by nerves at the idea of sitting where he'd jacked off not even a day earlier. He picks up on the vocal quirk and you know he won't let anything go, but it only worsens as he sets his hand on your lower back to lead you out of the elevator.

"Tonight after the case," He decides, "We'll talk over tea. That's an order, agent."

His words flip your stomach upside down and you nearly collapse in the lobby, but you let him herd you along instead. You're already formulating excuses in your head when you realize you've forgotten to answer, gritting out all you can manage as he leads you by the small of your back, "Perfect."

[idontknowwhatimdoinglol]

yandere mother hera x reader x yandere father zeus (forever) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

you have always been adventurous, even when you were little you always tried to run from olympus and explore the mortal lands. much to the dismay of your parents who had to chase you down everyday, to stop you from continuing to run and keep you safe with them they promised you that when you had come into your full powers that you could be free to go wherever you want. of course the promise was a lie and they had just hoped that you would forget about it by then but unfortunately for them you never did. today was your birthday and the day that you had finally gotten your full powers, you had planned to leave for the mortal realm as soon as the celebrations ended but your mother wanted you to join her for tea afterwards, you knew how hard it was for her to let you go so you went just to reassure her that you would be alright.

-----

you sat across from your mother in her room, one of her crows laying in your lap as you sipped your tea. hera stared at you a bit sadly, with anger behind her gaze. "so you're leaving so soon? you dont even want to stay until morning and gather your things?" she asks bitterly. you sigh setting your tea cup down. "mother we've talked about this, you and father promised when i was a child that i could go explore the world when i got my full powers, and now that i have you have to follow through on that promise." you explain softly, not wanting to hurt her further. her hands ball into fists under the table but she quickly calms herself down. "we we're not expecting you to remember that by this time" she says before giving a soft smile. "but if you insist and this will make you truly happy then i will not stand in the way." she says standing up with the tea pot, taking it to the other side of the room to refill it. you pause for a moment not believing what she said. "really? i can go?" you ask hopefully. she nods returning and filling your cup wit hmore tea. "yes my darling, if it makes you happy then i will not ruin it." she smiles with a glint of evil behind her eyes, but you miss it picking up your cup. "speaking of, where is father? i haven't seen him since the celebrations." you ask taking a sip of the tea, cringing a bit at its strange taste but not wanting to be rude and tell your mother that she made the tea wrong. "oh he is simply, unpacking some things" she says setting her cup on the table, you miss nearly all of what she said, a sudden headache setting in. you clutch your head a bit grunting in pain. "is something wrong my dear?" she asks with fake innocence. "suddenly i feel quite sick" you say, the room starting to spin. "i think i may go lie down a bit before i lea-" you start, but faint before finishing, the only sound in the room in your cup hitting the ground. before you fell hera managed to catch you with her powers. she sets you back on the chair stroking your hair. "I'm sorry my darling but i could not let you leave me." she says kissing your forehead. a few moments later your father walks in. "are they alright?" he asks walking closer, hera smirks. "of course, i would never hurt them their our child. they're simply unconscious for now. by morning they will have no memory of anything that happened today" she says stroking your hair. zeus leans down and picks you up, before taking you to your room with hera following close. both already discussing the lie they would tell you of how you had gone to the mortal realm and been hurt to the point that you lost your memory, but dont worry they'll keep you safe. after all youre their precious child, why would they ever hurt you? besides now you can remain theirs forever

- - - - - . o 0 O 0 o . - - - - -

[diudiudiu]

do u have any wenclair fic recommendations?

it's times like this when I wish I was more organised with note keeping or have the memory of something better than a hamster

I haven't been reading (for them and just generally) nearly as much as before I started writing for them. Not bcos I think it disrupts any writing process (can't disrupt no process 😌) but just bcos I don't seem to have as much time

But here's my attempt at a varied-ish list in no particular order:

[M] The Sisyphean Nightmare (16ch) by HonestToBlogJuno Adult Wednesday is contractually obligated to participate in the marketing of her book, to her dismay. Luckily she is married to a werewolf with a communications degree and side-hustle in social media.

[Unrated] you could be the one that i keep (1ch) by overnights - Genie AU And Enid, who’s wished on every star and comet and birthday candle she’s ever seen, looks at Wednesday now and comes up impossibly short of an answer. One wish left, anything in the world at her fingertips, and all she really wants is more time to spend with this enchanted, enchanting mystery of a girl.

[Unrated] backseat (3ch) by reputationstation - Celeb AU Wednesday Addams is a failed fencing prodigy with a once promising career and a troubled past (and if everything goes according to plan, a troubled future as well) who has no intentions of becoming friends with the overly excitable, bubbly girl who calls herself a 'social media influencer', whatever that means. However, like most things in her life, her plans are inevitably thrown off the course.

[Unrated] gifts from a cat (1ch) by Rennajade the one where wednesday is basically just a cat in human form

[T] Dia de los Muertos [now with chapter breaks] (11ch) by WishaDream Wednesday invites Enid over to her house for Dia de los Muertos. It promises to be a horribly fantastic day.

[T] Shot Glasses, Tacky Jewelry (i know you mean more to me than that) (8ch) by RainbowJeff - Holiday/Mall AU Wednesday has somehow been dragged into the mall employees' yearly Secret Santa. What's worse, she's pulled Enid Sinclair as her giftee.

[G] a day like a day in summer (4ch) by poetroe Wednesday has strange ways of showing affection; Enid becomes intimately familiar with them.

[G] yours, eurydice (14ch) by hanjisgirlfriend - Celeb AU Best-selling horror author Wednesday Addams hasn't written in years. Everything changes when Enid Sinclair moves in across the hall.

[M] once bitten (try again?) (1ch) by nd_mindoir Enid learns how to touch Wednesday and why Wednesday is so much softer with her in return

There's also Our Lady of Wild Beasts by Pelgraine which is no longer on AO3 because she's publishing it into an original fiction novel. Sad for us, but extremely good for her. Huge congrats!!

Explicit recs

(I guess it warrants its own section? 😇)

[E] Hysteria (1ch) by IndieBones918 Wednesday emotionally dumps on her girlfriend's best friend after her and Enid's first time and Yoko's having the absolute time of her life.

[E] Gift (1ch) by Mikkie_Mouse (Mikbates) - ABO/Omegaverse AU Wednesday's inability to understand the commitments of a relationship leaves Enid frustrated... and taking matters into her own hands.

[E] A raven's dream of wolf (2ch) by tokyocorgi - ABO/Omegaverse AU the one where Wednesday literally had a hot and steamy sex dream with a lot of feelings.

[E] I'm Just Here To Love You (2ch) by SaturnHaze Wednesday never moans during sex so Enid comes up with a plan to finally draw them out of her. Well, she and Yoko.

[E] First Time For Everything (1ch) by geekomancer, Onhirel Wednesday and Enid having been dating for what feels like ages now, but their relationship hasn't taken that final step... until now. A make out session simply doesn't stop, confronting Wednesday of the simple fact that she doesn't actually know what to do. Thankfully, Enid is there to help her figure it all out.

There you go, happy reading (or not, whatever, you do what you want) with whatever floats your boat 🛥️

[slutforstabbings-archive]

Sandwiched

Corey Cunningham x bisexual!fem!Reader x bisexual!Allyson Nelson

A few months after escaping Haddonfield, Allyson starts to have feelings for a barista at her favorite coffee shop (you). She and Corey decide to explore the potential of a relationship with you, at least for one night. My first time posting smut so feedback is extra appreciated!

Warnings - drinking, fingering, vaginal sex, voyuerism, F/F/M threesome. Pretty straightforward

5,581 words

@rebel-blue @nachtmahr666 @wolvesandvampires @cordelium @multifandom--mess @toxicanonymity and @clemkruckinnie (ik we haven't interacted much but i saw you saying you wish there was more Allyson content a while back, so I thought I'd tag you!)

18+, minors dni

Allyson is at the nurse’s desk when her phone rings. She’s not even supposed to have it on her, but since she didn’t get the promotion, she doesn’t give a fuck. Mathis isn’t even here today. She steps away from the desk and answers. 

“We need to leave,” Corey’s strained voice says on the other end of the line. 

“I can’t right now, I’m at work.”

“Tonight, then. Will you meet me at 9 at the diner off 74? We need to talk about your grandmother. She wants to kill me.”

“What?”

“Look, I can’t take it anymore. It’s time to say goodbye to Haddonfield.” The finality in Corey’s voice scares Allyson. 

“Corey, wait!” She hisses. 

He doesn’t say anything but the call doesn’t disconnect. 

“I can’t leave without making a scene right now. But my lunch is in 30 minutes. I’ll go pack, I already started last night, and then I’ll pick you up or meet you somewhere. Just give me an hour.”

“An hour.” He repeats, his voice sounding even more strained than before. 

“Just stay somewhere safe, I’ll go as fast as I can. Please don’t do anything stupid.” Allyson says.

It’s been four months since Allyson clocked out for lunch, got in her car, and drove away from Haddonfield forever. Corey followed her Ford station wagon on his motorcycle, west, south, back east, south again. They stayed on the move for weeks, living off each of their savings, staying in flea bitten motels or sleeping in Allyson’s car. 

Corey checked the news obsessively, but never in front of Allyson. Whenever one of them went to the bathroom, when he went into the gas station alone to buy snacks while she pumped the gas, late at night when he couldn’t sleep. Until he was sure Doug and Dr. Mathis weren’t going to be traced back to him. Allyson had been ready to quit driving around for a long time by then, and finally, without telling her why, Corey gave in and they settled somewhere.

They both went back to their previous professions. Allyson found a job in a general practitioner’s office. A doctor she actually likes and respects, a doctor who treats his employees well. Corey wound up at a dealership, doing repairs on American cars, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep. They got a nice little apartment. They both make way more money than they did in Haddonfield, and the discount Corey gets on cars is insane, so he surprised Allyson with a new car for her birthday. 

Neither of them can quite believe how good things are going. That they escaped, left it all behind, and now they’re just… Well, not normal, but they can fool everyone else into thinking they are. There’s a coffee shop that Allyson has become a regular at. It’s not far from the hospital so she stops there sometimes, in the mornings before work, on her lunch break, on her days off when she’s in the neighborhood. Being a regular somewhere helps her feel like she’s actually part of the community, not just a tourist. It makes the facade she and Corey maintain that little bit more convincing. 

You’ve been a barista for a year when a girl you’ve never seen before comes in. While you have a few people you know by name, or by their order, most of the customers just sort of blend together. This girl though, she’s so pretty, with dark green eyes and a little button of a nose. You know you would remember if she’d come in before. Almond milk latte and a blueberry muffin. She lets you spell her name wrong on the cup.

“That’s how it should be spelled,” she jokes. 

You make a mental note to spell it right if you see her again, and you really hope you do. 

It takes two weeks, but on a Thursday morning she comes in again, wearing forest green scrubs that accentuate her green eyes. 

“Almond milk latte?” You say instead of hello.

“You remembered!?” She replies in shock.

“Of course,” you say. “A-L-L-Y-S-O-N.” You turn the cup around to show her.

“I’m impressed!” She claps her hands. Your heart flutters in your chest a little. 

The next time she comes in, it’s a Saturday afternoon, just as you’re about to leave. Your coworker has already clocked in and is standing at the register, prepared to take the order, but you haven’t clocked out yet, so you ask if you can do one more. She has a man with her this time, and he’s just as gorgeous as she is, with an unruly mop of brown hair, and a broad, athletic build. They’re holding hands. Well, shit, you think. 

“Hey Allyson,” you say, smiling widely. A little thing like a boyfriend isn’t going to stop you from being nice to a regular. 

“Hey!” She says. She greets you by name even though you’ve already taken your name tag off for the day. You’re not the only one going out of their way to remember things it seems. The man’s name is Corey. Up close you can see his freckles and his dense eyelashes behind his glasses. 

“Bummer your girl has a boyfriend,” a coworker says when you go into the back to finally actually clock out.

“Yeah. Ugh,” you sigh. “But did you see him? Be still my bisexual heart.” 

Once, when Allyson has been a regular for a couple months, she comes in on your day off. You’re there anyway, feeding the caffeine monkey that lives on your back. It’s dead so you’re leaning on the counter talking to your coworkers as they make your drink.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on that side?” She asks, pointing behind the register.

“Not today, Ally Cat,” you say. The nickname is a huge gamble but to your shock and great joy, she fucking giggles. 

She orders her coffee and sits down at a table. You walk by her on the way out and she calls your name.

“Do you wanna sit down? Not to make you hang out at work on your day off, but you were kinda already here.”

You pretend to deliberate, but of course you’re going to stay, at least as long as you can. You pull out the other chair at her tiny table. You get so absorbed talking to her you almost forget you had plans, and another friend is waiting for you. You apologize for not being able to stay longer.

“Well we should just plan to hang out sometime then,” she suggests.

“Yeah? That would be awesome.”

She gives you her number and you text her to give her yours. Then in your car you text the friend you’ll now be late to hang out with. She’ll forgive you when she finds out why.

 Over text, you and Allyson decide to go to the mall. She picks you up in the afternoon. She’s all smiles as you get in the car. You knew she was pretty, but in the sunlight coming through the windshield she looks like an angel. You struggle to keep your composure.

As you walk around the mall you’re impressed with how easy she is to talk to, and her dorky sense of humor is genuine and charming. There’s things you’re dying to know but can’t ask. Does she like girls or is she just this flirty with everyone? Is her relationship with Corey monogamous? And what’s Corey’s deal? Every time you’ve seen him he’s been so quiet and reserved, but when he speaks there’s something magnetic about him. And his eyes are so intense, you know he’s got a hell of a story. But you try not to ask too many questions. You don’t want to seem weird. 

Neither of you is really shopping, but you always wind up seeing something that catches your eye. You find a top that really speaks to you and, even better, it’s on clearance. The only problem is, it’s the only one left and a size down from what you usually wear. You present it to Allyson. 

“You would look so good in that,” she says. 

“It’s one size too small,” you say, exaggerating a pout. 

“Here,” she says, guiding your hand with the top on the hanger to your chest. She lines the shoulder seams up with the shirt you’re wearing, then smooths the top on the hanger down your front and around your sides, lining the side seams up too. It’s totally innocent, but you feel yourself gushing anyway. It’s the most she’s ever touched you. “I think you should try it on. It would look incredible and it seems like it’ll fit.” 

“Okay, you convinced me.”

In the dressing room you get the top on, and technically it does fit. But you feel like if you moved too quickly you could hulk out of it by accident. You try to take it off, but you hear the stitches groaning. Oh no. 

You open the fitting room door and she’s standing right there. 

“See!” She exclaims, eyes lighting up. 

“Yeah,” you smile sheepishly, “It looks great, but there’s a problem.”

“What?”

“It felt like it was gonna tear when I tried to take it off. Can you help me?” You stand back from the door and let her in. 

She closes the door, then turns to face you. You look into each other’s eyes for what is probably only a few seconds, but feels much, much longer. 

“Raise your arms,” she says without breaking eye contact.

You do as you’re told. She curls her fingers under the hem of the shirt. Her fingers are cold, but her touch would’ve given you goosebumps either way. Slowly, carefully, much more slowly and carefully than she really needs to, she works the top up your stomach and over your breasts. You’re not wearing a bra and you know she notices, but she doesn’t look anywhere other than into your eyes until the shirt comes over your face and you can’t see her anymore. With the shirt almost all the way off, stretched between your arms above your head and still stuck on your shoulders, she instructs you to lean forward. You bend at the waist and she takes the shirt the rest of the way off, pulling it languidly down the length of your arms. 

“There you go,” she says with a small smile when you’re finally free.

“Thanks,” you say quietly. 

You take a step towards her. Your nipples harden in the cold air, and with the distance between you closed they almost press against her. You both hold your breath. She looks down at your tits, then the rest of the way to the floor.

“Hand me the hanger?” She says. 

You hand her the hanger, then pull the shirt you came with back on. She rehangs the top she’s holding and deposits it on the reject rack as you exit the store. You feel awkward walking back through the mall, cheeks burning, heart racing. What was that? You wonder. Allyson is quiet. Without talking about it, you make your way out of the mall and back to her car. 

“I had fun,” she says, breaking the tension as she starts the engine.

“Me too,” you smile at her, still feeling a little unsure of what just happened.

“We should hang out again sometime. With Corey too.”

“I’d love that,” you reply. 

When Allyson gets home Corey is sprawled on the couch watching TV. 

“How was the mall?” he asks, sitting up and making room for her. 

“It was great,” she says, plopping down next to him. He wraps his arm around her shoulders and squeezes her against him. “I really like her.”

“Do you… like her?” 

Allyson has had feelings for girls since she was a young teenager, but she hadn’t felt able to articulate it before she got out of Haddonfield. Corey brought things out in Allyson, she felt she could tell him anything, but there were things she couldn’t tell even herself until she escaped the tomb her hometown had become. One night, under the scratchy blanket at a Super 8, unsure if Corey was even still awake, Allyson had whispered the word for the first time. Corey accepted it easily. After all, hadn’t he stirred for men at times? For his AP Physics teacher, and then for Roger Allen, and then for Michael Myers? They had never discussed what Allyson’s confession might mean for the relationship. 

“Yes,” Allyson says quietly. She does like you. 

Corey is loath to share Allyson with someone. He can’t help but feel like she would just wind up preferring them to him, leaving him all alone. But he’s seen you and Allyson interact. He’s recognized the looks she gives you. And in the moments he’s been witness to it, while his jealousy did rage, it was far outweighed by a feeling of warmth. How radiant Allyson is when she’s happy. How lucky he is that she ever made those faces at him, and that she continues to do so, even as he watches her infatuation with you deepen.

And Corey is attracted to you too. The first time he saw you he understood why Allyson was always talking about this mythical barista that remembered her order and how to spell her name.The customer service was not what Allyson was excited about.The idea of you and Allyson together instantly makes his cock rock hard under his sweatpants.

Allyson sees it happen, and reaches out to rest her hand on the imprint in the fabric. “What’s this for?” she asks playfully.

“For you liking her,” Corey says reluctantly.

“What was that?” She teases, squeezing gently. 

“You heard me,” he growls, pressing himself into her hand.

“No, I think you should repeat yourself.” She laughs and takes her hand away.

Corey catches Allyson’s wrist in his huge hand. “You. Know. What I said.” He brings her hand to his mouth and kisses her palm. He gently bites each of her fingers. Then he places her hand back on his cock. 

“I think she likes me. And I think she’s into you too,” Allyson says, slowly stroking Corey through his pants.

“Me?” He moans. “Wh-what makes you think that?”

“She asked me about you a lot. And she told me when she makes your drink she puts an extra half pump of syrup in it for free.” Allyson slides her hand under Corey’s waistband to grip him directly, and 

with that there is no more talking.

In the morning Corey and Allyson do their usual routine.She curls her hair and does her makeup while he leans in the doorway and watches. 

“I think I'm getting coffee on my lunch break,” she says, winding a strand of hair around her curling iron.”What if I invite her to get dinner with us? Somewhere nice.”

“Like a date?” Corey asks.

“Yeah.” Allyson looks at him in the mirror and grabs another lock of hair to curl. “Like all three of us on a date.”

“I’m not convinced she’s interested in me,” he says.

“Well, that’s what dates are for. To see if you’re interested in somebody.”

Corey can’t argue with that. He pulls out his phone and searches for nice restaurants in the area while Allyson dabs concealer under her eyes. 

“What do your evenings look like next week?” Allyson asks. At this point she doesn’t bother ordering and you don’t bother telling her her total. The coffee transaction happens in the background of your conversation.

“I think I’m wide open,” you tell her. Your sharpie is dry so you throw it away and dig a pack of new markers out from under the register.

“‘Do you want to get dinner with me and Corey one night?” 

“Absolutely!” You say, completely failing to hide your excitement.Your hand shakes and you accidentally make a stray line on her cup. You turn it into a star to cover your mistake “Where were you thinking?”

“Would it be crazy if we went somewhere kinda… Upscale?” Allyson wiggles her eyebrows.”I heard about this place called The Frontier? Have you ever been?”

“You really meant upscale!” You laugh. “I’ve only been once, years ago.That would be really fun.”

The two of you agree on Wednesday, hoping there will still be reservations left in the middle of the week, then she leaves with her coffee. Out in the parking lot, she sees the star next to her name and feels giddy.

Holy shit. The fucking Frontier. That has to mean it’s a date, right? You think to yourself. 

“The Frontier!” One of your coworkers says next to you, as if hearing your thoughts. “She’s so DTF.”

“It’s just dinner.” You say, waving your hand dismissively. But God do you hope it’s not just dinner.

As you get ready for your night with Corey and Allyson it’s still not clear to you what her intentions were in inviting you. You think about the moment you had with Allyson in the dressing room and hear your coworker’s voice. She’s so DTF. But Corey will be there. She wouldn’t bring him if she was down to fuck, would she? Unless she wants you to fuck Corey? You would fuck Corey happily. As excited as you are to see her alone, you always find yourself hoping Corey will be with her so you can look at him. So you can be reminded of the way his giant hands dwarf his coffee cup, and how, on the rare occasions you see him smile, it always starts with a smirk before spreading across his whole face.But it just seems too good to be true, that either of them would want to date or have sex with you, let alone both of them. You’re probably just reading too much into it. 

Whatever. You dress like it’s a date, and if it isn’t one, there’s nothing wrong with looking hot at a fancy restaurant with some friends. You stand in front of your bathroom mirror and apply the finishing touches. Spritz of perfume, dainty gold necklace to accentuate your collar bones, making sure the front of your hair is just so. Then you go get your nice coat out of the closet and get in your car. 

On the drive over, your heart races. You’re nervous, but it’s kind of thrilling. The feeling intensifies as you get closer to the restaurant. You turn the AC up full blast and crank the volume on your radio, trying to ground yourself. The Frontier has valet parking but you’re already anticipating the price of the evening, so you park a couple blocks away and walk, despite your nice shoes not being the most comfortable. As you approach the door you see Corey and Allyson standing on the sidewalk. 

They both look so fucking hot, it’s completely unfair. Allyson has a heavy wool coat on, but it’s unbuttoned and underneath it you can see she’s wearing a dress that hugs her as tightly as a second skin from her bust to her hips before flaring out. Below the hem of the dress, her legs are toned and smooth all the way down to her feet inside her pointy, low-heeled shoes. Corey wears a leather jacket over a button down shirt with the top three buttons undone. The little bit of his chest you can see in the gap is so unholy, you feel a pang between your legs. 

Corey sees you approaching first and gives you his little smirk. He points you out to Allyson, who looks up from her phone. She beams at you, and you grin back at both of them. 

“Hey, I was just about to text you! You look great!” She exclaims, holding her arms open for a hug. You’re extremely tempted to put your arms inside her coat as it hangs away from her body, but that seems weirdly intimate, so you wrap your arms around the scratchy wool instead.

“So do you,” you say. “You both do.” You think Corey’s face seems to turn a little red at the comment, but he doesn’t react otherwise. 

Allyson leads the way to the host stand. The Wednesday reservation plan worked and the three of you get sat immediately. The hostess leads you to a round table near the back of the restaurant. It’s dark in the way of fancy restaurants, with candles on the table and overhead lights that don’t do much of anything. It’s busy and most of the tables around you are full, but when you sit down it feels intimate and cozy, like the three of you are the only people there. 

“Bottle of wine?” Allyson asks

“Sure,” you reply. 

“White or red?”

“Whatever you want.”

Your server comes to the table and pours everyone water from a crystal carafe. Allyson orders a bottle of white wine. You look at the menu and try not to get overwhelmed. It’s an “American” restaurant but all the dishes have been “elevated” beyond recognition. 

“Does this menu make any sense to either of you?” You ask

“No,” Corey says, shaking his head. 

“Not at all,” Allyson adds. 

All three of you laugh, and you relax a little, releasing tension you didn’t realize you were holding. They seem more at ease too. 

Through the whole meal, the air between you and Allyson feels charged. The flirty banter you established at the coffee shop and practiced at the mall blossoming in the romantic setting. It’s almost painful how far away from her the round table keeps you. You try to find excuses to brush your fingertips against hers across the table. She’s so DTF. You want her as much as it feels like she wants you, but you’re not so wrapped up in her that you forget about Corey. You can’t keep yourself from looking in his direction, watching him as he watches you and Allyson. He’s the most talkative you’ve ever seen him, and for the first time you detect an accent to his voice. You can’t get a read on his vibe. He must be okay with you and Allyson, but is he interested in participating? You cross your fingers under the table in hopes that he is.

After dessert you excuse yourself to go to the bathroom. Allyson turns to Corey and puts her hand on his on the table. 

“What do you think?” She asks. 

“I like her,” he says. 

“Do you like her enough to invite her to come home with us?”

Corey chews his lip. The server comes by and deposits the check on the table. Allyson pays. 

“Are you sure she’s not just interested in you?” He asks when they’re alone at the table again.

“Corey, are you blind? She’s been making eyes at you more than me! I’m sure she’s interested in both of us.”

He looks away from her and bounces his leg for a second. Then he turns back to her. “Okay, let’s do it.”

You return from the bathroom to the table cleared. Corey and Allyson stand as you approach and start putting their coats on.

“We already paid,” Allyson says.

“You did? You didn’t have to do that,” you say, surprised.

“We wanted to,” she tells you simply.

“Thank you so much. I owe you one.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she reassures you. “Would you like to come back to our place?” She asks as you exit the restaurant. 

Your heart flutters and between your legs pulses. Yes, yes, one million times yes. “Sure,” you say, trying to play it cool. 

Corey goes to get their car from the valet. 

“You can ride with us if you want. And we’ll bring you back to your car later.”

“Okay. Sounds good to me.”

The valet pulls the car to the front of the restaurant. Corey hands him cash, then gets in the driver’s seat and closes his door. 

“Why don’t you sit in the front with Corey?” Allyson suggests. 

You open the front passenger door and Corey smiles at you. You smile back as you slide into the car. Shoegaze music comes softly through the speakers. As Corey pulls out of the valet lane, Allyson leans forward behind you. She reaches over the back of your seat to put a hand on your shoulder. She caresses the side of your neck with her slender fingers. Then Corey reaches over to put a wide, freckled hand on your thigh, finally confirming he wants you too.

“Is this okay?” Allyson asks, her voice right behind your ear. 

“Yeah,” you say, voice breathy. Holy shit, you think. Just having their hands on you like this is extremely erotic. Your heart pounds, thinking about all the ways they could gang up on you. Allyson’s hand slides up into your hair to massage your scalp with her short nails. You work hard to control your breathing, but as Corey starts to slide his hand up and down your thigh, you know they can hear what they’re doing to you. 

Mercifully, the ride to their place is short. They live on the second floor and Corey takes the lead up the stairs. You follow him. From below you on the stairs, Allyson reaches out for your hand and you lace your fingers with hers for a few seconds. Inside their apartment you shrug your coat off and Allyson hangs it in the front closet with hers and Corey’s. You’re still so aroused from the car ride, but you’re nervous too. You’ve never had a threesome before but even with all your hoping tonight would lead to one, you don’t know what to expect. Your hands shake a little as you sit on the couch.

Allyson sits next to you, and Corey opts for an armchair to the side, resuming his role as watcher. You sit there awkwardly for a minute, with your knee touching Allyson’s, trying to gather the courage to make the move. Sensing your hesitation, she reaches out and tucks a stray hair behind your ear.You look at her and she smiles and you find the strength to lean in and kiss her. 

If the air in the restaurant had crackled with the electricity between the two of you, the kiss is the bright flash and harsh sting of a static shock. A tiny, momentary explosion that only releases the tension for a split second. The more you kiss her, the more you need to kiss her, and the more she kisses you back. It’s messy and dizzying and so much fun. She scoots closer to you, then closer still, until you’re pressed against each other hard. Without speaking, you put your arms up over your head. She giggles and pulls your top off of you between kisses, much less carefully than in the dressing room. 

Allyson reaches behind her own back and pulls the zipper on her dress down halfway. Your hands follow hers and you unzip her completely. She removes her arms from her sleeves and the top of the dress falls to her lap, then she stands halfway up so the dress drops to the floor, kissing you all the while. She sits with her back against the arm of the couch and spreads her legs, inviting you between them. You sit with one of her legs behind you and one in your lap. You rub your hand up and down the leg in your lap, enjoying her smooth skin and the toned muscle of her slender thigh. You hear Corey unbuckle his belt and unzip his pants.Your breathing quickens.

You move your hand from Allyson’s leg to her tit. It’s a perfect, perky handful. You squeeze it gently and she moans into your mouth. Her hand comes over yours and she makes you squeeze harder. Your clit throbs with arousal. Keeping her hand on yours, Allyson guides you down from her chest to the waistband of her panties. You slip your hand under the elastic. She’s completely soaked. You slide your fingers up and down her slit before slipping between her labia to find the hard bud of her clit, rubbing a light circle around it when you do. Allyson throws her head back and whines. You kiss down her gracefully arched neck. 

Corey groans softly. You turn your head to look at him. He’s slouched in the armchair, face flushed bright red and eyes almost black. His pants are pulled down just enough for you to see his hard, pink cock and dense reddish pubes. He’s undone another button on his shirt and he has one hand inside the opening. Allyson follows your gaze to Corey and he holds you both in his intense stare while you swirl your fingers slowly around the bundle of nerves between her legs. 

Allyson makes the prettiest sounds as she starts getting closer, and you break eye contact with Corey to watch her face as she scrunches up her button nose in pleasure. She pulls you in for a kiss and as you kiss her you feel weight on the couch behind you. You expect to feel Corey’s hands on you, but he keeps them to himself as you pick up the pace of your fingers against Allyson’s clit. She reaches up to put her hand on your face as she climaxes, rocking her hips hard, pressing desperately against your hand. You work her all the way through it, feeling her twitch against you as the aftershocks come. 

Finally you slip your hand out of her panties, slippery and shiny. She points over your shoulder and you turn toward Corey. He puts the fingers you used on Allyson in his mouth and sucks them clean, one by one. Then he pulls you in for a kiss, letting you taste her on his lips. Allyson shifts a little to make room for you, then pulls you against her. Your head rests on her chest and she lightly sets her chin on your crown. Corey tugs at the waistband of the bottoms you never removed. You bridge your hips off the couch and he pulls your underwear down at the same time. Then he drops his own pants and underwear. He’s already taken his shirt off and rolled a condom onto his cock, which twitches as he takes in the sight of you and Allyson laying together below him.

He kisses Allyson above you, then lowers himself to kiss you again. He laps against your lips with a hot tongue and you let him into your mouth. His hands knead your thighs while Allyson’s cup your tits. You’re so wet you feel like you must be dripping. Corey uses his grip on your thighs to push them towards your chest, opening you up, then lays his cock directly between your lips. You shudder in Allyson’s arms. She rolls one of your nipples delicately between her fingers. 

Corey slides the length of his shaft against you, back and forth, top to bottom. You whimper and thrust your hips up every time the swollen head of his dick brushes your clit or catches just a little on your entrance until finally he slips it inside you. Your breath catches and you make a squeaking sound. They both giggle.

“That was so cute,” Allyson whispers in your ear just as Corey sinks the rest of his length into you. 

You can’t believe you’re sandwiched between two of the hottest people you’ve ever seen. It exceeds your wildest dreams. As Corey thrusts in and out of you, Allyson runs her hands all over your body. Playing with your tits, dragging her fingertips up and down your sides, working her way down. She wedges a hand between you and Corey and starts to rub your clit. Your mind goes blank of every thought except for how good this feels. Some distant part of you knows you’re panting and moaning so loud the neighbors can probably hear you, but you don’t give a shit, and Corey and Allyson only encourage you.

“Say ‘fuck me, Corey,’” Allyson tells you, lips pressed against the shell of your ear. “It drives him crazy.”

“Fuck me, Corey,” you plead. “Oh Corey, fuck me!” 

It does drive him crazy, every time you repeat it he increases the speed and force of his thrusts, pounding you so hard you’d be worried about Allyson underneath you if she wasn’t having so much fun getting you to egg him on. 

Detecting the change in your breathing indicating your impending orgasm, Allyson puts her lips to your ear again. “Tell him you’re gonna cum.”

“I’m gonna cum!” you wail. “I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum, Corey, I’m… I’m…”

Your orgasm hits you like a truck as Allyson furiously rubs your clit and Corey slams into you. The way you clench around him pulls him over the edge with you and he groans deeply as he pushes into you one last time before stilling. The three of you pant, spent, for several minutes.

They don’t drive you back to your car. Instead they lead you to their bedroom. Corey lays in the middle of the bed and you and Allyson snuggle into his sides, holding hands across his toned stomach. None of you knows what the events of the evening mean. But you can worry about that, and your car, in the morning. Right now you just want to drift off to sleep in heaven.

[leviadraws]

Hey Levi, Is it alright if i ask for some Terurei and Kokoyuri HCs?

oh gosh oh gosh, sure sure I'm totally normal about them /lh

This is err, really really long (like 2.8k words lol), so under the cut. Sorry in advance for rambling. Also, I’ve kinda realised that these are less head cannons and more a brief simplified plot line haha.

Terurei: This is post DRA until SDRA2.

Learning to work with others as a team has been really hard for Rei, she's had to learn to not belittle others as much and learn to bite her tongue a little when people said silly things. Initially, Teruya (and Kinjo to some extent) were the only ones who'd know that she doesn't always mean the things she says or the harshness of her tone. She really appreciated his patience while she got the hang of it.

At the start of forming the Kisaragi foundation they needed to secure investment from important people to stay afloat amid the collapse. Which means Rei had to stress the importance of what they were doing without insulting anyone, and Teruya had to silently gesture or mouth "be nice!". When he could tell she was getting to the end of her tether, he came to distract the investors with some figures to give her a break.

Just as Teruya covers Rei in social situations, Rei covers him if he makes little mistakes in the field. She'll have extra contingencies in place so he doesn't take all the flack.

Training under Kinjo was hard for the both of them, and when the foundation was still small they'd often spar together. Initially Rei was better but as he got taller beating him got harder. The first time he won he put out his hand to help her up and she just dragged him down, out of pettiness. They still spar on occasion, while he’s taller and stronger now, she’s learnt judo just so she could throw him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The look of surprise of his face when she succeeded had her burst out laughing, it was the first time in ages he’d seen her laugh like that, and he couldn’t help but laugh too. They were just there, laughing in the empty gym.

The first time Teruya had shot someone was to save Rei, someone had caught them off guard and swiped the gun out of Rei's hands. Teruya scrambled for it as it hit the floor, and shot it before they could hurt anyone. One shot in the chest, just like Haru. He couldn't stop seeing his friend, he just broke down. Rei, just held him for a while in silence until he stopped shaking, they haven't mentioned it to anyone else.

One time the coffee machine broke at the office and Rei just went out of commission, face flat on the table, unmovable. Teruya managed to procure a new one and as he walks in she rushes over, grabs it, says "I love you", and immediately rushes to the counter to get it working. Teruya just stands there, red as a beet and there's a few whispers in the room from onlookers. Everyone kinda assumes she was talking to the coffee machine considering her state, but that doesn't stop him from being flustered for the rest of the day.

After the events of THH they (+Kinjo) had a visit to their old dorms at HPA. It's in the hope of triggering some memories that had been lost to them. Teruya finds a lot of photos that were taken with him, Haru, Satsuki, and Kiyoka, (and a couple that are the whole class, and also a couple of them all dressed up weird rehearsing for a play. He keeps the ones of Rei as a witch to show her later) that he keeps and frames in his office. Rei finds a giant teddy bear in hers that says "Happy birthday! From class 79b". Kinjo informs them that the whole class chipped in to get it for her birthday, he neglects to mention that Teruya had spent many sleepless nights getting that exact one at a good price after Mikako had come to him with the idea. Rei takes it back with her, it's dusty and worn but it's still cute. Afterwards, she notices that one of the bears paws has a rainbow embroidered onto it, was that custom added…?

Rei thought a nice thing to do would be to bring Teruya coffee on days he stressed towards the end of the tax year. It’s the one time of the year he stays at the office later than she does and it really wears him down. It turns out her coffee is way too strong for him and he was sent to the infirmary thinking he was having a heart attack. She brings him tea and some miso rice instead now.

Rei isn't good at handling feelings or relationships so when Minako and Midori invite her out for drinks they pester her about it. "He spends a lot of time in your office", "Why don't you bring me tea Mekaru", "I didn't know you could smile like that". It made her realise that perhaps she is treating him differently to the others she knew. That realisation was hard for her, she still has abandonment issues and doesn't want to lose what they already had. So she buries it for a while so she can properly think it over.

Teruya is more in tune with himself, and figured it out pretty early on. He's not sure when it started, but he has pretty low self-esteem since the killing game and he's not gonna act on it because to him she's so smart and beautiful and he's just.. him. She couldn't possibly see him that way.

Things get a little awkward on occasion after that, they'll work together and they'll accidentally brush hands, or hold a gaze a little longer so the pause is noticeable. Teruya always breaks it off first, he comes up with an excuse and leaves the room in a hurry. Rei is smart, but she's not very socially smart, so while she does question it she doesn't come to the right conclusion and just thinks he's has forgotten something. But then she'll ask him the next day and he has no idea what's she's talking about for a second. She starts to doubt then, perhaps he doesn't really enjoy the times they're together.

Minako is a terror, she got it out of Rei when they went out drinking and she /knows/ from how Teruya looks at her. So she plays a little prank on them, they need to go pretty far for their next scout and she has to book them somewhere to stay in the safe zones on the way. She purposely books one room with one bed and doesn't tell them. It's a …very awkward exchange that results in them alternating sleeping in the car. Rei says it should just be her, as Teruya is too tall to comfortably sleep in the car, but he insists. Rei had some stern words for their receptionist on their return.

Rei is the first to confess, it was by accident while they were on a mission and things go south. He gets hurt, there's so much blood and no not again, she can't lose someone she's close to again no nonono. She panics, and it all just comes spilling out. He's pretty delirious at this point from the pain, she doesn't even know if he can hear her, she doesn't care. She needs him to know, he's important to her, she can't lose him, she loves him.

He gets patched up at the hospital, once she's allowed to see him again she just sits and waits by the bed. She's asleep from exhaustion well before he wakes up. Once he wakes, he sees her there. She's a mess, she looks exhausted but she still looks so beautiful to him. He isn't sure if what he remembers from before was real or just a delusion so he just sits there quietly and lets her rest a little. When she wakes up he just smiles over at her "See? I'm not goin' anywhere". She pulls him into a hug out of relief and just sobs there for a bit quietly. Like how she did when he'd first shot someone, he just holds her until she stops shaking. At some point he musters up the courage to say it too, he knows now what he remembers actually happened.

Of the two of them, Teruya is the better cook. Rei has always been of the mindset of as long as it's edible, fast and nutritious who really cares, but Teruya likes to makes things look nice and got loads of local dish ideas from his trips with his dad that he likes to make. Occasionally he's a little too ambitious and it all turns to a mess, but he tries. If it goes badly, Rei just smiles and then orders something in for them.

They laugh a lot together, Rei has chilled out a lot and makes small sarcastic remarks that has him grinning, and Teruya gets really excited about the little things and can't wait to show her. He notices that she sticks up for him when she thinks he's out of earshot, and he just can't stop smiling for the rest of the day.

I could go on forever but Imma stop there haha

Kokoyuri (Every time I get someone asking about something kokoyuri I remember I ran a wheel of fate for SDRA2 with a Yuri protagonist that I /really/ wanna do some stuff on but the DRA one went so close to canon that I haven't shown them because I'm worried people will think I've rigged it lmao)

I'm gonna go with some HPA AU this time, so they're both 16 and all that.

There's kinda a mutual fascination there, it's really difficult to see what Kokoro is thinking when her expressions are so muted and her voice so flat, the only real way Yuri knows how to connect with others is through stories of the stuff he's been through, facts from his talent, or through compliments. Compliments don't seem to work at all, rather they either fly over her head completely or she just looks a little annoyed that he would derail an interesting subject with something so inane.

However, she really finds his stories fascinating. He's been through a lot of trauma for someone his age and yet he tells these stories so nonchalantly, as if it were totally normal to be kidnapped 40 odd times. She can see in his eyes that he's going through a lot when he recounts them, he's just gotten really good at masking it.

She finds him really easy to talk to, he listens to her ideas and thoughts intently, and he gives really insightful feedback. He seems against her harsher experiments when women are involved than men for some reason. He gently tries to coax her into doing having men as test subjects rather than women, and she can't help but wonder, why? Why would there be a difference?

“Idolising someone is just as dehumanising as demonising someone, in some ways, the way you treat women is the same as the way you treat men”. Yuri is shocked at first, outraged. So much so he leaves the cafeteria where they were chatting. She’s caught off guard, she’s always valued being able to speak her mind with him. Perhaps Emma was right, there are some truths better left unsaid.

Kokoro struggles to realise guilt for what she had said, but she knows that she needs to apologise. She goes to ask Yoruko and Emma for help, as she needs to understand the rage and hurt in his eyes before she attempts an apology.

Meanwhile Yuri is conflicted, hurt, confused. How could Kokoro say something like that? They’ve talked so much, how could she ever think that his adoration towards women, towards her could be dehumanising? But at the same time, he knows Kokoro can’t lie, and he knows the uncomfortable looks some girls shared when he compliments them.

And so he wonders, isn’t he just, lonely? Having never had the opportunity to connect with peers before he only knows how to act how the servants in his household do, or talk endlessly about his life and hobbies. And even if his classmates think he’s a little weird isn’t being remembered for that better than nothing at all? But it’s not like that with Kokoro, she’s interested in what he has to say, how his experiences have affected him and responds in turn with really interesting points and questions. It’s the first time he’s really been able to interact with someone as an equal.

They both come to apologise after school that day, it’s awkward and messy (mostly on Yuri’s side, as he starts to ramble), but it’s sincere and they agree to be friends again.

And things are so easy for a while, Yuri introduces Kokoro to his flight path AI that he’s been training for his final project at HPA, and Kokoro shows him some tricks to read people better, small fidgets and tells that will help him read the room. It helps him communicate with the rest of the class better, and in turn he helps explain to her why some of the class act the way they do, to know times when to be honest and times where it is better to be a little quieter.

She hasn’t told him, or the rest of the class yet that they’re kinda her test subjects for her final at HPA. That she’s studying the emotion and thought behind each persons actions day-to-day. Though she does talk to him about her research when he asks, she feels lighter being able to discuss it with someone, she’s convinced this must be happiness.

He starts to notice that she has her own tells, but so few compared some of the others in their class. She’ll sometimes hide behind her iPad when she’s trying to change the subject to something else, or if she’s unsure about something. He finds it kinda cute.

As he falls, he realises, shit, she’ll be able to see the emotion in his eyes when he’s talking to her. He can’t have that, she’s his first real friend he really doesn’t want to lose that and become all alone again.

So he starts avoiding her eyes when they talk, talking a little less and avoiding bumping into her. Their other classmates notice, and notice that Kokoro almost seems… down? She’s talking less and her sentences are shorter and more curt.

Kokoro isn’t sure if she feels hurt, or simply misses the status quo they had. But either way she wants to resolve this. She manages to catch him one day after school, it turns out he’s pretty fast when he wants to be. She wants to know what she’s done to cause this change and how it can be fixed.

She holds him by the shoulders and asks him to look at her, to which he reluctantly obliges. When she looks at his eyes this time she sees a wide variety of the emotions rattling through his head. She’s able to decipher some of them from practice, but there’s a good few that she doesn’t understand. And yet, they feel, light to her.

Meanwhile this is like ten minutes of absolutely unbearable silence for Yuri and his mind is just racing and she’s so close that he just blurts out that he thinks she’s beautiful. It’s not like his normal pickup lines at all, it’s just ungraceful word vomit and he’s cringing on this inside the moment he realises what he says.

Kokoro is just stunned for a second, she’s unsure how to process this. Some of the emotions she reads make a little more sense now. She’s not quite sure how she feels herself, these things don’t come to her naturally with her condition so she’s going to need time to work this out properly.

He’s happy with this response for now, it’s far better than all the terrible scenarios that ran through his head in those ten minutes. So they agree to take things slow, to keep it to themselves for now and see where it leads them. He may even be able to slip in more compliments and look for signs of those tells that she was telling him about.

Little do they know that the entire class was spying on the exchange, the whole school knew the next day.

Phew! Sorry that these aren’t really head cannons, but I had a lot of fun writing them so I hope you enjoyed reading them! If you’ve read this far, thanks! Please feel free to add your own or tell me where you think I’m totally off

[the-raging-tempest]

🍪🍫🍕🍟 for lariel and zrise!!

Thank you Romeo!! Sorry this took me a minute. Also I do be doing the classic Dolly rambling. Hope I make sense. LMAO A heads up for general content warning for the last answer from Zrise.

🍪: What is something that's sentimental to you OC?

Lariel allows herself to be much more sentimental than Zrise. She's the type to horde letters, books, flowers, objects. Things she ties to memories. She's the one who I imagine keeps all the gifts she's received and writes heartfelt thank you cards. I think to think of specific objects I can think of three off the top of my head. The letter Eithon sent her saying he would attend her birthday party. The stuffed bear honey Zrise treasured as a child. A necklace given to her by Venan. It's cheap junk that broke at the clasp after she got it but she still keeps it. Lariel is a very objects oriented person. Not in greedy or materialistic sense. She just likes to have little emotional totems and remembrances. It's also why she likes to keep a journal.

Zrise is more sentimental than he really allows himself to be. He strikes me as the kind of person who gets rid of/loses most of his things. Because he believes he'd rather not remember. He'd rather not be attached to the past, and wants to live in the 'now'. That doesn't stop him from actually regretting getting rid of those things when the whim of nostalgia strikes him. He also just doesn't own a lot of personal items. Anything he collected in Galt he had to leave behind. He doesn't often stay at the estate in Nerosyan. So if you were to see his childhood bedroom it would be surprisingly not personal. If things are kept in their it's usually because of Lariel. That said. Tattoos are the one way I see him being sentimental. Some might see it as strange for a guy who sees his mortal form as something he's fighting. But his first tattoo was of the black swan with the dagger. Baby Zrise who was edgy but not as jaded and missed his sister. I believe Zrise has a third tattoo I have yet to share (because I haven't decided on it's appearance exactly.) I also always joke that if Zrise were to fall for someone he's the type to get a sappy sentimental tattoo and then worry it's cringe as he's about to show it.

🍫: Where does your OC go to think?

Lariel can think almost anywhere. Unless she's doing some soul searching, then I imagine she'd actually like to be alone but where she feels connected to he world in other ways. Like a were nature is flourishing, where she can see the sky. I imagine she's prone to wondering and walking as she thinks. (I also project onto her as I do this irl) She sometimes just bursts out random words. Like when she remembers something embarrassing or funny.

Zrise is often avoiding thinking. He doesn't often WANT to go and think. I imagine if he really is soul searching willingly… (rare) similar to Lariel he'd wander. Until he found a place secluded enough that he felt like no one could find him. I imagine he's locking himself away or just so far off everyone's lost sight of him. Something he used to do as a child. Go hide. But often he's thinking against his will. LMAO

🍕: How does an OC spend a lazy day?

Lazy days for Lariel is an interesting idea. She spent so much of her life locked away. If she wasn't studying or doing lessons she was doing 'leisure activities' that could be seen as productive. I think if she were to just 'be lazy' for a day. She'd eat sweets, read a romance novel, and take a nice bath.

My boy struggles with this kind of idea. He kind of needs something fun and distracting enough that he doesn't have to all his negative thoughts surface, but also something that isn't important enough that the 'obligation' part of his brain activates. So I see him more so needing a 'lazy day' still needing to be something where he goes out and does something he hasn't before, or has multiple activities. Like a party where there are games. He can be competitive, but not overly invested as too ruin the mood lmao

🍟: What does your OC admit to be their guilty pleasure? What actually is their guilty pleasure?

I love how this one is phrased. Because there's a huge difference between one's characters are willing to admit or not.

For Lariel, her easy to admit ones are things like, sweets, indulgent novels, basically what I said would be her 'lazy day' Hehe.

As for ACTUALLY guilty pleasure…. this is hard… I think a part of her that would never admit it is that she revels in a certain kind of person getting taken down a peg. She'd never admit it nor would she ever be the person who DOES it, but I can see her not putting up much of a fight when certain people start facing harsher consequences. She has a prideful streak. Which means she won't often 'stoop so low' but she is drawn to people who often WILL. Characters who will be rude where she will not. (Unless they just do it to be mean. She doesn't like that.)

For Zrise, the ones he admits and wears like armor are vices like, drinking, sex, and drugs. He doesn't mind advertising.

The middle point would be dangerous risky behavior verging into self-harm because he believes he must 'suffer' or 'repent'. He would not explain himself but he does act in a self-destructive nature often.

This kind he doesn't admit… Would be things like his deeper sense of sentimentality. Reading things that remind him of 'simpler times'. Holding fondness for things honesty and kindness. Things he enjoys that do not serve a greater purpose. The moments where he wears his heart on his sleeve. People watching, in the sense of just not wanting things from people and just watching them. But he thinks that's weird.

[adriensaltprompts]

Submitted prompt Those Who Can Do Should Teach

Title is a pun on the phrase "those who cannot do, teach". Also can be called This Series Needs An Adult, Remix

Ms. Bustier is a terrible teacher but, thankfully, she takes a break to go have her baby and take advantage of the large amounts of maternity leave France provides.

In steps a substitute teacher, we'll name him after one of my old teachers, Mr. Iadorola. Mr. I, for short. His dad is the President of the Senate of France. Chloe's dad doesn't outrank him. She can't threaten him. Her dad knows it'd be political suicide to anger him and actually listens when Mr. I talks to him about Chloe's racism, bullying, and disrespectful behavior. For once, Chloe's actions have consequence and she either has to clean up her act or get ready to switch schools.

Meanwhile Lila is in an equally screwed position because she loves her mom, and she knows anything she says will absolutely make its way back to her now that the son of a prominent government official is near her. It'd take him two texts to get ahold of her mom's number and tell her about every single lie. Lila knows without having to be told and that if she keeps spreading gossip and starting drama, he'll tell her mom absolutely everything. No amount of moving will undo that kind of damage. Her mom will never think of her the same way again.

Then one day, when an akuma attacks and Adrien is goofing around so much that Marinette isn't sure they're going to be able to win this one, in swoops a new superhero wearing very familiar collar pins, the Deer Miraculous. After beating the crap out of the akuma alongside Ladybug, he turns and starts lecturing Chat Noir in a way that's oddly familiar... something about the cadence, the way he moves his hands, it's so...

"Mr. I?" Ladybug asks, and he freezes for a second, giving it away. "You have a Miraculous?!"

"Wait," Chat Noir says, "if you've had a Miraculous and you've been living in Paris for a month, why haven't we seen you before-"

That's interrupted by Mr. I doubling over, coughing. The Deer Miraculous is cracked, handed down his family line on his mother's side for generations. He's got a bit of a double life going on - no one knows he's a superhero, including his own parents, who never opened the box the Miraculous was in before giving it to him as a 30th birthday gift. He's got superpowers, but he can't come to the rescue unless he's okay with a ringing headache, nosebleed, and dizziness for hours afterwards. Still, if Chat Noir isn't going to take things seriously, someone has to step up. That's why he moved to Paris in the first place.

The awful physical side effects will not keep him from pitching in when Chat Noir can't be counted on - something he says in front of Adrien, who isn't pleased with that statement or the way Ladybug looks relieved, impressed, and concerned all at once.

So now the group dynamic has shifted, and worse, when he's around, Mr. I will not stop calling out the sexual harassment. "Stop harassing her and do your job." "If you're done sexually harassing girls for the night..." "Are you late because you were harassing some other poor girl, or is Ladybug your only victim?" "Keep your paws to yourself or I'll stomp on them with my hooves, catboy." And every time, Ladybug's esteem for him gets a little bit higher, and Chat Noir gets a little more furious with him.

Meanwhile in class Marinette has put this teacher on a pedestal, this awesome guy who moved across the country to risk his life saving other people, cooler even than Jagged Stone in her eyes, and Adrien, for the first time, is acting up in school, so, so irritated with this guy who doesn't understand that Ladybug is his. The rudeness and insubordination in class amps up until, finally, Mr. I takes him aside after class one day.

"I know you're Chat Noir. You popping up whenever one of my students goes missing is a dead giveaway; don't deny it. Clean up your act or so help me God, I will send a note home to your father. I can have you pulled out of school, young man. You either learn that no means no and start treating women with respect, or you get to find out what it's like to have your wishes ignored by someone you can't get away from."

"That's not what I've been doing with Ladybug!"

"Yes, it is. And I intend to stop you while you're a kitten, before you become a predator. That's what you are, Adrien. You're predatory, and I come from a long line of hunters, the only thing that triumphs over predators in the wild. You keep that in mind for next time. Now, dismissed."

[adell032]

Lover Boy Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader Warnings: None Prompt: The team meets the girl Rossi and Hotch saved a few years back, little do they know she's Spencers childhood friend (I hate using Y/N so I'm giving her a random name) -------------

"Rossi I'm telling you, I will be fine, I'll have you and Hotch by my side, I can handle the BAU."

"It's not you I'm worried about kiddo, we've already got one genius on the team, now we'll have two!"

You laughed at Rossi, knowing he was just trying to calm both of you down, it was your first day officially working for the BAU, alongside the two men who had saved you 8 years ago. "Audrey, remember, if at any point it feels like too much you can step out, Hotch and I will be right here." "I'm not a little 16 year old anymore, old man, I'm 24, I can do this." "I know you can."

Rossi opened the doors for you, letting you walk in first, Aaron had gave you your credentials and gun yesterday, the rest of the team were at home on their day off, but he had dragged you in to do introductory paperwork. The whole team were waiting for you and Rossi, as you could see them through the glass window, all their backs turned so they couldn't see you, though it looked as if Hotch was giving them a scolding, "he's probably just telling them to be nice, don't worry." Rossi messed your hair up, and you rushed to fix it as Prentiss turned around, quickly tapping JJ on the shoulder as you pushed the door open. The rest of the team turned to you, but you could only focus on one face, "Spencer?"

"You know Spencer?" "You know Audrey?"

The boy genius stood frozen, his mouth opening and closing like a fish before he finally found the courage to speak, "what are you doing here?" His voice cracked as you slowly walked towards him, watching in confusion as he took a step back when you reached out to him, "Spence?"

"I- I can't do this right now." He turned away from you, speeding towards his desk and burying his head in the first book he grabbed, you looked to Rossi, "you didn't tell me he worked here."

"We didn't know that you two knew each other."

"I grew up in Vegas, we went to the same school until he went to college at 14 and I, well you know." Hotch and Rossi nodded, "just give him some time, kiddo." Rossi patted your shoulder, walking off to his own desk as the rest of the team crowded around you.

"I'm Emily, this is JJ, Morgan, and Garcia." Emily pointed to everyone as she said their names, your gaze stopping on Garcia, admiring her clothes, she shrunk back under your stare, "she's so intimidating for a short person." She whispered to Morgan, not very quietly as you had heard her, "sorry, I love your dress, where'd you get it?"

Garcia copied your excitement, "I bought it at this little store in the city, I love your dress, you look like a barbie doll!" You were wearing a long pink dress, pink flats, a white bag and a white blazer, you looked like the lawyer version of barbie if her hair was black. "Thanks! Haley bought me this dress for Christmas, said it suited me perfectly."

"You've met Haley?"

"And Jack," you nodded your head at Morgan, "I spend Christmas and my Birthday with them and Rossi."

"Do you not spend it with your family?"

"My family aren't exactly alive, Morgan. Well except my brother, but we haven't seen him in 7 years really, not since Hotch and Rossi found us. It's weird really, one second he was in our hotel room and the next he was gone, haven't heard from him since." You rambled as you stared at Reid, he looked so much different now, his hair was curly, he no longer wore glasses, he was a lot taller, he was hot.

"Pretty Boy will get over whatever that was soon, I promise."

"Well when your childhood friend who went missing 10 years ago shows up at your workplace, you'd usually be happy they're at least not dead." You mumbled, pushing past the team to walk over to Spencer, staring down at him as he continued ignoring you. "Can we talk?"

Spencer didn't even look up, instead he flipped the page of his book, aggressively, "I know it's weird for me to just show up here Spence, but please." He let out a sigh, putting his book down, "we can talk at the round table."

He walked you to another room, taking a seat at the round table, you left a few empty seats between you, "I didn't just leave, Spence, I promise. I didn't just stop responding to your letters."

"Then what the hell happened Audrey? Because last time I checked friends don't ignore each other."

"My parents were killed, Spence. And whoever did it kidnapped Lucas and I for two years, Rossi and Hotch found us 8 years ago, I wanted to reconnect with you I really did, but for my own safety the BAU brought me here."

Reid looked at you in shock, his face full of guilt, "Audrey.."

"That's not all, Lucas left the hotel room we were staying in 7 years ago and he hasn't come back Spence. None of us have seen, or heard anything, I was staying with either Hotch or Rossi for at least 3 years before I moved out after finishing college. I truly did try to find you, but I guess all I had to do was ask the people I was living with, I'm truly sorry."

Spence stood up from his seat, "and they still haven't caught the guy who did this? He's still out there?" You nodded your head, "I'm sorry for assuming, I shouldn't have, fuck." Reid tripped over a chair leg as he tried to walk towards you, falling on his back with a loud bang, "fuck!"

You let out a laugh, "it's nice to know you're still the same Klutz you were 10 years ago," you walked towards Reid, offering him a hand, he grabbed your hand, acting as if he was pulling himself up before pulling you down on top of him, the two of you face to face.

"Reid?" You whispered, staring at his lips as he licked them,

"Yes?"

"Can I kiss you?"

Before he could answer, Reid's hand made its way to your head, pulling you towards him, your lips connecting in a sweet kiss. It was like you were made for eachother, the way your lips moved together slowly, the kiss getting more and more eager as Spencer slowly sat up, his hand on your waist to steady you.

The room was dark, but the light coming from the door opening startled you both apart, Morgan stood in the doorway, "yeah pretty boy, get it on!" He laughed, wincing when Emily slapped his head, grabbing the door and slowly closing it.

You and Spencer looked away from the door staring at each other in silence for a moment before bursting out laughing, hearing Morgan shouting for Hotch outside the door.

You both were smart enough to stand up, sitting two chairs apart as Hotch and Rossi slammed the door open, "everything alright in here?" Rossi asked slowly as Hotch stared at your faces.

"Yep, just catching up on the last ten years."

"Okay.." The two of the slowly closed the door, and you and Reid listened for the sound of receding footsteps before looking at each other again, laughing quietly when you heard Morgan shouting, "they were making out on top of each other!"

"They said they were catching up, Morgan." You heard Hotch scold him. "Don't believe me? Check the cameras!"

Your face turned red as you stared at the camera in the corner of the room, Reid following your gaze, "we're fucked."

[luverofralts]

"Still? When's this going to be over?" Adrienne shouted at the cards on the floor. It was nearly Winterfest, which meant that it was time for the Helios family birthday party. Noelle, Adrienne, and Luciana all had the same birthday and their grandparents wanted to celebrate it the most economical way possible. By combining the three birthdays into one party, Elaine saved time and money. It also usually meant that her children wouldn't feel obligated to show up at her house on Winterfest itself. The less time she had to spend with Nathan and whoever he was bringing home that day, the better.

Theo had absolutely no interest in answering Roman. Instead, he and Adam were texting, since Theo had been unable to ditch the family event. They'd been texting non-stop about all the interesting things Adam was going to do with his own family on the school break. Adam was going snowboarding, and shopping in the high-end magical stores while Theo watched his little sisters blow out candles and his father argue with his siblings for an entire afternoon. They wouldn't get to see each other until after Winterfest, which felt like an eternity. How was he supposed to manage without Adam for so long?

"Theo? Can you help your father set up the living room? He needs a second pair of hands."

"Theo! Now. Go help your father. When you're done, you can come help me make dinner in the kitchen."

"I don't get it!" Adrienne shrieked, shouting at the unresponsive deck of tarot cards on the floor. "They can't just show up here, I told them that! Victoriana is supposed to know and then they come. They'll mess up everything!"

"Rien, put your cards away. Just because it's your birthday doesn’t mean that you can shut yourself away with them. Go celebrate with your sister and cousin. Make a friend, I don't care who. Please, Rien, please."

"Yes, Dad," Adrienne sighed. "But-but it's important that I see what's coming. There are huge plans in motion that-"

"Give me the cards," Roman snapped, cutting his daughter off before she could mumble strange prophecies again. "You're not getting these back for at least a week. No one can accurately predict the future, and even if you could, what's the point if you're not living it? Let whatever happens happen and we'll deal with it then."

"But Dad-"

"Now it's two weeks," Roman declared, glowering in the direction of his son. "Theo! Get off your ass now and help your father or Adam won't be allowed to come over for three months. Now mister, go."

Theo grudgingly stood, no doubt telling Adam how cruel his parents were via text. Roman didn't care what the teenagers thought of him, so long as it got Theo off the couch and helping his family set up.

Elaine passed her youngest son in the hall, deliberately avoiding him as best she could. The last thing she needed was to deal with Nathan's drama while the Bellamys undoubtedly brought enough of their own drama for the day.

"Ugh, Kaeileen is obsessed with me," Nathan grumbled, scrolling through his messages. "'Your child support didn't come in this month, why haven't you signed the form for Naethan's school trip?' Doesn't she have anything better to do with her time than bother me?"

"Happy birthday!" Luciana exclaimed, hugging her grumpy cousin. "What's wrong? We're getting presents and cake today."

"I don't want to talk about it," Noelle replied. "You wouldn't understand. Your parents care about you."

"Oh, what did Aunt Lucy do now?" Luciana asked. "Dad hasn't yelled about her for a long time. Did she get an important case? Is she suing the school so we get a longer break?"

"No, none of that. I found out who my other mom is and...and I can't talk about it."

"Okay!" Luciana chirped, ignoring her cousin's moodiness. Today was still going to be awesome even if Noelle was grumpy. Cake and presents always made things better. "Have you seen the presents on the present table? There's so many of them!"

"I don't care," Noelle sighed dramatically. "It's our birthday and I'll never see my other mother here. I've been abandoned. No one wants me."

"I can get you some pretzels," Luciana offered. She didn't have the focus today to put up with her stepcousin's drama. "Dad hasn't got the desserts out yet, but there are pretzels."

"Hard or soft pretzels?" Noelle asked. "I love the soft ones that just came out of the oven."

"Both," Luciana replied cheerfully. "You know my dad doesn't skimp on anything. Let's go find some before dinner. It'll be fun."

Noelle paused for a moment and considered her options. Her absent mother wasn't a priority to anyone else, and the one mother she did have in her life was completely distracted with her attention seeking behavior. No one wanted to listen to Noelle, so she might as well join her friend for a birthday pretzel.

"Hey, how are things going? Busy? I'm pretty busy. I don't get back to Arkhelios as often as i should," Nicholas said.

His old friend and stepbrother, Nathan, had been erratic their entire lives and didn't often call Nicholas to hang out, so this was probably the only time they'd see each other for a while. From what Nicholas understood, Nathan spent his life jumping from job to job, country to country. He spent days with royalty in Crystal Cove and then weeks hanging out with a vampire coven in Strangetown. Anything to avoid the typical life his mother wanted for him. Anything to avoid paying child support to Kaeileen, not that he held a steady enough job for her to collect from. He had Gareth and his boys for the length of the party, after which, Naethan would be returned to his mother and Gareth and Garth would return with him home, until Nathan had another impulse to disappear again. It wasn't exactly parent or partner of the year behaviour, but no one fought Nathan on it. He always came back, didn't he?

"Yeah, things are busy," Nathan replied dismissively. "I travel a lot, do a little work here and there. I can't complain. You're still where? Strangetown, right? You fled one desert for another. At least they have good clubs there."

Nicholas shrugged.

"I guess so. I wouldn't know, we're expecting our first child soon. All I've been doing is fixing the nursery and reading book after book. It's the greatest thing to ever happen to us. We're so excited."

"Eh, I guess," Nathan replied, rolling his eyes. "They're expensive and whiny too. Don't have too many."

"I can see why Gareth keeps you around," Nicholas remarked. "You're such a romantic."

"Oh, Gareth! Good to see you."

Abe waved to his ex and Nathan's fiancé as he walked down the hall.

"Hey Abe! How's the birthday girls? Excited for their party?"

Abe paused to consider his answer. Noelle had been sulking all day while glaring daggers at her mother and Rien was busy crying on the stairs because Roman took her tarot cards. Luciana at least was running around, shoving food in her mouth and laughing. At least one of the kids seemed to be enjoying the party.

"You know those three, always off doing something," he settled on. "God only knows what Theo's up to too. He's spent the whole morning texting and now I can't find him. He's supposed to be in the kitchen helping, but I can guess what he's actually doing. Just wait until your boys are teenagers; everything you ask of them will suddenly be the end of the world."

Gareth smiled politely.

"I can imagine. Is...uh, is Roman here too? He'd not like, running errands or anything?"

Abe cringed, remembering the first time Nathan had brought Gareth to the family house and how Roman had lost his mind threatening him for having slept with Abe a few times in college. Roman had been better with prolonged exposure to the man and the fact that Gareth was now engaged to Nathan. There was still hostility when Roman went anywhere near Gareth, but Gareth believed that there would be large consequences if Roman threatened him again. He'd lost Elaine's automatic support from his affair with Ulyssa, and Lucy tried not to indulge in petty pranks when her high profile wife was nearby. With all that protecting him, Gareth had downgraded the threat Roman posed enough to just be nervous of the man.

"Roman's in the kitchen, or he will be once he hunts down our son," Abe assured him. I doubt that you'll see him until dinner."

"Gareth? Gareth! Did you send Kaeileen money yesterday? My account is mysteriously missing the amount she wanted. I told you, Mom's going to draft something to get her off our backs."

"Sorry, I should talk with him," Gareth apologized. "He doesn't understand that child support is not optional, and that his mother can't just make his responsibilities go away."

"Yeah, of course," Abe said, watching Gareth storm off to yell at his partner.

He had no idea how Gareth tolerated Nathan. He was Abe's little brother and Abe couldn't stand to be in a room with him for more than ten minutes.

Naethan and Garth were well behaved, unlike their father. They were only half siblings, but they seemed to be inseparable and weren't too impacted by their shared father's inability to be a functioning adult. Abe didn't see them often, as he didn't willingly spend any time near his brother, but it looked like Gareth and Kaeileen's parenting was making up for Nathan's.

Elaine scoured the living room for her missing grandson. Roman was getting pissed off in the kitchen with Ironman, which made Elaine pissed off that her first grandson, with at least some of her DNA in him, was being a lazy slacker. For all the money she helped his parents pay to his fancy school, Theo certainly hadn't been taught manners or responsibility.

"Theodosius Bellamy, you come here this instant. You have been summoned to help with dinner, and if you don't get in there in the next three minutes, there will be consequences. Ironman knows how to block cell reception and take down the wifi network. It'd be a shame if you couldn't call anyone, wouldn't it?"

"God, I have to go, Adam, my bitch grandma is yelling at me for some reason. Yeah, I know. I miss you too. I'll try calling you later."

On his way to the kitchen, Theo's eyes spotted his grandmother's new karaoke machine in the living room. He loved to sing and play guitar, and it was there for the party guests to use, right? One little song wo wuldn't be the end of the world before he was trapped, cutting onions and peppers with his father.

He scanned a few songs in the catalog, while Noelle was already prematurely booing his future performance.

"Boooo! No one wants to hear you sing, leave the machine for the people with talent!" Noelle called out. Teasing Theo was almost too easy, but it helped ease the hurt she felt when she thought of her mothers.

Theo glared back at her, completely unshaken. It would take a lot more than heckling to rattle him. He could be just as petty as her.

"Her name is Noelle, I have a dream about her," Theo sang, making sure that his voice was extra obnoxious for his cousin. "Something something, I've got gym class in half an hour."

"Shut up already!" Noelle shouted, stamping her feet. "It's my birthday, and I'm sick of that stupid song everyone thinks is funny. There are other songs with Noelle in them! You're stupid! This whole party is stupid! Don't make me break your stuff. I'm still a kid, no one will blame me."

"THEODOSIUS ULYSSES BELLAMY. Get in the kitchen now, or I swear to god-"

"Coming," Theo groaned, putting the microphone away angrily. "This whole party sucks. I wish I were with Adam. His parents would never make me help with dinner."

[purecantarella]

Need A Little Sweetness

happy yeji day my lovelies!! i hope you're all doing well and i know its been a hot minute since yall seen me but i am 90% that through this semester i died but here we are HAHAHAAH now lets celebrate this adorable little kitten's birthday, shall we? hwang yeji x reader disclaimer/s : none, this is floof. i dont think i even cursed, give her an award AHAHAHA

also this gif made my heart stop yall

You worked at a café, a rather popular one at that. It was often packed with tons of customers, men, women, and everything in between but you never batted an eye on it. It didn't really bother you as long as it didn't take away from your job.

You weren't blind to the fact that they all came for you.

The shop was crowded filled to the brim with customers, as it always was, while you manned the machines behind the counter while everyone made attempts to catch a glimpse of you. Flipping levers and filling cups with a big smile on your face, all of the people in line swooned over you.

"Macha Frappe for Jae...!" You called out through the rowdy crowd, the same smile etched onto your lips as the man walked up to the counter with a heavy flush. "Here you go, sir." You offered to his shaking hand.

"U-Uhm, I wanted to ask if..." You quirked a brow at him curiously, tilting your head to the side, kind eyes slowly urging him to finish his thought. Instead, he shook his head before quickly bolting out of the door. Your eyes widened but again, you didn't really pay it any mind, shrugging it off before returning to your duties.

"Y/n." The firm voice of your manager before he signaled for you to come to the back. Soft groans fell upon the lips of those waiting for their drinks. You giggled before turning to your manager, offering him your full attention with enthusiasm. "What's up, boss?"

"Look, you know how you took a leave last week?" He paused to gauge your reaction. When he saw you nod slowly, he smiled at you sheepishly. "Well we're going to need you to make up the hours you missed." As you opened your mouth to complain, the older man gave you a glare, warning you.

were a full-time student in college with no work experience and hardly cent to your name.

The day seemed to drag on longer than usual, minutes began feeling like hours, and you were there until closing time, midnight. More customers came and went, some of which made attempts to ask you out but you were simply not in the mood to deal with strangers being interested in you. It had just been a lot.

There stood a tall figure, her features almost completely covered by what she was wearing. You could tell she was an idol with her entire ensemble. But it wasn't uncommon especially at this time of night. At this point, it didn't really phase you.

"Good evening." You greeted with a tired smile.

"My managers haven't exactly had my best interest at heart." The idol noted while leaning up against the bar, her hand lifting her cup up to her lips. Your gaze trailed up to meet the woman's eyes, for the first time since the shift began, you pushed the textbook out of your hands.

The corners of your mouth pulled up slightly. A dry chuckle emitting from your throat before you gave Yeji your full attention. "I get that..." You trailed off, disappointment still evident in your eyes. The singer looked around the shop, little to no one was there.

It wasn't often it happened when you were on shift, but it wasn't impossible. "If I pay for another drink would you like to join me?" She asked with a soft, sweet smile.

You turned your head

"...Fine..." You muttered begrudgingly, before turning back around. "Smile, Y/n." He reminded in the same firm tone that filled you with so much anger and frustration.

Your manager had long monopolised on your popularity and politely encouraged you to take on more shifts because of it. As much as you'd like to leave instead, you begrudgingly stayed. After all, you were a full-time student in college with no work experience and hardly cent to your name.

The day seemed to drag on longer than usual, minutes began feeling like hours, and you were there until closing time, midnight. More customers came and went, some of which made attempts to ask you out but you were simply not in the mood to deal with strangers being interested in you. It had just been a lot.

As sun fell and the night washed over the sky, business slowed down a bit. The café was almost abandoned, you were the only one left to man the register and make the drinks, your manager had left you to close up.

To fill the empty time, you'd pulled out one of your textbooks, rubbing the tiredness out of your eyes as you leaned against the counter for support. Your mind was no longer processing the heavy information you were being fed. A frustrated groan left your lips as the bell of the front door rang, and you shot up immediately.

There stood a tall figure, her features almost completely covered by what she was wearing. You could tell she was an idol with her entire ensemble. But it wasn't uncommon especially at this time of night. At this point, it didn't really phase you.

"Good evening." You greeted with a tired smile.

"I'll take a dark roast, please. Thank you." She muttered, her voice sounding as worn out as you felt. You nodded quickly before setting the machine up. As you waited for it to heat up again, you looked at the young woman who stood in front of you.

You recognized her, she was one of those girls from Itzy. You didn't keep tabs on them but you did know their faces. Hers in particular, Hwang Yeji, was an absolute vision to you. You cleared your throat before speaking, a part of you curious about her presence so late. "It's not often I see idols at this time without their members or their managers..."

"My managers haven't exactly had my best interest at heart." She paused to fiddle with her fingers. "I guess I just wanted a break from them."

A dry chuckle emitting from your throat before you gave Yeji your full attention. "I get that..." You trailed off, disappointment still evident in your eyes. The singer looked around the shop, little to no one was there. "Whenever I pass, this place is usually booming. Slow night?" She asked curiously.

A soft humming behind you took your attention, alerting you that the machine was ready. You gave her a single nod before turning to make her order.

"It doesn't happen often but I suppose nothing is impossible..." You replied, sliding the coffee into the singer's hand. For a minute there's a lull in the conversation "If I order another drink would you like to join me?" She asked with a soft, sweet smile. You looked at her in amazement before you giggled uncontrollably.

"Your smile is just radiant..." She muttered before cupping her hand over her mouth. 

The smile on your face brightened as you poured yourself a cup of the dark, warm liquid. You took a sip, never breaking eye contact with the young idol. "So miss Leader, tell me about yourself."

"You're a fan?" Yeji asked with a quirked brow as she leaned forward, challenging you with a wide grin.

You pretended to think for a moment, looking up to really sell the act. Your gaze returned to the singer's amused expression. "Not really... but maybe that'll change."

The night flew by without either of you realizing it. Empty hours usually spent watching the clock were replaced with laughter and endless conversations. It was the happiest you'd truly felt while you were in your workplace.

"Yeah, then Yuna said—" Before Yeji could finish her thought, her phone began to vibrate violently making her face color drain. Quickly, she pulled the phone up and stuffed the device into her pocket. "I have to go, my managers realized I got out."

She began to fidget for her wallet but placed your hand over hers, lightly restraining her. "The company you gave me is more than enough for a couple coffees." You smiled up at her, as your hand remained over hers.

Yeji smiled down at you apologetically before dashing down the street. You smiled down at your hand, the warmth still lingered, making butterflies escape in your stomach. You giggled to yourself.

'You don't meet women like that all the time...' You thought before turning to turn off the machine and prepare to close up for the night. The memories of the night keeping you smiling the entire time.

The next few days were rather uneventful, so much so that you simply couldn't get Yeji out of your head. Every now and then you stay a little later at night, much to your fanatic customers delight, to potentially catch a glimpse of the singer again. Much to your disappointment, she never returned.

You'd supposed it truly was a once in a lifetime experience, one that seemed to be completely one-sided.

It was another late night, a surprising amount of people were still present. You deduced it was because they heard that you were staying later recently. With each customer, your energy began to diminish.

"Good evening, welcome! What'll you be having...?" You trailed off looking down at the monitor of the register, faux smile still very much present.

"Oh I'll have a dark roast with an extra shot of Y/n?" The familiar voice said in a hushed tone before peeking their eyes out from under the cap she wore. Your eyes immediately brightened as you stared at the singer's covered face. "Rather forward of you, don't you think?" You teased, the grin on your face never loosing its shine.

Yeji merely shrugged, the grin on her face still prominent. She cautiously looked around before whispering, "I'll wait for them to clear out...then can I take you out?" The singer asked with a twinge of blush coating her face.

You smiled shyly, before nodding. The crinkle of her eyes grew smaller as she nodded and slipped a bill for the coffee. Half an hour passes before your co-worker comes in as per your request so you can escape the job quicker.

You both met up in front of the café, which garnered a few disappointed looks from your loyal customers.

You looked at her with an amused expression, arms crossed as you neared the taller woman. "So why'd you come back, Hwang Yeji? Couldn't get enough of the coffee?"

Yeji giggled before moving to stand beside you as you both made your way through the cold Seoul night. "Nope, work's been bitter enough..." She paused to look down at you, nudging your side gently. "I wanted a bit of sweetness this time around."

You smiled up at her shyly before you began to talk the night away again, like you had before. Excited to see where the sweetness would take you.

yeah i dont know what the last line was but here we are HAHAHAHA i hope that you all enjoyed that and Yeji day as a whole!! i'm gonna try and comeback with a few more fics in the next few days, granted i don't get dogpiled on by work but it's pride month next week so i hope to have some fics out by then since it is important to me and to a lot of people!! i hope you've all been keeping safe, my lovelies 😊 i'll see you vv soon, keep safe, and i love you all with all i can give 💖 - r