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boop-le-snoot · 2 years

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sticky sweet

Bruce's latest concoction has a very unexpected side effect - it enhances taste perception by x100. Tony takes it, with Reader thinking he wants to enjoy some brownies, but Tony has other plans... 18+, Tony's oral fixation, liberal interpretation of science, pleasure dom Tony if you squint. Hot, wet and messy and sponsored by Tony's praise kink. Word count 3k.

A/N: There's a lot of dirty talk :') I wrote this, re-read this and audibly went "hehehe, what the fuck" :') I honestly don't know what hell pits this all came from :') blame the motley crue song with the same title :')

"And what you boys are up to?" Your voice carried over from the lab entrance door, loud and clear, as FRIDAY lowered the volume of the music Tony liked to blast when science took hold of his brain.

Bruce was right next to your boyfriend, shirt stained with tea and curls bouncing in tune with Mötley Crüe's very own Tommy Lee banging on the drums. It took him a while to get used to Tony and his tendency to be loud, but now, years in, the two science bros were practically inseparable.

You and the girls often shared a laugh at the way the duo acted so much alike like two high school girl best friends, even going as far as to share each other's clothes. For their scientific ventures, unfortunately, it made all common sense to fly out of the window. Explosions galored, semi-sentient sludge was made (and almost escaped, melting the heavy-duty security doors) and Steve was annoyed red, white and blue with two grown men acting like giddy children.

It made all the sense that you, Tony's girlfriend, were often sent on recon missions to make sure the science bros haven't accidentally offed themselves or caused an apocalypse.

"Nothing particularly successful," Tony's frustrated grumble and subsequent pout had you leaning into his space to give him a quick peck on the cheek. The man rewarded you with a brief squeeze of your hip, the hand trailing down to squeeze your ass. "We thought we made a chemical to detect and neutralize sedatives, turns out all it did was make coffee taste really, really bitter."

You chuckled, sticking your own hand down the back pocket of his jeans. "Ah, yes. Crimes against coffee are crimes against humanity."

Tony nodded solemnly, not taking his eyes off his holograms. "Absolutely. There is no Iron Man without coffee and there is no world peace without Iron Man." He stated seriously, the corners of his mouth twitching.

Bruce remained quiet, the cracks of a reluctant smile threatening to appear on his focused face.

You studied the floating holograms, documenting the shape and placement of the molecules. Truth to be told, you understood maybe 1/10 of what was displayed on the screen, but after spending so much time around geniuses, you had come to a conclusion that even a small, silly question could get their brains going.

"That's all it does? Makes food bitter?" You asked innocently.

"Well, no," Bruce immediately perked up, pushing his glasses back onto his nose. "It enhances taste perception by activating some neural pathways in the brain that aren't commonly used."

You mulled over the thought, suddenly struck with a brilliant idea. "Well, damn. You make me want to try it. We've got some chocolate fudge brownies Wanda made in the morning, upstairs." Perking up, you squeezed Tony's butt, before adding thoughtfully. "If Thor hasn't found the second stash yet. I swear, he'll eat us out of the house one day..."

Both Tony and Bruce froze, lifting their eyes from their science project and sharing a look. Most of the time, it was a Look™ that preceded at least one explosion and a haste trip to medical, but this time, you felt nothing but amusement at two big-brained dorks missing out on the most obvious upside of their failed experiment.

"Do we- do we have mangoes?" Bruce almost shouted at the same time as Tony quickly attempted to untangle himself and dash towards the lab fridge.

"I'm gonna need a sample!"

You laughed, openly, letting go of Tony and sticking your hands in your pockets. "Just don't put weird stuff in your mouth. We don't need you screaming, crying and throwing up."

Bruce nodded before grabbing a vial of clear liquid from the fridge, nearly pushing Tony out of the way, and dashed out the door, lab coat billowing behind him as it disappeared behind the corner. Before the door closed completely, you heard the tail end of Bruce asking FRIDAY to list the exact contents of the communal fridge, demanding the AI keep Thor's garbage disposal appetite away from Wanda's brownies.

"You might wanna go upstairs before Bruce ransacks the entire kitchen," you suggested to your boyfriend, amused to no end.

"I have all I need in my penthouse," Tony replied confidently, pocketing a vial himself and grabbing your hand, leading you into the elevator.

As soon as the door shut behind you, his warm hands found a home on your hips, pulling you into him until his face was mere inches away from you. His warm breath reached your mouth, causing you to lick your lips. Tony's eyes widened, framed by thick long lashes, the shameless stare sizing you up.

He loved to see you. Always undressing with his eyes before he undressed you with his hands, claiming his victory spoils you surrendered willingly, sweetly.

"Got any bad ideas?" You asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Only the best for you, my dear," the engineer responded, immediately, absent-mindedly.

At this point you had no choice but to brace yourself and strap in for the wild ride had had so obviously planned for you. Tony Stark was a man of many adventures and most of them, you could safely say, were of the bedroom variety. Just as you thought you had settled into a colorful, comfortable routine, he would surprise you with something even more daring, even more rewarding than all his previous escapades combined.

As you arrived in his penthouse, you let yourself be lead directly to your shared bedroom. Tony's bulk standing right behind you, his hips almost flush with yours, his cock hardening in his jeans, your own desire began to stir and move in your gut. It was almost unfair how little this man needed to do to simply get you going.

One of his hands splayed on your belly, rough skin of his fingertips shooting sparks over your body, you heard the cork of the vial pop and land on the carpet. The plastic container followed suit; Tony's lips immediately sought after the tender spot at the back of your neck, gently wrapping around the thin skin and creating the smallest amount of suction. Just the right amount to have you shiver in his arms.

His sinful mouth left a trail of sticky saliva on the inches of your exposed skin. "I love brownies as much as any other guy, but my favourite snack, by far, is you," he murmured, catching your earlobe and worrying it between his teeth.

"You sure know how to charm a girl," voice breathless, you tried to conceal how giddy his words had made you. "And don't be shy, darling, I'm a full course meal."

A scratchy laugh landed against your jawline. "I can't argue with that," with that, your were turned around.

Now facing each other, Tony wasted no time in claiming the plush of your lips. As soon as you granted entrance to his hot, wet tongue, he moaned into the kiss, grabbing you by the waist and walking you backwards.

Your back landed on the sloppily made bed, eyes hazy and body still reeling from the forceful, passionate kiss. Tony Stark kissed like he fought; violently and with maximum efficiency. Your panties were already damp, your nipples straining against the cups of your bra.

"This thing lasts about forty minutes," he took his shirt over his head and carelessly chucked it somewhere in the back of the room. "I intend to get the best of it."

That was the only warning you got before Tony scaled the bed, climbing atop you and sliding his hands under your shirt to get rid of it. Your bra followed suit, his twitching, red lips immediately attaching themselves to your nipples as his hands roamed the arches and valleys of your body.

Tony was everywhere. The soft, worn denim of his favourite jeans brushed against your thighs, his beard left scratch marks on your skin - it tingled where his deviant mouth lapped up the essence of you. Tiny, barely-there noises escaped him every time as he closed his mouth around a spot he had not yet touched, tongue running over his lips to savour every last tidbit.

Your fingers carded through his hair as you patiently let your boyfriend have his fill. He was ravenous and you couldn't blame him; most days, you found your own mouth attached to his neck or his cock in a way most similar, starving for the taste of his love.

"Fuck, Tony, the mouth on you," back arching into him as his touch grew bolder and bolder, teeth and tongue added into the mix, you expressed your appreciation loudly and eagerly.

His smirk against the waistband of your bottoms was equal parts smug and flattered. Tony loved to be told, in detail, how good he was, how he drove you to the brink of insanity and dragged you back.

The buttons on your bottoms popped, he wasted no time in disposing of the offending garment. You heard it whoosh over his head, stifling a giggle - unsuccessfully - at his eagerness and receiving a deliciously sharp bite on the inside of your thigh. Legs open and Tony's hot breath just above the thin fabric of your panties, you squirmed.

"Let's make my girl feel good, yeah?" Tony was a little dazed, a little breathless.

"Please, baby," you agreed. "No one does it like you."

"So sweet for me," his murmur almost lost in the place your legs and your pussy meet, echoed by the deep inhale Tony drew, refreshing the memories of your arousal in his head. The man had a fantastic memory and you had no doubt, all the hours spent together were catalogued and documented to be brought up at his convenience.

Your legs shifted, hips arching into the hot, damp tide of his breath. Tony responded with sticking out and flattening his tongue, giving your covered pussy a broad lick, causing your toes to curl - the contact was all too much and simultaneously not enough.

Your panties were swiftly pulled down your legs. "These have to go," the grumpy remark left you giggling. Tony reminded you of a cat that had suddenly smelled a lemon.

He used his hands to keep you open, parting your outer lips with his thumbs and immediately repeating the previous action with eager speed, tongue flat against your swollen clit. Both of you moaned in unison, nearly the same pitch and craving sending vibrations down your chest and up your wet cunt.

"F-fuck," not many people could say that they've heard Tony Stark stutter but you were definitely one of them now. "Sweet girl," he licked you hole-to-clit. "Fucking candy apple," another desperate lick. "Could eat you all day."

You writhed, assaulted by his nimble tongue and mercilessly besieged under the weight of his confession. Being on the receiving end of Tony's devotion was like letting the sweetest chocolate melt in your mouth, like letting cool ice cream drip down your fingers on a hot summer's day.

Your clit was pulsing, thanks to Tony's ministrations, your body taut and your abs tense. Each flick of his tongue brought you closer and closer to the edge but none of his actions were enough to actually get you there. When Tony began to fuck your sopping, leaking hole with a fervour of a man parched, you could hold onto your sanity no longer, abandoning a shame and dignity.

"Tony, baby, please, you're so- oh, I need to come," the wovels wobbled, the words changed pitch as you begged for relief.

"I can't baby, you taste so good," he retorted, not really lifting his mouth from your pussy. The vibrato of his voice made your thighs quiver.

Your hands tangled in his hair as you all but shoved his face close, closer and over the apex of your thighs, nose brushing against your clit with every forceful gulp that Tony took of your essence. The warmth that gathered in your belly was now spreading up your chest and along your spine; you tethered on the brink of an orgasm, a ripe apple waiting for the perfect moment to fall from a tree.

"Oh god, oh fuck, Tony, baby, please, you're so good to me," your slurred pleading disappeared in the lewd noises coming from between your legs.

"I know," he doubled down on collecting the slick freely dripping from your cunt, rapid swallows alternating with short bursts of rapid flicks of his tongue. "Come for me, I know you can, I know you can," he panted, using his nose to stimulate your neglected clit. His beard scratched your thighs, adding fuel to the fire.

"I- n-no," you argued, unsure against what. The torture was a sweet as it was arduous, Tony was both bad & beyond, lapping up slick from your cunt like a man dying of dehydration. Your neglected clit throbbed and yet, the weight of the situation made you want to keep him trapped between your legs forever, like this.

The thought of Tony starving for you, aching to feel the power of your release directly in his throat. Your legs seized, held open only by the sheer force of Tony's muscular biceps, your mouth parted and your eyes rolled back into your head with a loud scream.

Tony's own noises of unbridled lust drowned in the squelching and slick; a mixture of your juices and his drool made for a huge wet spot under your ass but you paid it no mind.

"My sweet girl, give it to me," Tony demanded, placing his entire mouth over your sensitive, swollen cunt. You writhed and gasped for breath but your man didn't relent, milking every last drop of your sudden orgasm. "Everything, fuck, give me everything."

You rode his face, grip in his hair steely and the muscles in your body little more than lukewarm jelly. No words were forming at the crimson wound of your mouth but your body was just as adept as communicating it's needs.

The river of slick never stopped running from your cunt. Tony never stopped running his mouth.

"Taste better than my favourite booze," his confession had you gasping. "Like heaven, darlin', you taste like fucking Valhalla," two fingers went along your thighs and into your cunt, barely meeting any resistance thanks to Tony's devil mouth. He kept them pumping at a steady pace, brushing against your special spot with fervour.

It seemed like once he'd gotten a taste of your release, he could not stop. Shoulders tense and hips seeking friction against the bedsheets, he did his damn best to wring another orgasm out of your body. He made you weak.

Falling into the abyss of pleasure wasn't something you wanted to resist, so you relaxed into the touch, allowing your hips to chase after the sparks dancing at the tips of Tony's fingers inside of you.

"That's my good girl," he took notice of it, upping the intensity of his actions.

"T-tony, please," suddenly, it wasn't enough. You wanted to feel the stretch of his thick cock inside of you, you wanted to have his lips in yours, the scratch of his beard on your cheek, god-damnit. "I want you," mewling, you chased to fill the emptiness.

"You have one more in you, I know," he protested but you didn't need to see him to sense his resolve crumble by the second. "I know you want to be my good girl," it was a last ditch effort and you both knew it.

"Want your cock," the whine was positively sinful, coupled with the squeeze of your cunt around his fingers. "Tony, baby, I want your cock. Hard and deep, just how you like it!"

Tony withdrew, fingers undoubtedly coming out all pruney. The click of his belt and the shuffle of his jeans, the thud against the carpet - and then he was on top of you, claiming your mouth and sharing your arousal between you, licking into your mouth like a hungry cat chased the last bits of cream at the bottom of a container.

Tony's face was absolutely drenched, cheeks sticky with your lust. His beard was all in disarray and you could barely see the color of his eyes, blown with desire. His cock clumsily nosed at your slippery folds.

"I'm here, baby," he cooed, briefly pausing the kiss to concentrate on sliding home.

And then he did. Both of you moaned, loud and drawn-out noise that bled the sweetest, stickiest wonder at joining your bodies into one.

"Tony, you feel so good," his mouth had helped you find your words again. "Fuck, so thick. Fuck me, fuck me like you mean it."

Your words made Tony whine and growl low in his throat as he immediately picked up a pace that could only be described as brutal, slamming his hips into yours, rubbing his neatly trimmed pubic hair and your slick all over the outside of your cunt. It felt raw, like a sparking live wire between your legs.

Tony's cock was a work of art, really, thick and veiny with that slight curve that had you seeing galaxies and speaking in tongues every time it hit that deepest spot inside of you. And he knew it, pistoning his hips just right, punching the air out of your chest with relentless pursuit of your orgasm.

"Come for me baby, come for daddy," he panted, his cock hard and pulsing. He was close, hanging on out of sheer spite, and you knew it. The last word was just the cherry on top.

And you did. Galaxies indeed exploded behind your eyelids getting brighter and brighter with every throb of your cunt; hot spurts of his seed only prolonged the sensation for you, your second orgasm seemingly bleeding into a third one. You rode the waves of it in your head, your lips the only part that was capable of moving at the moment.

Tony stole your breath with a moan, sucking out your aftershocks ferociously, directly from your mouth, the beginnings of a dopey smile making it a so clumsy and sweet.

"Daddy, huh?" His terse, scratchy tone had you attempting to release the weak chuckle building up in your chest.

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#bun writes #tony stark smut #tony stark x reader smut #tony stark x reader #tony stark x you #tony stark x y/n

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babbushka · 3 years

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A December To Remember

Lawyer!Kylo Ren x Reader

4.1k, cw: Possessive behavior; name-calling; unwanted advances from another man; NSFW (Rivals/rival relationship/enemy lovers, PIV, fingering, semi-public sex/office sex)

Available on AO3

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When the elevator doors open, Kylo has to physically brace himself. He had heard the music blasting from seven floors away, his discomfort only growing bigger and bigger as the elevator ticked up up up to Gwen’s lobby. His hands clench into fists in his leather gloves, refusing to take them off.

He wasn’t going to be here long, he promises himself as a conga line of santa hats nearly steps on his Allen-Edmonds; he just needed to show his face, have a drink, and get out. The office is all geared up for Christmas, Kylo walks through the winter wonderland of flocked trees decorated in white and gold, garland wrapped around support poles, big faux presents arranged nicely. There’s a live band and although they played well, the music is a bit much, as are the people singing along. Kylo tunes it out to the best of his ability, on a mission, a hunt.

One thing he can at least appreciate, was that this was a cocktail party, which meant everyone was dressed up nicely. Kylo loves an excuse to bring out his expensive suits, Burberry sitting nicely on his broad shoulders. No one could say he didn’t try to be festive – he had put on a black tuxedo made of soft mohair wool, that happened to have a saucy lapel of black satin for some holiday flair.

As he walks through the crowds of attorneys who Kylo has never seen laugh and smile so much in his career, someone hands him a peppermintini. It’s not long before he feels a tap on his shoulder, and he nearly spills the cocktail by whirling around, thinking that at last, he’s found you.

He has half a mind to smile, but whatever he had thought of saying goes out the window when he sees it is not you, but rather it’s his friend Gwen. She’s gorgeous in a silver slinky number that dips down her muscled back very low, and Kylo leans in to press his cheek against hers in greeting.

“Well well well, look who actually decided to show up.” Gwen nearly has to shout to be heard over the volume of the party.

He rolls his eyes at her teasing, takes a sip of the offending holiday cocktail – where the fuck could a guy get some whiskey around here?

“I was invited, wasn’t I?” Kylo replies, even though he’s not really looking at her. Gwen is probably the only person he knows who is as tall as him, and tonight she’s wearing heels which make her actually a few inches taller.

“Yes, but I’ve seen the stack of unopened invitations sitting on your desk.” She snaps her fingers in front of his face, drawing his attention back to her for the time being as she raises a platinum blonde brow, “Let’s not you and I pretend that you’re here because you want to enjoy the cheer of the holiday.”

The both of them exchange a little huff of laughter, because really she was right. Kylo is here because he had heard through the grapevine that you had RSVP’d, and there was nothing that could have prevented Kylo coming to see you if that were true.

“I’ve been informed that it is appropriate to make appearances now and again, even brief ones.” He sighs into his drink, nose crinkling at the sheer minty-ness of it.

“You can’t leave you just got here!” Gwen groans, “Stay for a little while, there’s some people who want to talk to you.”

“Whether or not I stay is contingent to one thing.” He shakes his head with a grimace, and at this Gwen’s sharp eyes sparkle with the light of knowing his secret.

“I last saw her over by the buffet.” Gwen sips her own cocktail, speaking lowly enough so that only he can hear, not like anyone is listening.

“I don’t know who you mean.” Kylo’s palms immediately begin to sweat inside his gloves, and he fixes the wall a hard stare to avoid that knowing look in her eye.

“Between you and me, I’m surprised she showed up just as much as I am that you did.” Gwen scoffs, and that at the very least was something Kylo understood.

As difficult as it was trying to pin Kylo down for something as unsavory as a Christmas party, you were notoriously hard to convince to come to anything for the holidays if you didn’t feel like it. It was one of the things that Kylo appreciated about you – not that Kylo liked you, or anything.

He shakes the thought away from his head.

“But you’re sure she’s here?” Kylo asks, an intensity to his question that has Gwen laughing.

“Yes – and do try not to make a scene.” She pats him on the back, before sauntering away to go entertain.

“What’s a Christmas party without a little scandal?” Kylo mutters to himself, trying to figure out which way the food was.

He recognizes people from six or seven different law firms as he tries to cut his way through the party. Gwen hadn’t been joking, about a dozen men in suits shake his hand and introduce themselves, congratulating him on winning his most recent case. Interns have stars in their eyes when he passes, and Kylo tries his best not to be such a grinch to their faces.

At this rate, he’s starting to get frustrated and irritated, he still hasn’t found you. The peppermintini was long finished, and he didn’t ask for a refill when he passed the bar. The entire outing was shaping up to be a waste, and Kylo is about ready to give up when he finally catches a whiff of your perfume.

“…That’s nice.” He hears your disinterested voice pipe up from a spot on the other end of the lobby where he has wandered, and Kylo lets himself be led to you, using his height to search for you in the jovial crowd.

Some schmuck is trying to herd you in the direction of where a big sprig of mistletoe has been tied under a doorframe, and the minute Kylo sees it happening, jealousy and rage simmer up straight up his spine.

“Isn’t it? I got the sonofabitch off a ten-year sentence. He was absolutely guilty but, that’s not my problem anymore.” A handsome pretty boy with perfectly straight teeth that are practically fluorescent from how white they are tries dazzling you.

“Uh huh.” You sound like you could not care less, and that for some reason only makes Kylo angrier – couldn’t this boy see that you weren’t interested?

Kylo tries to say his excuse me and his pardon mes, as he winds through the lobby on his mission to you. It’s difficult, because you won’t stay still for fucks sake, so every time Kylo thinks he’s just about gotten to you, you take a sharp turn to try and lose the boy’s unwanted attention.

“So anyway I was thinking to celebrate, maybe you can come back to mine after this shindig gets wrapped up.” He says, slipping an arm around your waist.

Kylo’s blood boils.

“Excuse me?” Your tone shifts dramatically, from uninterested to offended at his presumptions. Your body stiffens up at once, and that arm drops from your waist like he’s been electrocuted.

“I brought my own car and everything, we don’t even have to take the subway.” The boy tries to impress you, but you’re having none of it.

“I don’t think so, I have no intentions on going anywhere with you.” You shut his advances down, “Tonight, or any night.”

This angers the boy, which in turn makes Kylo see red, and he doesn’t even realize that he’s literally shoving himself in between happy couples and groups of cheerful friends to close that last bit of distance between you and him.

“Well then what the hell have you been doing this entire time, leading me on like this?” The boy reaches out to grasp harshly around your wrist when you try and make your leave, “Hey – !”

“She said no.” Kylo’s voice is dark and dangerous as he appears behind the boy, who drops your wrist at once.

“Kylo?” The sound of his name on your lips is enough to keep him from killing this boy in a blind rage, and his eyes flick to you in a very curt greeting.

“Listen to me -- and listen to me carefully.” Kylo looms over this lesser attorney, casting a shadow over the boy’s face from the sheer breadth of him, “I am going to close my eyes and count to three. If you are still here bothering this woman when I open them again, I will reach down your throat and rip your lungs out through your mouth and I will make it look like an accident. Understand?”

“Y-yes.” The boy stammers out, nearly chokes.

“Yes what?” Kylo sneers, jaw clenched.

“Yes sir!” He squeaks in terror -- Kylo doesn’t even have to close his eyes before the boy is scrambling away, and everyone around you is snickering at how he’s gone bright red in the face as he leaves the party entirely.

Now that that was taken care of, Kylo holds a hand out for you, which you take automatically. He would never admit to it, but the feeling of your palm against his has him calm almost at once.

“You have to stop doing that, you know.” You say, as Kylo leads you away from the crowded party of the lobby, and out towards the big balcony.

It’s cold outside, the past few days bringing a light dusting of snow, but you don’t seem to mind. You’ve got a fur stole wrapped around your shoulders to keep you warm. Even out here has been decorated to match the Christmas spirit, with twinkling lights covering every available surface.

“Oh but it’s so fun to watch them squirm.” He smiles, pulling you close to him as the two of you rest against the railing.

“No, not that,” You shake your head, “I mean rescuing me. I can handle myself.”

“I know you can, but again, where would be the fun in that?” Kylo only winks, and you lightly smack his arm.

You’re about to say something, when you notice that dangling above both of your heads is a bit of mistletoe, tied together with a red velvet ribbon. It spins ever so gently in the slight breeze from being so high up, and you nudge Kylo’s hand on the railing with your own.

“Look.” You whisper, and Kylo looks up too.

“Now who put that there…?” He grins smooth as ever, as he ducks his head down and kisses you.

Kissing you was rapidly becoming one of Kylo’s favorite pastimes. It was too bad you were such a fucking pain in his side most of the time, if you weren’t so stubborn and difficult, he’s sure you’d spend a lot more time kissing each other.

But then again, you are stubborn and difficult, and you have no intention of stopping. Kylo hates that about you, hates how upset it makes him. No one gets under his skin the way you do, and so he pays you back by giving you the best kiss of your life – that’ll show you.

Your mouth parts for his, eyes closed. Your breaths come out in little sighs, and Kylo feels his body reacting to it. He hasn’t been able to get a good look at you all evening, but when he does, he loves what he sees. You’re wearing a dress in a color that perfectly compliments your skin, in a shape that fits your body exactly how you like it to.

His hands grasp at your hips a little too tightly, making you nip at his lower lip with a teasing smirk.

Christmas has never been something Kylo cared remotely about, but he’s big enough to admit that the lights really do wonders for making you look like a goddamned movie star. You both pull away enough just in case someone were to look out the window or come onto the balcony and see – neither of you could really have that, it was bad enough that there were bets about you through the different firms, the last thing you needed was to let any one side win.

“It’s criminal, how good you look.” Kylo tugs on the fabric of your neckline, “Someone ought to do something about it.”

“Hmm, like what?” You play along, your hand reaching down down down and grasping a hold of Kylo’s cock, ever so briefly, giving in a squeeze.

“Bend you over and fuck you hard, just the way you deserve.” He presses his mouth against your ear, he can practically hear your heartbeat picking up.

“Too bad you scared off poor Mike,” You say with a tsk of your tongue against the roof of your mouth, “I bet he would’ve loved to do the honors.”

Mike, that was the schmucks name? Kylo had almost forgotten entirely about him, about the way he had put his hands on you without your permission. He would make a couple calls, get the kid fired.

Or demoted, at the very least.

He wasn’t sure yet.

“You want to get me mad, is that it? And here we were having such a nice time.” Kylo looks around again, makes sure no one is seeing anything that’s happening out there on the balcony as he snakes a hand up up up your thigh.

“Maybe I like it when you’re mad, maybe I know you’re going to show me a real good time.” You smirk, and Kylo is reminded why he hates you so much, you’re so spoiled, getting whatever you want whenever you want it.

“Such a fucking brat.” He snaps, hand reaching for your and tugging you back through the doors with a, “Come with me.”

Kylo is faced with the party once again and is trying to find the best way to get the fuck out of there, when you pull him in a different direction.

“No – I know a spot, this way.” You bite back a pleased grin, and Kylo has to roll his eyes, letting you lead the way.

Deep deep deep in the bowels of the office, far away from the lobby and all the festivities, the music sounds a million miles away. You’ve tugged Kylo into a conference room with big glass walls and a glass door, like a little zoo enclosure. It’s nearly pitch black, none of the lights are turned on. The only illumination is from the city outside, the ambient glow of New York beginning their celebration of Christmas. The Rockefeller tree shines brightly a few blocks down the road, a perfect view from this conference room.

Fleetingly, Kylo has half a mind to ask you to go ice skating, but then you’re hopping up on the table and spreading your legs, the skirt of your dress hiked up around your hips. You’re not wearing any panties, a pair of thigh garters holding up your stockings – and Kylo’s mind goes blank.

“Aren’t you cold?” He asks, immediately pushing you farther up the table, wanting a better view of your pussy as your thighs rub together from being so exposed.

“Yes,” You admit licking your lips, “But you’ll warm me up, won’t you?”

Kylo groans, bites off his gloves with his teeth, wastes no time in trailing his fingertips through your folds. You squirm at the touch, wanting to be filled by him, any way you could get it. He dips them deeper between your legs, nothing but the sound of your breathing filling the quiet of the room.

“Slut, god what a fucking slut you are – look at you, pussy already wet for me.” Kylo grits out between his teeth, his cock filling out in his expensive trousers, straining against his briefs.

His fingers seek the wet heat of your cunt, and he pumps them in and out slowly while he tries undoing the buckle of his belt. Your hands help him, your legs falling open farther as his fingers bury themselves in your pussy. The stretch is beautiful, and you moan, leaning back until you’re resting on the table fully.

“Are you going to talk? Or are you going to fuck me?” You challenge from your spot on the table, your hands rubbing up and down your stomach, hips lifting so he can finger you a little faster.

“Both, I can do both, fuck you’re sexy.” He huffs, unbuttons his suit jacket, shucks down his trousers and briefs enough to pull his cock out and give it a good few strokes with the hand that’s not thrusting in and out of your cunt, blunt nails dragging against your walls.

“I know.” You’re full of yourself – full of Kylo – and you moan from the thought, “Hurry up, someone could catch us.”

“No they can’t, I locked the door. It’s just you and me sweetheart – thaaaat’s it.” Kylo replaces his fingers with his cock, your folds swallowing him down, oozing and dripping slick all over your thighs.

He shoves in roughly once he’s got the head in, pushes into you in one fluid motion that has your back arching. Kylo grabs at your legs, is careful of your heels as he pins your ankles together and tucks them against his shoulder, your body pressed together as he begins to thrust in earnest.

“Yes! Fucking finally,” Your palms smear sweat on the polished wood of the conference table, and before he knows it, you’re pulling one hand up to lightly smack at his arm. “You know I’ve been waiting here for you for two fucking hours, you asshole.”

Only you could give him such an icy glare while also pushing your tits up for him to play with. Kylo reaches out to pinch hard at one of your nipples, and you whine, your thighs trembling just a little from being held up like this.

Kylo’s big fat cock stuffs you full, your pussy even tighter from having your legs pressed together like this. Normally he likes to look down and watch his dick disappear into you, but he can barely see your face as it is in the dark of the room, so he doesn’t mind. Besides, he can feel you – can feel the way you throb and pulse around him, how you flutter and clench, and it’s enough.

“If I had known – damn you’re tight – you’d be here – fuck (Y/N) – I would’ve come earlier.” Kylo latches himself to your neck, bending you nearly in half as his hips speed up, his balls smacking against your ass as he pushes you up up up the table.

“I – ah Kylo be careful,” You warn him when one of your shoes falls right off your foot and lands on the wood with a thud. He rips the other one off and throws it to the floor, leaving your legs in nothing but the stockings and garters. Your hand tangles in his hair as you press him back down to your throat, where he sucks and bites at your skin. “I don’t know why you couldn’t just fucking call me back. We – oh yes, yes harder come on – we could’ve avoided all this bullshit.”

“You’re the one who hung up on me last time!” Kylo pulls himself more upright, scowling down at you as he grabs your face, gives your jaw a little shake.

“Oh!!” Your body tenses up unexpectedly, his cock accidentally slipping out and pushing back in wrong.

Kylo fumbles just a little bit in the dark, lets your legs fall as he tries to fix the angle, tries to get himself back inside your pussy as quickly as he can. It just feels wrong to not fuck you, it feels wrong to not be joined with you as completely as possible. Even when you’re scowling at him and he’s glowering right back at you – maybe especially then.

“Relax for me?” Kylo strokes your hip with his thumb, and your body gives way for him once again, your legs wrapping around his waist as he pushes back in and continues fucking you exactly like you like it, “There we go, anyway you wouldn’t have answered me.”

“Could’ve – faster Kylo, you could’ve left a voicemail.” You hiccup, and he hates that you’re right.

He hates it as your body opens up for him, takes him, takes the fucking. You’re such a fucking princess you make him do all the work with a big smug grin on your face before he shifts his hips just right in a way that’s got your eyes rolled back into your head, mouth dropped open. He grabs your jaw again and makes out with you, wants his tongue on yours, wants your teeth scraping against his.

“Sure – fuck you, ugh fuck, I’m – ” Kylo can barely get the words out, kissing you and fucking you in the dark and quiet like this, while everyone enjoys the party just beyond the locked door of the open floor plan of cubicles.

“Me too,” You nod, desperate for him, wanting to come so badly that you twine your fingers into his hair and tug sharply, voice breathy and high and panting as you demand, “Kylo more – !”

He gives it to you, plows his cock into you so hard that he pushes the table askew, makes the chairs on their rolling wheels move all over the place from the effort of it. He bites down hard onto your neck and rubs your clit, rolls it between his fingers while his cock forces itself as deep as it can go, shallow thrusts to fill you up all the way, pushing right up against your cervix, making you yelp out your orgasm.

Feeling your cunt throb and gush for him, Kylo comes soon after, pumping himself in and out mindlessly, the both of you reveling in your pleasure. With a weak shaking hand, you tug down the sleeves of the bodice of your dress, let it fall away from your breasts. Like a moth to flame, Kylo is drawn to your cleavage, and he wastes no time pulling one of your tits out of the pretty lacy bra you’ve got on.

He sucks and kisses at your flesh as his cock pulses and spills more come into you, the both of you trying to catch your breath. He spares a glance up to you, pleased to see you’re fucked out nicely, eyes closed, lips parted and drooling just a little onto your cheek as you’ve got your face turned to one side. Kylo lets his eyes close too, mouths at your nipple until he’s sure he’s emptied himself inside of your wanting cunt.

Then, when he pulls you to sit upright on the table, instead of helping you with your clothes or even cleaning up the mess between your thighs, he stays buried inside of you and fishes his phone out from the inside of his jacket pocket.

“What are you doing?” You ask with a nosy frown, trying to lean around his big hand and see what he’s pulling up on his phone.

Kylo just kisses you quiet, dials the phone and puts it up to his ear while it rings.

“Calling the car to come pick us up and take us back to my place,” He murmurs against the corner of your mouth, before cracking the joints in his neck and grumbling, “Unless you’d rather mingle with a hundred boring nobodies like Mike instead.”

You just scrub a hand down your face with a smile, try to start fixing your hair back to something less mussed.

“I’m starving, can we pick up takeout on the way?” You stretch, wincing when Kylo finally does pull out of you, the feeling of being empty making you grimace just a bit.

He chuckles and kisses you again, lets your arms slip around his neck without any protest.

“Whatever you want.” Kylo kisses your cheek, diverting his attention to the phone call once his driver picks up.

Though the holidays had you at one another’s throats like rabid vicious dogs most days, Kylo wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. Because for all the bitching and bickering, there were moments like these. Moments in the dark where you both let yourselves have what it was that you wanted.

And who knew, maybe the new year would bring about a whole new set of opportunities and possibilities, you’d just have to wait and see. One thing was for sure though, Kylo thinks as he helps you off the table and you both search for some tissues or something to wipe up the mess you’ve made, it certainly was a December to remember.

#kylo ren x reader #kylo ren/reader #kylo ren/you #kylo ren smut #kylo ren fanfiction #adam driver fanfic #adcu #my writing #modern kylo ren #lawyer au #lawyer!kylo ren

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sconnie-doesnt-know · 3 years

Text

Chapter 1

Characters - Ransom, assorted OCs, Reader

Word Count - 3100

Warnings - Drinking, language

A/n - Welcome to my Ransom series! I am so excited to play with this character. Long term, there will be angst, and fluff, and smut, which you won’t need to wait long for, I promise. Here’s the intro. I hope you like it. There’s mostly set-up this chapter and of course, an unforgettable introduction to our sweater-loving heartbreaker.

I appreciate feedback. If there are errors, please let me know. Line dividers used were made by @firefly-graphics

Series Masterlist

Job hopping isn’t at the top of your to-do list, but if life had shown you anything lately, it is that you need some changes.

Whitney leans hard into the bar in front of her, elbows resting just right to push her tits together as she tries for the bartender’s attention. She doesn’t look at you as she talks, but so far she seems to still be paying attention, “So how late were you to the interview?”

The lump in your stomach had still not settled after the disaster from the afternoon.

“I was almost an hour late. I got off on the wrong exit and still have no clue how to circle back through the construction the way you do.”

“Yikes,” she says as she waves and gets a nod from the bartender in return.

At last there’s hope and liquor finally on the horizon.

“Yeah, I shouldn’t have even bothered. I think he still gave me the interview as a joke.”

“Well. Fuck it.” She shrugs and handles the drinks.

She pays the bartender, throwing in a wink for good measure, then hands you your glass. She does a slow spin as she takes in the scene, nodding to herself.

“You know what? I like this place!” Whitney shouts into your ear, hopping from foot to foot in a drunken attempt to dance to the pop ballad blasting through the speakers.

You look around the unfamiliar bar, not really focusing on anything, but trying to find some point of interest. The evening so far has been a dull combination of mixed drinks and bar hopping as you and your friend look for a place with a “good vibe” as Whitney described it. She zeroed in on this place that looks like a misplaced supper club and dragged you in.

“Yeah!” you agree, honestly not caring enough to have much of an opinion.

“Stop it,” Whit hisses.

“Stop what?”

“You’re pouting. We’re supposed to be having fun and you’re pouting!” Whitney whines before jabbing herself with the straw in her glass.

You’re supposed to be her fun, party friend and you’re doing a terrible job of filling the role as of late.

“I know. I just hate that on top of everything, I have to avoid our bar because of The Ex.” You didn’t dare speak his name.

“You wanna go back? Fight for it? We can go there, I don’t care,” Whitney looks at you with barely concealed excitement, always anxious to stir up shit.

“Nope.” You stare into your drink, watching the level go down until you start to slurp on nothing but air. “More drinks.”

“More drinks!” Whit shouts, arms flailing and barely missing a passing cocktail waitress. “Whoa! Sorry!”

The blonde turns around, her face quickly changing from annoyance to surprise, “Whitney?!”

“Michelle!” your friend squeals before pulling her into a clumsy hug. “I didn’t know you worked here.”

You block them out as they catch up, not having any idea what they are going on about. It’s weird to be somewhere different, a new crowd, different atmosphere, brighter lights and lighter drinks. Just like starting over, like moving. Again.

At least you hadn’t lost Whit in the break-up. Shit, it wasn’t even really a break-up. It was you finding out how things were and being unwilling to put yourself in the middle of that shitshow. It wouldn’t lead to anything but emotional eating and long fights.

So, as Whit suggested, on to new hunting grounds.

“Yeah! We’ll be there,” you hear her say as you tune back in to their conversation.

The waitress, Michelle, looks you over, “Oh? Yeah, you come too.”

You give her a quick smile back then look to your friend to find out what she just agreed to after she walks back to the bar.

“Alright, so I knew her in school. We’re gonna go with her to another friend’s place. She’s texting me the address now.”

“Okay,” you answer, though she misses your lack of enthusiasm as she checks her phone for the info. You make your way to the bar for a refill and start to hope the rest of the night goes quickly.

It’s a small party in a spacious condo, more of a gathering really because that’s what adults do, you remind yourself. Michelle arrived at the same time as you and Whitney so she guided you inside.

Entering into the bright kitchen, a small group surrounds a kitchen island holding drinks and bottles. A few of them turn as the three of you enter, surprise showing on their faces and assorted exclamations of “No shit” and “Where the hell you been?” being shouted to Whitney and Michelle. You stand back to let them share hugs and flick your hand in an awkward wave as you get introduced to the group, names being called out without any real way for you to identify who’s who.

“Drinks?” someone asks.

“Yes,” you hiss. “Please,” you tack on at the end to hide the desperation for something to help get you through the night.

The guy looks taken aback, but nods and goes to the fridge to grab a bottle for each of you, popping off the tops before passing them out.

“Anyway…” their conversation picks back up. Whitney and Michelle jump in easily from time to time and the group forms a loose circle along the counters and the island. You lean back, not quite completing the circle, but not outside of it either. Your eyes move from person to person as they talk and add to the stories. It sounds like they are reminiscing about what they got up to while attending the university, but no one bothers to explain and you don’t ask.

Every now and again you find yourself nodding or tossing out a response, but otherwise not adding much to the conversation and realizing how long it’s been since you reached out to your old friends. Trying and failing to remember your last contact. Keeping in touch was never one of your strong suits.

Listening as they talk, their lives sound so far beyond where yours has stalled out, adventures past what you could imagine. That helpful inner voice reminds you that you don’t belong here. It’s more than just being a tag-along friend. There’s a twisting in your gut urging you to leave, suddenly feeling as though they are watching you, judging you, picking you apart and hating the imposter among them.

Looking over at Whitney, she’s clearly having a great time and won’t be ready to go any time soon. It makes you worry how long she’ll want to stick around or if you can talk her into getting another ride home so you can cut out of there before you can get embarrassed.

You take a step back, leaning against the counter, zoning out of the conversation and figuring out your exit, and regretting the drinks that are now delaying said exit strategy.

One of the guys from the group breaks away and makes his way toward you, making you press yourself further into the cabinets behind you to allow him to squeeze past, but instead he stops next to you, head tilted toward you and letting his brown hair fall over his forehead.

“Why are you so quiet?”

Heat rushes to your cheeks as you look at him, then quickly look away because jesus christ he’s handsome - like, model handsome, but it’s even more embarrassing to get flustered right to his face. In the extra seconds you take to answer he huffs out a laugh and settles in next to you.

“I, uh, I don’t know anyone,” you finally eek out.

“Well, talking to people usually helps.”

You hum an agreement, eyes flickering over to the group just a few feet away and catching a few people giving the two of you side-eyed glances, but not much else. “I don’t want to interrupt and I don’t really mind just observing.”

“So what? You just like watching other people talk?” he gestures with his glass to the group. You look up in time to catch two of them making lewd gestures at each other and laugh awkwardly.

“Sometimes? I just don’t feel the need to say anything if I don’t have something to actually contribute to the conversation.”

“Huh,” he responds, then takes a sip of his drink.

You brave a better look at him, admiring his profile and talking yourself down from cartoon heart-eyes. Begging yourself to not linger too long on his shoulders, the way you can just scent his cologne and it’s delightfully masculine, his model-perfect face...and absolutely failing. No doubt if someone was looking at you they could see the awe and lust on your face from being in such close proximity to someone this good looking. Then - then he smirks. It’s a tiny lift of the corner of his mouth and it makes your breath hitch. His eyes are gleaming with excitement, then he opens his mouth, his tone and volume demanding immediate attention.

“Hey, remember when Eric fucked Whit last fall? When was that, Thanksgiving weekend?”

You whip your head over to see Whitney’s jaw drop. The guy you assume is Eric freezes with his arm around another girl’s shoulders while her face steadily grows beet red and eyes go wet with tears. Everyone else stares between you and the man next to you, looking at you as though you conspired and causing you to shrink in on yourself.

“What?” the girl under Eric’s arm whimpers. Looking between the two of them while everyone else remains frozen. “Eric, I thought you went to your family cabin?”

“Oh yeah,” the guy next to you answers, “I forgot she didn’t know.”

His tone implies he’s anything but sorry and within seconds there is more shouting and Eric charges over to shout in his face.

You slide over, attempting to avoid the fray and trying to figure out what the hell just happened. Your heart pounds and heat still burns at the tips of your ears and across your chest.

After a few moments the high-pitch screaming of the girl fades as she makes her way to the door, Eric shouting after her and following, the others shouting each other down as they try to de-escalate and yet the instigator just stands there with a smile on his face. After the front door slams he turns to look at you, catching you staring at him and he winks.

“How’s that for something to contribute?” he mutters, obviously only meant for you.

“That was a dick move, Hugh,” Whitney spits at him.

He squints with obvious annoyance. “Feeling guilty for fucking your friend’s boyfriend?” he challenges.

She stares him down, but doesn’t last long, turning back to her drink and the rest of the group, “She’s not really my friend, anyway.”

A few others agree with her, the others shrug, and you’re left gaping at the whole scene, unable to understand what just happened. The guy next to you, Hugh, moves so suddenly that you flinch, making him chuckle.

“Lighten up, sweetheart. Life’s more fun when you let loose.” He tips his head back to finish his drink and walks back to the group, leaning over the countertop and continuing like nothing odd had happened.

Whitney goes and makes herself comfortable in a recently vacated spot. Looking on for a while, you try to sort out the dynamics of everyone there, but it’s not easy to determine who’s who in the group just yet.

Their half-shouted stories start to wear on you, so you find yourself zoning out and deciding to take the opportunity to give yourself a little tour.

“So. Still not talking?”

“Jesus!” you hiss when the sudden intrusion makes you jump. The guy from earlier, Hugh, had snuck up next to you, a mischievous grin on his face and pink flush on his cheeks.

“Working up to it, I guess,” you breathe out, willing your racing heart to calm down. You look around, trying to find something else to look at so that you don’t have to look him in the eyes and bee-line for the bookshelf to look over the titles. They’re disappointing.

“So whose place is this? Whitney never bothered to introduce me.” You point back through the doorway, gesturing to the group at the table.

“She’s like that,” he notes.

“Yeah, she is,” you agree and step into his space, suddenly feeling too loose-limbed and loose-lipped from the earlier drinks. But he doesn’t seem bothered.

“Does it matter?” You feel his eyes scan you as he asks.

“Well, it’s not your place, is it?” you check. After he shakes his head no, you pull out a book and make a face, one hundred percent openly judging the owner on their taste. “He’s probably a pretentious snob, so I guess not.”

His eyes scrunch up and crinkle while he throws his head back in a laugh.

“How’d you figure that?” he asks, tilting his head and watching you over the rim of his glass as he takes a drink.

“Look around. Plus, you’ve met Whitney, right?” you tease.

As though she hears you talking about her, Whitney turns around and looks at the two of you. She calls your name, demanding that you join her. Then her eyes land on the man next to you, “Ransom, you too!”

“I thought your name was Hugh,” you sigh.

“Only the help calls me that,” he says with an eye roll, “And people who wanna piss me off.”

Internally you gawk, but try to keep a calm exterior as you panic to figure out how to backtrack on your ‘pretentious snob’ comment, no doubt offending someone who says ‘the help’ in such a tone.

“Oh, I’m sorry...you know I probably shouldn’t have said-” is all you’re able to get out, though. He places a hand at the small of your back, shushing you with a finger raised to his own lips.

“C’mon,” he says as he guides you back to the group. His hand stays fixed on your lower back for the rest of the night. His warm palm pressing against your skin and fingertips flexing and gripping almost possessively. It leaves you on edge as you try to focus on anything else, basically begging your brain to focus on anything at all and completely failing.

Sometime in the early hours of the morning everyone starts to disperse, Whitney hangs off of you as you make your way back to the car. Ransom makes his way to his vehicle. You put your hand up in an awkward wave, he nods and winks in response then closes his door after climbing inside, bringing an end to the evening.

Whitney manages to drag you out for a much less memorable night the next evening. When Monday arrives, you swear to yourself to not waste a weekend on a hangover like that again. You squint as you try to face away from the bright sun, fingers playing with a dead leaf beside you on the bench.

The weekdays are usually reserved for being dull. For going to work, listening to your co-worker, Carrie, talk about bathroom remodeling and in-law drama. For doing adult things like sleeping normal hours, laundry, getting tires replaced on the car. Some free time is spent searching for jobs, but so far that’s still been fruitless. Anyone who didn’t know you better would assume you pass for an acceptable adult your age, not someone just barely hanging on.

“You gotten laid lately?” Carrie, asks before sipping on her coffee. You snort at the abrupt question. There aren’t many secrets between you.

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because! I have to live through you since I am an old, married broad. I don’t go out and have fun and fuck bartenders anymore.”

“Anymore? You never did,” you snort. She married her high school sweetheart, the only man she ever kissed, touched, and fucked. What a concept.

“Exactly!” she practically yells. “Sooo?”

It had been a while, well, aside from that one night you went home late with a bartender named Jeff, but he got hit with whiskey dick as soon as you hit the sheets and the night was a bust. She had laughed her ass off when you told her about that disaster.

“No. Nothing lately. Trying to be careful. You know that.” You respond less kindly than you usually would, hoping that she will drop the subject. Gratefully, she’s smarter than some and does just that, but you don’t miss the look. “I mean, I did meet a guy, but it wasn’t really anything. Didn’t even exchange numbers.”

“Good. I just worry about you, you know?” She meant well as she had listened to all your stories, from the one-nighters to the heartbreak. She’d warned you to be cautious with The Ex, but you didn’t really listen.

“Yeah. Thanks. I just...Well, nevermind. I’m not going there because it’s nothing I haven’t said before. I’m not getting into all of it right now.” You take a deep breath before you start to really ramble. You have no idea how much time has passed, but decide it’s enough, “Break time’s up. Gotta get back.”

She nods and walks with you back inside, feeling a tinge of guilt for not telling her about your next job interview later in the week, hoping you can still hang onto her friendship when she’s not your co-worker.

The remainder of the week passes uneventfully. Only Friday afternoon is broken up by a text from Whitney reminding you about going out that night. As though you’ve done anything different for the last few months. You scroll through your contacts, ignoring the nagging reminders to call your family, and that you need to send your regrets for yet another baby shower. Seeing The Ex still in the contact list stops you, a little warning voice reminding you that you are supposed to delete his number. You hover over it for a moment, debating making that leap, but decide last minute to keep it...just in case.

Whitney tells you that you’re going to the same bar as last Friday. For a second, you wonder if the evening will end the same way, and kind of hope a little bit that it does. Your imagination ran wild over the last week thinking of the small conversations and contact you had with Ransom the weekend before, analyzing details and tones and thinking about biting onto that lip and...

A new notification pulls you from your little daydream and you add another item to your mental to-do list: delete The Ex’s number and ask Whitney about Ransom.

#ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale fanfiction #ransom drysdale reader insert #knives out fanfiction #ransom drysdale x fem!reader #ransom drysdale series #c'mon let's pretend series #chapter one quite a feeling #chris evans characters #ransom drysdale #ransom thrombey

90 notes · View notes

harringtonstudios · 4 years

Text

best friend’s ex.

plot: he’s your best friend’s ex and you should stay away.

A/N: i wrote this in one sitting and it’s very long <3 took some creative liberty here so imagine 2020!kells but he hasn’t made it just quite yet in the industry. this is heavily based off the song release tonight with blackbear so enjoy (maybe while listening!)

masterlist!

The circles in New York are different than the ones in Los Angeles. There’s a hint of familiarity in the New York circles, everyone seems to know each other connected by one person or a distant story of that one night the whole crowd tripped on molly. It’s dizzying, intricately knowing every single person backstage or at some club without recognizing them exactly.

You haven’t gotten used to the life, not yet acclimated with the high-fives and looks thrown your way at a party, or the nameless phone numbers crowding your text messages. It’s all new, fun and exciting and you have no one to thank but your best friend.

She’s made for this life, for the late nights and the rushes, the sticky floors and glittery lipgloss. This is her environment, where she thrives, and sometimes when you look at her in the club, necklaces shining with the overhead lights, you find it hard to connect this Domi to the one who you’ve seen crying on your bedroom floor after watching a despairing animal shelter commercial. But then she throws you a grin, crowds close, drapes her arm over your shoulder, and it just makes sense.

It’s been years of friendship, ever since you two met at freshman orientation for college. Her roommate was terrible, and more often than not, she’d be camping out on your twin-sized bed, offering you bites of her snacks in exchange for a safe haven. You both hadn’t really been into the party scene at school, too busy scrambling for reports and fibbing results for the endless lab sessions.

Domi graduated a semester early, spent an entire summer taking accelerated classes so she could go fly off to New York right before the new year started. That’s when things seemed to change. You’d been upset with her, hints of jealousy tinging in when she’d send you pictures of fancy clothes and people she was hanging out with, the nicely decorated venues she’d find herself in. She invited you to come to the city a few weeks in, buzzing on Facetime about backstage passes.

Then you were graduating yourself, packing two suitcases and jetting halfway across the country to live in the shitty apartment Domi’d been renting out with a couple of strangers. It had been hard to settle down at first, the air was different in the city and you’d had to up your resting bitch face game when you sat on the subways late at night, but before you knew it, you were enjoying the city that never sleeps, best friend right by your side.

Colson had stumbled into your life a year ago, and then been ripped out six months after. He was a up and coming musician (self-proclaimed) and had taken a chance bet on the city, moved from Cleveland with his friends and a mixtape. He was beautiful in a rugged way, angled cheekbones and lanky limbs, but Domi had taken one look and called dibs, so you tampered any attraction down.

It hadn’t taken long for them to start dating, even if Domi claimed they were just fooling around, it was clear to see that there was some level of intimacy there, a relationship itching to be formed. You’d been happy for her truly and it was easier than you’d expected to fall into a camaraderie with the guys.

Colson’s friends were funny, quick on their toes and absolutely chaotic. They fit into New York better than you did, and almost every single night, you would find yourself at their apartment, playing shitty drinking games and jamming to loud music.

Domi kept the relationship as lowkey as she could, and at some point, you would hear less and less about Colson. It didn’t really hit you then, but it was the beginning of the end in a way, and then she was walking in, eyes red and wet before yelling out the fated words, “We broke up.”

Everything you had gotten used to was suddenly taken away. You spent weeks consoling her, reminding her that she was better than this guy, stronger and that time was the only way this would heal. She begrudgingly listened, and then took your phone from you, casually blocking Colson’s number along with all his friends.

At first, you’d been mildly upset. She was the one who’d fucked up, the one who’d decided to break up with him, so why was this effecting you? It didn’t make sense, they were still your friends and you liked them more than anyone else you’d met here.

But then she’d given you her patented puppy dog eyes, and you’d dismissed it, decided that if this was what she wanted, so be it. You could stand to lose the drunken nights, your liver would thank you.

Colson Baker and his friends disappeared from your life as fast as they had appeared into it. You spent your nights cooking at home instead of going out, focused on building back your sleep schedule instead of getting drunk off your mind, and the days went by.

Of course, nothing lasts forever and six months later, your coworkers’ are begging you for a night out, like the old times. Everyone’s antsy for your reply, know that you haven’t been to a social function with them in ages, and you take one look at their faces before sighing and agreeing.

The entire office claps, you flip them all off before catching sight of your boss, who simply smiles and shakes his head. There’s a faint flutter in your stomach, memories rising from months ago, parties and late nights, flashes of lights and thumping music. You shrug it off, tap your pen against the desk, bring your focus back to work.

Three hours later, you’re catching the train back home. It isn’t exactly rush hour yet, you’ve gotten out a little earlier than usual, Friday evenings usually being dull at work anyway and you’re glad because there’s less people mulling around in the sticky heat of the train station.

The station doesn’t smell great, there’s a tinge of stale pee filling up the air and you discreetly move to the other side of the station, trying to get as far away from the smell as you can. New York City man.

The train pulls in, and you automatically put in your headphones, music blasting in your ears as you sidle into the train car, passing the passengers coming out. It’s relatively empty, being near the front and you thank the train gods before sliding into an orange seat near the door.

There’s a couple of guys sitting at the other end, they’re loud and boisterous, shoving each other and you give them a once-over before settling into the seat. The train moves, and you pull your purse onto your lap, patting it once before letting your eyes fall close.

The next stop comes abruptly, jolting you out of the little dreamscape you’d created. There’s a shout as the doors open and you pause your music trying to tune into what’s going on. It’s still the group of guys, but now there’s more of them and you roll your eyes at the banter drifting across the car.

The music starts up again and you lean your head back, try to get comfortable again, but it doesn’t work. There’s a weird feeling in your gut, making you uneasy but you brush it off, raise the volume until all you can feel is the dirty bass.

A minute later, someone kicks at your shoes and you open your eyes, ready to angrily scold at them until they can feel the rage across the car.

The words die in your throat. Colson Baker’s standing there in all his glory, lanky arm leaning against the metal, blonde hair puffing around his head, grin lighting up his face.

His nose is pierced now and you take it in, the way it brings out his eyes and you pause the music mumbling out, “Nose ring looks good on you.”

You bite your tongue right after, embarrassed that after months of silence that’s the first thing that falls out of your mouth. He laughs, body shaking and you’re flashed back to nights in his apartment, watching him laugh on the other couch, head thrown back.

“Thanks,” he murmurs before going, “How’ve you been?”

“Good,” you answer honestly and there’s another shout from across the car, Colson turning to wave a hand.

“It’s the guys. They didn’t think it was you, but I could tell yanno,” he explains and you raise your eyebrows as he continues, “They’re all still kinda pissed you blocked us.”

The statement falls between you two, awkwardly as the train car rumbles on. You wince a little as he fake coughs to fill the empty space.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about all that man. You guys were like family,” you carefully mention, hands playing with the hair tie on your wrist.

“It’s cool. I get it, I mean we both know Domi,” he stammers out and his own hand goes to rub at his chin.

This conversation isn’t what either of you expected and you shift up in your seat, trying to change the topic at the mention of your best friend.

“So what’ve you been up to?” you ask and he smiles at the gateway question, eager to get rid of the uncomfortable energy.

“Got signed to a record label,” he murmurs and the smile that takes over your face is unreal. There’s pride blooming in your chest.

“No way!! Oh my god, congrats dude. That’s killer,” you gush out and his cheeks taint red at your words.

“Thanks,” he says, eyes meeting yours.

“I knew you’d do it. You’re immensely talented,” you continue on as the train comes to a stop.

It’s not yours but it seems to be his. The guys all shout over at him and he’s looking up and then gazing at you, caught between the two options before he makes up his mind.

He doesn’t choose you, you’re not surprised.

“I appreciate you!” he shouts out before running off the car, joining the rest of the guys on the station.

You turn in your seat and wave at them, catching a couple of glares and hesitant waves back before the car pulls away, to the next destination.

The music starts up again and you will your heart to slow down for reasons you can’t even comprehend.

Domi gives you a look as you rush into your room. Usually after work, you spend time in the kitchen, milling around grabbing little snacks as she cooks, but you actually have plans tonight.

It’s the first time you’re going out in months and you take a quick shower before pulling out all the old outfits you’d shoved into the back of your closet.

There’s a nice dress, black with faint traces of glitter and you eye it for a second before deciding against it. This is a fun night with the coworkers, not your insane best friend who’d always managed to get you to dress your very best.

There’s a pair of skinny jeans tossed into a dresser, and you eye the rips in it before pulling it on. It looks good, tight in all the right places and you root around for a shirt that can be just fancy enough.

There’s a nice purple one tossed in the closet, slipping off of a hanger and you grab it before pulling it on and tying it up in the front.

It’s pretty, makes you look just right and you play around with your hair before sitting down and committing to a makeup look.

Fifteen minutes later, you’re throwing your keys, a pack of gum, gloss and your phone into a small purse. It hangs off of your wrist and you take a look in the mirror before stepping out of your room.

“Where are you going?” Domi asks, her tone slightly cold.

“Night out. Coworkers invited me and I couldn’t say no,” you explain, running your hands down the jeans.

“Oh,” her face falls.

“Do I-look good?” you ask hesitantly.

“Yeah. You always do bitch,” she half-heartedly adds and you smile at her.

“I’ll see you tonight,” you say, grabbing a carrot from the countertop.

“I’ll wait up,” she smirks and you nod before heading out the door.

The club’s only a few stops away and when you swipe your metro card again, you groan at how low the funds are running. You haven’t filled it just yet, and the $1.25 flashes up at you, taunting.

“I’m poor,” you scoff at the machine and the girl swiping next to you laughs.

You get in somehow, sneakily using the swinging baby stroller door and by the time the train pulls up, you’re only running a few minutes late.

It only hits you when you sink into the familiar orange seat that you didn’t tell Domi about running into her ex. You know she doesn’t care as much about Colson now, scorchingly refers to him as that one rapper, but it’s an unspoken rule. You always tell if you run into the ex.

Your fingers tap against your phone screen, wondering if texting her is appropriate but you drop it quickly. It’s not a big deal. You’ll just let her know when you get home tonight.

The doors open, you leave and then you’re stalking towards the club doors, eyeing the long line. The bouncer is staring everyone down, and you wade up to the front. You’ve learned enough tricks in the short party lifestyle you’d had.

“I’m with the VIPs,” you flash your ID and then a $5 discreetly tucked under it. He looks you up and down, grumbles slightly before taking the money from you.

The rope opens and you smile before stepping through into the dark. It’s loud inside already, the lights contrasting the slight evening colors from outside. You look around before you spot the team and walk over to them.

“Hey!!!” they exclaim and then you’re being handed a glass, cheering the night as everyone drinks it down.

It’s tequila, stings in the back of your throat and you cough before wiping your mouth, “God, I haven’t had this in so long.”

“See that’s why we needed you out tonight,” one of them goes, checking your shoulder with theirs. You laugh before agreeing and order your drink of choice, chiming into the conversation.

It’s going so well, the night seems to be twinged with good vibes. You feel nice and loose, arm draped over your nearest friend as you two sway at the songs playing.

There’s a commotion at the door and you guys turn towards the bouncer only to see people scuffling around, pushing to get closer.

“Hey dude! I’m playing tonight. Musical guest here!!!” comes a loud voice, and it rings familiar in your head. It’s faint, digging somewhere into the back of your mind and you get on your tip-toes trying to see.

“Fuck you,” someone else spits and it echoes around the club.

The crowd splits open then, and you get a glimpse at old friends, adjusting their hats as they stalk across to the stage.

Rook’s fuming as he walks past you, and you spot the tell-tale crease on his face, the grit of his teeth. It scares you, the memory of it all after late night game losses, the way he would blow a gasket about cheating.

Slim and Baze wander behind him, they seem cooler, always are, but the anger is brimming under and you look away as they pass you.

AJ isn’t there and you guess he’s already in the club. He’s always been the sensible one, stable and ready to take control of the situation when it inevitably turns bad.

Colson’s following the rest but his eyes are on the crowd, hand going out to meet people, smiling at everyone. There’s a faint cut on his lip, blood trickling out and you want to scream at him. He comes up around to where you’re standing, and you step back, let your coworkers high five him as he passes.

He doesn’t see you, it’s better that way.

You order up another drink, ignore the whispers of the pesky rapper as they fill up the air around you. He’s well known here apparently, people aware of him in the scene. They mumble about the fights, the way he never seems to show up without a cut or bruise.

You take a shot, sip at the alcohol, smile fading as your coworker ravishes on about how good looking the musician is.

It takes about twenty minutes, and then the music shuts off. There’s a squeal of microphone feedback and everyone around you ducks, hands rushing up to cover their ears.

“Fuck,” a mumble comes across the sound system.

There’s another shuffle and your friend grabs your arm, pulling you closer to the stage. There’s already people there, milling around, clutching drinks and you try to stay on the sidelines, out of view.

“We should go closer,” he determines and then you’re being pulled forward again, swimming around in the second row.

Colson is standing front and center in all his glory. The shitty lighting makes him glow, and he looks big, energy filling him up. He pulls the mic off the stand and steps back before going, “Afternoon. We are Machine Gun Kelly.”

The name isn’t familiar. You don’t know it and quite frankly, it doesn’t place anywhere either but that’s all you get before the music starts up. It’s weird, a pace you don’t expect from him and then he’s off, singing with a grit in his voice, fingers flying across a guitar draped over his shoulder.

Everyone seems to bob along in the crowd and you do too, losing yourself in the way he sounds, the tone of his voice as he croons. The music is great, drums harsh and strong, guitar loud behind the vocals.

The set’s over quick and you’re slightly sweating by the end of it. He thanks the crowd before jumping off stage, and you immediately retreat back to the bar, anxious to steer clear of him.

Even in your drunken state of mind, it’s a bright red flashing light: Stay away from Colson. Stay away from the guys.

You switch to water for a while, try to stop your head from spinning with the lights. Everyone you came with is somewhere on the dance floor, so when an arm drapes on your shoulders, you freeze up, still facing the bar.

“Hey,” and then you’re looking up at Slim’s face, sweaty and eager.

“Slim,” you breathe out, vice in your chest loosening at the fact that it isn’t Colson. You don’t know why this is better, but it is.

“What’re you drinking?” he asks, hand going up to call over the bartender.

You don’t have the heart to say water, know that he’ll laugh and then get you a beer, so you murmur, “Get me a shot of vodka?”

His smile widens and he shouts the drink order over the counter before dropping his arm, “You sipping the hard stuff now?”

Shaking your head, you respond, “I’ve always drank the hard stuff.”

“Yeah, back when we hung out,” he slips into the banter, and your heart stops. You didn’t realize it had hurt them this bad, that months later, drunk and high off of a good show, Slim still manages to bring it up, voice tightening slightly.

“Look, I’m sorry about all that. I really am,” you start, but then he’s passing you the drink and locking arms.

“Cheers,” he says and you clink your shot glass against his, tipping it back.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble out but he throws you a look.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says and then he’s shouting out, “Yo Kells!”

It clicks into place then, the Machine Gun Kelly. It’s his nickname, has been for years apparently since he was rapping in middle school hallways, but he’d always introduced himself as Colson to new friends, let them decide whether the Kells fit him or not.

You hadn’t called him Kells once, in the months of knowing him, had laughed about it a couple of times with Domi, who loved to mock it any chance she could.

“You stalking me?” Kells sleazes out, there’s already a drink in his hand, someone following him around with bright eyes.

“No,” you state, moving away from the counter. The red lights are in full effect, this could end up terribly.

“Seems like it,” he sums up, coming in closer to lean against the bar. His lip is still cut, looks swollen as he approaches you.

“You fucked up your lip,” you state, mind cursing at the lack of filter you seem to have around your best friend’s ex.

“What?” he goes, and then his fingers are rubbing at the fat lip, eyes scrunching, “Guess I did.”

“Well it was nice to see you again,” you try.

“I just got here, you leaving already?” he murmurs, brushing off the person following him.

Slim’s moved to the other end of the bar, Rook’s throwing you a glare.

“Don’t think your friends want me around,” you nod over.

He turns his head and makes some kind of motion. Rook drops his eye contact, head going to duck at the bar. Slim smiles.

“They don’t know what’s good for them,” he mumbles, head turning back. His fingers tap at the bar, and there’s a beer appearing. He smiles at the bartender.

“I’m good for them?” you scoff, there’s a hint of bitterness at your tone, but it’s not directed exactly at them. It isn’t their fault.

“Always have been. The good influence when we would try and do stupid shit,” he says thoughtfully. He’s almost as drunk as you, eyes slightly red.

You laugh at that, “You’re always doing stupid shit. Great set by the way, impressed the fuck out of me.”

“You didn’t expect it?” he says as if you were supposed to have known all his songs by heart.

“I haven’t heard any of your music,” you honestly reply.

“Not even the mixtapes?” he seems shocked.

“No, Domi never sent them to me and you all just assumed so,” you stop yourself, falling into dangerous territory.

At the name drop of his ex, he winces a little, “God she was a fucking head-case.”

“Hey that’s my best friend you’re talking about,” you shout a little too loud. You catch Slim slamming a hand onto Rook’s shoulder. The air becomes stifled.

“Sorry,” Colson offers, taking a long, pointed sip.

You sigh, “Don’t be. She can be a little much sometimes. I’m sorry for how it all ended.”

“You should hang with us tonight,” he calmly says, switching the subject. Your breath catches in your throat.

“I don’t know-“ you start.

He cuts you off, “I get it. If you want, we’ll be here for a while. Find us.”

That’s all you get and then he’s walking towards the gang, slipping into the crowd. You drop your head onto the shell covered bar, groaning out.

The night dwindles down, your coworkers trickle out, slamming messy kisses on your face before walking out. You’re left by yourself soon enough and there’s a pulsing in your head, matching the music vibrating under your shoes.

It doesn’t take long to decide. You want to hang out with Colson and them, with Machine Gun Kelly. It’s a bad idea, you can tell before you’ve even fully determined it, but it’s as if fate’s lined everything up for you. It’s gonna happen.

You push away the nagging thoughts, wander around the club trying to find someone, coming up empty. Everyone seems to have left and you roll your eyes before stepping out yourself. Maybe fate doesn’t want this to happen.

As soon as the thought crosses your mind, you spot Rook across the street, blunt in hand. He hasn’t seen you, looking down at his shoes but you know him well and if he’s around it means the others are close by.

You brace yourself, work up some form of courage and walk over. He looks up at the sound and there’s immediate dislike flashing across his face.

Out of everyone, Rook’s been the most temperamental. You’d thought it was going to be Colson at first glance, but were quickly proven wrong by his friend, by the harshness of his demeanor at times. He doesn’t hide his feelings, and while you respect that, you’re also intimidated by his posturing.

“Hey Rook,” you mumble.

“Y/N,” he bluntly states.

“How have you been?” you try, but immediately know it’s the wrong thing to say.

“Cut the shit. What’d you want?” he bites out, eyes hard.

“Was wondering if I could catch a ride with you guys?” you question.

AJ usually drives them around, his black van large enough for the gang, and his self control strong enough to stay sober. You don’t know if it’s changed since the last time everyone hung out, but you’re hoping it hasn’t for the sake of your almost empty metrocard.

“Why’d you think we drove here?” he’s shrugs, giving you a hard time, and you shake your head wondering if your pride is worth this.

“Never mind dude,” you turn around but then he’s groaning behind you.

“Yeah we’ll take you back home. Kells’ kill me if I let you walk around here drunk. C’mon,” he says and you try to hide your smile as you follow him.

He takes a few more hits before tossing his blunt to the ground, and you’re glad he hasn’t offered you any. It would be too forgiving of him, too close to what you all used to be, and you wouldn’t know what to do if it came to that. Domi would kill you, hell she’d kill you if she knew you were getting into a car with them right now.

He stops in front of the familiar van, opens the door with force and everyone’s shouting inside, clambering over each other. You almost smile at the chaos, the familiarity of it all.

“Y/N!” Colson’s shouting and you do smile then. He slumps over long limbs and comes over to the door, reaching his hand out to you.

“You coming with us?” he asks and you nod before Rook mutters, “She needs a ride home.”

Colson purses his lips before looking back over at you, hand still outstretched, “Yeah, c’mon in. AJ got you.”

It’s late, later than you should be out and there’s a reminder that Domi’s waiting for you back home, wants to hear about your night. Your resolve flickers the minute his hand wraps around yours.

He tugs you in the van, and you follow, stepping in before they all scatter around, making enough space. There’s another girl with them, someone you don’t remember meeting or knowing but she smiles at you and curls into Rook’s side.

The music in the van is almost as loud as in the club, filling up the space. You wonder, not for the first time, how AJ drives like this, how he casually sings along, fist bumping the rest of the guys after a song.

Before you know it, there’s a blunt being passed around. Colson skips you on the first round, and you try not to let it hurt, remind yourself that you’ve stung them harder than this, hurt them worse.

He leans into your space after handing it off, whispers, “You still don’t smoke right?”

There’s a painful twist in your stomach at his question. When you all first met, you wouldn’t smoke blunts with them, hesitant about the strain and Domi’s eyes on you. She hated weed, despised the smell and would always remind you of that fact before you’d all spend the night out.

After the breakup, she’d loosened up on that, didn’t care if you smoked out on the fire escape, and sometimes even joined in, it was weird. Weirder than the fact that Colson somehow remembered all this months later.

“I do,” you whispered back, licking your lips, “smoke I mean.”

“Oh,” he softly says and then the blunt’s coming back around. He barely takes a hit before handing it off to you, pushing your hand slightly with his fist.

“Thanks,” you mumble, smoking it in. It’s strong, brings an immediate rush. You close your eyes.

When you open them, Colson’s too close to you. The red lights flash hard in your head and then the car’s stopping in front of their building.

You don’t even hesitate, “Is it wrong if I come up with you?”

His eyes look into yours, it’s quiet enough that you feel the weight of your statement sink in. This is bad, so bad.

He doesn’t say anything but everyone around you is moving, pulling off instruments and slamming doors. He carefully takes your hand, pulls the blunt out from your other one.

“AJ, we’re gonna chill for a while,” he says, towards the front seat, giving him the blunt. There’s a hum and then he’s opening the door, pulling you out just as he’d pulled you in.

For a second, you hesitate and then you’re falling into him. His arm wraps around your hips, pulls you back up on the sidewalk.

“You okay?” his voice is quiet, the world still moves around you both but it feels like you’re the only two people who matter.

“Yeah,” you nod.

“Wanna go home?” he says, and the words hit you for a second before you shake your head.

“No, this is cool,” you tongue out.

You’re both walking into the building then, satisfied with your answers. The manager gives you a once over at the front desk but that’s all before Colson’s thumbing the elevator button.

“What about everyone else?” you murmur.

He looks at them unloading the van and lets out a laugh, fingers tightening slightly against yours as he shakes, “They’re gonna be busy a while.”

You laugh back, try to tamper down the feeling of seeing him full-body laugh for the second time that day. The elevator dings and you step in, he follows.

It’s the same damn elevator as it was six months ago, but there’s something different in the air right now. It’s staticky, thrumming through you and it feels like you’re stumbling right on the edge of something.

The doors close, it’s just you and him. The feeling gets stronger, his fingers loosen against yours. You grip harder and he looks up straight into your eyes.

The door dings open again and he huffs a little, “Forgot to click the button.”

You smile but it feels thin. Your brain is flashing wrong, flashing red, screaming Domi’s name, but your heart is racing, pounding against your chest.

You screw your eyes shut.

He hits the button, the elevator starts going and you step closer to him. His back is against the elevator wall and there’s a calm look on his face, but you can tell he’s nervous, can feel it in the clamminess of his palm where it’s sticking to yours.

“I’m going to kiss you,” you blurt and you don’t even have time to regret the words before he’s pushing into you, lips finding yours within seconds.

They’re warm and softer than you expected. He lets out a groan as you kiss back, and you’re reminded of his cut, the swollen lip he’s sporting now. You move back, rest your forehead against his.

“Sorry, your lip,” you attempt to explain, but he shakes his head, forehead sliding across yours, twisting it.

“I like it,” he mumbles and you smile before kissing him again, feeling his arm wrap around you, pull you closer.

It’s the first time you’ve kissed him, he’s strictly off limits, a forbidden idea, but it feels like everything has suddenly fallen into place. The warning signs dissolve into bursts of serotonin as he makes little sounds, pressed up with your mouth.

The door dings open. You break apart and step out. Is kiss drunk a thing, or are you losing your mind? He grins at you, pulls your joined hands up for a soft kiss brushing on your knuckles.

Your heart flutters right then. If you’re losing your mind, you’re glad it’s with him. Dealing with the aftermath is something you’ll do later, so you push all thoughts of Domi and her complications aside and follow him straight into his apartment, consequences be damned.

taglist: @iamdorka @no-shxt-sherl @bakerkells @findingmyths @rosegoldrichie @mayaslifeinabox @itjustkindahappenedreally @hnbtx @backoftheroomandnotbelonging @sophroniaa @enchantedamusedslightlyconfused @calum-defense-squad

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kaleidoscopek9 · 3 years

Text

ALRIGHT-

I've had this list of headcannons just sitting in my notes app of my phone and I wanna put it somewhere so 👀

(These are heavily inspired by what I could gather from the skele boys in @bonelyheartsclub! I just threw in a few of my own.)

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Sans

- Does a LOT of stargazing and has quite a few space-themed knicknacks and clothes in his room. He's got a telescope too!

- Dad jokes. Any time is prime dad joke time. He's never let an opportunity slip past him.

- He's an absolute prank master. You're considered lucky if you happen to avoid the ones he's planted around the house like bombs waiting to go off.

- He's cryptic as fuck. Always giving half-true answers to every question. Occasionally he may slip up and give you a brutally honest response, but that's only with the people he trusts most, and he finds being open to be very difficult.

- He's constantly referencing memes and vine quotes from days of yore. He practically has a database of every meme ever in his head, and he doesnt let it go to waste.

- Cuddling with him is basically a one way ticket to nap-town, and you constantly find yourself waking up to him smooshed against you on the couch after dozing off. For being a skeleton, he is a surprisingly comfortable snuggler.

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Papyrus

-So much baking and cooking. It's his favorite past time, and the kitchen never smells the same when he's done making whatever he's making in there (it's 12 times out of 10 pasta) And while his cooking may be sub-par, you never say no when he asks you to try his latest dish.

- He's always up to go shopping with you. It never matters where. Malls are his favorite, especially the big grand ones with fountains and huge windows. He makes it a point to bring spare cash because you KNOW he's going to ride the mini marry-go-round even if he can barely fit in the seats.

- You two love to binge watch cooking channels. Always discussing which foods would be the most fun to make, writing down recipies, and having a hell of a time trying to pause the show at the right points to get all the information down.

- Papyrus is notorious for game nights. He's always pulling out boards and cards that you've never heard of before and never starts a game until he's absolutely certain you know the rules. Winning of course, is always his prime goal when it comes to games, but if he senses you're on a particularly rough losing streak, he MAY slip up. Occasionally. Just enough so you can win a game or two. Or five.

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Blue

- Hyper as all hell. You give him a reasonable dose of sugar or caffeine and he could power an entire city for a few hours without breaking a sweat.

- If he had been in high school, Blue would have been a theater kid. He's always humming a tune from a Broadway show or Disney movie, and he's got a pretty good collection of songs on his brother's Spotify playlist.

- This guy will blast Steven Universe music at full volume he has no shame.

- If you are ever driving somewhere with him, an aux cord is a MUST. Singing in the car is a very frequent thing with you two, and you'll only get out after the song is over.

- He likes cryptids! Mothman is his favorite and he firmly believes he exists somewhere.

- He's your workout buddy. If he manages to drag you to the gym with him, that is.

- Blue hates seeing you down in the dumps, and is always trying to cheer you up with his quirky puns and jokes to get you smiling again.

- He'd be the best motivational poster ever. Whenever he picks up that you're going through a rough spot and falling behind on self-care, he knows just what to say to put the spark back in you again.

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Stretch

- Radiates goblin energy.

- A goddamn meme lord.

- He's made two or three widely known viral videos and nobody knows it was him.

- You need someone to go to an anime convention with? Stretch is your guy. He's god awful at planning stuff out, but he'll make sure you both have a good time, no matter what happens.

- He's really big into nerd culture, and he DMs for a dungeons and dragons game every week.

- He'll occasionally smoke, but he doesnt have lungs, so he does it more for shits and giggles than anything else.

- As lazy as he seems, he is very reliable. If he knows it's something important to you, he'll get it done. Chores though, he's a lot more iffy with.

- He really likes bees.

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Red

- Talks big talk, but he's actually a huge softie.

- He's basically a big pillow with sharp teeth that can curse.

- A nervous wreck.

- His brother shops at Hot Topic. He shops at Spencer's. Very convenient.

- He's a pretty big flirt and throws out little compliments and things to butter you up from time to time.

- If you take Red into a Dave and Busters he will win the most expensive prize at the booth in about 2 hours. (He knows how to cheat at every single game)

- He's a competitive gamer, and has a pretty impressive following on Twitch.

- He can go from loud and brash to quiet and insecure in a matter of moments, depending on the situation.

- He loves to bake, although it's something he will never be caught dead doing.

- Comfort is not his strong suit, but he will defend you without a second thought.

- He can be a little clingy and will text you now and again to ask what you're up to, just to ease his mind.

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Boss

- Professionalism is his game.

- The walking embodiment of Hot Topic.

- He loves to listen to rock and screamo music. He's also got a thing for Disney villain songs.

- You need some punk biker or vampiric goth fashion advice? Boss got ya.

- Skellator Man.

- Out of all the skeletons, Boss has the biggest ego.

- He hates admitting he's wrong. He would rather DIE than admit he's fucked up something.

- "I am not nice-"

- He could kill a man with his high heels.

- If it's got spikes he'll probably wear it.

- Tsundere. Tsundere. Tsundere. Tsundere. Tsu

- Did I mention he's a cold blooded tsundere.

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Nox

- Small angery man.

- He listens to a lot of classic and instrumental music. He finds it very sophisticated.

- Wakes up obscenely early in the morning. Always followed by a cup of the most bitter coffee on the planet.

- Comes up with the best insults. He could roast someone so hard that they'd dissolve into a pile of soot. He could glare at you and you'd cease to exist. He's that good.

- WILL step on you without remorse.

- Threatens to kill someone on a daily basis.

- Very rarely has spare time for himself. He's always keeping busy doing something.

- Loves dark, dry humor. A child falling off a swing will have him laughing for a good five minutes.

- Has a stone cold poker face.

- He might have a softer side to him. You may never know because of the walls he's built up around him.

-----------*

Rus

- He absolutely adores animals. He volunteers at the local animal shelter and plans on adopting every single dog there.

- Rus has a massive sweet tooth. Donuts are his favorite, and you can easily bribe him with anything sugar coated.

- A road trip master. You put him in a camper and he knows exactly where he's going and what he's doing.

- "Going off grid, fuck yeah- I pull out my credit cards and shred 'em."

- Hiking, camping and geocaching are some of his favorite things to do. He loves to explore the wilderness and it's like he has a built-in compass for finding his way.

- His ideal date is going to a Wal-Mart and causing absolute chaos by riding bikes around and tossing all of the inflatable balls from their displays.

- Cryptidcore energy.

- Rus loves watching Buzzfeed Unsolved and ghost huntings. He's a big fan of Supernatural and Stranger Things, too.

- Stutters and slurs his words a lot. He's got some speech impediments from the gold canines in his mouth.

- A bit lacking when it comes to social skills, but he can be extremely caring and sweet.

-----------*

Ash

- Very soft-spoken and awkward. He doesn't get much social interaction and is still figuring some things out.

- He's very self-aware of the wound in his head. Whenever he has to leave the house he wears some sort of hat to cover it up.

- Practically lives in his garden. He understands plants more than he does human beings, and he spends time daily tending to whatever he's growing.

- Him and his brother are both vegetarians, and the smell or sight of meat makes them both feel sick to themselves.

- Has trouble sleeping due to his reoccurring nightmares. He will often sit in his garden late at night to help calm himself.

- Radiates soft energy. He would absolutely give the best hugs out of all the skeletons.

- Very touch-starved. Physical affection is something he rarely recieves, and he probably lingers with touches a lot longer than he should.

- Unintentionally makes God-teir jokes without realizing it.

----------*

Poplar

- Very well-educated in a lot of things. He really likes stocking up on useless factoids and making up his own just to mess with people.

- He answers Jeopardy questions with concerning accuracy.

- He enjoys going out to eat, and he's always up to try fancy foods.

- He likes photography and reading. He is well into the Harry Potter series.

- Poplar is prepared for anything at any time. A lot of stuff doesnt phase him at all, and it's difficult to catch him off-guard.

- He's willing to try anything new, once.

- Always willing to help out with schoolwork if he thinks you're seriously struggling with it.

- He's always carrying around small planners and notebooks to write in so he can keep track of things.

#long post #headcannons #hc #bhc #bhc headcannons #bonely hearts club #like i said #most of these are from the game #i just have a very specific image of these guys in my head and i wanted to put it down somewhere

39 notes · View notes

bubmyg · 4 years

Text

footnote: better together - ksj

pairing: seokjin x reader

genre/warnings: neighbor!au, strangers to enemies to lovers, fluff, sugar glider fun, seokjin has a collection of stationary and alpaca statues, cheesy holiday goodness

word count: 10,935

summary: the tale of semi friendly notes exchanged passive aggressively between a pair of neighbors until they’re no longer threatening to blackmail one with voice memos of the other singing justin bieber in the shower or the one where you’re alone in your apartment complex and holiday activities are done better together

a/n: happy holidays and happy late birthday to mistre seokjinnie!!!!

Kim Seokjin had a way with delivering words. You’d, quite literally, discovered that hour one of indirect interaction with him.

Three weeks and the newness of your apartment had started to fade, your decorations hung at slightly crooked angles from your pattered meanderings around the vicinity of your space, laundry dangling out of the hamper rather than meticulous stuffed inside, snacks now scrawled on a list pasted to the front of your fridge where their once full wrappers were hidden in the depths of your trash can. Muscle memory started to carry your legs up the back staircases and through narrow hallways for your apartment, passing by familiar decorations hung on the outside of doors and the occasional familiar face whose schedule happened to coincide somehow with yours.

It was in a similar fashion that you assumed you had no neighbor directly next to you. The walls were paper thin as the individual across from you took great privilege in letting their door crash shut every time they opened it at four in the morning and from your limited knowledge of building layouts and the way yours slotted nicely to the neighboring apartment, you assumed that if you did have a neighbor, you would have heard them in their bathroom at least once at this point.

You hadn’t. Not one noise.

Three weeks into newness fading from your apartment meant built up grime in varying degrees was starting to plague your apartment, thus, time for the first weekend day dedicated entirely to scrubbing into crevices of tile and wood. The earbuds snug in your ears played some tune, something you vaguely recognized from the radio as you hummed absently to it in meandering into your bathroom to grab another wipe from the yellow cylinder perched on the counter.

The pop of the lid opening and closing registered louder over the sound of your earbuds but it was the melody of something that didn’t at all match the music contained only to your ears that caused you to pause, disinfectant wipe dangling from the pinch of your thumb and index finger as you glanced around the small space. With your free hand, you clicked at the tiny white control dangling off your earbuds to silence your music, squinting as if the narrowing of your sight would help your ears pick up the source of the noise.

Seeping between the drywall was the voice of Justin Bieber, or rather, the lyrics over a Justin Bieber track but the voice pitched higher, dramatic clearly for the fact that this water was in the shower but with a hint of training, melodious and mesmerizing to an extent.

If only that voice weren’t loud as fuck.

You tried to ignore it by tapping your volume up a notch and clicking to a playlist of songs that were just a fraction louder than before. And for the most part, you did forget about the actions of your apparent new neighbor while you scrubbed down the cheap countertops in your kitchen and piled trash bags near the door to take down to the dumpster when it wasn’t dark and less than ten degrees outside.

The volume in your ears sank as the sag of your couch cushions swallowed your stature, allowing your muscles to relax as you paused your music and let your eyes close for a moment of peace. Except there was the patter of water that wasn’t rain or snow or any type of precipitation coating the window beyond your cheap curtains but instead your neighbor still showering. With a groan, your thumb tapped at your phone screen a few times.

Taehyung answered half a ring in, “Can’t talk right now, just let the water for my ramen boil over—”

“Wait, did you actually?”

“No,” You heard a vague, high pitched laugh, “For what do I owe the pleasure of your correspondence?”

“I have a new neighbor.”

“Awe, did your landlord spoil the surprise? It’s me!”

You rolled your eyes, “Were you belting Justin Bieber in the shower earlier?”

“How’d you know?”

“Tae—”

“No, I wasn’t. I’m offended you’d even think that of me.”

“Someone must have moved into the empty apartment next to me while I was at work last night. And they are a better singer than Justin Bieber.”

“Not hard to accomplish that, dove—”

“What do I do? It was funny for like two seconds but I can’t deal with that all the time every night.”

Taehyung scoffed noisily with his lips, “I don’t know. Tell the front desk?”

“Hoseok will be of absolutely no assistance,” You blinked at the far wall from your couch as one of the decorative picture frames you had hung from a command strip began to shake a bit. Popping out an earbud, you found muffled shower sounds replaced with the slam of bathroom cabinets and the uninhibited sound of music, something you vaguely recognized from your previous, radio friendly playlist. “I guess I’ll just hope that it’s the new environment thing running its course. Hopefully I won’t have to experience a terrible concert every time my neighbor wants to shower…”

“I hope that for you as well…” Your best friend trailed off on the other end, “I was partially kidding about the water thing so I kind of have to go...but definitely call me if you have anymore juicy updates on the new neighbor. Maybe I’ll come over sometime and experience it for myself.”

“Go tend to your ramen mess and don’t make Yoongi clean it all up,” Taehyung made another noise of indignation before you signed off with a soft bye, tapping the end button on your phone with another slipping sigh.

You stared at the wall until the popular radio tunes had faded, just a noise but nothing distinguishable as the new tenant had evidently moved out of the bathroom. You had half the mind to connect a bluetooth speaker to your laptop and blast something off of one of your albeit embarrassing playlists but you didn’t feel petty enough for your neighbor’s first night so you gathered your clothes and fiddled at the creaky dial on your shower in silent peace.

The damp towel hung loosely from your neck as you wandered back into the hallway, humming something in place of music but pausing the noise and your steps when something white fluttered underneath your front door. Squinting, you tugged the towel a bit tighter and gripped onto the baggy center of your hoodie as you crouched to swipe up the piece of paper.

It was patterned stationery, a step below cardstock maybe with purposeful, cloudy puffs of grey sprinkled throughout the slightly offwhite paper. Elegant paper, if paper could be elegant, ruined by the messy scrawl of a bleeding black pen, lettings pinched and scrunched to the top half of the paper when they easily could have stretched throughout. In fact, the only thing on the bottom half of the paper was a signature line, spread out and blocky.

Hey, your new neighbor here...if you haven’t noticed, the walls are a bit thing. If you could keep it down when you’re on the phone, that’d be really helpful. Wouldn’t want to have to tell the front desk, you know? Have a nice (quiet) night! - Kim Seokjin (or...your new neighbor).

Your handwriting turned out equal in horrendous quality as your shaking hand etched across a piece of notebook paper you yanked out of a drawer in the kitchen. Seokjin’s note fluttered sadly to the floor as you passed where you’d slammed it down on the edge of your kitchen counter, nearly crumpling the return letter in hand as you retched open your apartment door.

Hey, your neighbor here. I’ll keep that in mind but I’d say you should probably heed your own advice. Wouldn’t want to broadcast a voice memo of you singing 2013 Justin Bieber to the entire building, now would we? Have a nice (quiet!) existence - your neighbor (I don’t think you’ve earned my name quite yet).

In your angered haste, you knocked on the door before you slid the paper underneath, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of stumbling upon it some time throughout the evening like you had. You, and your hazed subconscious, wanted them to know of your threat now.

...until everything screeched back into reality when a few locks fluttered and the door was yanked open to reveal your neighbor, Kim Seokjin.

Wet black hair was swept backward by a searching hand, black joggers snug underneath a massive pink sweater that hung off the knuckles of each hand, the one in his hair and the one clutching your crumpled piece of notebook paper. His facial features were gentle but critical, dark eyebrows pulled inward, plump lips pursed until they gradually pulled outward into a smile as soft brown irises flicked haphazardly across the contents of the note.

“So, what you’re saying is…” Seokjin looked at you, one eyebrow cocking, “You don’t like my music?”

“I don’t like how loud your music is.”

He leaned into his open door, laughing, “Touche’.”

“Just…” You clenched your fists by your side and you half assumed frustrated steam was billowing quietly out of your ears, “Just try to keep it down, please? And if you have a grievance with me just...come knock on my door or something.”

“Only if you don’t threaten to broadcast my bad shower singing—” He paused in place of your name, one you provided with a sigh. He repeated it with a giddy grin, sticking his hand out that you unwillingly shook, “Nice to meet you.”

Except Seokjin all but refused to knock on your door for anything, instead leaving you messily passive aggressive pieces of various colored stationary underneath the sizable crack in your apartment door.

Forest green with darker specks in between had the request for your Wifi password after he’d given some sob story via barely comprehensible handwriting about how his provider couldn’t make it for another week and he needed to submit something for his work now or he’d get fired. You’d refused, obviously, with a silent protest of not returning his request, something he countered with ridiculously obnoxious music for hours straight until you caved and thrust a ripped shard of yellow notebook paper underneath his door.

Only when he’d navigated onto his laptop did he notice that you’d changed your Wifi network name to don’t use this to stream Justin Bieber. A week later, when your connection finally turned to normal did a new network shuffle among the list of others scattered throughout your building.

Using this to stream Justin Bieber.

A pastel blue sheet with purple and navy specks through it came to your door to asking about a printer, Seokjin claiming he’d heard the unmistakable sound through the paper thin walls and that he desperately needed to use it as his suddenly wouldn’t connect to his laptop. If he hadn’t heard a printer, the asterisk at the bottom informed you to disregard completely.

The largest part of you knew it would be a disaster if you were to give him the ability to connect to your bluetooth printer but the smallest part of you knew you couldn’t hide that secret and he’d just torture you with a Disney movie soundtrack until you caved so you scrawled out connection instructions and taped part of the user manual to the note you slid underneath.

It took him a week to start taking advantage of the printer, beginning to use it in place of his notes instead of trekking down the hallway to push cardstock beneath the crack. The first couple were serious, a request for a spare iPhone charger, a half attempt at getting you to invite him over for dinner with a compliment to how good your dinner smelled. The next couple were ridiculous, a meme outdated by about three years, a Wikipedia page on the history of twist bottle caps that he insisted was just an accident with the next print.

Then there was one you thought was ridiculous until the same message printed again on fake cardstock, a color he’d applied to the paper that printed in your apartment (soft pink with maroon splotches) and added text that said THIS IS NOT A JOKE, HELP ME.

You vaguely understood the logistics of sugar gliders but you grabbed a hand towel on your way out of your apartment anyway, picking careful feet on the patterned carpet as to not accidentally step on the creature. It found you first, however, scurrying underneath your pant leg and you had to muffle your scream in the towel as you crouched, managing to fish the sugar glider out with little trouble and throw yourself into Seokjin’s apartment when he opened the door for the tap of your foot against the bottom of it.

“He was outside?” Seokjin took the towel from you to inspect the tittering creature with wide eyes, “How did you get outside?”

“You’re welcome—”

“Please don’t turn me in,” There was a separate panic in Seokjin now that he’d retrieved his pet, referencing the no animal aside from non aggressive fish rule in the apartment building. Another second of you being silent and he continued to ramble, “I don’t have anywhere else to take him and he’s good most of the time I just—”

“Seokjin,” You held up a palm, “I’m not going to turn you in.”

He bounced the towel in his arms like it was a human baby, eyeing you with innocent irises, “On any conditions or you just won’t period?”

You considered his proposition for a moment and felt a tiny bit bad for making conditions on him keeping his pet. But only a tiny bit.

“Stop playing your music so loud,” You proposed. “And I’ll stop using your printer!” Seokjin’s words ran together and his eyes bugged wider, “I’ll give you my number so we can stop wasting paper. Anything…”

He thrust out the hand that wasn’t cradling his pet, “...deal?”

You sighed, watching as his sugar glider’s nose began to twitch and he burrowed into the tiny nest made by your towel. “Deal…”

Except that deal lasted less than a week and he was back to playing music at a ridiculous volume, clattering his cabinets loudly, printing so much it ran out your black ink and you had to ask for money to go buy a new cartridge when you took his heaving stack of documents over to his door.

You tried banging on the wall as a warning, something you’d never thought of before, an action that caused the lowering of volume for no more than ten minutes before it was up again and you were back to digging the heel of your palm in the shared wall separating your bathrooms (and apartments).

This was the first time he’d texted you, something you stared at for a hard few seconds upon forgetting to save his name to the contact information, just a puke emoji. It was the contents of the message that jogged your memory.

Were those knocks Morse code for a song request?

You sighed, angrily tapping into your phone.

No, they meant shut the fuck up.

Months of living in your building meant you had a general idea to the schedules of those who lived around you and how they coincided to yours. That meant you generally parked in the same parking place, took the same route up the stairs, pressed a halfhearted smile into your cheeks at the same people in the lobby and the elevator and the halls. That entire routine was thrown off when you worked over one day, sweat tattered into your hairline and the buttons on your clothes itching to become baggy sweatpants before you departed for an exam that evening and all you could think about was the newly empty parking spot that was entirely closer to the door than where you normally parked.

In the time it took to shed your polo and jeans smelling of the restaurant you waitressed at part time and grab your backpack, there was someone parked directly behind you, effectively boxing you into the space that had a concrete wall in the front and two other cars on either side. At first, you assumed it was an accident until you got closer and the soft wind fluttered at a piece of pastel purple stationary with blue tick marks splattered throughout it.

I see you are enjoying the convenience of my parking spot. The code word is “penis”. Scream it loudly down the hallway and I’ll come out and move my car currently blocking you in. If I don’t “hear” from you in an hour, I’m calling a tow truck. Yours truly, Jin :)

You were shaking by the time your trembling legs brought you in front of his door, your voice miserable in rising to say plenty loud enough, “Penis.”

There was a gentle cackling from the other side of the door and his voice answered back, “Not loud enough.”

Anger, one like the initial day he’d moved in next to you, began to lace into the exhaustion and anxiety crippling the swirling pit of your stomach. It caused your voice to rise a second, unashamed octave, “Penis!”

Seokjin’s fingers tapped on the inside of the door and he hummed, “Still can’t quite hear you, darling.”

Your fists curled so tight it crumpled the note in your hand and you set your shoulders, letting your vocal chords waver as you, pointedly screaming, “Penis! Penis, penis, penis—”

The door swung open to reveal Seokjin’s concerned features, his hands lifting in penance but you continued to repeat the word, pausing only to chastise, isn’t this what you wanted? until a lock could be heard down the hall and Seokjin panicked enough to grab your wrist and tug you into the depth of his apartment.

When he dropped your wrist, you silenced, staring hard at the scrunch of his features and it was the ripping sob that made you immune to the way he’d asked if you were okay approximately three times before the first of the tears began to appear across your cheeks.

“You have my number!” You wailed, hysterical, “Why couldn’t you have just called me like a normal fucking person and asked me to move my car?”

Seokjin stuttered, “A-are you going somewhere?” His eyes flicked to the strap of the backpack that you gripped for dear life.

“I have an exam tonight asshole. Not like you care but I’m probably going to miss that too.”

“No, no, you won’t just—” He darted somewhere and returned with a wad of tissues and his car keys, “—dry your face and let’s go. I’ll drive you.”

“I don’t want you to drive me,” You dabbed at your face with the wad of tissues rather than separating them individually, “I want you to move your car.”

“But—”

“Seokjin,” Your voice rose again, only to dip into a tremble as more tears leaked miserably from the corners of your eyes, “Just move your car. Please.”

The next note came two days after you’d been fifteen minutes late for your exam, paired with the warm scent of freshly baked cookies. The plain piece of white paper advertised that too, that there was a plate of cookies waiting for you just outside your door and you probably needed to get them quickly before other tenants started to think you were running a one person bake sale from inside your apartment. You munched a sizable dent into the tiny pile of chocolate chip lain treats while thumbing softly over the tiny heart curled into the corner of Seokjin’s signature, considering it as some sort of unspoken apology.

He didn’t stop there in his quest to earn back your trust, to amend the absolutely heartbroken expression plastered to your features as a buildup of stress but that he took as his fault for taking the friendly enemy step one footprint too far.

For example, you didn’t question how he’d discovered it was your laundry tumbling in the dryer down in the common area of your floor. Maybe he’d correctly guessed, but regardless, he’d piled your laundry in neat, sorted piles in the white wire basket you’d left perched on top of the machine. You tried to ignore that he’d touched, multiple, pairs of your underwear and instead took the clothes against your side in the trek back to your apartment.

And aside from targeted attacks of penance, he overall tried to be a quiet neighbor, giving off the impression that no one lived there aside from the occasional slip of a shutting cabinet and the flick and click of his door knob and lock. The top forty playlists had ceased along with any other form of music and once you caught him exiting his apartment with earbuds attached to his phone, something a few months ago that you weren’t entirely sure he owned.

It went on this way until the fall month melted into deep winter, ice covering the sidewalks in a thin layer on the first day that it seemed plausible that there would be a white Christmas and you loathed it like the various warnings of canceled (in your email, on the airline website, through the tight lipped voice of the attendant who you’d spoken on the phone with, to the many news warnings flashing across the television screen every time you turned it on to something that was vaguely a news channel) attached to your flight tickets lain forgotten underneath some loose change on your kitchen counter.

You took in the supportive text messages from your family and friends back home with misty eyes kin to the thin glaze of ice covering the window in your apartment that promised not to melt for at least a week, if not the exact opposite and enhance by a few quarter inches with the cold front coming in directly before Christmas. Your fleece blanket served as a tiny, furry cave, sheltering you from the crippling sense of loneliness that came with being alone on the holidays, a sense that plagued your very being of living alone yet heightened when you had the expectation of it ending for a few days while being at home surrounded by other people.

The Snapchat notification from Taehyung went unopened when you saw his story said he’d just touched down in his hometown, just hours before cancellations began to flood in to that particular airport. You swiped away the missed call notifications from your parents that served only to cheer you up but assumed would just make the tired butterflies in your stomach sink. You moved the stack of neatly wrapped presents in your corridor to the hall closet that only contained a vacuum and a dustpan (no broom), even the present that you’d scrawled Seokjin’s name over but had considered keeping for the sake of your own dignity several times over.

You even managed to loathe the wall you shared with Seokjin a bit extra, as it was eerily silent, no annoying albeit comforting ambience filtering from it but instead dead silence, reminding you that you were virtually the only person left in your entire building, if not the entire vicinity of the your suburban side of the college town.

Until that wall began to chatter, first with a barely there scuffle of things against the floor and second with the unmistakable sound of music, his trademark no less, except in holiday fashion this time, melodious bells and jingles marking the underneath of lyrics you couldn’t hear but beats you could vaguely recognize.

Half of your exhausted conscious thought it was a mirage, that you were simply imagining that your neighbor was still here with you as the second and only two individuals left in the entire building, so it aided in your carelessness of wrapping your fleece blanket tighter to your shoulders and venturing out into the hallway. The music of your mirage only seemed to grow louder the closer you shuffled to his door, and you timed your knocks with the tune of jingle bells until you were met with the panicked expression of Seokjin, one you’d seen only once before when you’d been cradling his nearly lost pet in a clump of grey towel.

“Shit,” He cursed, “I figured you’d went home, I’m sorry. I’ll turn the music down again, that’s entirely my bad I was just…” Seokjin trailed off, gesturing quietly over his shoulder and when he stepped aside, you could see the mass of a fallen, plastic tree along with nearly a dozen half opened packages of ornaments. Green metal hooks decorated all the spaces in between, ones curled like his lips into the dimples in his cheeks when he shrugged, “...was trying to put up my tree, is all.”

“Oh,” You nudged your nose into the material around your shoulders, “It’s alright, I just...didn’t think you were here either—” You tried to smile underneath the puffy, sewn hem, “—making sure it was you, you know. Being a watchful neighbor.”

The tiniest of grins manifested to his lips, gradual in growing into the slight wheeze of his laughter but the speech he articulated didn’t quite match, just a soft, “Yeah…”

A few more heartbeats of awkward and you broke the trance with a nod towards the floor, taking a step back, “Well, if you need me then...you know where to find me.”

Seokjin returned your nod. “Yeah. I mean yeah, yeah same.”

You were two sad shuffles down the hall when something was tugging on the end of your blanket. It was Seokjin with the grey fleece held hostage, tugging softly again before dropping it all together, the round of his mouth suggesting the mortification he felt at the situation as the tips of his ears slowly grew red but none of that stopped his invitation.

“Do you want to help me put up my tree?”

When you just stared at him from underneath your makeshift cape, he held up a single finger, a sharp wait! before a distinct crashing could be heard as he stumbled back into his apartment. Moments later he returned with a strip of that familiar stationery, ripped a bit more on the perforated edge in his haste but the message read semi clear as he pressed the paper to the wall and began to mark on it with a thickly tipped black marker.

With all the giddiness in the world, he thrust the note toward you.

Come help me decorate my tree?1 (pretend that one is a footnote) and at the bottom, smooth edge of the paper footnote: this activity is done better together. promise.

In all your short lived instances of appearing in Seokjin’s doorway to explain notes or hand him documents (or sugar gliders), you’d never taken the time to really look at his apartment or at least, those parts of it you could see. Perched on his couch while he stretched on his tiptoes to plant a plastic star with red glitter woven through the middle was an entirely different perspective, especially when the itchy wool inscribing an ostrich with a Santa hat on the front rode up a bit on his hip bones and you had to force yourself to examine the apartment rather than the occupant of said apartment.

It was a similar layout to your own, an open concept living room into a kitchen with fully functioning appliances (his fridge, for example, freckled white and covered in so many magnets you would almost venture to describe the color as magnetic). There was a hallway beyond the wall in which the couch you perched on was pressed to, to the right, his bedroom and to the left, the connection of your bathrooms. In theory, your walls touched in more places than just the initial hotspot that was the shower concert, but seeing the layout for yourself in comparison to how you knew yours was laid out did nothing to change the perception already ingrained in your conscious.

Seokjin seemed to go for modern and minimalistic decorations, monochromes the theme for the big (the black leather couch and matching armchair, the white drawers shoved into the black outlined entertainment center), and wildly neon for the accents (a sharp red shag rug pressed underneath your socked feet, tiny alpaca figurines shoved onto decorative shelves and coffee table corners, a round pink bunny pillow with a questioning eyebrow taking the place of a decorative pillow on his couch).

One alpaca in particular caught your attention, standing upright with a tiny red bow around its neck as it seemed to wave in your direction from it’s place on the edge of the entertainment center. Seokjin’s voice dragged you away from being endeared by it, however, and you again felt your face heating as your eyes tore to the dip in his exposed spine.

“Hello,” He crooned again and you tried to ignore the slight slant in his lips when you finally met his gaze, “Is the star straight?”

You blinked up to where the red spined topper was very clearly lopsided. “Not even close.”

“Okay,” You were quickly growing endowed to the wheeze in his laughter, “Which direction does it need to go?”

There was a vague flick of your wrist toward the front door. He complied and you shook your head, “No...back this way.”

Too far again the wrong direction. Too far back. Nearly tumbling backward off the tree. Pressed forward so the tip was pointing toward you.

Finally, you shrugged, “...that’s good enough.”

Seokjin groaned, letting the pins and needles in his arms relax as he turned to you with slumped shoulders and accusing eyes. “You’re not very good at this thus far,” He told you, placing the bend in his thumb and pointer finger to the high rise of his waist.

“I don’t have much practice this year,” Your voice was light but the implication of the words wasn’t and Seokjin sensed it.

“Not much of a decorator?”

You answered the unasked question, “No. I was waiting to do it with my family.”

“Oh.” He shuffled away from the tree to bend over a cardboard box, traping a tangled mass of green wired lights from within. His attention focused on straightening them out while he inquired gently, “...so you are you staying here over the holidays?”

“Yes. My flight was canceled and a proper one won’t be available until after the holidays.”

“Oh,” Seokjin emphasized the word, nodding mostly to himself as he let the unlit lights drape down his front to sway against his legs, “Good, good. Me, uh...me too. I mean I’m staying here too. And my flight got canceled. The me too was to that part, too—”

“Good,” You happily dismissed the rambled ends of the conversation there, unfurling your legs from underneath you to stand, “Want some help with those?”

You aided each other in wrapping the thin, artificial tree in four strands of twinkling white lights, passing each other the looped wad in front and behind the plastic limbs, careful not to dislodge the prior work of the balanced star while also assuring the bulbs sat nestled in the branches. It looked a bit overwhelmed, wrapped in unlit green wires until Seokjin crawled to the floor to jam one end in the nearby outlet, only to have the tree look a bit underwhelming when only two of the strands lit up, those two being the ones that hugged the middle half of the tree.

The next twenty minutes were spent silently checking each individual bulb, Seokjin stretching back for the top of the tree while you crouched below. You’d barely made it halfway when he was waddling determinedly off into the apartment, only to return with a creaky wooden chair that he ordered you to sit on while you did the work.

“What if we rotate the tree as well,” He proposed, fingers reaching for the light he left off on, “That way we don’t have to, oh—” His fingers twisted into one of the bulbs and suddenly, his entire strand came on with yours following close after. A puzzled smile stretched into his cheeks as he regarded you where you sat on the edge of the chair he’d brought you, “—well, never mind.”

“You know…” You’d watched him meticulously separate green hooks from each other in silence for far too long, “You can turn your music back on.”

A pile of hooks snagged haphazardly against each other fell to the floor when he looked at you. The silence was affecting his ability to function as well, clearly, particularly when he said, “The music? What music?”

“The....the music that you were—?”

As if to cover himself after the handful of heartbeats that were nothing but silence in response to your statement, Seokjin began to laugh, a high pitched wheezing sound that paired to the hand he cupped across his stomach and the other that he slapped against his thigh.

“Oh, right,” Seokjin nodded, stumbling on the fibers of the festive socks on his feet to wherever the source may be, “That music.”

You took it upon yourself to untangle the hooks.

The exchange of silence stayed for the first few songs on the holiday playlist, an unspoken teamwork of you weaving hooks on shiny plastic bulbs while Seokjin placed them evenly around the tree. It took a package of red and silver ornaments and half a package of unconventional, squished lamp shaped ornaments of a green hue before he began to hum.

They were hums that grew louder as your fingers brushed in the transfer of hooked ornaments until he was essentially serenading you with the seam of his lips pressed tightly together, prolonging the shared contact on the ornaments as he leaned a fraction closer with his head wiggling to the beat and a smile tugging upward on his sealed lips.

Then he was singing, something akin to the tone of voice you’d heard him use the very first day he’d moved in. A bit pitchy but on purpose, careless and carefree, soft at first but growing louder the more comfortable he got with you being in the presence of a one man audience for a one man concert.

And then his voice switched, something more formal, a bit whispery and genuinely beautiful. It had you pausing in your actions, hook in one hand and ornament in another while the corner of your jaw began to unhinge. He was lost in it, unaware that you’d failed to hand him another ornament until he turned with eyes screwed shut and bumped into your outstretched fists.

Seokjin’s eyes popped open, immune to the expression on your features as he took the ornament from you, placing the unhooked plastic and the hook on separate places on the tree before sliding his hands into yours. His voice wavered between silly and trained, happily wavering your intertwined hands in between your bodies as he danced your figures in messy circles around the myriad of excess decorations.

“You can step on my feet, you know,” Seokjin assured, letting go of one of your hands to coax you into a stumbling circle. When you made the revolution, he held you at arms length as the streaming service through the speaker buffered between songs.

“I’m not close enough to step on your feet.”

He regarded you for the half second it took a single eyebrow to cock before he jerked on your arm, tugging you nearly on top of his toes. Seokjin hushed, “Is this better?”

There was a distinct waft of cinnamon and vanilla that filtered off the smiling ostrich stretched across his broad stature paired with a comforting warmth that soothed through the stabilizing hand you’d pressed to his chest. Your gaze trailed upward from the stitched tufts of hair woven into the top of the ostrich’s head to meet Seokjin’s gentle eyes, irises brewed in something that radiated the same coffee warmth of the rest of his aura.

Bluntly, you answered, “Yeah, I’m standing on your feet now.”

He took that as his cue to rock you back and forth, still perched on the tops of his feet, matching the beat of the more melancholy instrumental that filled the apartment. The sun had begun to set outside, lessening the natural light into a glossy orange hue that enhanced the twinkle of lights now forgotten on the tree as two shadows curled around the small space and melded into each other.

“You have a nice singing voice,” You said to his collarbone, afraid to meet his gaze again.

“Thank you,” Seokjin squeezed one of your hands, “You’re a terrible dancer.”

It was reflex to smack his shoulder, daring your gaze up at him just to glare and in turn sending the two of you into a fit of unabashed laughter. It was laughter that brought the curl of your bodies closer together, gripping each others hands tighter, until the giggles died into soft smiles directed solely to each other.

Seokjin cocked his head after a moment, “Would you like to stay and watch a movie?”

“I don’t have much in my cabinet other than this—” A warm bowl of ramen was placed gently on the fold out TV tray in front of you, “—and this…” Next was a paper bowl filled to the top with buttery popcorn. Seokjin held a sheepish smile when you glanced up at him to thank him, “Movie night essentials, you know.”

You hummed, sliding the wrapper from the chopsticks he’d provided to absently dig them through the noodles, “Thank you. We could have ordered something, you know…”

“Yeah? What could we have ordered?” The smile on his lips was teasing as he gestured for the ice stained window in the corner where flakes of new falling snow could vaguely be seen. “I don’t think much is open anyway...we’re pretty close to campus and nearly everyone has gone home.”

You moaned into the first bite you pushed past your lips, “That should have been us. Don’t remind me.”

“What?” Seokjin plopped next to you on the couch, dragging his own TV stand closer to ruffle around at the utensils and bowls, “You mean you’d rather have a home cooked meal and a tree with fully functioning lights?” His eyebrows lifted in the direction of the tree you’d aided in decorating where the bottom strand of lights flickered each time you stepped on his floor with a little too much force.

“Thank you, though. Seriously,” You let your next bite of ramen pool back into the bowl, eyeing it as you confessed, “It’d be worse to be alone so...I’m thankful you’re stuck here too.”

A surprised noise left Seokjin’s lips as he mumbled around the chipmunk shape of his cheeks as a result his own steaming bowl, “Well I’m glad you’re here too—” He swallowed thickly, leaning over to nudge you with his elbow, “—you’re not a half bad tree decorator. The lights are my fault somehow, I’m sure.”

The television was on but without anything playing, just the home screen of various applications and the name of the building cable provider in the corner. You ate through the silence of a dozen mouthfuls of food until Seokjin began to hum to himself again, shoving his bowl aside to dig busy fingers in the popcorn while his free hand went fishing in the couch cushions. You watched as he returned, triumphant, with a remote, clicking at the buttons with the brush of his thumb.

“What do you want to watch?” He continued to munch happily on his popcorn as he opened a streaming service and navigated to the holiday section. “Any traditions you’re being deprived of this year?”

You watched as he skimmed past the green, yellow, and blue cover of—

“Elf is pretty good,” You murmured, stirring the ends of your chopsticks through the leftover broth in your bowl.

Seokjin navigated back to it quickly, pressing play before he asked, “Oh, yeah? I don’t know that I’ve ever watched it all the way through.”

“You’ve never watched Elf?” You passed the utensils in your fingers aside to reach for your untouched bowl of popcorn, pulling it against your chest as you leaned back into the couch cushions. You stuck the first of the pieces in as the beginning tune of the opening credits filled the apartment, “Well, you’re in for a treat.”

He was still giggling by the time Christmas was saved by the less than magical voice of James Caan singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town in the middle of Central Park but not enough that he was distracted from you nudging him off your shoulder to gently take his dirty dishes and empty trash to usher it all into the kitchen.

“You don’t have to do that,” Seokjin rushed, galloping after you only before nearly tumbling headfirst over the TV tray still folded open in front of him. He caught up to you as you began to run water through the dirtied bowls, “I invited you to stay, wouldn’t I be a bad guest making you do my dishes?”

“Don’t let me do them, then. Help me,” You handed him the rinsed bowl and gestured to what appeared to be a frayed sponge and a half full bottle of soap. You made a point of grabbing the soap and pressing a dollop of it onto the otherwise dry sponge Seokjin lifted to scrub through the curved inside of the bowl. “Then you can let me meet your sugar glider. Properly.”

“Gukmul,” Seokjin nodded, letting the half clean bowl splatter to the suds below, “I”m sure he’ll be thrilled to properly meet his savior.”

You started to say his name as he disappeared down the hall of the apartment, effectively leaving you with the dishes all over again. He was quick though, you halfway through rinsing the bowl he’d abandoned when he returned with a towel shaped ball, your towel, curled against his chest.

“Here,” He gently held the bundle out toward you, especially when the white furred creature with grey ears poked its head out from between the sanction of his owner’s palms. “You hold him and I’ll do that.”

You dried your hands on the front of your pants, brushing fingers with Seokjin as you assured him you had the bundled up creature, quickly bringing him against your chest. Gukmul didn’t stay in the cocoon for long, regarding you with black beaded eyes until he made his move. Tiny, jumping movements let him glide up the front of your sweater until he was perched against your neck, content with his tiny heartbeat rapidly brushing against your skin.

“He likes you,” Seokjin nodded, placing one bowl aside to reach for the other.

“Is he going to jump off?” You countered, too preoccupied with how soft the little animal was for proper flashbacks of the last incident to flash in your conscious.

“Probably not,” He grinned when you looked horrified, “What? I can’t guarantee he won’t.”

“...although he might want to stay a little longer if you bribe him with a treat—” Seokjin jerked a suddy thumb over his shoulder, “There’s cut apples in the refrigerator if you want to feed him one.”

Elongated, picking footsteps carried you toward the refrigerator, ones in which Gukmul barely moved an inch other than to stabilize himself against your shoulder. The same amount of care was taken to get back across the room once you’d retrieved the apple cube, successful in not losing the tiny sugar glider until he resided in your palm with his treat happily munched between his cheeks.

“Will you help me pick up all the decoration stuff too?”

You glanced up at Seokjin from where you’d previously been watching his pet with utter fascination. “If job can be to hold Gukmul so he doesn’t get in the way, then yes.”

“He has a cage for that,” He placed the second, clean bowl aside before reaching for the pan he’d cooked the noodles in. He exchanged an amused glance between you and the sugar glider, “I was kidding, anyway. You don’t have to help me.”

“I was still just joking, you know,” He told you a few minutes later when you stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the dozen plastic bins that looked as though they’d puked holiday cheer onto the tile floor of Seokjin’s apartment. “You don’t have to help me.”

“I’m going to help you.”

You moved to crouch on the floor to collect stray hooks and an assortment of miniature, icicle shaped ornaments that had scattered outside of their plastic box when he was cupping your elbow to halt you.

“Wait—” Seokjin held up a finger with a mischievous glint in his irises that tucked into the corner of his eyes to regard you, “—I have an idea of what to do with these.”

“Are we going to get in trouble for this?”

Seokjin huffed dramatically from below, hands shifting off the small of your back so that he nearly got two handfuls of your ass. “Probably not, now attach the garland before I drop you.”

The connection of the twist tie around the wire of the green branches was messy but it secured enough along the top part of the cabinets in the common area of your floor, perfect timing for the way your foot slipped off the small part of counter top and proceeded to throw most of your body weight into Seokjin’s palms.

“I’ll never forgive you if you let me fall,” You threatened.

“That implies that you’ve forgiven me for everything else,” Seokjin grunted, bracing his weight and pushing until you were stabilized again, “So that to me is a win.”

You glanced at him over your shoulder, finding the tiniest bead of sweat matting down black fringe on one side of his face but he was wholly serious as he huffed and got a tighter grip on your back. You teased gently so he would look at you, “Who said I forgive you for anything?”

This time, his palms did cup your ass in route to land on the backs of your thighs, exasperated as he began to rant, “I am still sorry for being the shittiest neighbor ever. I had no idea you had an exam that day but it didn’t really matter I shouldn’t have done that anyway and—”

“Jin,” You trusted your balance enough to flick a socked foot backward at his face, “Hand me the lights.”

Seokjin whined into handing you the rolled up wires, “You didn’t let me finish.”

You sighed, tossing the outlet end of the lights down the side of the cabinets before beginning the meticulous weave through each of the rungs on the cabinet.

“Proceed.”

“I was going to say I still owe you some more fresh baked cookies,” He grunted when you shifted and squeezed your thighs, “but I’m really not sure that I’m sorry anymore.”

He regarded the work you’d done around the small common area with a critical eyebrow, standing shoulder to shoulder with you as he took in your surroundings. The lights had proved easier to weave than the garland, now on and twinkling between the tiny bits of artificial green. You’d hung a few leftover bulbs for good measure, tucking them back into the greenery. A tiny tree, one you’d fished out of forgotten presents in your hall closet, sat idle on the corner of the cabinet, directly next to the microwave that didn’t work and the sink that no one obeyed the don’t do your dishes here rule of. You’d looped the last of the multi colored lights to that short, fake vegetation, clicking settings on the little dial until the lights were programmed to a periodic flashing motion. The glitter all over the floor was simply a hazard of all the other decorations but it added to the ambiance, especially when the time curled dangerously close to the midnight hour, reflecting the blues of the snow outside through the glass windows lining each part of the common room before they disappeared into the individual hallways.

“Not bad,” Seokjin mused. You held your hand out, palm up for a high five.

“So…” You began once his hand touched yours, curling your fingers around his to hold him there, “...about those apology cookies you still owe me?”

“And I was under the impression you were a master chef.”

Seokjin’s eyes brewed a similar shade to the chocolate chips buried within the perfect block of dough he was breaking apart, regarding you under shaggy bangs that hung over his eyes.

“Generally, I am,” A high pitched squeak left his lips when a particularly difficult square cookie finally gave way to his prying hands, followed by a few more other noises as he spread that piece to the greased cookie sheet, “but on account of the time and the worst ice storm in the history of the city, I can’t exactly go get fresh ingredients.”

You leaned against his counter top, watching as he spread the rest of the premade cookies across the sheet. The festive oven mitt was shrugged on until it rested across his wrist, doing a dramatic twirl across his kitchen to place the pan in the oven.

“A master chef would have bulk supplies for potential winter storms,” Your palm cradled your chin, “No?”

Seokjin tossed the oven mitt so that it slid across the counter, smacking into your elbows and in turn making you flinch. There was a grin plastered to his features when he tottered over to retrieve it, murmuring, “Sorry, darling. Thought I could make to—” He flicked open the part in the cabinet below you before slamming down the fabric and slamming it shut, “—the drawer.”

“Ramen, popcorn, and premade cookies,” You tapped your fingers in succession against your bottom lip, “Quite the array of food to have until it clears up outside.”

“I have other stuff,” Seokjin defended, motioning toward the top half of his refrigerator on the far adjacent edge of the kitchen, “Some French toast sticks, a frozen pizza or two. I think there’s a box of instant mashed potatoes somewhere around here…”

“Master chef,” You nodded.

“Precisely,” He shoved himself up off the counter, hands braced on the edge and elbows locked as his head lulled to the side, “Going to have a holiday feast tomorrow night.”

“Enjoy it.”

“You aren’t coming?” You blinked at him until he added, “I mean, you can come over if you want. We can pretend to exchange presents or something. I’m sure I can spare an alpaca figurine. You might be worth it.”

Part of your body went numb with the realization that you’d now have an excuse to give him his present, the one that had tumbled to the middle of your hallway when you’d carelessly yanked your tiny tree from your hall closet. You ignored it to joke stiffly, “Frozen pizza and a present that may or may not be a tiny alpaca? How can I resist that?”

A fond smile curled into a tiny half circle on the plump seam of Seokjin’s lips, pressing into the cute indentions of his cheeks as he looked away from you. His eyes instead went to the screen of his phone that he dug out of his back pocket.

“It’s late,” He said after a moment, still not quite looking at you, “If you want to go home, I’ll save the cookies for tomorrow.”

“You won’t eat one without me?”

“Not even a crumb,” Seokjin vowed, looking at you now with a hand dramatically slapped over his heart.

“I’ll be able to hear if you do,” You half threatened, slowly moving to where your keys were.

His nose wrinkled when you bumped into the side of the couch, eyes glinting.

“Won’t taste as good without you, anyway.”

You contemplated the gift package in your hand for far longer than you considered the red and white striped fuzzy socks tucked nearly up to your knee caps. Whether that was a good or bad thing on your part, it cost you another half a roll of wrapping paper as you tore open the gift, considered not taking it, thought to take it again, hid it underneath the scarf you’d gotten one of your cousins, and finally swallowed your pride to tuck it under your arm and go the short distance to Seokjin’s place.

“He was joking about the alpaca thing,” You conversed with yourself in the first two footsteps out your front door, “You’re going to look silly bringing him a gift that you bought months in advance. Who has this just laying around, anyway—”

That was the first thing Seokjin said when he opened the door too. “Oh. You brought a gift—” He nudged the door a bit wider to coax you inside, “—not anything that could be considered payback for all my neighbor crimes, is it?”

You bypassed the insinuation of his hanging guilt to instead hyper-fixate on how his hair was stuck up in a few different directions, his holiday sweater bunched around his waist, and the way his teasing smile didn’t quite meet his eyes. He looked nearly as disheveled as he had when you’d swept his pet up in a navy blue towel after he was sure he’d lost it forever. You paused halfway in the threshold, nearly pressed against his chest.

“Are you okay?”

Whatever remaining resolve that Seokjin had been putting forth crumpled in that moment, stature slumping off the door so that it swung to a hard close behind both your figures. His hand was in his hair again, tresses poking in more awkward angles between his digits.

“I think Gukmul is sick,” His hand shifted to his nape, “He hasn’t ate since you left yesterday. And he’s being lethargic.”

“You think it was the apple I gave him?”

“Some of the other pieces were browning but,” Seokjin’s hand fell limp to his side and he shrugged, “I don’t know. It’s probably nothing I just…”

“Okay, so we take him to the vet,” You placed your gift aside to reach for your phone, tapping away at the screen, “I’m sure there’s a twenty-four hour clinic somewhere that’s open on Christmas Eve.”

“Darling,” He touched your hand, thumb stroking between your knuckles, “It snowed a couple extra inches last night. How are we going to get there?”

“Drive? If we take it slow—”

“In whose car?”

“...mine?”

Seokjin paused, “Are you in my spot again?”

You slumped under where his hand touched yours, “We don’t have time to play the penis game again—”

“I’m just kidding,” His fingers laced around your wrist, squeezing, “I could easily drive us too, then…”

“I’ll drive. And, I have something to help us—” You dislodged his grip on you to reach for your present, tearing easily into the newly wrapped sides to reveal the box inside. Seokjin protested the whole time but you ignored him, slicing the tape with your thumb to digging inside.

It was a fanny pack essentially, bright pink with stark black zippers and a black strap with a plastic buckle. The front pouch was sheer netting, enough so that you couldn’t see inside but enough that the creature inside would be able to breathe. You thrust it toward his chest, “Here.”

“It’s supposed to be a carrier for Gukmul,” You explained lamely, “You know, so you can take him out of the apartment and not lose him. Or get busted by Hoseok.”

“Oh,” He took it into his grasp, gently turning it in his hands, running his fingers across the zippers, “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I got it a long time ago,” You winced at your own admission, “and in pink too. You seem to like that color.”

“I do,” Seokjin blinked from the pack to you, “Thank you.”

“Of course. Now go get Gukmul, I’ll go warm up the car.”

“Oh. Oh,” He stumbled over himself in an effort to shrug the strap over one shoulder, “Right. Okay, right, I’ll meet you out there. Be careful on the ice!—”

Thirty minutes to what was normally a ten minute trip later and the vet was descending behind an ominous looking door with that navy blue bundle curled against her chest. There were a few fishtails and a handful of instances where you didn’t think your vehicle could make it up inclined streets in between stop signs but Seokjin’s knuckles hadn’t been nearly as white then as they were with your hand pressed between both his palms..

He leaned against you, turning your palm over in his lap to trace gentle fingers across the lines in your palm. You let him, leaning too until your heads touched. His leg bounced in time with sighs he took to attempt to calm his breathing.

“You know, I’m really glad our flights got canceled,” Seokjin said, lacing his fingers through the spaces in yours to pat your intertwined appendages against his thigh, “That sounds horrible. I mean I just....am glad you’re the one who lives next to me, is all.”

“Up until a few months ago, I couldn’t really say the same about you, you know,” You flexed your fingers in his grip.

“I was a dick at first on accident. Then I thought it was entertaining. You never seem that bothered by me. If you were, I assumed you would have told Hoseok and I would have had complaints on my file or something. But you never did so I just...figured you went along with my stupidity because you enjoyed it too. Until that day you cried…”

“It’s okay, you know,” You shifted on his shoulder to peer at the side of his face, “You don’t have to keep apologizing for that. I wasn’t going to get an A in that class, anyway.”

“The exam wasn’t the point. The point was that I teased you like I knew you. Like we were friends or something. And it turned out I didn’t know you at all. I didn’t even know you went to university.”

“...I didn’t know you but I wanted to know you,” Seokjin swallowed, squinting up at the paw print shaped clock on the far wall from where you sat, “Your presence was just...strangely comforting. Knowing that you could hear me being dumb almost felt like I had a roommate. Like I wasn’t alone with myself.”

“That’s why Gukmul means so much to me, aside from the fact that he’s a part of my family. He reminds me that I’m something larger than myself. That I’m not constantly alone.”

“I guess what I’m trying to say is thank you,” Seokjin’s chin pressed to his neck to smile down at you, “For being here with me. For putting up with me. Indirectly and otherwise…”

“And I’m sorry I was such a shit neighbor for so long. It was like I reverted back to middle school—” He gestured with the hand that was still twisted around yours, “—you know, tease the person you like and that’ll make them understand that you like them.”

“You weren’t and aren’t a shit neighbor,” You assured, nudging your nose against the underside of his collarbone, “You bring the same kind of comfort for me, you know.”

“You know how many times my friend Taehyung told me I should turn you in? So many times,” You shrugged, “You’re kind of annoying but nothing unbearable. It’s part of what makes you charming.”

“Thanks,” Seokjin laughed dryly and you smiled when a part of his natural wheeze came out in the giggle.

“I just got used to you. It felt weird if I couldn’t hear something going on over there...if my printer wasn’t whirring to life at the most inopportune times…”

“Why do you think I said up until a few months ago? I realized that I—” You nuzzled your cheek against his jacket so he couldn’t see your face, “—kind of liked you too. I mean, hello I bought you a gift in advance. I don’t even buy my family presents in advance.”

“Sounds like we should talk more outside of bluetooth printing, vague wall knocks, and horrible Spotify playlists,” Seokjin playfully jostled you on his shoulder.

You curled your free arm around his elbow, snuggling in closer to his side, “We definitely should.”

You sat in the silence that came with observing the basket of haphazard animal magazines and the children’s play maze that consisted of tiny wooden beads on twirled metal tracks, the whisker hands of the cat shaped clock stuck to the front of the reception desk ticking by unbearably slow. The paw print clock showed the same drag of time, the ticking of the second counter in time with the bounce of your own leg.

Time means it’s something bad. Or it’s nothing. Or it’s something and it’s small. Of course, bringing him here was going to take time but—

“Looks like your little buddy here just had a tummy ache,” The vet reappeared holding your towel, the only difference being that there was a small white head now peeking up from between the rolled center. What was once lethargic was now energetic, head darting back and forth at he new surroundings with his tiny nose twitching to the overwhelming smells. “He puked a bit of something up but took to the carrots I fed him like he’d never ate before…”

There was a bit more exchange between the owner and the vet as she passed Gukmul into Seokjin’s care, just a reminder to keep an eye on him for at least another twenty-four hours and the instructions to give her a call on her personal cell phone if anything got worse. The exchange of credit card information, a few shards of carrot for the road, and Gukmul was bundled back up into his new pouch laid across Seokjin’s chest. He chattered happily on the careful trek to the care, noise happily placed between munches on the carrot the vet had given him.

You scratched underneath Gukmul’s chin before Seokjin closed the wire gate to his cage, standing so that he could drape an arm across your shoulders.

“I think he’s a faker,” Seokjin said finally, watching as the sugar glider hopped away into one of his hanging toys.

“Be nice!”

“What?” He grinned when you turned to him to swat his shoulder, “Had us risk our lives in the middle of an Antarctic winter storm just to get a couple shards of carrot. I would have bought him carrots after everything melted—”

You tugged on the lapel of Seokjin’s jacket, cutting him off long enough to roll onto your toes to plant your lips softly to his cheek. “It’s okay,” You soothed, brushing your thumb over where a blush spread outward from where your lips had touched his skin, “We made it, didn’t we?”

“Wait! That reminds me!”

You startled with the intensity that he blurted the statement, stepping back when he stepped away from you, too. You stood rooted in the spot as he stumbled around his bedroom, coming back with a piece of stationary in hand, one of red and green speckles this time. Black ink was written neatly to the paper this time, looping letters complete with the normal heart next to his signature at the bottom.

“It was a scavenger hunt but I don’t have the patience to wait while you do the other steps so—” Seokjin gestured vaguely to the paper in your hand, “—that’s the last clue.”

“Go to the kitchen,” You read, lifting your eyebrows first before your gaze, “Quite the clue.”

“Hush, do you want your gift or not?”

“I—”

You faltered when he began to direct you with hands firmly set on each of your arms, steering you out of his room, down the hallway, and around the bend of the kitchen. It was a push and pull, forward a few steps on the tile, backward toward the plate of cookies he’d arranged on a plate shaped like a snowflake, forward one step and finally his grip left you.

“Okay, turn around. And look up.”

You saw his red tipped ears first, a color that spread over the entire surface of his skin in each area the longer he tried to smile at you. When you didn’t budge, his eyes flicked upward a few times, then his head jerked, then he blatantly pointed until you laughed.

“My present is a kiss?” You giggled, stepping closer to him.

“Yes, of course,” Seokjin’s pink features told a different story than the way he confidently reached for your waist, drawing you against him, “Only the best for you.”

“I didn’t think Gukmul was going to get sick and we were going to have this weird confession session in the lobby of the vet’s office. This was me, what do they say...shooting my shot?” One hand came up to cup your cheek, “I was going to lure you in here naturally with my impeccable charm but...this is cute and romantic too? Right?”

You touched your lips to Seokjin’s to dispel the last of uncertainty that still saturated heavy in his tone.

#bts reactions #bts scenarios #bts imagine #bts x reader #bts fluff #seokjin imagine #seokjin x reader #jin imagine #jin x reader #seokjin fluff #jin fluff #fic: footnote better together #i hope u enjoy!!! as always lmk what u think :-)

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doomedandstoned · 3 years

Text

Chatting with Austin’s Shitbag

~Doomed & Stoned Interviews~

By Shawn Gibson

In his never ending quest to find the filthiest bands from around the world, Shawn Gibson brings us face-to-face, virtually speaking, with frontman Keith Young from Austin, Texas trio SHITBAG. The band dishes out a harsh blend of crust, grindcore, hardcore, and sludge, a sound you may already be acquanted with if you've heard their new EP Burden on Transylvanian Recordings. (Editor)

SHITBAG - BURDEN by SHITBAG

So why are you a Shitbag? What's the name all about?

I guess when I came up with the name, the thought was that Shitbag was a person I didn't want to be and I lived in fear of becoming. It's a catchy two syllable band name. (laughs)

Oh very catchy!

Half of it's just taking the piss right?

Oh yeah.

People think it's great or they think it's really fucking stupid.

I love the name Shitbag. It grabs your attention. It is so fitting for your style of music, the sludge-grind duo.

Definitely. The idea was to get a very dirty sound from the start. The name stuck with me. You can tell from some of our earlier releases to hone the sound but you can see that it's falling into place. I think we were zeroing in on the sound on the album we put out last year.

Which was 'Furnace,' right?

Correct.

Your latest release 'Burden' is out now.

Yes, that's now through Transylvanian Records.

Awesome, they are a good label! I have definitely heard of them and have some of their artists' music. So is 'Burden' your third release?

I guess it's our fourth, if you count the first EP. We don't really push that one out anymore.

Furnace by Shitbag

'Furnace' is a really good album! I think I bought all your digital albums on Bandcamp.

Oh, thank you.

I definitely fell in love with the sound! "Emasculator" is a great sludge song from the record Can you tell me a little about that one?

It is about castration. The riff was a fun thing I kind of threw out there. I told Eli our drummer this is in 4/4 and he said" it is absolutely not, I can try to play along to it anyways." As usual, he did. the different pieces kind of fell into place. The bass guitar always stuck out to me on that one. The speed of the song and the mix we got on those recordings allows the bass to shine through I think. Also, I think that might be one of my favorite vocal performances off of Furnace as well.

Who all is in the band and what roles do they have?

So I play guitar and vocals. Eli Deitz plays drums and Eric Prescott plays bass.

I would say 'Burden' sounds heavier than 'Furnace.' Can you tell me about your guitars and the set up you use for writing and recording?

Oh, sure!

What are you using to get that Shitbag sound?

So first off I think it's worth noting that we recorded Burden at a different location and we had more power at our fingertips. The guitars definitely did get beefed up. For the first two releases I had been playing a Randall RH 150 with a Randall 150 amp head. It gets this really nasty distortion right out of the box, you don't need a distortion pedal, which is pretty convenient. It wasn't reliable at high volumes. That was becoming a problem more and more playing alongside Eric, as he was playing an "O-R something" Orange head and also running that through an HM2 and some fuzz stuff in front of it, as well. He gets a very loud, snarling bass tone.

He's covering the low end, but there's an intersection where the guitars and bass compete when we are playing live. So I needed something that I could crank up just to keep up. The Randall wasn't cutting it. May of last year I purchased a Sunn Coliseum 880. That was great but I needed to beef up my cabinet setup. Before I had been playing out of a Laney 4x12 with two different Celestion speakers and an old Marshall 2x15. The Celestion speakers are just not cut out for running something like a Coliseum880. At 4 ohms I think it's already at 230 watts.

Oh, wow!

That is when I moved up to a Worshipper 4x12. It's an Intown establishment, and some good friends of mine run it. They got me a new cabinet in 8 to 12 weeks. Kinda crazy to think about from what I heard from Dillon at Worshipper they had good business during the pandemic.

That is great! I love to hear that everyone's keeping up the practicing at home.

Yeah, It definitely has a silver lining. I got a 4x 12 and I'm trying to remember what speakers are in it. My technical knowledge of that stuff is a little limited, I'll be honest. I went with Dillon's recommendation. I told him what I was using currently, this is what I want out of it. I already have a 2x15 cabinet so I don't need a whole shit ton of low end power coming out of the 4x12. He kind of went with something that had the right profile and could handle 320 watts. After that was the matter of finding a distortion pedal, because Sunn Coliseums don't really have a built in distortion the way a Randall does. For a while I was a really great distortion pedal that does all kinds of great stuff the Earthquaker device's grey channel.

It has six different clipping presets, clipping diodes, and you can do just about everything from straight up gain to kind of a fuzzy effect to full-on Moss clipping diode, which does the whole balls to the wall heavy metal thing. Great diversity on that pedal but it wasn't quite hitting the right spots. I went to a Boss HM2 and was very reluctant to do so because I know everyone does those. I ran that with a Graph equalizer like I would any distortion pedal. I made it not sound like I'm playing in tuned riffs. That's my equipment set up and how it evolved from Furnace to Burden.

Awesome, thank you. Something that attracted me to Shitbag's music is the sludge is the jelly and the grind is the peanut butter that makes this great Shitbag sandwich. There are moments in your music that it is as thick as swamp mud, then the next it's firing out like bullets out of an AR-15!

Hell, yeah!

Cordycep by Shitbag

With that being said you have a song like "New Day" that's grind as fuck, clocking in at a minute long, just blasting through! Then you have songs like "Rogue Furnace" that's right up the sludge/doom alley clocking in at 15-minutes, 20-seconds. Shitbag has a really great balance between different styles in your music.

Well, thank you!

What bands influenced Shitbag's music?

Yeah, so I think the time I was getting into sludge and doom in my college days and I came across Primitive Man.

Oh, yeah!

I grew up listening to death metal and shit like that.

Me too!

The way they threw that together with just oppressive doom sound. It was something I had never heard before. I instantly heard that and said"this is the future." I don't want to shit on anything but Black Sabbath has been around 50 years and that sound has been around 50 years.

Newer and current bands are still using that sound, yeah.

Maybe I shouldn't disparage it, right? Even the stuff I'm drawing influence from is 30 years old now. Maybe I shouldn't say it that way. I think it's a matter of pervasiveness rather than how old something is. There are a lot of bands in the sludge/doom canon that are like, "Black Sabbath, hell yeah!"

You can find lots of music that was coming out of the death and grindcore scene in the '80s, '90s, and 2000s that had very slow, lurching oppressive moods. To me, it's not so much a matter of the notes that are being played or the rhythms, it's the atmosphere. So yes Primitive Man, God Flesh, they are a big one. I'm a big fan of Assuck, Dystopia, and Grief. Then a lot of older death metal shit, too. Napalm Death, Eric and Eli loved Entombed. Full Of Hell is tight as shit, too!

Yes they are! By chance have you heard of Clinging To The Trees Of A Forest Fire?

Oh yeah, yeah.

I thought you might, being they were before Primitive Man. Great shit, as well!

Every band of theirs that the members of Primitive Man have been in that I have checked out, I have been very much into.

Vermin Womb, Many Blessings...

John put out an album with a death metal band called Black Curse last year that I thought was fucking phenominal!

I'll have to check that out! I like just about everything across the board, personally.

You are mentioning that we're striking this blend, we are not even playing the same genre through the whole EP. It's kind of like there's moments where it's one thing then there's moments where it's another. I think the more important thing is that it sounds like a cohesive thing. I hope we manage to do that.

You do! Shitbag has it's own sound that is unique to you guys!

Well, thank you!

I stumbled upon Shitbag's music on Bandcamp on Fathers Day. I saw the song title "Fathers and Sons" off of Burden and thought, "That's no coincidence -- I need to check this band out!" I was wondering if you can tell me a little about that track?

The song is about grappling with father and son relationships that are, I don't want to say estranged but you know trying at times. That was something that was a really big deal for me over the past year and a half, cause my mother passed away at the end of 2019.

I am sorry to hear that!

Thank you. When you have a death in the family like that, there is a lot of time for reflection that comes about. That's where the concept came about. I would not say that it's entirely autobiographical, there is definitely some exaggeration in there. We had the music for the song written and we couldn't figure what to write the lyrics about. I was just spitballing ideas and concepts to Eli. That was the one he said, "Yeah, I'm not really a fan of this draught but this is the concept to go with. Keep going with this."

Historically, I think I have been a weak lyricist. I would not call myself good by any means. We definitely made that part of the writing more collaborative process. Like the music has always been with us. We ironed out the words with each other so it felt a lot better. We came out with something more polished.

I understand completely.

A little graciousness opens yourself up. I think it's true with lyrics, as well. You probably don't have people say that to you very often, I imagine. I think it's especially true with lyrics when you're trying to make something that's personal and vulnerable. Having someone say, "Hey I would word that differently!" YOU MOTHERFUCKER!

Exactly. (laughs)

Take a step back from the initial knee-jerk response and just let it sit. You can really go places with that. I think lyrics are different just because people are not accustomed to making themselves vulnerable in that way.

What bands from Austin and surrounding areas that are heavy and you love to see them play or play with?

Let's see... Zyclops, really fucking great! There's bands like Glassing, Inhalants, Portrayal Of Guilt.

Yep, familiar with them.

There's a band called Godshell, they are new. I saw them play at a house show in North Austin in a living room full of people younger than myself. A crowd that was young enough to make me feel old. They played an outstanding fucking show! Those guys are rad live! There's also Metal Abortion, who is a pretty fun noise core band that Shitbag has played with a couple times. They put on a hell of a show and they have some crazy fucking records, too!

We have had the pleasure of playing many great shows with Desist on account of Shitbag and Desist being the two "Austin sludge" bands. Lucas is an outstanding vocalist and an even better human being. I don't know if Desist has been active through the pandemic but word is they have shit in the works. Another band forming a major constellation in the Austin shit-verse is the crusty blackened thrash outfit Vacha. Every show we've played with them was a fucking barn buner. I have nothing but love for all those dudes! Special shout out to Carlos for his God-like endurance behind the kit.

What makes Shitbag laugh? What's funny to you guys?

Oh, man. Eli and I have decided that a good way to get around when I bring a riff and don't know the time signature, is that we count everything in one. There 's no more time signature.That's a fairly recent joke. There are times at practice instead of playing a Shitbag riff with the distortion and everything balls out, I will go to the clean channel and push on the wah pedal and play with a funky staccato thing.

Hell yeah!

I think everyone else finds it annoying.

I have always enjoyed when the one guy in the band during practice either gets funky or jazzy, one of the two.

There is also something that Eli does that is fucking histarical. He never warns me he's going to do it. We will be in the middle of a song in the intense parts of the song he slips in the ba-dum tiss like a joke was told. When he nails it it's really a special thing.

Well, Keith that is all I have for you. Thank you again for your time!

Thank you very much, Shawn! The cassettes are available through Transylvania Recordings and Bandcamp. They are up for pre-order. I am not sure when those pre-orders will be in. There are some delays.

Several bands and labels having a tough time with vinyl getting pressed and shipping, too.

If you order the cassette you will get it eventually. I hope there is new music to announce in the near future.

We hope so, too!

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#D&S Interviews #Shitbag #Austin #Texas #doom patrol #sludge #metal #punk rock #Shawn Gibson #Transylvanian Recordings

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infinite-hearts-333 · 4 years

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Masked Love Chapter 1

Sander sides, Rociet, Human/Magical AU

WARNING: mentions of past dehumanising, reference to PTSD flashback??, um bullying reference.

Masterpost

~~18/5/2022 6:37am (Present time)~~

“Janus?”

Janus grumbled, pulling the weighted blanket over his head more as what sounded like his mama's voice filled his too-tired, half asleep brain. “Noooooooooo….”

“Janus! JANUS! I know you're awake up there!!”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” Janus groaned back, pulling the blanket tighter over his head.

“JANNIE IF YOU DON'T LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER I’LL COME UP THERE WITH THE COLD BORE WATER AGAIN~!” Came the singsong voice of his mom, and Janus full on scrambled out of bed, covers sent flying and he had to double check his claws to ensure they didn’t ensnare on anything through his half sleepy, half panicked daze.

“COMING! COMING!! Yesh….” he called, before grumbling, yawning, completely use to the soft popping of his unhinged jaw, forked tongue tasting the air. Waffles…. Mmmmm….

He quickly got ready, body automatically from routine, getting changed into his clothes- a lime turtle neck, black jacket with pins and patches attached, sunflower yellow beanie, skinny black jeans and his boots. He hummed a loose tune as he moved, alike to clock work, moving to turn to his bed, tugging the poor flinged sheets back into the right position, snatching up his stuffed dragon that had fallen onto the floor and placing it on top of his pillow gently.

Janus’s room was, in fact, the attic. His mum and mama weren't… expecting him when he showed up, but they took him in and loved him all the same. The rickety old house they had didn't have enough rooms for Janus to move into when he got older, so his parents spent ages rebuilding the attic for him. You could tell in some places- the seams where the wall met the roof weren't all the same size, the floorboards ran crookedly rather than straight, there were chips in both the walls and the floor where the wood wasn’t smooth.

But janus loved his room. It was cosy- there different metals and CD disks strung up which glinted like precious gems under the sky window, he had a large rainbow flag hanging over his bed in the corner, fairy lights stuck on the wall all around the room. Boxes upon boxes peeked out of his bed, filled to the brim with the most random things, leaves, feathers, stones, shells, bones, name it, Janus probably had it.

Walking to where his room ended, a wall with a human sized hole in the floor, he paused by the mirror, only to wrinkle up his nose in disgust at what he saw staring back. Janus was actually pretty handsome, nice clear tanned skin, brilliant eyes that shined lime and forest green and firefly yellow all at the same time. Chestnut hazel hair that hung in ruffled curls framed his face. He was strong, a little buff and according to his mother and mamma, quite the personality. But there were two things.

Janus’s jaw. It faded into the most horrid shade of olive green, splotches of lime, deep forest green and the colour of dying cactuses for scales, littered across the bottom half of Janus’s face. Two gross dusty pink scars ran from the corners of his mouth, stretching out and curling, nearly to touch his ears, one on each side. Darting in and out of his abnormally large fanged mouth was a forked blue tongue, fading into pink at the back of his mouth, the slightest sign that janus was once human.

He softly sighed, turning away to wander to the wall, and so the holes well, jumping through it to land on the couch flawlessly. “Morning.” He mumbled to the two females cooking and giggling at each other. “Morning' darling~!” called Mamma, smiling brightly. “Did you sleep well, little snek-a-doodle?” Teased his mum, smiling warmly as she parted from her partner to ruffle her adopted son's hair.

Janus smiled back up at her, and couldn't ignore the pang of happiness when all he found in mum's eyes was love. “We made waffles for your big day!” Chimed Mamma, beaming as she worked at the stove.

Ah. Right. High school. Janus groaned, leaning back to painfully donk his head against the wall. “Do I have to go?” He whined. “Yup!” his mum said, popping the ‘p’. Janus rolled his head off the wall, allowing his eyes to drop to problem number two in his life. His hands. Or well…. Talons.

Janus’s hands, a lot like his jaw dyed into that horrid olive colour, splattered with scales. He had four ‘fingers’ instead of five, each ending with a large sharp claw that was almost an ivory green if held in the right light. Scars lined his hand where the scales started, signs that janus wasn’t born with these abnormal features.

His mum then slapped him over the head with a rolled up newspaper. “OW! Hey!!!!!” snapped Janus. His mum raised an eyebrow. “You were pulling the face you make when you're judging yourself. And I'm having none of that. You're beautiful, fullstop.” she narrowed her eyes at him, daring him to prove her wrong. Janus chuckled. “Guilty as charged.” he hummed, standing to walk over to their small island counter.

His mom huffed, nodding, walking alongside her son, combat boots making a soft thumping noise on the tiles. Janus hid a wince as the sound of clicking heels entered his mind.

Click, click, click.

He swallowed, sitting. “Here you go!!” chirped Mamma, smiling as she placed the plates down. “Thank you dear.” Mom said softly kissing Mamma’s cheek on her way past. “Thanks mamma.” Janus chipped in, trying not to show his teeth while he smiled. Mamma beamed, swirling around to plop down in her seat.

Janus reached out to grab the berries, randomly dropping them over the waffles. He was cautious, ensuring he didn’t open his mouth too wide, taking in small little bites. Mum started talking about what she would be doing while Janus was at school, working on the new barley crops. “Those darn aphids! They've been going off everywhere!!!” Janus slowly chewed on a piece of blue berry.

“I think you're gonna need to get some pest spray mum.” Janus pointed out. Mamma nodded. “Do you want me to pick some up honey? I’m going into town anyway for some more mango seeds.”

Janus smirked against his milk glass, washing down the waffles. “Again with the Mangos Mamma?”

Mamma shrugged, smiling. “I want to make some jams! And maybe I might try making mango sorbet again.” Janus grinned. “Yes please!” His gaze flickered to the clock on the wall, and he sighed. “Well, as much as I hate it, I should go.” he said with a huff, shovelling the last of the waffles into his mouth and drowning the milk.

“Okay darling, have a nice day!” Mamma said with a smile. “See you this afternoon ‘kay snek-a-doodle? You’ll help me with the cows again?” Janus smirked, collecting his plate and glass. “Absolutely.” he stated, placing his dishes in the sink. “See you this afternoon!” he called, snatching up his gloves and mask off their hanger and then scooping up his bag.

He swung his bag half on, fumbling to put on his yellow gloves. They were bulky and too big to allow room for his claws, a black band around the start of the four fingers and wrist to prevent slipping and looked ridiculous, but it was better than exposing his features to the world. He had to be careful, pausing to ensure none of his scales got caught on the fabric. He then put on his mask, a simple also yellow fabric that covered his mouth and nose. He then twisted to reach into his front pocket of his bag, pulling out his earphones and lime mp3 player, shoving the buds into his ears and turning it on, blasting the music at the highest volume.

[ 🎶 Looking for an exit in this world of fear

I can see the path that leads away

Mama never left, and daddy needs me here

I wish the wind would carry a change

Looking through the window to a world of dreams

I can see my future slip away

Honey you won't get there if you don't believe

I wish the wind would carry a change 🎶 ]

He wandered through the fields of crops and fields of animals, waving a hello to the farmer next door. Michel, his name was, he grows the best peaches. He guessed that there was a satisfying crunch as Janus jumped from a small ledge down onto the orange autumn leaf-covered road. Wandering along the side of the road, Janus quietly hummed along to his music all the way to the bus stop. He quickly checked the suns position, having done it many many times, relieved to find he was on time and the bus should be here any minute.

[ 🎶 I've had enough

I'm standing up

I need, I need a change

I've had enough

Of chasing luck

I need, I need a change 🎶 ]

Sure enough the death machine, painted yellow and screeching nearly as loud as its passengers came swerving around the corner, somehow audible through Janus’s music, metal rusted gears screaming as the beast came to a halt. That thing was definitely gonna kill people one day. Janus huffed, climbing the rickety steps and flashed his card at the bus driver, who looked like he had been going for six months without sleep and would snap someone's neck.

They traded nods, having known each other since Janus first ‘moved’ to the country. They never really spoke to each other, but traded nods, ‘hey’s’, and ‘mood’s’ so he was cool. Janus sat right behind the bus driver, dumping his bag next to him so no one would take the seat next to him. Not that it was necessary, everyone actively avoided him. He then maintained his death glare, slipping it on as easily as putting on his mask.

Some kids, janus found, take enjoyment in throwing things at the bus driver, so janus took it upon himself to protect the bus driver from the nuisances, and in return, once the bus driver found out, he would keep the passengers from taking the spot so Janus wasn't forced to sit next to anyone.

[ 🎶 I'm setting fire to the life that I know (I know)

Let's start a fire everywhere that we go (we go)

We starting fires,

We starting fires till our lives are burning gold 🎶 ]

Janus sat, guarding the busdriver and spacing out till he felt the bus sharply halt. Hip hip hooray for hell. He sighed, standing up and wandered off the bus, bidding farewell to the busdriver with a small nod of the head. He turned his attention to his new problem.

The school's shadow engulfed him standing tall over him, and a part of janus feared it may crumble and crush him. People were chatting, boys flirting and betting, bullies shoving random people and dropping curses. Janus’s personal hell. Well, here goes nothing!

[ 🎶 I've had enough

Of chasing luck

I need, I need a change 🎶 ]

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cosmic-goddess-leo · 4 years

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heyaa! about the fluff thing, maybe smth like with kuroo, listening to some music and his s/o singing along to it and only then kuroo notices what a good singer she is and he asks her for a private concert and is so in awe and totally blown away by how talented she is and showers her with affection... (sorry if this is oddly specific xD) hope you are doing well! stay safe and keep up the good work :)

Ugh I love this wtf. Dropping a read more link because I’m including lyrics.

Kuroo’s midterm routine typically consisted of buckets of takeout, a couple mugs of coffee, and extremely loud music. This normally wasn’t an issue for (Y/n), especially since he typically used noise-cancelling headphones his parents had gotten him for graduation.

(Y/n) silently thanked them every time he used them rather than blasting music through their shared apartment. Unfortunately he had left those headphones at home during his last visit, and he was too busy to make the trip back home for them.

Which of course meant he would be locked in his and (Y/n)’s bedroom, listening to music on his speakers while (Y/n) did her work in the dining room. With the door closed the music was at a tolerable volume, the words of each song muffled but still comprehensible.

Soon enough, (Y/n) found herself tapping her pencil on her note sheet to the rhythm of each song, songs she had learned by heart after knowing Kuroo since they entered high school.

Without even realizing it, she had begun singing along to the familiar tunes, the words flowing past her lips without any thought or effort.

“Some people think they're always right Others are quiet and uptight Others they seem so very nice nice nice nice (oh-ho) Inside they might feel sad and wrong (oh no)

Twenty-nine different attributes Only seven that you like Twenty ways to see the world (oh-ho) Twenty ways to start a fight (oh-ho)

Her head bobbed with the tempo, her voice picking up as the singer’s voice raised in pitch.

Oh don't don't don't get up I can't see the sunshine I'll be waiting for you, baby 'Cause I'm through

She was now shamelessly singing at full volume, unaware of her boyfriend who has snuck out of the bedroom once he heard her voice echoing through the apartment.

Sit me down Shut me up I'll calm down And I'll get along with you”

The music in the other room abruptly paused as Kuroo tapped at his phone’s screen, a wide smile gracing his features as (Y/n)’s head whipped around in his direction.

“Damn, babe! Been together 5 years and I’ve never heard you sing! What gives?” he teased, sitting in the chair beside her.

(Y/n) groaned and held her head in her hands, her elbows propped against the table. “That! That’s why, because you make a big show of it and embarrass me!”

Kuroo snickered as he scooted closer and took hold of her hands, attempting to pry them away from her face so he could see her. “Baby I would never, that was amazing! You sound so pretty!”

(Y/n) groaned once more, allowing Kuroo to take her hands and reveal her face. She was sending a slight glare his way, lips pursed as she pouted at his words.

“Do it again.” he smiled, bringing her hands to his lips and planting sweet kisses on her knuckles.

“Oh, absolutely not!” She announced, pulling her hands away and returning her attention to her notes.

“Pleaaase?” Kuroo begged, leaning in close, “I’ll never ask for another private concert like this again. Just this once and you can go on with your studying, okay?”

(Y/n) thought it over for a second, knowing Kuroo would definitely spend the rest of the night bugging her about it until she caved in. And she couldn’t have that, she had a paper to right.

“Okay... one song, then we go back to studying.” She said sternly, trying her best to hide her smile as Kuroo nodded eagerly and sat back in his seat, his eyes never leaving her.

(Y/n) thought over a song to sing, settling on the first thing that came to mind. She took her pencil and began tapping to the rhythm of the song in her head as she sang. A small smile crept onto Kuroo’s features as he recognized the song instantly.

“Ten decisions shape your life You'll be aware of 5 about 7 ways to go through school Either you're noticed or left out 7 ways to get ahead 7 reasons to drop out

She glanced up at Kuroo nervously during the slight pause, opting to stare at the logo on his t-shirt rather than directly into his eyes.

When i said I can see me in your eyes You said I can see you in my bed That's not just friendship that's romance too You like music we can dance to

Sit me down Shut me up I'll calm down And i'll get along with you”

(Y/n) glanced back up at Kuroo, who only nodded for her to continue, his eyes boring into her. She continued singing the song, her voice never faltering as the way Kuroo watched her with awe filled her with a surge of confidence.

Kuroo felt a twinge of disappointment as (Y/n) neared the end of the song. He knew he’d have to keep his promise and go back to studying in the bedroom, but after hearing a voice like that, all he wanted to do was stay and hear more.

The last verse of the song brought him out of his thoughts, each note flowing like golden honey from his love’s plush lips.

“Sit me down Shut me up I'll calm down And i'll get along with you”

(Y/n) not tapped her pencil nervously, searching Kuroo’s features for any kind of reaction. His gaze was as intense as usual, an emotion only familiar to her swirling in the depths of his irises. His lips were parted, as if some words or turns of phrase were caught on the tip of his tongue in a struggle to escape.

All he could manage to do was smile breathlessly at her as he let out a puff of air he didn’t realize he had been holding in. “5 years together and you still manage to surprise me...”

(Y/n) slowly smiled at his words before she bit her lip and looked down at her notebook. Kuroo stood up and leaned over her. His hands cupped at her cheeks and tilted her head so she could look deep into his eyes.

He brought her into a searing kiss, pouring all his unspoken emotions into the intimate action before parting for air.

The two smiled breathlessly at one another, breath fanning against each other’s faces until he strokes her cheeks with his thumbs and released her. “You don’t have to do that again... but I’d love to hear that beautiful voice of your’s more often...” Kuroo confessed. He then turned to the bedroom and left (Y/n) to her work.

This time, he didn’t close the bedroom door. He let his music flow freely through the apartment in an invitation that was (Y/n)’s to decline or accept. (Y/n) could feel a smile tugging at her lips as another familiar song began to play on his speaker.

“Tap on my window, knock on my door I wanna make you feel beautiful...”

#ask #request #Kuroo Tetsurou #kuroo tetsuro x reader

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rasoir-national · 4 years

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Song ask meme

Got tagged by @antirococoreaction (get some sleep, you heathen) to list 10 songs I’ve been listening a lot to lately, so unfortunately I now have to expose my gothy self for all to see. That’s like, the law of Internet.

1) “Letter from the lost days” by Akira Yamaoka and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn : in terms of pure volume, the type of music I listen to the most is always going to be the music I put on when I study. Video games music is supposed to be the best for concentration, so I revolve around a few favourites : the soundtrack to Hollow Knight (my favourite game of all times, if anyone’s curious), Pathologic 1&2, and everything from the Silent Hill series. Personally, I think the soundtrack to Silent Hill 3 is the most musically accomplished, and this song in particular is just a very heartbreaking contemplation of future and past hope, and tied to a wonderful scene in the game.

2) “Do you remember the first time ?” by Pulp : I’m mostly meh when it comes to 90s brit rock, but Pulp is the one band who never let me down. I actually prefer them when they’re sincere and vulnerable rather than blatantly sarcastic and angry, like in Common People or Razzmatazz, two songs I love but will never move me the way DYRTFT does. Despite the fact that this is sung by a man and textually about a woman, I refuse to believe Pulp did not intend for this to be a queer anthem about being in love with someone who settled for a straight relationship. Who even uses “straight” in another sense anymore ? Come on.

3) “50ft Queenie” by PJ Harvey : everyone needs a fuck you anthem to blast when they want to walk around feeling like they’re untouchable. This is mine. Got catcalled ? Had a bad day ? I just put this on and headbang to the idea of me being a giant smashing people as I roam the street. Also PJ Harvey is the sexiest rocker of all times and that’s a fact.

4) “Sparks” by Faith and the Muse : another damn sexy song, and one of my most consistent favourites. It had shown up in my most listened to spotify playlist every year without fail since 2016. I tend to favour the more “artsy/world/whatever” side of the goth genre, so this is a permanent tie between this and the entire Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil, and Cocteau Twins discography.

5) “Sari Sari Raat” by Narmeen Niazi : a “disco” song inspired by South-Asian traditional music, sung in Urdu, that prefigures what the entire New Wave will be like ? Yes please. I wish I was more knowledgeable when it comes to South Asian music, but I’m slowly making my way through it. Interesting to know that sounds and techniques that have been hailed as “revolutionary” in western mainstream music have been part of Souh and East Asian musical tradition for literal centuries.

6) “La ballade des pendus”, poem by Francois Villon, sung by Serge Reggiani : there’s a large tradition of french singers adding tunes to old french poems. Here, we’re going waaaaay back, as Villon is one of the oldest french poets whose oeuvre was preserved. This particular ballad is from the point of view of hanged men on the gallows. It wouldn’t be french if it wasn’t vaguely gross. I’ve got an entire playlist worth of the same material. In that spirit, I’d like to remind everyone that my mom sang me old french songs when I was a kid, one of which opens with the line : “King Renaud comes back from war holding his bowels in his hands”. So if you’re wondering where all of...this *gestures at entire self* comes from, there may be something there.

7) “A better son/daughter” by Rilo Kiley : I spent the last 2 years heavily depressed, but trying to get better, and this is my catharsis song, the one is play when I need a good cry that also makes me feel better and hopeful. This song is for me forever associated to wandering around the psychiatric ward, thinking of the people I let down, how hard I’m trying, how they might not see it, and whether or not there’s even a “better” for me. Reader, there was. This is a song for the times you are convinced you won’t live through the year, but you’d like to think that maybe, maybe, there’s a chance.

8) “That’s how I got to Memphis” by Tom T. Hall : I actually listen to a lot of country music, probably because Western is my favourite film genre aside from Horror. This one is a bit super nostalgic for me, as french singer Eddy Mitchell recorded a french version of this song with different (and might I say, much more elaborated) lyrics which I listened the shit out of when I was a kid, but which has been so tied to traumatic memories that I stopped being able to listen to it when I was a teenager (that’s why I’m not linking it, but you should give it a listen). So I was very happy to discover there was an original version, one I could listen to without reactivating my PTSD. Tom T. Hall’s intonation on the last “Memphis” of the song breaks me everytime.

9) “Yamore” by Salif Keita and Cesaria Evora : absolute classic. I listen to a lot of West African music when I study as well, especially at night, when I need a reason to stay awake. There are so, so many versions of this song, but this one remains my favourite, although I quite like Gambari’s version as well. Salif Keita is in a permanent rotation with Rokia Traoré’s first album, Mayra Andrade and basically everything by Ali Farka Touré. Highly recommend checking him out if you’re not familiar and you like instrumentals.

10) “No Choir” by Florence+the machine : Florence’s last album is my favourite from her, and its conclusion is just the perfect note to end on. For someone who is so good at turmoil and passion, Florence captures the simplicity and fragility of happiness like no artist I’ve ever heard before. Hand to god, I listened to the entire High as hope album every single day last year, as my mental health was getting better and I was measuring the path I’d walked. I will be happy when Florence makes another album, but also kind of sad, because this feels like such a perfect ending point for her career, the storytelling of her personal struggle, that happened, for a period of time, to parallel mine. Wow, this got personal. Anyway, ily Florence.

This list ended up more diverse than I thought ! I was afraid it would make me look like a monomaniacal darkling, but my tastes seem to have widened a bit, which is good.

As for the tagging... God, do I even know ten people in real life ? Ok, i’m tagging @seitosatoko, @oh-and-this, @saintjustitude, @fanfeline, @ghostplantss, @pilferingapples, @antoinethejust, @desmoulins-suggestions and everyone else who wants to do it. Sorry if you already got tagged by someone else, again, I’m new here.

#personal stuff #music #god i love music so much

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ducktracy · 4 years

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105. into your dance (1935)

release date: june 8th, 1935

series: merrie melodies

director: friz freleng

starring: joe dougherty (stuttering dog), tedd pierce (poet)

one of the very few times joe dougherty does a voice for someone that isn’t porky or his father—he’d voice a stuttering bird in i love to singa. also interesting to note that tedd pierce has a vocal credit, story writer for friz freleng, bob mckimson, and chuck jones (he was actually the source of inspiration for pepé le pew). he’d go on to do voices in a handful of shorts, including babbit (a parody of abbott from the comedy duo abbott and costello) in a tale of two kitties, tale of two mice, and the mouse-merized cat. a relatively plotless cartoon, a showboat is putting on a variety of vaudeville acts.

i love the reflection of the lights in the water! a showboat paddled it’s way through the moonlit waters, chuffing out steam in rhythm to the underscore. it passes through a waterfall, still chuffing to the music but sounding submerged and watery. the boat passes by a dock of cheering fans.

the song number “into your dance” is introduced by four blackface caricatures—what is it about steamboats and blackface?? first hittin’ the trail to hallelujah land, then buddy’s show boat, and now this. i know it was seen as a vaudeville norm back then (not that that excuses it) but still. anyway, they dance on a stage, a banner reading “CAPTAIN BENNY’S SHOW BOAT”. the synchronization between the music, animation, and sound effects is very well done. captain benny distributes tickets to those coming aboard.

footage recycled from shake your power puff (but now colorized) shows the crowd settling in for the show, the pit orchestra warming up. captain benny ambles out onto stage, introducing “folks! we have with us tonight the world’s most popular orchestra leader—take it away!”

a jolly pig caricature of paul whiteman leaps out onto the stage, clasping his hands together and shaking them for the glory. the audience is receptive, pummeling him with a shower of tomatoes and laughs. the animation is very well done of the pig dodging the tomatoes, twirling around and trying not to get blasted. tentatively he tiptoes back onto stage, greeted with more laughter and more tomatoes. the scene is great—the audience laughter is obnoxious yet adds so much to it. much more than a simple chorus of boos.

he enters a third time, this time adorning a disguise of tinted glasses and a long beard. he’s met then with applause as he sinks into the orchestra pit and prepares to direct. he launches into “light cavalry overture”, animation solid as he directs. a squeaky trombone loudly breaks up the flow of the song on each ending note, much to the conductor’s visible chagrin. eventually, he knocks the player on the head offscreen, and no more interruptions are to be heard. this certainly feels like a tex avery cartoon, a lot like hamateur night. good! it has the same sardonic yet light-hearted fun.

while the song continues its exposition, a conniving dog ties the pig’s tail to an electrical cord. he turns the knob that starts the flow of electricity, and the pig is instantly electrocuted. look at the accomplished glee on that dog’s face! the conductor instantly launches into a very fast, high pitched, frantic rendition of “william tell overture” (which would also be used in the same vein 16 years later in ballot box bunny, another friz cartoon). it’s a lovely scene. all the orchestra players frantically attempt to keep up. an overworked turtle hammers away at the xylophone, the conductor twirls and jerks around in pain, the strings sections saw away at the strings... the song ends when a dog and a goat smash the conductor over the head with a violin and a trumpet respectively. the audience applauds.

next order of business is “amateur night”, captain benny emulating ted lewis by announcing “it’s only the beginning, folks! only the beginning!” a cow comes out onto stage and sings “shadow song” extremely poorly, her shrill voice piercing through the crowd. captain benny hits the bell backstage to end the act, but his singer won’t be pacified. she only stops when she gets the cane treatment, yanked so forcefully that her clothes float in place on stage. they, too, are hauled off.

next is an effeminate poet, voiced by tedd pierce. yeah, there’s a lot of shitty gay stereotypes in looney tunes, and i should probably take more offense to them than i do (speaking as a lesbian), but i love the incongruity between this guy’s tough appearance and his stereotypically effeminate voice. the spirit of tex avery is strong in this scene. he recites a poem, which goes something like this:

“hark, hark! a little birdie has begun to sing.”

a duck quacks offscreen.

“the north wind has ceased, for now it is spring!”

a huge gust of wind and snow barrels towards the poet.

“oh, look! the little birdie has started to fly.”

the poet flaps his wings, accompanied by the sound of an airplane plummeting to the ground.

“oh dear, i’m so happy, i almost could cry.”

a bell rings, and the poet puts up his dukes and begins to shadowbox. a boxing glove attached to an extended arm hits the poet on the head (a horseshoe inside the glove), and he too gets the cane treatment. a great scene. it’s all about timing, and the timing is just right. snappy, quick, funny. pierce’s happy delivery makes it even better. definitely one of the funnier scenes we’ve seen thus far, and really holds true to that looney spirit.

captain benny is chuffing on a pipe backstage, clearly unenthused at how the show has been unraveling. he (no pun intended) barks “NEXT!”, and a dopey dog (who looks like a distant relative of goofy’s) smiles eagerly. he whispers something into benny’s ear, pointing at some sort of invisible nuisance. benny goes to investigate, and the dog takes the bell off its hinges and stuffing it in his pants, knowing his act won’t be well received. he may not be as stupid as he looks after all!

slowly the dog ambles out onto stage, carefully tipping his hat with both hands. archetypal and stereotypical as his design is, you gotta love it. skinny neck, big collar, dopey yet contented gaze, rubbery legs and big floppy shoes... the lovable idiot, a go to for comedy. though they grow rather trite, there’s still something very endearing about them all these years later—beaky buzzard is a good example.

the dog (vocals provided by joe dougherty) sings “go into your dance” poorly, stuttering but still happy. the audience boos and jeers at him, but he isn’t offended in the slightest. he glances offstage to see if captain benny is watching, continuing on with his song. benny rushes over to the wings to see the catastrophe for himself, clutching his ears and preparing to smack the bell... which is currently hidden in the dog’s pants. he continues to sing poorly, at one point laughing “huhuhuh, it’s got me.”

good setup of the captain pacing around in agony backstage. his peg leg gets caught in a hole and he does a whole circuitous pace missing his peg, not at all showing any signs of struggle, once again picking up the leg when he returns to the hole. again, i guess i’m so used to seeing all of the dougherty-era porkys that his stutter doesn’t really annoy me. i certainly feel bad for him, but i also think that the authenticity adds to scenes like these. also, the pitch of his voice sounds relatively similar to how his porky would sound when the voice was finalized, maybe a little deeper than his voice in porky’s romance (his final cartoon). the dog’s sly, goofy, gleeful expression is perfect. he knows very well what he’s doing, and knows there’s nothing anything or anyone can do to stop him. it’s a very good premise.

finally, the dog tips his hat, met with absolute silence. the stands are empty. a great surprise, especially when boos and jeers and laughter flooded the performance throughout. you had no way of knowing that the audience left, except when the clamor quieter down with the final verse of “go into your dance”. dumbfounded, he scratches his head.

captain benny takes note of the absence of volume, too. he snags a board with a nail driven into it, chasing the dog off the stage, off the dock, and into the hills, whacking him repeatedly on the butt. iris out.

this was a REALLY enjoyable cartoon. i think it’s one of the best ones we’ve seen so far. it’s fun, it’s light-hearted, it’s snappy. it feels a lot like a tex avery cartoon, same witty execution. the highlights are definitely the final two acts, the poet reciting his incongruous poem and the stuttering dog gleefully singing to his powerless crowd. the electrified performance of “william tell overture” is also a plus. dougherty’s stutter works out well for the dog’s scene, even though it’s the butt of the joke. ultimately, a very high-energy, fun, happy cartoon. definitely worth a watch, though view at your own discretion for the blackface singers at the beginning. it isn’t too long, but any inclusion of blackface is inherently long.

link!

#lt #into your dance #reviews #long post #racism m #freleng

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empressxmachina · 4 years

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by Imperial-Radiance (that’s me :D) | On DeviantArt | Also On Wattpad

Time was passing, and Madi felt like her chances of being found were slowly declining with it.

She was sure that it was now too late for any normal N.U. patron to just walk around. But she also knew that anyone on the losing team itself, especially the coaches, had pretty much free reign to enter whenever, and whether the K.U. teams’ visiting reservations had expired already was unknown.

The facility was so grandiose, and the doors in the locker room to the halls were soundproofing as far as she knew. She assumed the latter since no one came in and called out her team’s antics in there before the game, despite them being absolutely loud and proud, and she could only wonder how they were after winning. So, there was no way for her to know whether someone was coming or if people were, possibly still, fighting outside.

Madi didn’t think of Jake as an idiot or anything; however, she didn’t believe that he or any of the team was clever enough to pack a non-K.U.-affiliated set of clothes to walk and talk around inconspicuously like she did for Cari. Thus, if any Nashers were just as heated now as they were before and approached him, then there was a high probability of him getting caught in a brawl of his own. Madi prayed that that wasn’t the case for him so he could find her. Meanwhile, she hoped it wasn’t so calm that any passersby would think nothing of the locker room and lock its doors and trap her in.

She had enough reasons to be generally anxious about, well, everything, and she didn’t need this to be more of a horror story.

In a move to keep her mind off such awful ideas, including the recently cyclical and grossly petty thought of a Knight finding her and holding her for threat-laced ransom, she decided to tiredly trek across the gummy floor, re-collect her scattered things together, huddle in the corner of a leg of a bench, and play some music on her phone with its battery coming in clutch.

Although her size was now alien, the music allowed her to keep some semblances of humanity and happiness since the only thing that changed about it was its volume. Yet, that wasn’t a concern, either. Despite her phone being as diminished as she was, its earbuds had kept their snug fit and crisp sound. Though, she was positive that if she removed them from their audio jack, then their sounds would carry through the room as much as her voice did, aka not at all.

Nevertheless, Madi kept her cool as well as she could, jamming out until a song that she had remembered being chill suddenly had a budding interjection of bass, sort of like a drum solo. It went well with the beat, but the last thing she needed at the moment was to be shaken by surprise from big vibrations. She looked at her phone to see if she had accidentally downloaded a remix, and she hadn’t. It wasn't until more bass came through that Madi was influenced to remove the buds and realized what was happening.

The song was inaudible, yet the resonations stayed, encompassing her. Someone had finally entered the locker room.

Aside from the distant, echoing squeaks of sneakers entering and the door closing behind them, the room was quiet. Yet, Madi would’ve bet that one would’ve been able to hear a pin drop before her voice if she spoke. It was too risky to just speak out or run into the light again. So, she waited for identification, and she found herself on a lucky streak.

“Madi?” the familiar but magnified voice of Jake asked with resonance. “Are you in here?”

“Y-Yes!” she cried in reply, leaning out into the open with her phone in hand and earbuds dragging across the tacky tiles behind her. “I’m here!”

In her attempt to be rescued, the cup-sized cheerleader verified how powerless she was. Her voice didn't even bounce off the nearest locker or reverberate in the hollow underside of the bench. That, or too much was in her way of him to reach him. Either way, it was unsurprising when Jake called out for her again.

“Mads?” he tried a second time, scurrying down the section of the locker room opposite and most distant from Madi to search. “Come on, now. Where are you, girl?” Madi could hear him jogging through the rows of lockers, getting further and further away from her and groaning along the way. “This is not the time for hide-and-seek. Give me something to work with.”

“I-I am, damn it! I'm not even close to playing a game right now!” Madi understood his frustrations, but hers were much worse.

To try marching to the end of her row to get closer to him, Madi started by detaching herself from the gross ground. The farther she went down the lane, the more she could hear her friend coming back up toward the intersection of lockers where the entrance stood. When she finally reached the end of the locker chain, Jake simultaneously arrived back at the beginning of his. Although he wasn’t in open view, back in front of the door, she was still finally able to see a semblance of his immense form, now on a godly level.

His facial features were too far away for Madi to perceive in a good resolution, but she could make out the top of a hat peeking over the tops of the lockers without Jake stretching. Meanwhile, Madi could barely reach the lower groove of one of their doors with her arms raised. But she didn't stop trying to get his attention, now flailing around like a marionette. At one point, she could tell that Jake had turned his head in her direction, and Madi's heart nearly exploded from hope and over-inflation.

“Does… Does he finally see me… or hear me, even?” she wondered, thirsting for release from this hell.

He lingered toward her side of the room for a lengthy amount of time, pulling at her heartstrings as he appeared to pull various poses of confusion in the chilled air above her. However, her hopes dropped when his eyes didn’t lock on hers and he began going toward the exit.

“Madeline Yu,” Jake started with a dark undertone, glancing down the first few rows on Madi’s side, barely being able to view further than the third pair of lockers on each and not even caring about it, “I swear to God if you are not in that last locker room, then I’m having your ass!”

Usually, Madi only heard Jake get heated like that in a late-night bedroom. But being out in the open and at such a small size, even if he didn’t know it, made him appear even more intimidating, almost hell-bent on punishing her.

“My cred on the field tonight is not going to save me from being fucking benched or some shit!” he continued. “Do you even know what I had to say for them to even let me come out here!?”

Madi hadn’t wanted Jake to lie, but she hoped that he didn't tell anyone anything too ridiculous. Yet, no matter what he said, it could never compare to the reality that was her shrunken self. Still, Jake was obviously angered, and if he stayed true to his tendencies, then it wouldn't be long before he stormed off. So, Madi had to figure something out quickly.

“For fuck’s sake, Jake!” she huffed, having to turn around and run to the other side of the aisle to even see him now. “Of all the times I’ve asked you to be a little bitch for me, you save your cue for right now!?”

As Madi ran along the lockers' sides, she could hear slams on metal, assumed to be Jake going back, doing a final once-over, rushing said search, and gripping on the corners of lockers to peek around them. If they both kept up their paces, then it wouldn't be too long before their sights intersected. However, just as she hoped wouldn't happen, the clanging stopped, and an echoing, exasperated sigh signaled Jake's forfeit.

“I'm not doing this!” he announced, throwing his hands up in defeat and disappointment and re-approaching the door. “There is nothing you could do that’s worth me making a fucking fool of myself!”

“No, no, Jake! Please!” Madi shrilled as she heard his footfalls begin to retreat away from her. Her pace back the other way hastened to fight his much longer strides but not without consequence.

That quickened pace resulted in her encountering the minefield that was the sea of spilled soda much faster than she would've hypothesized. With all her focus on getting to her now more humongous friend, it had been of little priority, despite a few millimeters of it probably being enough to down her outside and drown her inside. If she wasn't careful, then that was what it was going to do, as the itty-bitty beauty suddenly lost her balance and slipped, with her foot and ankle getting stuck on a particularly tacky but invisible spot.

Once again, she found herself wading in a bubbly batch, re-soaking her previously hardened cheerleading wear.

Gritting her teeth through the sprain in her ankle, she pushed up from the ground with one hand sunken in the Gak-like goop. Her other hand gripped her phone with its lengthy earbuds dangling behind it, now sticky and wet yet still playing barely audible tunes. Looking down at them gave her a one-shot-one-opportunity idea that was just insane enough to possibly work. Jake couldn’t hear her, but he could probably hear her phone.

“For the love of all things good,” Madi begged, clasping both hands over her heart, “please let those two semesters of Physics have some clout at this moment.”

Madi stared down her target in the distance: the stagnant slice of her carcinogen of a soda can. Its pop-top faced her and its cut that separated the two halves and flooded the floor. Channeling the spirits of both the football team and the baseball team, she yanked her headphones out of their jack, focused on the skateboard-sized sipping hole, and threw her now music-blasting phone toward it in a spin and at a speed that any coach of any sport would've been proud of.

Its flight through the air even impressed Madi, only having dealt with balls of a sporting nature on occasion. However, when the phone went right through its goal as she wanted, she couldn’t immediately celebrate with a touchdown dance.

Music was no longer playing. She didn’t think she had paused her playlist, and she didn’t hear the phone break on impact, but all she got back was silence. Not even an ad.

Quiet was her only companion, and thus her entire act of technical prowess was marked useless, making her wonder why she didn’t just try calling Jake again since that had obviously worked. With a presence lost in the wind and hopes shattered, there wasn’t anything else she could do. As the footsteps of her only chance of liberation grew further and further away to meet the creaking of an opening door, Madi dropped down to her knees and flopped back into the puddle of pop, her falling tears muffled by face-shadowing hands yet harmonizing with the retreating bass.

But just before the final boom of a door closing should’ve come, drowning out Madi’s minuscule whimpers, something else broke through the relative silence. Bouncing off the aluminum and inner plastic of the slashed cylinder, finally, after faulty buffering, the sound waves of a song from way-back-when rang.

The melody didn’t even have to finish its introduction to be instantly recognizable, and Jake, due to karaoke at orientation years ago, matched it right to a certain someone.

“Oh. So, you want me to find you, now?” he laughed, reclosing the cracked door and backing back into the room. “You know I can’t resist a sweet throwback, even one as poppy as this.”

Re-facing the expanse and the unseen music performance, he crossed his arms over his chest and began a new exploration, scanning the area for where the music was coming from or, more importantly, any sight of Madi. Through his refined searching, it was proving true, to his surprise, that the sound wasn’t emanating from any speaker Nash had, and his friend still wasn’t visible.

If her face wasn’t dripping in carbonated cola, causing her to really feel like the after-party garbage she thought she was, Madi would’ve laughed at his playful comments. Nonetheless, she praised the heavens for her luck ex machina. Now realizing that the chances of him finding her increased tenfold, she jumped to shake off excess brownness from her upper half, let adrenaline and hope distract her from her sprain, and trudge toward her phone to be more noticeable. Since the can had magnified the phone’s volume, she was confident it could magnify hers as well.

The question now was if she could even reach its opening and get to it.

“This can’t go on for too much longer, Mads,” Jake sighed, continuing the hunt. “If the cheerleaders left behind one of their own, then my team can easily do the same to me.”

As true as his remarks were and the vexation in his voice was apparent, Jake still had his friend’s safety as number one. She was here, or he was being played like a fiddle, and he wasn’t going to leave until he found out which was the truth.

With the cheerful tunes of younger years as a signal or a siren’s song, he pressed on, passing rows one-by-one, curiosity as high as he was tall. “Where in the hell are you?”

As Jake traversed deeper into the locker room, the music grew louder, dampening his footfalls, much to his liking. However, when it seemed to be coming from right next to him – right in front of him, once he turned to face it – no electronic appliance was visible, and neither was Madi. All that he was met with was a soda can’s suicide.

The husk of its metal body was split in two as its syrup blood spread in all directions. Yet, the music was apparent, somehow calling out to him by his feet. Despite how unusual it was, logic was pulling Jake only one way. So, that’s where he went, squatting with his heels down toward the sound.

The volume of the song increased as he did so, and moving some hair out the way of his ears only raised it more. With the new level of stimuli, however, what Jake didn’t expect to see was where it was coming from.

Through a withdrawn squint, he made out a small box making music and ripples in a tiny crater of liquid within the top half of the can. It was obviously more than just a box, but its size couldn’t have been larger than his fingernail or the now-closed piercing he thought was a good idea to get in high school. He rationalized the idea of the sounds bouncing off the can’s insides, yet the technological marvel still shouldn’t have been as loud as it was.

Jake began to reach and pinch it up for further inspection, partially fearful that he’d crush it upon contact, but he paused when he got distracted by another unexpected sight: some sort of tiny tendril flopping around through the can’s drinking opening.

The jock sat in awe of the tiny tentacle of sorts wiggling back and forth – a stamen of a flower with no stem in sight. While its narrowness resembled that of a sewing pin, its fluidity was like ribbon. Yet, there was something corporeal about it as it seemed driven to grab something, and the bitty box just in front of it looked like that thing. He considered pushing the box closer to the flailing feeler but thought against it in the end. The box had to be Madi’s, whatever it was, and until he found her, it was his.

All the while, Jake didn’t miss how the wee waver also appeared to be intentionally avoiding the hole’s surrounding edges as if it didn’t want to hurt itself, exemplifying some inner intelligence and keeping his eyes glued to it. Such an anomaly the animate vine was, intriguing enough for him to want to save its image and research it another day. But before capturing it on his phone’s camera came to mind, a new sight caught his eye. There was more to the flapping frond that just its calculated wiggles.

Despite it being soda-coated, Jake, somehow, made out a golden hue across its surface, one a bit too comparable to that of the pullover he was wearing.

More curious than ever now, Jake had to see this thing up close. Yet, he was too cautious to not make a move for it. After all, he wasn’t sure what it was. If it became necessary, then he could’ve easily used any of his lanky appendages to swipe, kick, or crush the minute limb or whatever being it was connected to. Though, he truly hoped it wouldn’t ever have to come to that. His broad, bulky stature told one story, but Jake was mostly a gentle soul, only ever bouncing back on a person if they bounced on him first in every sense of the term. With this thing, however, the odds of an attack appeared to be on his side, and he gambled on that confidence by leaning forward to get a better view, looking past the rim of its surrounding can to see what he was dealing with.

What he got was the last thing he ever expected, but it made Madi’s mania all the more valid.

A bantam hip of fallow hue with a sliver of an onyx etching down it peeked out from under a regal violet and gold covering. An intricately stitched and detailed piece of fabric that wrapped around and fully shielded a pair of taut glutes except for in a slit on the side that had been turned too far. Their crests fittingly marked the apex and start of two sculpted legs, complete with socks and shoes. Up from the hip, a sea of ebony, chocolate-streaked waves connected at a crown where two other tiny appendages popped out: arms, of which one of them whipped and wound like the snakelike creature Jake had thought it was.

It just seemed too bizarre to be real – everything about the night had been like a dream – but this didn’t feel like a fantasy. He knew that figure anywhere, yet it was akin to a figurine now, one able to hide behind any of his fingers. Even so, he couldn’t mistake that ass.

The varsity co-ed uniform, even in its stained state, was recognizable enough, but with the long, flowing hair, the music, and those cakes, it just screamed ‘Madeline’. All the nicknames he’d given her regarding their previously just-slightly-more-than-a-ruler’s-length height difference had a whole, new meaning now if his eyes weren’t deceiving him. However, there was only one way to find out for sure, and he hoped, thinking about how her body should be working, he wouldn’t make her go deaf… if he already hadn’t.

“Madi?”

#g/t #my writing #sideline #sw #giant male #college #university #they're totally fwb's if you couldn't tell

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