#bullets already long but this makes him a pencil!!!!!!

[edienotsedgwick]

Sneep snorp

[pinkrelish]

𝐥𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮.

rockstar!eddie x assistant!fem!reader

✶Tossed to the wolves of touring lifestyle, you'd had enough of Corroded Coffin's backstage antics one night after a show, and try to escape to the bus for fresh air. Eddie follows.✶

NSFW — 18+ drug/alcohol mention/use, eddie spits whiskey in reader's mouth, sexual themes, crude jokes, enemies to lovers vibes, secret soulmates au

[wc: 8.8k]

↳ standalone gift oneshot for the i will wait series written by @abibliophobiaa, @blueywrites, @breddiemunson, @myosotisa, @fracturedarkness

The methodical chaos—the mechanical creep of soundscape under the drums punching through your body, building to something bigger—ended forty-nine minutes and twelve seconds ago, and like the suspended chords he loved so dearly, you were left with a sense of foreboding.

Stage lights dimmed off. You were on the clock. Showtime.

Babysitter. Handler. Assistant who knew better than to offer him water.

Nerves holstered your shoulders. Unease twisted your stomach. Your ears rang, your teeth ached. Your jaw clenched in throbs off tempo from your heartbeat running wild on the adrenaline feeding the racing pulse hammering in your chest.

The concert was over, but the noise never stopped.

Inside the venue’s backstage room, abrasive bursts of laughter collapsed in excited chatter after an individual cocked back an object, and threw it.

The true night began.

A mostly empty beer bottle smacked its intended target in an echoey clang, and fell in a spray of foam. Fine. You could handle that. Then someone grabbed a plastic chair with metal legs, hoisted it over their shoulder, and chucked it, stumbling after the trajectory in the sloppy way drug-encouraged drunkenness would imply. A cacophony of too-loud cheering was caught on tape by a sound engineer’s personal Sony camcorder, flattening himself against the wall to capture the reaction to the CRT TV dropping from its shelf in the corner, stage live feed long since dead. On its fateful descent, it clipped the edge of an EXIT sign, which now dangled by its chord like a pinata, becoming the next target.

The beige brick room dampened outside interference and amplified the rest, living between yours ears alongside the snappy demands, rude remarks, and crude jokes. Spoken down to, disregarded like caked dirt between boot treads. Anxieties buzzing, looming a presence at the back of your mind, always. On edge.

Shouts, thuds, broken glass. People had the sense to duck, and cower. A side table was lifted, and heaved in a barbaric yell. Beer bottle after beer bottle after beer bottle. Chair legs ripped off, slick from the boozy bubbles coating the floor, and hurled at the red blinking sign. A lamp from another room. An ugly trash can. A hairdryer. The telephone you used to make a phone call thirty-two minutes and forty-three seconds ago; ripped from the wall with its receiver, and added to the clutter of projectiles. A bucket of melted ice, nailed head-on, splashing two dots of cold water on your cheek.

Expendable bottles were gone, but the riot didn’t stop. Another case was ripped into. Hard liquor traded hands. White powder stung noses, earning bloodshot eyes. Rewards. Rowdy shoving. Boys will be boys behavior.

An unopened Pabst whizzed past your head, slammed like a bullet into the mirror on the opposite wall, launching itself in a jet of built-up pressure across the room, ending its route at the toe of your heeled shoes seemingly just to ruin your wool-blend Express pencil skirt with hoppy liquid.

Eddie kicked the can away.

He circled his thumb and forefinger up the sides of his nose, and sniffed hard. “Want some?” he asked as he leaned on the wall with you, posture lax and open in all the ways your crossed arms weren’t. You cut your glare to the clear bottle he offered you. His grip obscured most of it, but you could see a worrying amount of whiskey had already been drunk when it crested the sides between his middle and ring finger.

Remembering to answer, you shook your head. The amber liquid sloshed with his tut, “Suit yourself,” and two deep gulps bobbed his throat.

You weren’t opposed to drinking when around him, but you learned your inebriated lesson four stops ago when the bill from the hotel totaled a stomach dropping amount, and as much as alcohol made it easier to tolerate Eddie in particular, your sluggish tongue slurring over an authoritative reminder of the early start to the morning to make it to the next city on time only fueled his defiant attitude. Pink puckered skin marked the stitches he snipped out of his upper arm with a pair of nail scissors after he and Gareth decided to smash the Hilton’s wine glasses for fun, and was surprised when a sliver of glass bit him back. Under his stringy bangs was an angry red scab from yesterday’s mic throttle to his forehead at the end of a verse, screaming his voice to the point of cracking with emotion. Other self-destructive tendencies coated his knuckles in dried blood.

It was a lot to deal with.

Today’s toll was one ruined guitar, a broken bass after the fretboard was stabbed into an amp, a bent hi-hat stand, and a completely deboned keyboard; keys removed thoroughly by the sole of someone’s boot scraping them clean off in the midst of performance. Blowing off steam, Eddie called it. Boys will be boys, one of the returning tour managers shrugged at you.

So far, it was one of the lighter days of tour—

You flinched.

A loud pop flickered through the room. One of two fluorescent lights shattered, and the tube swung down from the ceiling, becoming the next victim to a corner store ham sandwich being thrown at it.

Staying as small as possible, the emotional support water bottle in your hand crinkled as you hiked your fists further up your biceps, eyeing the camera man in the corner. Your employer tilted his head at the sight too, admiring, perhaps, the scene of two guys puffing on cigars. They stood behind two young women dressed in short jean skirts and hot pink tops, leering over their shoulders as the camcorder zoomed in on the obvious body parts a crowd of men would be interested in. The cigars bounced in their mouths as they spoke an unheard instruction in the chaos surrounding you, and the halter tops came off, breasts dropping to the tune of their girlish giggles. The men cupped their palms around the assets, and bounced them as if they were weighing fruit. From their gross laughs, it appeared they were rating the groupies, and the ladies were just happy to be on camera, pouting their lips and arching their backs.

You drew a line from their tits to Eddie’s gaze, hating the sick kick of anticipation knotting your stomach, aware you shouldn’t care for an entire phonebook’s list of reasons if he was watching them with interest. But with clarity, you realized he wasn’t paying them attention at all. His lazy smile was aimed over the rim of his bottle, full lips moving in a goad to the mass of crew members clogging the doorway.

More property ready to be damaged entered over their heads. A couch. An entire fucking couch was carried, stood on its end, and lobbed at the sign, breaking loose a length of red and yellow wires. But it still held strong. Tenacious thing.

Two grown men wrestled beside you. Their sleeveless shirts tangled, riding up to show purpled bruises on their backs—one from a mic stand thrown at him, the other from who fucking knows what. At least Gareth’s was in the shape of a crescent moon.

You shifted closer to Eddie to get away from their kicking feet, and relaxed the frustration from your brows before he commented on it. He, likewise, was bumped into by his friends, but his stature didn’t waver. That’s just how it was. Your bodies were near enough for you to feel the heat radiating off his hot skin, but the moment his sticky elbow made contact with your nice blouse—forever marking it with oily sweat—he earned an apology from Jeff who fell into him, meanwhile you were increasingly worried about receiving a tennis shoe to the ankle.

Exhaling an overdue sigh, you glanced sideways at Eddie to gauge if this was an appropriate time to remind him he should shower and get ready to greet the fans waiting outside the venue, but your breath crumbled to a groan. An eager grin cracked his face, almost manic if it weren’t for his heavy-lidded brown eyes. An idea.

He stepped forward. Everything that wasn’t his tight lips on the bottle of whiskey was ignored; downing what he could in a long swallow, and shaking off his pinched features as it burned past his gritted teeth. He raised the rest over his head, and aimed. Perfectly. The sign smacked the wall from the force behind his pitch, spinning wildly on its cord, slinging the front EXIT display clean off, and dropping lower from the ceiling, ready to sever ties. Shouts for its demise pounded your headache. Many palms clapped the back of Corroded Coffin’s frontman. He held out his hand to his audience, and a fresh bottle of whiskey was produced into his grasp.

Intuitively, employees shuffled to avoid his uncoordinated steps backwards, but you didn’t have the luxury of options, thus he misjudged the distance to the wall and ran into it, and you.

Your poor toes were the first to scream out, stuck under his heavy heel. His elbow jutted into your stomach, digging the sharp corner of your laminated backstage pass into your sternum. Even better, his shoulder mashed your nose, and you didn’t twist your head in time to keep your mouth from coming in contact with his bare tricep, getting a lick of stale salt on your inner lip, and a whiff of boy scent assaulting your nose after his deodorant stopped working hours ago. Too much of his weight depended on you to keep him upright, so you grunted out, “Fucking—Eddie,” and pushed him when others wouldn’t. Laying your hands on him in annoyance when no one else dared. He wouldn’t remember it in the morning, anyway.

Eddie followed his stumble through, and spun around. “Whoops!” he said to you in a smile—a viciously sincere thing, betraying his status over you with a genuine shine to his heavy eyes. So innocent behind his sleepy blink, long lashes fluttering, fine lines creasing at the droopy corners from the happy grin teasing his dimple into coming out, freckled nose bathed in hues of pinky red darker than the places he chewed on his bottom lip. He appeared so earnest, so charming despite his current condition, that when his dilated pupils swallowed the rim of bitter coffee brown, you lapsed in staying alert, becoming enamored by his ability to steal the noise from the room when his gaze swept your expression in a slow study. Tender, almost. If he were anyone else.

That’s why it hurt more when the comradery in his features were a trick of the light, and you were reminded of your position as his paid bitch killjoy.

The uncorked bottle of whiskey made itself known under your nose. “Want some?” he asked with kindness he did not possess, easing into a higher register to lift the question to you. Knowing. Mocking.

You swatted his hand away, and answered flatly, “No.”

It was coming. You didn’t have to be looking at him to see his face slide into dull neutrality, dry mouth and wicked tip of his tongue swiping over the back of his teeth. The displeasure was felt. Living, breathing. Fracturing your resolve like the second lamp thrown against the wall.

“Y’sure? You look like you could use a drink to loosen that stick up your ass, and have a little fun.”

Maybe it was the fact Eddie’s day started with him bitching at you for waking him up, when yours started hours earlier, rebooking his hotel rooms after being banned from the chain after last week’s incident. Maybe it was his snide tone when he demanded coffee, and you glanced at the lobby’s carafe on instinct, only to be immediately humiliated in front of the interviewer who was sitting opposite him, festering an indignant response under your skin all day. You weren’t even intending it to be for him, you weren’t stupid enough to serve him such pedestrian coffee, you were thinking about getting it for yourself. Stupid fuckhead. Maybe it was the hours you spent oscillating between enjoying the travel to new places you’d never been, and wondering if the price of him getting this riled up whenever he pleases was worth it. Maybe it was the nauseous haze flogging the room from the cigars. Maybe it was the channeled aggression from the three guys who flipped over the fold out tables for no reason, sending plastic cups of backwash tequila across the floor. Maybe it was the collateral damage the venue was going to seek. Maybe it was the three days of disaster challenging your professionalism. Or maybe it was Eddie’s next comment which pushed you over the edge.

“If alcohol doesn’t do it for you, there’s prob’ly some guy who hasn’t left the parking lot yet, maybe he can loosen you up.” And to further imbue disrespect behind his comment, he leaned in and feathered the low dip of his raspy voice over the shell of your ear, speaking so quietly the syllables had trouble catching, “But if you fuck ‘im on the bus, I wanna watch.”

The sign snapped and crashed onto the heap of damp valuables, inciting a louder celebration from those participating.

You dropped your water bottle where you stood, and skimmed past Eddie on your way out. A firm departure with seething eyes aimed straight ahead. Chin strong, moving past him with a message. “Go to hell.”

And your backbone faltered when the mass of roadies blocked your exit. Security guards with big bodies jumped, rejoicing. Lanky lighting techs downed their beers and threw them over the small crowd with no aim. Your shoulders collapsed, tucking your arms to yourself. Avoiding elbows, meaty arms with enough muscle to floor you, testosterone laced boys will be boys behavior with a heavy dose of uppers. A wall of men who ignored your plea spoken so loud in your voice which did not carry.

But they obeyed the tattooed arm beside you. Minded the obnoxious rings when rapping on a man’s arm. Heard the hoarse voice commanding them all into a single file line for you to squeeze by, “Give her some room,” and their big bodies were already hugging the other side of the hallway with a laughed apology—to him, not you.

You shuffled out as dignified as possible, knees stiff and weight focused on the balls of your feet to avoid slipping on the tile. It was embarrassing enough as is being trailed with a bottle at your back—a far cry from a heroic palm guiding you forward—and his need to overtake you in a single stride. Eddie shot his other hand out and pointed down an unoccupied corridor, in essence blocking you from leaving. Not that you had much fight left in you to argue after being awake for twenty-one hours, thirteen minutes, and fifty-two seconds. You followed the lead he set for you.

Scarce lighting shone down on the two double doors leading outside, leaving the alcove he chose cast in a darkness your eyes had to adjust to. Musty warm air from the arena swept your face. A cleaning crew attacked the stands, creaking along the seating tiers. Sweeping, chucking empty cups. The pressure on the small of your back drove you to an open area near the instact and working EXIT sign allowing you to discern the back of the stadium, and his face.

Eddie’s features were glazed in a gentle omen of red.

There were thousands of scenarios churning in your mind at the situation of being stuck alone in a dark corner with a drunken man, but his slight smirk put you at ease, ironically.

The source of the painful knots between your shoulders spoke, “Aren’t you forgetting something?” He then had the gall to crowd you to the dusty drywall, and rest his arm atop your head, caging you there. Treating you as a nuisance. An insect. A little bee. A bug caught in his sticky trap. Gazing down at you with reptilian cold pupils behind his happily hooded eyes, substances battling in his body. Dangerous to no one but himself.

You squinted. “No?” The questioning lilt wasn’t intentional, but you had no idea what he was getting at.

He cocked his hip out with a dramatic sigh, and dropped his head forward to stare at you through his lashes, mouth hung loose. Waiting, waiting, waiting; acting as if he were the pinnacle of patience when you refused to play into his game, making you the bad guy. But worry not, he upheld the onus to inform you, his assistant, in a tone wallowing from the dregs of flat boredom with an edge of irritation and touch of patronization for having to spell it out for you, “I’m hungry.”

A polite, professional sneer lifted your upper lip. “Okay? Food should be here soon. I called it in a half hour ago.” About when the band came off stage, and Harry gave his honest opinion on their sloppy performance, while Eddie gave notes to the sound tech about Jeff’s mic not picking him up during Down In It. “Should be here in a few minutes.”

“What’d you order?”

Apprehension tensed through your back, perceived by his forearm mussing up your hair as the instinctual emotion stood you taller, defiant; knowing why his glinty grin taunted a show of teeth.

Pizza on Fridays. Texmex on Saturdays. Chinese on Sundays. That’s how it was every weekend. The consistency ensured you didn’t mishear him earlier when he requested his usual lo mein. “You asked for Chinese food,” you stated evenly, strongly. One step ahead of him.

“Mm.” Eddie scrunched his nose as he pretended to think it over. “Not feeling it today. I want pizza,” he said, the last word suffocated inside the bottle lifted to his lips, taking a long draw as your exhausted brain snapped to condescending him.

“So eat a cheese wonton and use your imagination.”

Utter elation gleamed in the steady eye pinning you in the crimson gloom, head tipped back to drink and drink and drink, cheeks sunken from sucking in liquor, pursing his lips around the glass rim from the smile he tried to suppress after succeeding in getting a rise out of you.

Your blood could only simmer for so long. Rolls of pent up anger, of festering disdain at his ability to find any opportunity to get under your skin, of fatigue from being ‘on’ for nearly twenty-four hours, stone in your gut from the constant passing glances when you were seen with Eddie; it all met its limit. You just wanted to leave. Your path to the hallway was blocked by the smooth contour of his bicep. Ducking under would mean an introduction to his armpit, and you weren’t thrilled by the idea of flattening yourself to the wall to slip by the untamed forest of black wiry hair. It would also be an admission of defeat, even further affirming your role as his spineless assistant to boss around. You could choose the other way and go around him, avoiding him all together, but there was no pride in that, either.

“Can you move your arm?” you asked, giving him the option despite better judgment when sudden pin pricks of uh-oh spiked your senses when he lowered the bottle.

A glistening line of whiskey traced his puckish smirk. Never menacing, but never a good sign. For a long moment the ghosts of the arena haunted the space in distant noises. Caresses of other humans around. Feedback other than the clutch on your heartbeat, and his troubled exhale into a strong inhale through his nose. Big breath filling his chest. Held. You took note of Eddie’s dimpled chin and the beads of water building at his lash line, and finally, he moved.

A sticky circle stamped the soft underside of your jaw, sliding his spit along your skin as he used the rim of the glass bottle of whiskey to lift your chin up, up. Stretching your neck, tipping your head back to the relaxed length of muscle along his forearm. Barely time to register the cherry-red halo striking the ends of his frizzy curls, or the ramping excitement overriding his already ruined impulse control.

Shy, you severed the intense eye contact when his face drew near.

Blank black soundless vortex rushing in your ears.

Drip, drip, drop.

Tiny splashes, one after the other, thumped on the locket of your lips. Mouth softly shut from the pressure under your chin. Tapping, tapping. Beat, by beat. Two, three, four, before your confusion determined what the sensation was, and the astringent scent cut its way to your sensitive nose.

You froze. Body clenching tight, fists sweating, nervous saliva pooling under your tongue too difficult to swallow. Jaw clamped shut and rejecting the liquid pooling at your lips, flooding it to the corners of your mouth, tickling the peach fuzz at the edges in tall walls of surface tension until, at last, they swelled, broke, and crashed. Thin streams flowed down either side of your neck, absorbed by your white blouse’s collar and trickling to the top of your bra cups, skirting to your cleavage. Brain overloaded. Clocked out. Warring with disgust, shock, and disappointment at the pathetic way you curled your fingers in some frustrated gesture at his actions, but ultimately, wrenched his tank top into your grip, and submitted.

You parted your lips, and Eddie poured.

Liquor, warmed from his mouth, filled yours. Burning, burning; drowning under the surge of spirits setting a blazing trail to your stomach, piquing a noise from you which would only draw the attention from those curious as to who the couple was fucking in the dark corner of the arena. You blocked the deluge from choking you with your fat tongue; rising onto your tiptoes while bending at your weak knees in the same involuntary whine as you tensed and squirmed—conflicted. Twisted your hands into the top of his shirt where the ribbed knit stuck to his chest, fabric damp with sweat and cool to the touch. You lurched him forward without thinking, locked in a panic. He complied. Easily.

Body to body, lazy weight on composed. Rubber soled boots dragging along the outside of your simple heels in a stuttered slide. Nudging the introduction of his bare legs against your skin; his hairy shins and the scraggly strings from the ripped hem of his shorts brushing the sides of your knees. Feeling his heavy arm flex as the front of his hips met you in the same stunted bursts as his steps, going from the man who frowned when you approached him, to the one who pressed himself between your thighs, causing the bulk behind his zipper to rock against you as he found his footing and stood tall, keeping his mouth aimed above yours, forgiving what spilt over your cheek in his stupor.

Dried salt and earthen dirt, embroidered texture of the fabric scraps he sewed onto his tank top rubbed your knuckles. The smooth pads of your thumbs landed above the neck hole as you centered yourself, tracing the duality of chilly perspiration on the heated skin of his sleek pecs, feeling the layer of muscle shifting underneath. Notes of oakwood barrels stroked your tongue before the sour punch of rye stung water to your shut eyes. You peeked through the wetness. Just to see.

His powerful lungs exhaled at a trained rate he could sustain in time with the runnel leaving his gently puckered lips paused above your own. Bangs stuck to his forehead. Sleepy faraway gaze. Calm, serene against the circumstances which had you questioning why you weren’t spitting the liquor back in his face. The scrunch of concentration between his brows was your last blurry sight before you were desperate for darkness again, letting your eyelids fall closed, lashes marrying.

Toofulltoofulltoofull.

The difference in your mouth size was apparent. Whiskey primed the inside of your cheeks, filling their fleshy stretch, stressing the brim of what you could hold. He’d only begun to dribble what had run hot and thick over his tongue when you untwisted your achy fingers from his shirt and served three warning taps in the vicinity of his heart. Feathery prods, like silk over the sparse hair growing in the valley between his pecs.

But, due to unforeseen circumstances, he forgot to stop.

Either you wormed yourself into stretching taller against the wall, or he leaned down. Perhaps both were true. Maybe you went rigid from the impending threat of irreversible stains on your new Liz Claiborne blouse, and maybe he shifted when the nuances of your hips slid against his own, dragging upward and reminding him of the cradle he had you in.

Richly flushed from booze, the tip of his nose thawed your thoughts as it grazed past your own, mashing a hint of tenderness you rarely witnessed from him to your cheek. By accident, of course, like the wet mid of his hair skimming the edge of your jaw where the bottle remained notched to your chin; amber glass a stark contrast from the plush give of his bottom lip flirting across yours.

Dry chapped against chapsticked satin.

The unintentional touch happened so fast, too quick to explore.

Mmm! Another antsy noise from you which rang sweet when amplified by the empty pit of coiled wires in the stadium. Mouth overfull. Stomach gripped, lungs clenching for unhindered breath. Realty checking in.

You put strength behind your forearms on his chest, shoving him and whirling your face away, keeling over what room he gave you to struggle through the largest gulp of your life, losing some of the liquor in the process, as evident by the splash on the concrete floor. Beyond brave, you drank it down, coughing, sputtering, and shuddering through the aftertaste for what felt like minutes. Huffing. Heaving. Working through the flood of drool coating your tongue, momentarily resting your dewy forehead on the thick vein drawn down his bicep by the red light, trying not to puke. Your shoulder pressed to his sternum. His heart beat, loud.

You used your sleeve to attack the wet streaks on your chin and cheeks, mopping up your pinched expression as the nausea of chugging his disgusting rye whiskey churned what patience you had for him. “What the—?”

“Hey, try not to waste any,” he commented dryly.

Voice raising, “What the actual hell is wrong with you?” You picked your head up from the crook of his elbow to pin him with your vehement glare. But the flash of temper at his drunken antics faded to the messy background of emotions when you remained in his pinion. Slotted between him, the wall, and the bottle.

Eddie’s nose bumped the bridge of yours. He pulled back slightly, and lowered the bottle. Still, his voice was one half of a sigh seeking its counterpart over your lax jaw and weak scowl. “Lotta stuff,” he answered. Still, your hands remained bound in his shirt. You couldn’t let go. Why couldn’t you let go? You couldn’t let go as the center of your bottom lip tingled like the buzzing wings of a bumble bee. Why didn’t you spit out the whiskey in his face? It was gross, revolting. Why did you swallow it?

Licks of black pepper and clove stayed on your tongue. Inhales went stale with his tangy scent, acrid and musky after giving his all on stage. His sweat clung to your fingers, mixed with the sheen on your forehead. When he breathed, his belly fought for the space between you, pressing into your stomach. Existing in the proximity you’d never seen the other in before; enabling you to hear the intimate loll of his tongue moving the spit in his mouth before he spoke.

Appearing more sober than before, with a strange amount of alertness in his glassy gaze trained on the minute changes of your features, he said, “You’re going to have a miserable time on tour if you keep being this up tight.” He angled away to sip from the bottle held by its long neck in three of his thick fingers. Rolling his lips inward, his throat bobbed a fierce line in the EXIT sign glow. “I was trying to work that permanent twist out of your panties. Get you to loosen up, have some fun.”

Just like that, the frustration was back. His words, his tone, his lack of apology for being a royal pain in the ass.

“You make me miserable,” you told him. For good measure, you pinched the sensitive underbelly of his tricep in case your voice didn’t carry the anger from the last hour of putting up with his shit.

He mumbled, “Ow,” probably not feeling the pain with how much alcohol was in his system.

Restraining yourself from reacting bigger, you tightened your fists and tried not to shake him. “I can’t relax, because the second I do Corroded Coffin gets stacks of lawsuits rammed up it’s ass, and you and I both know I’m hired damage control,” for you, you didn’t finish, getting too hot in the face to want to stand in your sticky clothes any longer, squishy inner thighs humid from being pressed together by his legs, shoes numbing your ability to feel the floor. “Would it kill you to stick to a schedule? Get cleaned up, meet some fans? Do the normal thing?”

The weight of his body returned, dropping the tension from his shoulders to curve them towards you, forcing your palms flat to his ribs. Another cage.

Unfortunately, his answer was a slow smirk. The bad kind. Sultry, and saccharine; dark like his purposefully narrowed coy eyes. “Kinda like it when you’re angry,” back to mushing his words together. “Lemme guess, you’re not even wearing panties to be twisted. You’re just naturally this…” Bitchy. “Pleasant.”

You pinched his tricep until you knew it hurt, until the roots of your hair tugged at your scalp from his forearm slipping away, and you used the space created to wedge past the areas of him which tempted a flicker of want in your core after a noticeable drag against your hip. “Don’t follow me.”

“C’mon, are you really..?” A pause. “Wait—!”

A productive conversation was a fruitless, futile thing.

You silenced the voice in your head telling you there was genuine remorse in his innate reaction to call for you. As if he were done pretending to be drunker than he was just to push things too far. Like he really cared you were walking away, in essence giving him permission to continue his night how he wanted.

No heavy thudded steps chased after you. The double doors were up ahead. You leaned into opening them past the heavy gust of hot air pushing back, and you stepped out to excited faces falling flat in disappointment when it was just a lady in a blouse and skirt reeking of booze, not a member of their favorite band printed on their bleach-dyed Corroded Coffin t-shirts.

~~~

When the tour bus doors next hissed, it wasn’t a single body stomping vibrations through the overly large vehicle on their way to pore over the details for the next show, it was a steady flow of those who called the beast their home. Most slung themselves in the couches at the front, talking shop around the kitchen table. Some infiltrated the fridge for beer. Another used the bathroom which was too close for comfort, especially in the recycled air blowing through the vents.

A body approached, and you curled your toes in as he passed.

Eddie’s heavy black boots stopped in the aisle of bunks. The soles squeaked as he turned, creaking leather as he sank his weight to one side. Stalling, facing you before he sat heavily on his bed. As he did so, two sharp pops drew his attention. Checking behind him, the privacy curtain was stuck under his ass, and the plastic rings meant to hold it up were snapped into pieces. You avoided putting your gaze on his person as you watched him solve this mystery, and returned to the paragraph you were scrawling in your notebook, moving your pen across the lined page.

Two of the last three days were journaled down, catching up from the hectic weekend, and venting through your emotions by reliving them. Darker ink bloomed where you carved the tip of your pen through your explanation of your hurt feelings and the general flippancy you were subjected to by one person in particular. The roadies and other members of the band got less screen time than the star of the show in your tirades. He knew this, too, looking from across the aisle at your clumped lashes, spying the water spots on the pages when he was standing. He sat forward, much like you, but his thighs were spread with his hands in between them, palm open to whittle a nervous thumb in the cupped center, having the decency to appear ashamed.

Your clothes were folded beside you, undecided if you wanted to trash them or wear them in defiance.

“Do you want me to apologize?” he asked, not quite enunciating due to his uncomfortableness.

Unable to mask it, you blinked rapidly before opening your eyes wide, not withholding the contemptuous sigh released from deep within. You gripped your notebook harder, bending it, rumpling the pages to hide what you etched behind your tight hands. Who the fuck asks if they need to apologize?

Eddie’s washed curls fell forward with his hung head, nodding to himself.

He got up, and left.

Anger scored your face. Draped by your headache was your furrowed brows, flared nostrils, twisted pursed lips zipped up tight from saying anything you’d regret—a lesson he could do with. Your pajamas were the makings of nine heavenly clouds after being dressed in stiff business attire all day, but the blisters on your ankles stung. Your joints throbbed. Your muscles wore sore. Your spine cried every time you moved.

Tomorrow you’d start doing the stretches the stageside crew showed you that kept them limber. You made a note to fit this in your schedule, bypassing the silly daydream of stopping at a bookstore in the next city and reading up on a yoga guide for more pose ideas than what the guitar techs could teach you, aware the chance you’d find time away from your boss to pursue your own self-interests was slim.

Flipping a new page, you dated it in the corner, began your introduction, and started on the third day of spilling your heart out.

Your pen was mighty interrupted.

It’s difficult to say what came first: the mouth watering rush of saliva, or the passionate rumble of your empty stomach yearning for the white takeout box placed in your lap by the bruised hand sporting cuts from punching Gareth’s drum platform during the one of the more self-loathing songs.

A pang of humility gentled his nature.

The four-fold top was open, revealing your favorite noodle dish with extra green onion and sesame seeds sprinkled on top, plastic fork stabbed through the middle. You lifted the container to swipe the oil stains off your mid-sentence rant, shaking free the beads of condensation collecting on the sides. The cardboard had gone soggy after being nuked in the microwave, burning through to your fingertips, but you held your dinner nestled in your palms, regardless.

It didn’t come with extra green onions or sesame seeds, those would have to be found on the side and added, along with the sauce to keep it from drying out.

Eddie made it exactly how you liked.

Hunched in the minimal space between bunks, you stared at the long stem of a bean sprout sticking out from the swirls of noodles, processing his gesture. Beneath that, your journal was splayed open to a slew of harsh sentences. Lower, directly across from your bare toes was Eddie’s boots. Higher, one of the metal aglets of his laces was stuck behind the leather tongue. Fresh socks clung the bottom of his calves. You listened to him peel back the curtain before sinking to his bunk, and trailed your study over the silvery scars on his knees. Moving up, you spotted a fresh beer in his hand, maybe one or two swigs taken. His elbows rested on his thighs, body folded over, leaning in, mirroring you to some degree.

The harsh overhead lighting brought luster to the bright golds, rich reds, and deep strands of chestnut through his dark hair brushing the shadow of his clavicle over the black shirt clinging to him, hugging the slope of his stooped shoulders.

Finally, you met the depth behind his eyes communicating what he couldn’t.

The apology lasted just long enough for your consideration, and then he lifted the crinkly wrapper tucked between two of his fingers. “You want this?”

You shook your head at the fortune cookie. “You can have it.”

“Nice,” he whispered. The unassuming planes of his cheeks lifted enough to allude to the dimple on his left side, and bracket his mouth in smile lines. He was still drunk, you assumed. A merry blush persisted across his nose, and his eyelids were as sleepy as the bags beneath them. But there was a youthful glee under it all as he tore into the cellophane. A glimpse at someone from long ago; not the rockstar before the start of touring who would pull laughs from you, but further, before the conditions of fame chewed him up, spit him out.

You wondered if Chinese takeout was a rarity in his boyhood, a special treat saved for when he left his hometown on trips to the city.

Eddie flicked the wrapper to the floor—annoyingly—and ducked at an odd angle to lay his upper half into the cozy nook of extra pillows he made you buy on the first night of being on the road. He stowed his beer at the apex of his clenched thighs, fitting the cold bottle snug against the packed seam guiding your eyes to the hill of his zipper, provoking hot blooded thoughts. His shirt rode up as he brought his arms above him, fanning the thick trail of hair out from under the hem, impossibly soft in appearance, auburn tinted, growing less dense on the sides of his belly. He cracked the crisp wafer in half, and you watched his stomach tense on the snap.

Squinting in the dark, Eddie depressed the button on the tiny reading light with his knuckle, and unfurled the paper from half the cookie, scanning the faded red text.

He snorted.

Choosing a mystical-sounding rasp not far from his real one to invoke the guise of a palm reader in a smoky lounge reeking of incense sticks, he read the fortune aloud while waving his other hand about, “You will be successful in love,” he said. His wrist went limp, and he tucked his chin to congratulate you. “Lucky you.”

No amount of plastic forks shoved in your mouth would rid you of the smile tightening your eyes. “Lucky me,” you echoed, full of wryness. The food, amongst other things, worked wonders to lift your mood. You weren’t as much buzzed from the shots sloshing in your stomach as you were queasy, and greasy noodles filled the tumultuous void stupendously.

He stuffed the crunchy cookie in his mouth, and turned the fortune paper over, speaking through the gnash of crumbs, “Your lucky numbers are 35, 26, 56, 10, 32, 52,” he continued.

“Uh-huh.”

The noise across the rest of the bus was at a level you could endure. Shooting the shit at an appropriate volume, or nodding along to the conversation. The driver would give the signal soon, and the boys would, or should, go to their bunks.

While you ate, Eddie stayed laying with his legs off the bed, head crooked against the wall due to the narrow space. He held the fortune above him. Reading it, sometimes. Thumbing the edge other times, or rubbing the texture of the stiff paper across itself. Staring, staring, unblinking from whatever he was thinking as he wrung a hand around his face; eliciting a sense of comfort from the audible stroke of his knuckles scratching over his stubble.

You scraped the bottom of your container, and put aside your notebook to gather your trash, two feet planted to make your way to the kitchen. At the last second, a glint caught your eye, and you bent over to pick up the wrapper Eddie dropped, tossing it in the takeout box, too.

“While you’re down there, be a doll and take off my boots.”

“No.”

His disgruntled groan followed you to the front of the bus.

The guys gave you a mixed reaction of curious glances and uninvolved nods as you stuffed your garbage in the overpacked bin. Jeff in particular made a point to look from you to his best friend’s legs, though you didn’t have much of an answer to whatever he was searching for.

A goodnight wave would have to do, and you were back at your bunk, folding the sheets down in preparation for the dreamless state you wished to be in. You sat on the mattress, eyes closed and spine somewhat neutral. The structure of the bunks were unforgiving, but the small crawl space could feel cozy at times, like a blanket fort made from couch cushions. Except, the house moved throughout the night, and angry honks woke you up on occasion. Not to mention you were a light sleeper from the stress of a car crash, or being dumped onto the floor.

The fortune paper flitted. Regarding you over the imposed suggestion between his legs, he informed you, “It says here the best way to relieve some of that tension you’re always carrying around is by taking a ride on a nice, fat—”

You snatched the beer bottle from between his thighs, big fake hard-on standing tall. He startled from the sensation, darting his eyes from the phantom trace against himself, and hailing you with a sputtered laugh through his cheek-aching smile, denying you the reward of taking him off guard by covering his mouth with his hand.

“I earned this,” you said about the drink.

“Yeah?” he goaded, pleased at your forwardness.

In a valiant attempt to show off, you tipped the mildly hoppy bitter back. Two pulls in, you thought better of it. Not quite a chug, but he lost the war with his grin, pearly teeth shining behind the thumbnail he strummed over the center of his bottom lip, eyes almost closed entirely in a bout of crinkles.

You pulled your lips off the bottle; off his spit and off his drink, off his glass cock, and were emboldened by the confidence of his playful disposition to rib on him openly, like the guys would when his pendulum mood swung to the good side. You lamented in a dramatic sigh,”Maybe my love life will be so successful, I'll get swept off my feet, and be free from the burden of listening to your sloppy guitar plucking all night.”

His expression lurched towards impressed. Overacting with his mouth agape in surprise, lips curled over his teeth, and splaying his hand on his chest. With how he propped himself up on one elbow, his shirt stretched flush against his pecs, accentuating the two round shadows at the ends of the metal bars through his nipples.

Right, you remind yourself, able to forget their existence through most of his wardrobe choices, he has pierced nipples.

Your body ran hot at the memory from two short hours ago where you were inexplicably thrusted into a situation where you could’ve felt the jewelry by accident, pressed against a wall. Now you were able to think through the adrenaline, and acknowledge having another person’s touch on your skin did more harm than good for the loneliness lurking within, calling it to the surface.

The notebook beside your pillow drew your glance.

Eddie stabilized your position in the conversation, not letting your sudden reservation deter him from seeking retribution for your insult. “Think y’drank too much honey, there, Bee. That one stung below the belt.”

The moment it took for you to register the low leech of a tease sneaking its way through his croaky, whiskey-hoarse words was a long one. Longer was his heavy palm falling to demonstrate where exactly your insult hurt him, cupping and grabbing the afflicted area. “You wound me!” he dramatized, demonstrating the limits his fatigue green shorts flattered, cotton fabric scrunching under his grip, then slouching flat on the release. Longer, still, was the distance between the gaudy ring on his middle finger and the tip of his short nails, thick digit landing on the tattered seam splitting him down the middle. Letting go, he rested his hand above his belt.

Everything about him was victorious. Champion eyes glinting rum colored; a shade you’d never seen on him, and almost missed with your observance stuck lower, trapped by his overt flirtations.

His belly rose and fell with a sympathetic hum devised to rattle you.

When sober, the invitation to crude insinuations began and ended with intangibility. A calculated smile to fluster you when caught admiring how his tattoos twisted over the muscles in his upper arms when he leaned on his keyboard, a sentence spoken in the morning before his voice warmed to its comfortable register, a tossed comment in the midst of conversation with his band mates and the effect it had on you shifting uncomfortably just outside the ring of amity—quarantined behind the scope of his single-handed gesture pumping an obvious motion, pretending you were absorbed by the timetable schedule for the band inside your folder, appearing busy and decidedly not desperate to either be included or released from the task of being present, even when hot needles of sweat stressed the lack of consideration for your feelings with each sorry expression cast in your direction. You were his worker bee, paid to wait on him, and his teasing was rarely physical beyond an appropriate knock on your bicep for your attention in the off chance he didn’t snap his fingers at you like a dog. Or a tap on your knee under the kitchen table to get you to stand so he could leave; a light pressure which you could replicate days later with your own knuckles. His daily indifference was born of spite, and his drunken actions were bred of the same annoyance, bottle-deep perspective viewing you as the one who was ruining his night. Assuming he continued to push his tolerance with more drinks after you left the green room, his bold teasing made sense, you supposed, too unrestricted to deny himself the fun of riling you up.

The right thing to do would entail divorcing yourself from this conversation, and bringing up his conduct tomorrow. The wrong thing to do would involve taking another swig of his beer. The right thing to do would require reminding him of his meeting with Murray in the morning, who had a shorter fuse than anyone in the music industry. The wrong thing to do would include lobbing the bottle in his bed. The right thing to do would demand not giggling at Eddie’s poor reflexes when he made a bigger mess of the ale spilling on his blanket.

Eddie seized to catch it, but his hand-eye coordination was not up to par. He scrunched his eyes closed at the last second, jolting into a crunch with his chin tucked in an inordinate amount of wrinkles, and hands turned with his palms out, more keen on keeping the bottle from hitting his face than truly catching it. Which was a plausible excuse for his boot kicking your bunk in the process, and overall lack of poise as he brought his hands together after the beer had already bounced off his belly, and rolled where the bed dipped around him.

The wrong thing to do would consist of you running your knuckle along your shameless grin, prodding the flesh against your teeth as he dropped his head back and emptied the bottle onto his softly cradled pink tongue, thank you for sharing the drink, every last boozy drop.

Recognition curved the groove of his mouth.

Boys will be boys behavior.

“Here,” he said, rolling forward with his arm extended. The glass bottle in his hand drew your immediate wilt, but before you advanced too far into your frown, he alleviated your ire with the two fingers pointing at you, fluttering the damp paper between them. “You believe in this sorta shit, don’t you?” Despite the mock, you knew better than to refute his claim, not having the chops to sound convincing. Not that you really had faith in the mass produced slip of paper, but the affirmation that you’d find your soulmate one day produced a sense of ease before bed. Even when the word ‘successful’ was blurred from a drop of beer.

You placed the fortune in your notebook, feeling the ache of an unfinished entry.

At the front of the bus, the driver stamped up the stairs and gave the signal he was going to start moving soon, cuing the subliminal bedtime. The unbelonging technicians left, and the rest of Corroded Coffin stretched from the stiff cushions lining the booth seats around the table. As they picked up after themselves, Eddie untied the top set of his laces, and kicked his boots off, leaving them in the aisle along with the empty beer bottle.

He rolled onto the edge of the mattress to rip back his sheets and shoved his legs under, hesitating from drawing the curtain when he browsed the end of your bunk, where your feet moved under a pile of belongings placed atop your covers. “I’ll send your clothes to the dry cleaners tomorrow.”

Not an apology.

“You mean you’ll send me to the dry cleaners tomorrow,” you corrected, and his face smoothed flat from the accidental snub.

Harry moved between you two. Jeff divided the conversation further. Gareth cleaved whatever rapport you had with Eddie when he snorted at the two of you facing each other in your bunks, cuddled up like a sleepover.

Thinking harder as his peers climbed into their beds, Eddie relaxed onto his forearm supporting his upright posture, and sank into the jut of his shoulder, spinning his hand in the same flippant way the scrunch between his brows appealed to the snark loading in his throat. “I’ll just give you my wallet then, mm?” he offered, gravelly voice dusted with insincerity. “Then you can buy all the white blouses, and black skirts your pretty heart desires.”

Someone snorted again. It sounded like Gareth.

“And, uh,” Eddie endured as the plastic rings tinked across the metal bar, leaving a generous window visible from the top of his shoulders to his wild hair spread about his pillow palace, limp curtain hanging pitifully, “if you’d be so kind, don’t watch me sleep.”

“I won’t,” you said, and it sounded so sad. So soft, and faint, no bite behind it. No zest, no strength. Just confusion, though you understood the events leading to the pendulum swinging the other direction.

You closed your curtain, too.

The tour bus rumbled before sighing its characteristic hiss and chugging forward, pitching its cargo inside. You swayed in your nook. Laying on your back meant you experienced every roll of the tires cutting corners in the parking lot, but you weren’t ready to turn over yet. Your mind was swarming with cluttered thoughts. There were things you could be doing other than peering out at the depressing darkness where the dim ambient light didn’t pierce. You could brush your teeth, stow away your pocketbook before the pens rolled out, pick up the bottle before it tipped over and played pinball down the aisle all night. Your journal entry could be finished, you could sit up and read a book like Eddie, you could do some of those stretches for your hips and back. You could cry, you could count sheep for the next four hours and forty-seven minutes, you could cry some more; wet face wiped raw by the stiff sheets, and mouth buried in the unfeeling comforter to muffle the squeak of air leaving your lungs when you couldn’t suppress the emotions lodged in your throat any longer.

You could do many therapeutic things.

Instead, you pressed your knuckle over the center of your lower lip, replicating the pressure, and thought about the fortune.

[magicalrocketships]

hi! are you planning to write more of de-aged max bc he is just so cute it’s giving me a heart attack. saw a tiktok the other day w photos of baby max and all i could think about was this verse!!!!! ahhh lysm

Thank you!!! Here is a little bit more, in honour of grown up Max's adventures with colouring in.

(Hopefully this link shows the stuff I’ve already posted in chronological order. But anyway, this bit follows directly on from this part.)

It has been five full days since a seven year old Max showed up at Daniel's door in too-big clothes and holding out a little card with Daniel's name carefully printed on it in grown up Max's blocky handwriting. Baby Max shows no signs of going big again. He follows Daniel around his apartment, looks at his flag book, and plays with the Jimmy or Sassy cats — no further narrowing down of cat identity has occurred, due to Daniel having little to no interest in identifying cat penises, and grown up Max's complete fucking inability to put his fucking cat names on a fucking collar, or, indeed, to have informed Daniel of his Go Small plans at any point in the past three fucking years, but that's fine, Daniel is fine with this responsibility. Max has wet the bed every night and Daniel is just having to cross his fingers that he's not making everything worse by each and every decision he makes.

Anyway: if grown up Max doesn't show up again extremely soon, Daniel's going to have to bite the bullet and call Christian and tell him Max isn't going to be able to race. Max will hate that when he's back, if Daniel brakes too soon and makes the call, and more than that, it's going to turn baby Max into a Thing, and if there's one thing Daniel has learned in the last five days, it's that Max one hundred percent does not want to be a thing of any kind.

So, it's time for Emergency Measures. Maybe what will kickstart baby Max back into adulthood in time for his next race will be a race track, and go-karting. Daniel takes advantage of Max being distracted by his coloured pencils in the living room to google nearby karting tracks, and sends the nearest one a message to see if he could book out the whole track for a private session. The answer comes back with an immediate yes, which is probably in some part due to the figure Daniel had dropped in his message about how much he's willing to pay for the privilege.

He leans against the doorframe into the living room. Max is concentrating very closely on his colouring book, his coloured pencils all out on the coffee table. A little something in Daniel's chest shifts a bit.

"Maxy-Max," Daniel says, half way through his email response to the karting track. "Would you like to go karting tomorrow?"

There is a pause. "No, thank you, Daniel." Max does not look up from his colouring book, nor does he stop colouring.

Daniel also pauses. Max's little fingers hold onto his pencil tighter. He's pressing down hard on the picture.

"Okay," Daniel says. "Would you like to go another day, if we don't go tomorrow?"

"No, thank you, Daniel," Max says again. He still doesn't look up. His pencil might tear through the paper soon.

Daniel's been reading up on Going Small. Well, googling randomly when he can't sleep. Most people tend to think about Going Small as a way of connecting with your kid self, like… remembering who you once were in case maybe you wanted to stop being such a cunt or that you always wanted to sew clothes or build bridges and maybe your hedge fund job isn't as fulfilling as you maybe thought it was. Some people say it's as much for the people around you as it is about you, but whatever. Daniel had had a great fucking time in the pit lane six years ago, he remembers that much, although the detail has always been fuzzy. Like it happened a very long time ago. But there's another school of thought, one about the kids that don't age back up after a day or a couple of days, the kids who maybe lost a part of their childhood the first time around. Daniel's never met anyone who stayed small longer than a couple of days though, and it's so rare that the theory could be complete bollocks, and no one would ever know anyway. You can't battle data against the universe, it's not like race strategy. There's no science to it.

Max continues not to look at him. He's colouring the same line over and over again.

Daniel closes his email app, and slips his phone into his pocket. "Can I come and colour with you?"

Max nods, but doesn't look up. His fingertips are white around his pencil. He's used it down to the nub so that it's almost too blunt to colour with.

Daniel tries to sit down on Max's right side, but Max shakes his head and makes him come and sit on his left. Daniel positions himself cross-legged by the coffee table and it becomes clear just why Max wanted him this side when, a moment later, Max's little hand slips into Daniel's bigger one. Daniel does not now have a hand to colour with, but maybe it doesn't matter, because Max is colouring with enough concentration for the two of them, a big picture of a train with a cat sitting in the window next to the driver. He's being very careful. He still doesn't look up.

One of the Jimmy or Sassys wanders over to curl up by Max's little Pikachu-socked foot. The other one, the one who doesn't like being petted as much and prefers to watch you in a creepy and furry way while you're doing perfectly normal things sitting on the toilet or in the shower, perches on top of Daniel's shelves and stares at them.

Max's grip on his pencil loosens a little. Daniel leans over and kisses the top of his head. "You're very good at colouring," he tells Max. "We can cut out ones you've finished and put them up on the wall, if you'd like."

Max looks at him then, his eyes big and wide. "My pictures?"

"Your pictures," Daniel agrees. He reaches for the Pikachu pencil sharpener in the middle of the table. "Can I sharpen your pencil for you?"

Max dutifully hands him his blue pencil. His eyes are still shining, even though Daniel's had to stop holding his hand so that he can sharpen it for him. When he hands it back, all sharp, Max tucks his hand into Daniel's again.

"You've done some good colouring in of this train," Daniel says. "Have you been on a train, Maxy-Max?"

Max shakes his head.

"Would you like to go on one?"

Max's eyes widen. "A train?"

"Yeah," Daniel nods. "If you'd like, we can go and find a train to go on tomorrow. If you want to. We can take Pikachu."

"But not the Jimmy or Sassys," Max says, frowning. "They would not like the train and they might get lost."

"No," Daniel agrees. "The Jimmy or Sassy cats can stay here."

"There is a cat in my train picture but it is not our cats."

"No," Daniel says. "So, should we go on a train tomorrow?"

"Yes, please, Daniel," Max says, in satisfaction.

Daniel watches him colour even as he's avoiding texting Christian to let him know Max has gone small and isn't getting big again. He follows up on his avoidance by ordering a night light for Max's bedroom and one for the bathroom, in case his little boy is frightened of the dark and is too scared to say. He pays extra for same-day delivery.

He'll call Christian later, when Max is in bed. Instead, he googles train stations, and train timetables, and puts together a plan for the morning.

Max keeps his hand tucked into Daniel's, carries on colouring, and doesn't let go.

Thank you so much to Zoe @flawlessassholes for giving this a pre-post read through, and for consistently being interested in all baby Max lore!

[centralperkspoison]

I Can See You - G. Way

PAIRING: Gerard Way x Fem!Reader

WARNINGS: sexual references, a little fluffy.

SUMMARY: You and Gerard have known each other for years. When you finally confess to him, everything works out! But how do you keep it as a secret? (Based loosely on I Can See You by Taylor Swift)

WORD COUNT: 1.3k

OTHERS: me posting? whattttt?! this was highly inspired by the song I Can See You by Taylor Swift, so I recommend listening to that while you read. Also, I haven't posted a fic in like a year this is crazy. also!!! not my usual work, not that much fluff just more back story. idk i have wrote in a while so im sorry!

---

YOU KEPT EVERYTHING PROFESSIONAL. You and him only showed your true emotions behind closed doors. You'd brush past each other in the hallways most of the time ensuring to not let anyone catch on.

Of course, you and Gerard were friends to the public eye. You and him were the two lead singers of My Chemical Romance, but what happened behind closed doors stayed there.

You'd moved next door to the Way family when you were fairly young, quickly becoming friends with the two brothers despite the slight age differences; Mikey was three years older than you and Gerard was six years older, which is why in the beginning everything had to be quiet. But of course, you had kept your feelings for the nerdy older brother hidden since you were six, so that wouldn't be too hard.

When the band began recording for Bullets you had just turned eighteen and Gerard was almost twenty-five, which is when it first started.

-

"Why don't I understand basic song structure," You groaned. "You clearly have it down."

Gerard scoffed, "I do not have it down whatsoever, I just actually ask for input unlike someone who's stubborn as hell." He laughed. 

It was only the two of you on the bus, the rest of the guys were inside a restaurant buying breakfast while before you traveled four hours to only record half the album for Bullets.

"Here, bring it over so I can look at it." He said, sitting up on the couch on the bus. You slowly walked towards him, hoping he wouldn't realize who it was about. You silently hoped he couldn't tell, then sat next to him and handed him the lyrics you had written so far. He began analyzing them and handed them back to you.

"It's good, but the bridge should have more meaning. You've described this person in such a beautiful light, then the bridge is just happily ever after? Include some of the struggle in the relationship." You nod, beginning to write. He watches you closely from over your shoulder causing you to face the other way and lay down on him so he could get a better view. This was nothing unusual for you two, it was normal for you to lay on him or anyone else in the band.

You took his words into consideration, then started writing lyrics along the lines of 'If only he knew,' and 'I could see you being my addiction, you could see me as a secret mission.' along with some more context.

"Hey, (Y/N)?" He called, you could feel his heart speed up from your spot on his chest. "Yes, Gee?" You say, looking up at him. "Who is this about?" He asked quietly, playing with your long hair. You dropped your pencil and sat up, facing him. "Is that really important right now?" "I mean not really, I'm just a bit curious." He says with a slight smirk across his face. You just shrug and walk to where you were sitting previously to the whole song structure conversation. Once you sit down, he began speaking again.

"I mean of course the description sounds a little similar, short black hair, hazel eyes, crooked smile," He says, walking behind your chair and gripping it and looking down at you from over the back of the tall chair. "I would say Frank, but his hair doesn't exactly fall under that category anymore, and when you think about it, I'm the only one with short black hair now." He smirks. He already knew, but he was just trying to play around and have a little fun before he had to make his own scary confession.

"God, okay Gerard, the song is about you." You roll your eyes trying to make it come out as if you're not afraid to say it. "Wait, you're actually admitting it?" "Yes, I have a big fat crush on you, now can you please just turn me down already so I can get over it sooner." You sigh, and he walks around your chair so you two are facing each other now. 

"(Y/N), I'm not rejecting you," He smiles. "C'mere." He says, opening his arms for a hug, and you quickly throw yourself in his arms. You two linger in the hug for a while before you take a step back and look up at him. You two were so close your noses were touching. 

"May I?" He asks, moving his hand up so he's cupping your jaw. You lean into his touch and nod.

-

After you two established your feelings, your situationship turned into a relationship that ranged from sweet moments to insanely sexual ones, not that you had a problem with that, of course. It was just difficult keeping it from your best friends.

Eventually, fans began sniffing the two of you out. How you would always sit next to each other in interviews, when you were on stage you would always seem as if you were singing to him and he was singing to you, when they watched Life On The Murder Scene every time there was a video on the bus you'd have your legs sprawled out on top of his or you'd be laying on him, and even away from the bus he'd always send you looks.

You started seeing the fans reactions on Twitter in the two of your comment sections.

(Y/N)(Y/L/N): Day off with my boys! <3

mcrlover616: OMG R U AND GERARD DATING

frerard4li4e: Gerard belongs to Frank, girl. Back off.

bugmomma24356: You and Gerard are so cute ug! <3

After trying to cover up everything to the best of your abilities, nothing made them believe you, even your own band mates started thinking the two of you were together, so you two had to act more distant. 

No more laying on him, no more lingering hugs, and definitely no more making out on stage just to "make the crowd go wild". 

-

The two of you had to be entirely secret for almost a year now, and it was the first night of your new tour, Rise Against the Black Parade. 

Gerard brushes his shoulder against yours in the hallway while you two walk into the dressing room, shooting you a look. "Oh sorry, (Y/N)." He says quietly and slides his arm across your back before sitting two seats away from you in the dressing room. 

Makeup took a while, but you and Gerard were the last to finish. Once your artists left the room he sprung up to lock the door, and quickly met you in the middle of the room. 

He rested his hands on your hips and you hand your arms on the back of his neck, while he pressed his lips to yours aggressively. You parted from him for a moment, "Now don't go messing up our makeup," You smirked. "We can fix it ourselves." He grunts, picking you up and placing you on the counter.

The two of you were in there for a total of five minutes before someone started knocking on the dressing room door, causing you to jump like two teenagers caught by parents. "Hello? Who's in there, we need to change!" You hear Frank say from the other side of the door. The two of you quickly check your makeup to make sure it wasn't messed up, then you walked to the door to unlock it before turning to Gerard.

"You know, if stopped hiding... it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world." You said and he began to shake his head. "The age difference, (Y/N)." "It's six years, Gee. At least it's not like twenty or thirty like some other couples." You say, causing him to shrug. "I guess it's not the worst thing in the world." 

You walk over and unlock the door allowing Frank to come in with the costume cart. Once he realized it was the two of you he gasped. "You?" He said pointing to Gerard, "And you?" He said pointing to you. You turn to Gerard and tilt your head. "Yeah yeah, big deal." He said walking over to wrap an arm around your waist.  That night was one of your best shows yet. You two started showing affection on stage once again, you put your emotion back into your lyrics, and you even got a chance to preform the song you wrote for Gerard that started the whole relationship.

[oreosmama]

Hi! Already told ya but I really liked you ST headcanon❤️ could you make one with Billy (+ any other stranger things boys you want to add) about them accidentally hearing that y/n has feelings for them? It’s too cliched but such fluffy fluff is my air:>

He Accidentally Overhears You Have Feelings for Him (Stranger Things Headcanons)

*GIF not mine*

A/N: yeah so this took me like a month but also guess what i had to bullet point every single goddamned mfing line in this post by hand bc of tumblr's new formatting or whatever, and then i posted it on the wrong goddamn request so i had to do it twice so ig we all got probs kill me. Anyways, i kinda went overboard on this prompt bc i love billy so naturally no one else made it into the hc🤷‍♀️ what a shame👀 Enjoy!

Word count: 4856

Billy Hargrove: 

“I don’t like him.” 

Billy’s eyes fluttered open, and they glided lazily onto your form in the desk in front of him. With his hands folded behind his head and his legs crossed, feet perched on his own desktop, Billy knew the teacher had long ago given up on scolding him for his lackadaisical behavior in class, and even longer ago had he realized Billy would never put much effort in anyway. 

One such happenstance that seemed to disturb the entire class, though, was how Billy had wound up there in the first place. Honors English didn’t exactly seem tailored to his, er, capabilities, to put it lightly. 

However, before Billy and his family had moved to Hawkins, Indiana, he’d been quite the student (according to the principal…after you’d complained), and lost in translation was some other lame excuse that English classes in California were inherently more advanced than those of Indiana anyway. 

You called bullshit. You had sworn Billy had bribed the teacher to let him remain in the class just to disrupt your existence. 

It wasn’t exactly his crowd, so to speak, judging by the glasses, focused faces, and pencils scribbling around the room. Nobody in the room looked like they’d even smelled a cigarette before—well, not until Billy arrived.

But you? God, you fit in like a glove. Here was where you divided yourself from the rest of the school, from its bullies and booze and tobacco—from its corruption. You were innocent when it came to such “paraphernalia,” as you called it. You were untouched, and more importantly, you were unclaimed. 

Billy was enthralled with this virtuous disposition of yours. In the beginning, his feelings for you,“little Miss Priss” as he’d grown to calling you, appalled him. Of all the girls in the school he could choose from, all the hot blondes that fawned over him in the halls and the enticing brunettes that asked him out after catching his eye for a moment, never did he think for a fucking second that it would be you. 

The prude. 

“Don’t like who?” Billy interjected harshly, dismissing how you and your friend flinched at his sudden interest. 

“No one!” you both mumbled, avoiding his gaze and spinning around in your seats. 

Billy’s brow rose at that, and the instant the bell rang, he kicked his feet off his desk and reached a hand toward you. You scooted forward in your seat the second his fingers brushed you, and Billy paused, a small ache in his chest disguising itself as irritation. 

Clenching his jaw, Billy curled his fingers around the back of your desk chair and dragged you back to him, the rubber stoppers on the ends of your chair legs squealing in protest against the polished floors. The teacher glanced up from his podium at the front of the class at the sound, an unimpressed look on his face, but was otherwise unconcerned about the situation unfolding. After all, it happened almost every morning. 

The teacher sighed and resumed calling roll. Billy kept one fist clasped around the back of your chair and one long leg outstretched beneath your seat, his boot situated around the nearest footing to stop you from scooting away. He leaned forward, hot breath rustling your hair as you sat stock-still, hands folded in your lap. 

“YN-”

You flinched. 

“-who were you talking about?” Though it was a question, he more demanded the answer than asked for it, because Billy would be damned if he had to listen to you and your friend giggle and jabber about your feelings for any guy that wasn’t him. 

Just the thought of another boy in the class catching your eye in general made him feel angry. 

No, maybe not angry. Sick was more like it. You weren’t his, and he knew that—fuck, he knew that all too well. He wouldn’t let it be that way for long, though. 

For months he’d tried to take his mind off you and place it, force it, on someone else. But when girls at parties and in his car, in hotel rooms or in their own goddamn bedrooms couldn’t eliminate the picture of you hot-glued to the forefront of his mind—couldn’t erase your secret smile when Billy had Sharpied a dick on Mr. Morrison’s board, or your glare when he’d tugged your seat over to his for the first time, or that feeling of your hand overtop his when he’d tugged on your hair to distract you, to bring your attention back onto him—Billy knew he had to give up on getting over you. 

He’d finally accepted that his only course of action was to keep your eyes on him just as his were locked on you. It was only fair. 

“Nobody,” you huffed under your breath. “Why do you even care?”

The tension on Billy’s face softened, relaxed as he looked over your form appreciatively, licking his lower lip. ‘Heres’ and ‘Presents’ resounded about the pair of you as Billy released his grip on your seat’s backing, settling the same arm on his desk and reaching up a hand to twirl a strand of your hair around his finger. “Oh, no reason, babe, just making sure I’m still in your good graces is all.”

You scoffed and twisted in your seat, yanking his hand from your hair with a grip on his wrist. “Were you ever?”

Billy held your gaze while simultaneously imploring to whatever asshole wandered around in the sky that you would never release your hold on him, and he allowed his lips to curl up into a real smile. So long he went without ever letting that happen, and then you showed up and now he never wanted to stop. 

Just as Billy reached up to brush a strand of hair from your forehead, the teacher reared his ugly, bald, fucking bastard head. 

“YN, Billy,” Mr. Morrison called aloud, his tone on the latter’s name far more irritated, and, of course, you sat at attention, turning away from Billy and tearing your hand away from his wrist. “Pay attention, please.”

“Sorry, sir.”

And just like that, you slipped from his grasp. You ignored Billy’s every poking and prodding of his pencil in your back for the rest of class and focused rather on whatever the hell Morrison was on about, curled over your notebook with your head ducked low.

It was only when Billy sighed and sat back in his seat with crossed arms, chest tight, that he realized your friend was watching from the corner of her eye with a small grin. 

Until Billy flipped her the bird, then she scoffed and looked away too. 

By the end of class, Billy’s head was dropped back, mouth open and releasing soft snores. The bell ringing didn’t wake him; what did was your courteous kick to his foot in order for him to release your chair, which he did, so you could push your seat in. Then you smacked his forehead with your notebook for good measure. “Wake up, asshole, class is over.”

He grunted, swatting away the offender. “You’re so kind to me, babe,” he grumbled bitterly. “What would I do without you?”

“Considering you spend every waking minute in this class annoying me, I truly, honestly don’t know.”

Billy smirked at that, gaze latched onto your form as you walked away side-by-side with your friend, whom you seemed to be shaking your head at. Sluggishly and with a yawn, he rose to his feet, lugging his bag over his shoulder and following your path out of the classroom. 

He lingered behind a few steps, stopping only to lean against a water fountain and pull a pack of Marlboros from his back jean pocket. He swiped the cigarette across his bottom lip before slotting it in the corner of his mouth and reaching for his lighter. 

“That’s not what this is,” you groaned, fiddling with the combination of your locker. 

Your friend hummed sarcastically, a mocking “Totally” on her lips from Billy’s distance away. He could barely hear the two of you, especially through the thick crowd of students flooding the halls, rushing to their cars and buses to get the hell out of school. 

Of course, you were lagging behind to study in the library, and, of course, Billy would be there to bother you for the next half hour before “suddenly remembering” he had a date.

Fuck, he hated it. He hated himself, and how easily you wound him around your little finger. He used to wish you were cruel; some cold-blooded bitch to him so it would be so much easier to dismiss his feelings and walk away. Instead, you were kind. The only fucking person who could battle back against his attitude and yet still care about his wellbeing. How many times had you tugged a cigarette from his mouth with a small, disapproving grumble, or silently placed a water bottle on his desk when he’d enter the classroom reeling from the effects of the night before?

He'd never met anyone that was too good for him. Not since…

Fuck. He hated this.

How? How did you have that power over him? When did you ever have time to wrench your hand into his chest, break past his ribcage and grab a fistfull of his heart just to steal it out and shake it in front of him like some cruel game of fetch?

“Goddamnit,” he huffed, eyes narrowed at his lighter that sparked fruitlessly. One last click, though, and a flame bloomed in his hand. 

“I swear it’s not! The guy’s an asshole. You know my grade is actually dropping in that class?” You slammed your locker closed, armfuls of textbooks hugged to your chest. “It’s because of him. Pretty soon, I’ll have an A-minus. Do you know how long it’s been since I've had an A-minus in a class?”

“Not as long as you haven’t had a D.” 

You blanched, whole body flinching like you took a punch to the gut. “I-... you-... that was totally uncalled for.” Your friend snickered. 

Billy, meanwhile, had grown infinitely more interested in the conversation, so much so that he had almost coughed out the smoke in his lungs. His eyebrows raised as he watched a flush rise to your cheeks. 

“You’re disgusting, you know that?” You pointed at her disapprovingly, but she only laughed more boisterously. 

“Oh, come on! Am I wrong?”

“Who cares about my…” you gestured at yourself wordlessly, floundering, “e-experience level? You really think that asshole is gonna solve that?”

“Easily.” 

You threw your arms in the air hopelessly at your friend’s deadpan, rolling your eyes. “No! Not happening! The only possible outcome is a newfound exposure to STDs.”

“Worth it.” Her hands snapped up in surrender at your glare. “Kidding. Just kidding.”

Slowly but steadily, the halls were clearing. Billy didn’t bother trying to disguise his watchful gaze as he inhaled another cloud of smoke, pulling the cigarette from his lips to tap the ashes out in the water fountain behind him. He let out the fumes in one long stream as he leaned a hip against the metal edge of the fountain, settling his other hand into a front pocket on his blue jeans. 

Billy waited, as he always did, like a predator ready to swoop in on his prey the second it was alone. Two blue eyes stay cemented on your form like a promise, a pledge of devotion. It was the yearning from afar that pained him the most, certainly because what excuse could he ever fabricate to explain himself? You hadn’t called his name—-your gaze hadn’t even accidently washed over him. You’d done nothing to gain his attention. You had done nothing but be, and for that, Billy was undeniably, absolutely addicted. 

He needed you.

Billy massaged two fingers at his temple, taking another drag with half-lidded eyes. 

“You better be.” You sighed, slamming your locker closed and clenching the straps of your backpack in your hands. “The day I actually throw myself into the arms of that aggravating jerk is the day I toss all of my self-respect in the trash.”

It’s me. It has to be.

She’s talking about-

“He’s not that bad if you think about it. Even you yourself said-”

“I know what I said,” you floundered, shoving a finger against her lips. “But—you know what—if we both ignore that I ever said it, then maybe, just maybe, my feelings will fade away, and we can both look back at my confession one day and laugh.” You pull your hand away from her, posing your hands on your hips righteously. “Laugh while knowing that my feelings for him were ridiculous and dumb and stupid and childish, and that I was just acting like a regular teenager with a little, stupid crush on some dumb boy-”

“You’re in love with Billy, aren’t you?” your friend deadpanned. 

Your face fell, and you pouted. “Yeah, fine, you’re right, I’ve got it bad.” 

-Me.

The cigarette fell from his lips, landing on the floor soundlessly. Billy stood at attention, his hand falling out of his pocket as the other dropped from his head. Love. YN is-

She’s in love with me.

All color in his cheeks disappeared, just as all the air in his chest. He couldn’t breathe, but in a good way, like the burn of surfacing from underwater for too long—like he was seconds away from the first gasp of fresh, sweet oxygen, after suffocating for so long.

He wanted this—fuck, he needed this. Who gave a damn if he deserved it or not, he was going to have you. You and the warmth of your hands; your smile and your laugh, all of your blushes and your tears.

All of it. Every single last ounce, he wanted it all.

He could fucking have it, too. 

She’s in love with me. 

Your friend grinned all too smugly. “You’re finally admitting it out loud, huh? Look at you, growing up right before my eyes. How does it feel?”

“How does what feel?” you grumbled, still curled in on yourself, cheeks dusted pink.

“Your first real love confession to a boy.” She dropped both of her hands on your shoulders as your brows furrowed. 

“Does it really count if he’s not even here?”

“Nope,” she beamed, spinning you around in her grip. “Good thing he is!”

For a moment longer, you were still visibly confused at her words. The halls had long cleared, and the only sights and noises that now filled them were your wide eyes and quick gasp. 

“Billy.” His name slipped from your lips like an accident, tumbling out without a second thought and landing in the allconsuming silence of the hallway with a dull thud. 

He couldn't help it. God, he couldn’t fucking help it. 

The trembling that took hold of him, the shiver that began in the tips of his fingers and transferred up the length of his spine—he hated it because he had to hate it, but deep down he loved it more than anything else.

Because you were just so fucking perfect. 

Your eyes were glassy, like any second you were going to burst into tears. There was a small quiver of your lower lip, and, like a tidal wave, the overwhelming urge to feel that same quiver against his own lips, his skin, crashed into him. 

He really, really couldn’t help it. It was second nature. 

A corner of his mouth lifted, and his eyes glinted with condescension. “Is that right?” he hummed, amused. “Are you in love with me, YN?”

The pounding in his chest, the pregnant pause as he waited, the subtle, dizzying fog that began to flood his mind, all of it he ignored. He had to hear it. Say it again.

But he couldn’t help it, and the more your glistening eyes studied his face, tears threatening to overflow at the waterline, the more he could feel that sweet burn in his lungs turn painful once more. 

And it hurt so much worse when you twisted out of your friend’s hold and bolted. 

Your tennis shoes squeaked in protest against the vinyl composition tile, down the hallway and clear through the glass doors of Hawkins High, never turning back no matter how many times your friend called your name. 

When the doors slammed shut, a gust of wind followed and ruffled the stray curl against Billy’s forehead. The smirk had long fallen from his face. 

Your friend bit the inside of her cheek beside him, obviously searching for words of any kind to explain your reaction. “She’s just-… well, you kind of…” She huffed, adjusting her backpack straps against her shoulders. “Look, she’ll be back on Monday. She wouldn’t skip school, even out of embarrassment like that.” She threw him a sidelong glance. “Though, maybe next time you don’t respond like that, right?”

Billy’s face hardened, and he pulled the pack of cigarettes from his back pocket. He slotted a smoke in the corner of his lips. “Who gives a shit?” 

Your friend pursed her lips, observing as he struggled once more with his lighter. He gripped it with white knuckles, and the butt of his cigarette was crushed between his teeth. “Right,” she nodded with a sigh. “See you Monday.” Her footsteps trailed down the hall and away.

When the doors shut after her too, Billy spat out the smoke, hurling his lighter down the hallway with bared teeth. “FUCK!”

Monday. Fucking Monday?

Billy wrenched two hands in his hair, his nostrils flaring as he gnawed on his lips. It hurt, it all fucking hurt. Everything. 

She left, she fucking left. She ran away from you, and you know why too—it’s because you’re so weak. Why the hell would she ever want to be with someone like you? How could she ever be in love with-

Billy paused, his hands falling from his scalp, his shoulders rolling back. His head raised, slowly. 

Fine, you could have until Monday. But on that day, he was getting some fucking answers. 

The weekend didn’t pass by quick enough, despite Billy not remembering most of it. He recalled the party he attended that Friday night, the keg and the shots and what must have been some girl trying her best to come onto him. He remembered shoving her off one minute with a snarl and thundering towards his car, and then the next he was waking up in his own bed. He remembered working out and drinking Saturday and Sunday away, and he remembered waking up Monday with a healing bruise on his cheek, his father none too impressed that he’d drunk all the beer in the house in the span of two days. 

But who fucking cared, right?

Who gave a shit when his Camaro came squealing into the school parking lot, stopped parallel between three spots? Who gave a shit when he ambled Hawkins High halfway through the school day, his shirt unbuttoned down his chest, his cologne wafting after him everywhere he went?

And who gave a shit when he arrived in Mr. Morrison’s class, early for the first time in the six months he’d been in it, and planted himself in his seat, his legs kicked up on his desk, his arms folded up behind his head, blue eyes carefully watching the doorway. 

Because, yeah, you’d ran away from him. But you’ve been doing that for so long now, dancing out of his reach each time he wanted you, twisting out of his grip each time he almost had you. This was the first time you’d ever escaped him knowingly. 

Finally, he knew you loved him, and once more you got away. 

Of course, your little game of cat and mouse had to end like this—it had to end with him catching you. 

And catch you he did. 

God, you were so fucking beautiful, it actually made him ache. Your friend was shoving you in through the classroom door, two hands braced against your back despite you trying to wriggle away like a loose fish. 

Your face was red, completely, utterly red, like you’d just come back from running a marathon. Your eyes were darting around frantically, from the desks to the ceiling, and he knew you were actually considering your chances of escaping through an air vent. 

She’s in love with me.

He didn’t care. Suddenly, at the sight of you, he just didn’t fucking care anymore. He didn’t care that you ran, about the turmoil you’d caused him, about the misery that had been his weekend away from you. 

He couldn’t care for anything less because the second your eyes landed on him in that classroom and you let out the softest little squeal, all he knew was you, you, you.

So fucking cute.

Billy kicked his feet off his desk, reaching forward and pulling out your chair before patting the seat backing suggestively. Like clockwork, his smirk reformed on his face, a small glimmer of patronizing amusement in his eyes. 

“Come on, babe,” he simpered at you. “Don’t be shy. Take a seat.”

Come back to me. I need you.

Your eyes widened, and you squirmed in her grip once more. “Nope, I can’t do this.”

“Hush up and go.” One big shove from your friend and you were stumbling forward, scrambling to regain your balance. 

Billy silently urged you closer, gesturing down at your seat with his hands the closer you shuffled toward him. As he did, he drank in the sight of you, flushed and skittish, stumbling toward him like a baby deer on new, unsteady legs. He noticed the darkened skin under your eyes, most likely matching his own, though he doubted you and him were sleepless for the same reasons. 

When you ground to a halt in front of him, you gulped, your attention everywhere but on his face. 

“Hey, YN,” he practically purred, hands itching to reach out to you. 

“Hello, Billy,” you squeaked, dropping into your seat and gripping the bottom in an effort to slide the chair forward. Very quickly, though, you discovered Billy’s boot was already perched around the chair’s footing, and one hand had an iron grip on its back. 

“Going somewhere?”

“I guess not.”

Billy hummed. “I think you have something to say to me.”

“Umm nope, don’t think so.”

“Oh, come on, no need to be shy. I just wanna hear you say it,” he prompted, as his other hand glided up, curling a strand of your hair around his finger. “Tell me how you feel about me, YN.”

“I think you’re a jerk,” you whispered, turning back slightly to fix him with a flimsy glare. 

“Besides that. Tell me what you told me Friday, before you ran.” He tugged at the strand of hair, his brows raised expectantly. 

“I didn’t mean it-”

“Don’t-” Billy gritted his teeth, his hand leaving your hair to grip your chin, turning you to face him. “Don’t say that.” He watched as your eyes grew damp again, all soft and delicate and one small admonition away from bursting into tears. 

You were so fragile, so small in his eyes. It often made him wonder why he ever thought he should be the one you should be with. How could he ever hold you in his arms without tarnishing you?

So badly, he thought he wanted to have you just to dirty you, take away that purity that seemed to hover over your head, but there were some days where he knew that all he wanted from you was to make him believe he could hold on to something so clean.

He wanted it. So, so bad, he wanted whatever you would offer him. He wanted to hear those words straight from your lips. 

Your cheeks were so hot, he itched to cradle them in his palms and absorb some of that warmth. He wanted to wipe away all of the tentativeness with the pads of his fingers and leave behind the breathlessness, the pure affection that was its source. 

“You just want to laugh at me,” you whispered, your voice almost breaking. “You’re just going to tease me about it like you do with everything else.” You swept a hand underneath your eyes. “You’re so cruel, Billy.”

“Stop-” he hissed and shook his head, gritting his teeth. “You don’t get to say that. Not after all I’ve ever wanted is for you to love me back, you don’t get to fucking say that.” Billy seized your wrist, tugging you closer. “I know what I am. I know what I do.”

His pride was wilting away the more he spoke to you, the longer you didn’t pull away from him, and his mind pounded in indignation. At what point did you turn him into a complete lovesick fool, and was it before or after you first smiled at him?

If your wide-eyed look was any indication of your shock at his feelings, he wondered just how baffled you would be once you discovered his willingness to bend over backwards at your every plea. You would never take advantage of him, and he knew that, but the tendrils of doubt still crawled up his spine at the thought of leaving himself so vulnerable for you. 

 “But you, YN?” He traced his eyes over your face, huffing softly. “In all my life, I’ve never wanted something more.”

You stared at him, open mouthed. Your gaze was so surprised, so innocent that it actually frustrated him. How could you have not seen? How could you be so blind?

“So don’t you fucking say that it’s cruel of me, or selfish, or some other bullshit.”

You gasped when he tugged you closer by the wrist, his other hand encompassing your cheek. 

“Just say it again.”

His eyes darted over your face, desperate.

“Please.”

Your eyebrows twitched up at that, and your gaze grew tender, raking over his face slowly as if committing to memory. You paused at his lips, watching as they parted and pursed against one another. 

You’d worn him down. You’d exhausted him, mentally and physically. Of all the months he’d waited for your confession like this, he never thought the last few moments would be the most excruciating of them all. What more did you want from him? Already, he could feel the swell of anger at his throat ready to be unleashed, to lash out at you until you were in steady tears again just so he knew exactly what you were feeling once more. Billy wanted—no, needed—some part of you to be under his thumb, just so he could pretend, if even for a second, that your emotions for him were still in his range of sway.

Instead, his heart stuttered when the hand in his grip wormed away and pulled off the other that was at your cheek. You splayed his hand out on the surface of his desk, then you intertwined your fingers with his and squeezed. Your teeth worried at your bottom lip as you ducked your head. 

“I’m in love with you, Billy.”

His eyelids fluttered shut, and he breathed a sigh of relief. 

Finally. Fucking Finally.

You were his, completely. 

He couldn’t help it. He really couldn’t.

His hand found your chin, and he tipped your head up, gaining your attention.

“I fucking knew it,” he simpered, entirely too smug. And when you tried to scramble away, panicked and scared, his hand found the back of your neck and tugged you close, his lips landing on yours. 

In his hold, you grew lax, only your hand tensing around his. Your lips didn’t move against his, seemingly too tentative and inexperienced to truly indulge yourself.

Billy grinned into the kiss, far more pleased than anyone should be at the knowledge that he could leave marks on you in so many more ways than one. When he pulled away, he quickly cupped your face with a hand, thumbing at your lips in search of the remainder of his own warmth. 

“Library, after school?” he muttered, his mouth still curved.

“Only if you don’t have a date afterwards,” you grumbled. You could sass him all you wanted, and Billy couldn’t care less. He could hear your breathlessness and feel the heat in your cheeks, and pride flared in him knowingly. 

“Well, I might-”

“Are you guys done yet? ’Cause that was kinda gross.” Your friend dropped into the seat beside you, her nose wrinkled. You straightened up, unraveling yourself from Billy’s hold and nodding your head.

“Yep, yeah, definitely all done. Totally.” 

And just like that, you were gone. Billy bristled at your instantaneous lack of touch and threw a snarl at your friend, who only shrugged. 

Then she held out a hand, brows raised expectantly. 

“You owe me.”

Billy rolled his eyes, fishing his wallet out of the pocket of his jeans and rifling through it, passing her a ten dollar bill. 

“Keep the change.”

“With pleasure.”

[eliasiis]

notes

pairing: cynonari

word count: 600??? around that

i havent had motivation in so long but i finally did. idea courtesy of an ask sent by @/chibimochii to @/lovelynim both of which who i wont tag because im a coward but im sure theyll see it eventually thank u guys

The paper falls with a near silent ‘thud’ on Tighnari’s desk.

Silent to everyone but Cyno, anyway.

He scribbles ‘Give me your notes’ in pencil on another paper, crumpling it and throwing it at Tighnari.

This is the fourth paper. Tighnari basically growls at him as he glares, then turns his head back to his paper. His eyes tell Cyno all he needs to know. He’s not getting those notes.

The growl was pretty cute, at least.

Okay. Plan B. Which is…

He didn't think this far ahead. He really needs those notes. As he thinks, Tighnari’s tail gently swishes behind him.

There we go. The corner of his lips quirk up a bit. This isn't the first time he's done this, definitely not— Teasing Tighnari is among Cyno’s favorite hobbies.

It almost looks hesitant, the painfully slow way he reaches out to Tighnari’s tail. He needs to catch the swishing, fluffy mass in such a way that he can scritch at the top quickly enough without Tighnari having the chance to notice and pull away.

Of course, Cyno has had practice. He would almost notice Tighnari biting his lip and his cheeks flushing with anticipation if he weren't so focused.

The calm, rhythmic back and forth of the tail becomes stuttered and shaky as Cyno’s hand gets closer. Of course he notices that change, but he doesn't notice Tighnari actively making it easier for him.

Cyno squints. Tighnari pretends not to know what's about to happen.

Tighnari gasps and smacks his hand against his desk as Cyno trails his fingers against his tail. His lips form a shaky smile as the ticklish, electric feeling shocks him. He should be used to it by now, but he still squeezes his hands into fists and shuts his eyes as he tries to ignore the feeling.

Heads turn toward them as they hear the thud of Tighnari’s palm against the polished desk. Used to their antics by now, nobody comments. The class moves on, but Cyno only smirks and chuckles quietly as he curls his fingers into the fluffed fur of his friend’s tail.

“The notes, Nari~” He whispers teasingly into his ear, sighing in faux-disappointment as Tighnari defiantly shakes his head.

With his other hand, Cyno tickles and scratches ever-so-gently at the middle of the tail. Tighnari arches his back and grabs the desk for dear life as he tries to keep his composure against the unbearably gentle ministrations of Cyno’s villianous hands.

“Cyno, plehehease,” He whispers, his plea coming out whiny and weak. Even though this is embarrassing and childish, when else is Cyno this physically affectionate and playful? When else do they get this chance?

Tighnari doesn't do much else to stop him.

“You know what I want, don’t you?”

“No wahahay! Take— Take your own nohohotes!”

They don't even notice how loud they're getting or that the professer is glaring at them.

Cyno decides to take it a step further. He wiggles his fingers over Tighnari’s shoulderblades.

Tighnari gasps, already tensing his shoulders and raising his hands as if he could really stop Cyno, whether he wanted to or not. “You wouldn't!”

”The notes.”

”No!”

“Boys!” The professor calls out to them. “Settle down.”

Tighnari shudders as Cyno’s hands retract.

Cyno looks disappointed, but it's not about the notes at this point. He really just wanted to tickle Tighnari to tears.

Maybe it's not the best idea in class, but still.

As he thinks about it, he looks down to see a notebook on his desk, opened to a page with fancy green handwriting in bullet points.

Tighnari refuses to look at him.

[lyssak09]

Hello :D

I love your writings!!!!

And I love your dbd Yandere Leon x killer reader story :3 can you pls make a part two? I would love to know how it will continues :D

Thank you so much for your amazing work!!!!!!

Also have a good day :D

Of course! Your super sweet I'm so glad you like my writing. So I actually started working on a part 2 after seeing your comment. But your ask just really made me work more on it. So thank you for requesting! Also, I tried to make this as gender friendly as possible. If I messed up anywhere Im so sorry. I hope you guys enjoy it 💙

Yandere Leon with Killer! Reader pt 2

Leon is a clingy needy dude after he's yonked you from the killer's realm. So expect a lot of cuddling, no personal space, and following you everywhere you go in the apartment. 

He isn’t THAT weird, and lets you use the bathroom in peace.

You think anyway.

The best part about him following you like a puppy is the fact that you can basically make him do anything with a simple sentence. 

You could ask for water, and he will zoom over the fridge to get you some water.

Hungry?

Food has been cooked and brought to you.

You are treated like a god dang queen/king/royalty. 

As you should be.

He took you without your permission, and has been keeping you basically hostage. 

This is the least that he could do for you. 

Now, is his cooking very good?

Not really.

He is used to cooking food over a fire and, after joining The Entity’s realm, not eating at all.

If someone came to visit you guys (99.98% not gonna happen but it doesn't hurt to hope) like a friend of his, who didn’t hate him for kidnapping you, he would be giving them a death glare until they leave. Lucky for them that they're friends with Leon or else you'd have a giant mess to clean up and some laundry to do if ya catch my drift.

Btw, Leon 100% wants you to be his house spouse.

You are so missed by your friends. And are enraged and appalled that Leon has done this to you and is able to.

A lot of the killers don’t care tho, since they’ve seen much worse.

But the survivors do, they're also extra pissed he is the one who did kill them for a while as of late.

But hey, not everything was too bad. 

He let you have hobbies, as long as you were still inside of the apartment.

Like sewing.

If you were really interested in it, he would ask you to sew some of his old clothes with big holes.

“Y/N,” he would whisper, before sitting down next to you. You were just sewing up old holes in a pillow case that you found in the back of the closet, hoping to maybe get some use out of it. “Can you sew up this hole for me?"He showed you an old, black shirt with a bullet hole on the chest. “Laurie got me good with a pallet, it put a hole in my shirt, and I haven’t been able to find someone to repair it.”

If you try to stab him with the needle or scissors to skedaddle then your butt is gonna get whooped. 

"WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?" He yelled at you while you tried to break the front door down. "To get away from you! Duh!" You replied before body slamming the door. Leon let out a string of curses as he quickly wrapped his wound with scraps of fabric from the table. Leon soon grabbed you by your waist and dragged you to the bedroom. "Damn it! Let go of me!!" You screamed and held on to the door frame of the bedroom. Leon covered your mouth and pulled you into the room. "You have no reason to scream yet." He hissed in your ear and shut the door. 

If you like reading, he would ask force ou to read to him.

“But, if the werewolf liked the girl, then why wouldn’t he keep her? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?” he asked. You rolled your eyes, "because the vampire one already had dibs on her. And healthy relationships don't involve kidnapping!" You told him and continued reading. "They obviously don't love her like I love you" Leon mumbled.

If you like drawing, he would ask to see what you’re drawing and he would try to make sure to get stuff for you to draw more. 

Like pencils and pens.

“What are you drawing?” He would ask, standing above you as you leaned over the table. “Is it a zombie?”

“No.”

“A cat?”

“No.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a tree.”

"Oh…"

Leon would frame and or put any drawings or doodles on the fridge.

If you have other hobbies, he would try his best to get you stuff to be able to do the things you loved. 

If he couldn’t, he would watch you and learn what you were doing.

If he had to go to a trial while you were at the house by yourself, he would lock the doors and take the key.

That way you wouldn’t be able to get out while he was gone.

While that did stop you from getting out, it did allow you some time alone without him hovering over you.

You could do whatever you pleased for the few hours that he was gone. 

Wanted to catch up on some extra sleep that got taken away from you?

Then nap time it is!

Want to draw something without him looking over your shoulder?

Freedom to draw whatever you want.

Though, you would have to hide them, since he does go through your stuff regularly.

Especially your drawing notebooks.

But remember, he had to find things that were hidden before he was forced into The Entity’s realm. 

So it won’t be easy to try and hide things from him.

Especially if he is suspicious of you hiding something.

“What did you do today?” He asked, walking through the door and plopping on the couch next to you. “Nothing much really, just took a nap and tidied up a bit.”. “Then why are the pencils out of place and why are their smudge marks on the table?” He asked, looking at you. He knew you were lying about what you were doing. “I know you were drawing.” He looked at you with an upset glare, “You don’t have to lie about what you do when I’m gone, you know I love your drawings.” He grabbed both of your hands in one of his, his other hand on your upper arm, “Where is it? I would love to see it.”. “I told you, I didn’t draw today. I tidied up, and that included moving some of the drawings I’ve already made.” You ripped your hands away from his. He started to get angry. "Why are you lying to me?" Leon yanked to towards him. "You didn't draw some boy or girl you think like like right? Because I'm the only one you can see in that way!" He was growling at this point. "Damn it Leon! I didn't draw today, and besides, is it really such a bad thing if I don't want you to see my drawings?" You were sweating now. You may or may not have drawn a hot character you had a crush on. But what's the harm in that? And aren't you allowed to have some privacy? "DON'T FUCKIN LIE TO ME!" he screamed and pinned you to the wall. You got the wind knocked outta you. "You know I don't like secrets." You stayed silent.  “I’m going to find it, even if I have to turn this whole place upside down!"

Yeah…he doesn't like secrets

Especially from you. Couples share everything right?

But if you dont draw and play games instead then maybe you get a game system or a game boy.

Or whatever you need/want for your hobbies

Anywaaays when he is forced to chill in the Killer camp he likes to ease drop on the killers and survivors who were you friends before you got yonked. (Yes you were friends with most of the survivors. You were a pretty friendly and chill killer) 

Leon started to hear rumors of him making a deal with the entity. Which wasn't wrong. But he still didn't you two to be discussed about with these asshats

He also started to hear your friends talk about plans to take you back and beat the utter crap outta our RPD boi.

But sadly for you, that's not happening. The Entity has gotten so much rage from Leon taking his anger out on his once friends. (He gets angry because someone isn't reciprocating his feelings fast enough. 

And Entity is also getting rage and despair from the survivors

To be perfectly honest, I don't think you're ever getting out. Leon's kills is more than making up for you no longer being able to do trials. So the entity is probably gonna leave you in Leon's hands. Forever

"You're mine you got that?" He hissed at you as you kicked and screamed at him to let you go. You had just tried to escape again and Leon caught you. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!" Leon screamed and dug his nails into your jaw, breaking the skin and causing blood to trail down your neck. You mumbled out a yes. "Good, because you're never leaving me."

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------- little fun bonus if wanted —-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe one day the Entity decided to let you guys out into the real world for a while since Leon has been so so useful as of late 

That also meant everyone could join.

Leon was pissed about this idea. He only wanted you and nobody else.

Besides, his ex-teammates aren’t probably the happiest with him

You know, killing them and all that.

Killers also didn’t really like him either.

They missed you being around the campfire with them.

But he made a deal, and The Entity was one to never let their side of the deal fail. 

Neither was Leon though.

He always kept his side of the deal.

And he wasn’t going to let anyone else come near you.

You already knew that though, and it wasn’t like you haven’t tried to bargain with The Entity either. 

But at least you could enjoy a day in the real world near your friends. 

So, yay

[thetaleoflevi]

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First Impressions

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Pairing: Levi x fem!reader

Content: Modern AU, College AU, NSFW

Content Warnings: 18+ smut, Levi’s an ass for five seconds, explicit language, make out, oral (f. receiving), marking, fingering, pet name (sweetheart), Levi is referred to as a confused puppy, stuff that I don’t know how to tag, 18+ smut x2

Word Count: 5k?

Description: Levi and you attend the same college and are in the same class. He’s known about you for a while but hasn’t had the guts to talk to you until you forget some of your personal belongings in class. You end up working together on a project and he takes care of both the assignment and you.

A/N: This has been in the drafts for soooooo long. I don’t know how I feel about it, but I’m just glad to put someone out for you again. Hope you enjoy! :)

⭐️Taglist: @urfilgoth @ackermandick

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Piercing eyes stick to your frame, following every move you make. What will you grab from your backpack? A pencil? A pen? It’s interesting enough to hold their attention and you’re very aware of the intense staring, but should you turn around to see if that’s the eery feeling? There’s no time to think about it when you’re already doing it.

You turn your head to the side, moving your eyeballs as far to the left as you comfortably can, to catch even the smallest sight of the person. You’re met with a man’s blank expression that heavily contradicts the way his chin rests on his palm in a sheer adoring way.

You quickly turn back to your normal position, trying to focus on your pending work with shaky hands.

You made eye contact with him, what did you think was going to happen if you knew you were being watched? He’s not ugly. Not at all. If looks could kill, your shaky hands are the equivalent of being grazed by his bullet.

“I’ll see you guys at six tomorrow. Have a nice rest of your day. Also, make sure to re-read chapter nine and ten of our reading. Don’t forget to take notes, you will be assigned partners for a presentation that you will all get a chance to present throughout next week,” Professor Smith announces.

Everyone groans but leaps out of their seat, shoving notebooks, pens, and pencils into their bags. You’re in no rush, so you take your time to neatly close your notebook and put it into your backpack.

Just as you take a step away from the desk, a voice gains your attention.

“Don’t leave things behind. Not everyone is as respectful of others’ belongings as I am.” A hand is extended towards you, holding your mechanical pencil with slender—surprisingly pretty hands.

A ‘thank you’ sounds like the right thing to say. Even a ‘thanks’ would do, but your mind knows you’ll fuck the whole thing up, so you simply nod. You raise your hand up to meet his, taking the pencil to put it in your pocket. You finally had a reason to bolt out of the lecture hall, and that’s exactly what you planned to do. You quickly put your backpack on and pushed your chair in, taking one more step away from the desk before being pulled back by force.

“Did I not just tell you to not leave things behind?” Your hood was in one of his hands, your phone in the other.

“Sorry,” you mumble quietly, looking at his hand that maintains a hold on your hood. He instantly lets go. He snickers at your expression. You look like you got called into the principal’s office for something you didn’t do.

“Fucking hell, you’re hopeless.”

The conversation took a random turn. You don’t even know the guy’s name, and yet you’re just about ready to go along with whatever he says.

“Okay,” you say, still frozen like a statue. You feel pathetic under his gaze.

He realizes there’s something wickedly attractive about how you just absorb the punches he throws at your dignity. He’s playing with you, and of course you’re too shy to ask him to stop.

“You’re a pushover. I hate it.” He puts a hand on the desk, eyeing the way your hands fidget in your pockets.

“I’m sorry. I get the feeling you don’t like me very much. Do you have anything else to criticize me about? Any longer and i’ll be late to work.”

“Then wh-“

“Hey, Levi and Y/N. What are you guys still doing here? Class is over,” Professor Smith interrupts.

“I was just packing my things. Levi, I believe you said his name was, rescued a few of my personal belongings.”

There’s an unnecessary roll in his eyes when he hears the word ‘rescued’.

“How kind of you. Were you guys planning on working together for the presentation? I have the sheet right here if you want to confirm your partnership.” He looks at you before looking at Levi.

You and Levi stare at each other for a few seconds, and you feel as if you can read his mind with just the way he glares at you. He doesn’t want to work with you. He already admitted to hating you, so why spend your precious time being a thorn in his side?

“No-”

“Yes, we’re going to work together,” Levi says just a little louder and faster than you.

“Perfect. My first pair. You guys will present next Monday. I’ll see you tomorrow.” A kind smile forms on the blonde man’s face and then he goes back to the front of the lecture hall.

You sigh, grabbing your things and exit the room. You plan every day so that things are done at a specific time. Going to work right after your final lecture is one of the easiest parts of your routine, but not today. You were hindered by someone who you felt disrespected by. A handsome face is worthless when it’s veiled by a shitty attitude, or so you think.

—

“What’s going on, Y/N? You seem more tired than usual,” Armin, the cafe sweetheart, asks you. He sees everyone’s pain, sadness, and sorrow. An angel that has walked the grounds of earth, is what you call him.

“I had to put a pep in my step to get here on time today. I got held up in Smith’s class today.” You rest your face on your palm, leaning on the countertop.

“Ah, I see. I think today will be pretty slow. We’ve had ten customers in the past hour and a half. You can take it easy.” He smiles, patting your back as you close your eyes for a second.

“If we randomly get packed today, it would be an honor to exhaust myself with you, angel.” You smile your brightest smile for him. He earned it.

—

You jinxed yourself.

The cafe had a line to the door and there were more people waiting outside. You cried internally every time groups of friends came in. They didn’t know what they wanted and they were indecisive about their choices. It pissed other customers off, and you had to apologize every time.

The line cleared, and you smiled at the sight of the door. You went to the backroom, ready to collapse on the random bean bag that’s been there since your first day. That thought is interrupted when the door jingles.

“Can you help the customer, please? I haven’t taken a break since I got here. I swear you can take your break or go straight home right after. You’ve done enough,” Armin says.

You can’t say no to him. He’s the only reason you haven’t broken down.

“No worries. I’ll take care of them. Enjoy your break.” You smile, and close the door behind you.

“Welcome. What can I get started for-“ you pause noticeably before continuing your script.

“What can I get started for you?” You sound less peppy, but still keep the formality.

“I’ll have a plain black tea. No additives, please.” He pulls his phone out. You recognize those pretty hands, unfortunately.

“Anything else for you today?” You ask, inputting his order in the register.

“What do you recommend?”

Your opinion? He wants to hear it? No way.

“The ham and cheese croissants are pretty good. We also have really good chocolate chip cookies.”

Too much fat. Too much sugar.

“I’ll take two of each, please.” He pulls his phone out again, ready to pay.

“That’ll be nine fifty-four.”

The card reader beeps and he pulls his phone away from the screen.

“Here’s your receipt. Your name will be called when your order is ready.” You make eye contact with him for the first time since you started taking his order, and a chill runs down your spine. Despite his eyes being a stormy grey, they radiated a warmth you didn’t recognize in anyone other than Armin. Your impression of him in class and your impression of him now gave you whiplash.

“Thank you.” He takes the receipt, and sits down at the table closest to the counter. You feel awkward making his drink and grabbing the rest of his order. Not only was he watching you, but he was also timing you. How good were you at your job, and how serious were you about it? Serious enough to panic over running a little late. There’s no trace of judgement in his mind, though. After all, be would act in a similar manner if he were in that same situation. The only difference is that he wouldn’t wait for the last word to be said. He would leave mid conversation if absolutely necessary.

“Levi,” You call, setting the cup of tea and the other items down on the counter.

He didn’t move. He looked somewhat lost in thought, staring at the machine the tea was brewed in.

“Levi?” You called once more. “Your order is ready.”

“Oh, sorry.” He finally stands, walking up to the counter to get his things. “What time are you off of work?” He asks.

“In about an hour or so. I have to help Armin close down shop.”

“Go home, Y/N! I got it!” Armin shouts from the backroom.

“Sounds like he doesn’t need your help,” he takes a sip of his tea, licking away the remnants of the hot liquid from his lips. It’s good, but he doesn’t need a discovery like this to create a new daily stop before class.

“Right,” you chuckle, turning around to switch all of the machines off. “I could use the rest of today off. I’m mentally and physically exhausted.”

You’re not weak. Not a bit.

“Need a ride home?”

You turn to face him again.

“Don’t you live on campus? I can’t make you drive half an hour like that. That’s just cruel.” You laugh.

“I don’t mind. We can start the project on the way.”

“Drive safe!” Armin shouts.

“Okay, Armin, I know when i’m not wanted!” You shout back. “A ride home would be very much appreciated. Give me a minute to change out of my work clothes and we can go.” You put up your index finger—one minute—then turn around and head for the backroom.

—

“Hungry?” Levi asks when he catches you eyeing one of the chocolate chip cookies in the bag.

“No, just zoning out,” you respond.

“Work really kicked your ass today, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, but i’ll be okay. Just need to rest a little.” You lay against the door, your elbow propped up near the window to hold yourself up. You knew it wasn’t a good idea to “rest your eyes” in that position, and yet you did it anyway.

Levi didn’t have the heart to wake you up when he heard little snores coming from you. Earlier that day, he had started the project without you. He didn’t plan on making you do any of the work because, one: you didn’t want to work with him in the first place, he made you his partner, and two: you were tired as hell. Despite the project not being due for another four days, Levi had finished the rest of the project in his head, just as he pulled up to your driveway.

“Hey,” he taps your shoulder.

“Hmm… Oh, we’re here,” you mumble, sleep treading lightly on your voice. “Come on.” You unbuckle yourself and exit the car.

Levi follows you, clueless about why you’re letting him in. You’ve known him for what, a few hours max?

“I know I could’ve said this earlier in the car, but I was too tired to remember. I don’t understand why you would make me your partner for this project when you literally said you hate me. I didn’t forget that part, mainly because it hurt like a bitch to hear someone’s total judgement about me in the span of two minutes. Your reasoning is something else, and-“

“Stop talking.”

Your pushover tendencies silence you. There’s no need to take it to heart—the realization that he’s right about you. Just accept it and move on.

“You weren’t saying anything. You stood there for a good five seconds just staring at me in silence, and I thought you were giving me the choice, so I said fuck it. Didn’t know you would throw a tantrum over it.”

“You heard me start to say no and talked over me.”

“There’s no point in arguing about this. The project is finished. Let’s just go over it and memorize which parts we’ll say.”

He’s instantly annoyed at the way your eyes widen. That mind of yours was impressed by the simplest things. It’s frustrating, infuriating, and everything in between, but he can’t find it in himself to lash out on you when you look that amazed. It’s cute, it’s wholesome, and he refuses to see it as something malevolent.

“I worked on it as soon as I left class, and finished it on the drive here. As I said before, we just need to memorize what parts we’ll say.”

You were still stunned.

“Let’s get it done.” You say, sitting on the couch.

—

“…and then we finish it off by asking if they have any questions. Good?”

You interlock your fingers and stretch your arms upward. It was a grand relief for your tight muscles. As you lower your arms again, you respond to Levi’s pending question.

“Perfect. We should be ready to present on Monday. Send me the slides and i’ll practice my parts when I have time.”

“Okay.” He scoots closer, looking nervous all of a sudden.

“Are you okay? Am I holding you here for too long? I swear you’re not being held for ransom. You can leave whenever you-”

“I hate you so much.” Your cheeks are held in his soft, nimble hands. His thumbs press into the skin gently. “I hate how little you talk. I hate how you allow kindness to stomp on your true emotions. I hate that regardless of how much I hate you, I still want you.”

You’ve never been more confused in your life. No math equation, paragraph deconstruction, or riddle, has ever played tricks on your mind like Levi did. He just met you today, what’s gotten into him? He knows so much about you, even if this is the first day he’s ever spoken to you. Not in a creepy way, but in more of a ‘I’ll shit on your emotions, tell you I hate you, and fall in love with you from a distance’ way.

“I’ll ask again, are you okay?”

“I want to kiss you. Would that make you uncomfortable?” He says, knowing deep down that this whole scenario must be crazy on your end—completely unexpected.

“U-Um, you didn’t answer my question.” The lingering of his hands on your face has your heart beating out of your chest.

“I’m fine. Now answer mine.” He’s in no rush. Give him permission and he just might kiss you until your lips are swollen.

“Okay,” you say, quietly. His hands now feel cool against the bright blush on your cheeks.

His hands are shaking, he didn’t expect you to say yes, but he’s following through with it because he’s dreamed about this scenario for so long. You really are a pushover.

His lips brush against yours, experimentally. They move quickly out of inexperience, but soon find a comfortable pace. His hands stay cupping your cheeks, and you can feel wisps of his hair shifting against your nose.

You pull away, looking into his eyes. There’s the perfect amount of awkwardness as you sit on your knees, looking at him in awe. This whole situation happens once in a blue moon. You should get to experience the full thing, awkwardness and all.

“Your pupils are huge,” he points out, breaking the silence. His hand settled on his lap.

“And your hands are sweaty.” You shift your gaze away from him as if that changes the fact that you were mesmerized by how close he was just a few seconds ago.

“Got me there,” he wipes his hands on his pants, so that he can go back to pretending like he’s not nervous out of his mind. “I think that went pretty well. Should we do it again?”

“If you want to,” you say, your heart beginning to race again.

“I do. I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to.”

“Oh, okay. Then I guess that would be fine.” You’re noticeably awkward, and it almost makes him laugh in your face, but the shakiness of your hands makes him want nothing more than for you to feel comfortable with him.

“Want to sit on my lap?”

Your eyes widen for a second, quickly switching your expression to seemingly unfazed.

“You won’t crush me, I promise.”

You look down at his lap, quickly looking back up at him when you realize it’s inappropriate to look in that direction.

“Okay.” You move one leg over his legs, shifting so that you can sit comfortably.

“Okay?” He asks, as he wraps your legs around his waist.

You nod, a smile on your face as you lean in to kiss his somewhat chapped lips. If this becomes a regular thing between you and Levi, you’ll take care of his lips. You’ll kiss them, trace them, and make sure he applies chapstick. You don’t mind sharing, and you always carry some in your bag, anyway.

His lips mesh with yours perfectly, but it feels desperate, like he’s been waiting months or years to taste your lips. You really want to ask him what his deal is, in the least aggressive way possible, of course. One minute he’s chewing you out, saying he hates how you’re easily influenced, the next he’s smacking lips with you. He’s so unpredictable.

“Hah—h-hold… hold on,” You breathe, pulling away, your hands landing on his chest.

“Hmm?” He tilts his head slightly, like a confused puppy.

“W-What…why, um…” you stutter, unsure of how to phrase your question.

“Slow down. We have time.” His hands move up and down your sides, slowly. “What is it?”

“Do you do this with every person you work on a project with?” Part of you is scared that he’ll say yes, part of you is scared that you’ll offend him.

“Of course I do.” He has a mastered poker face. You’ll know what he wants you to know, and believe everything he tells you because of it.

“Y-Yeah, I don’t know what to do with that information, so, i’m just gonna…” you lift yourself off of his lap, moving his hands off of you.

He’s quick to pull you back against his chest by the zipper of your jacket, staring into your soul with those incomparable eyes. A second goes by, and there’s a smirk on his lips. It says ‘you gullible thing, i’m messing with you’, but you’re too nervous in his hold to see that.

“You’re the first.” His thumb and index finger play with the the zipper, lowering it just the slightest bit before pulling it back up. “You caught my eye months ago, but I had no excuse to talk to you, so I waited.”

“You waited almost a year just to talk to me?” Your heart threatens to jump out of your chest. “That’s sick, Levi. I mean that in the most respectful way.”

You’re terrible at expressing yourself. If you were better with words, you would say something along the lines of, ‘I hope you’re content with what you waited for. Am I to your expectations? You fell for me months ago, and i’m not sure how long it took for you to do so, but i’ve known you for less than a day, and I’ve never been more conflicted about my feelings.’

“Are you okay with this? I know we’re moving really fast, but I just want to make sure you’re comfortable with what we’re doing. We spoke for the first time today, and now we’re kissing.”

“Do you want to stop?” Your question rings in your ears.

He doesn’t want to stop. This physical affection and attention is new, and it feels good. Why put an end to a good thing?

“No, do you?”

“No, not really.”

You stare at each other for exactly ten seconds before you go back to your make out.

So many questions rack your brain. Will it go further than kissing? Is this a one time thing? Will he ask you out tonight? Will he acknowledge you tomorrow or the day after?

Your cheeks feel slightly cooler than his. You open your eyes for two seconds, noticing two things in that time. One: his cheeks are reddening. He needs to breathe, but he won’t let you go. It’s evident in the way he pants every time his lips lock with yours. Two: his expression. His eyebrows are slightly pinched together, and he looks like he’s in total concentration. The anxiety he feels in his chest when he realizes he’ll never be able to kiss you hard enough, is shown in the grip he has on your jaw. He’s trying to be gentle—pain isn’t always romantic, but damn it, It’s an urgent matter. Kiss him like he’s your hero.

His fingers go back to playing with your jacket’s zipper. He pulls it down, and immediately pulls it up, until you surprise him by pulling it down all the way. Your jacket splits and reveals the white camisole you’re wearing underneath.

He can’t help but pull away on his own this time, to admire your form.

“Need to breathe?” You ask jokingly.

He sighs in amazement. “You continue to surprise me. I was having fun with that dumb piece of metal.”

“Mhm, so much fun,” you say sarcastically. “You could’ve just asked me to take it off, and I would have.”

“Can you take it off, please?” A light blush rises to his cheeks.

“Only because you said please.” You chuckle, throwing the jacket to the other side of the couch. “Better?”

“Fuck.” He sounds so desperate for you. Are his current thoughts prohibited from becoming a reality? Would you call him an animal for acting on the way you made him feel in that moment?

He holds your waist, digging his fingers into the flesh beneath your shirt gently. Goosebumps rise when his hands meet your skin, and you gasp when he pulls you close to kiss you all over again.

How you got into this situation has not been fully processed in your mind yet. It started out as a wholesome situation, but you’re shamefully turned on in this moment. Despite having the privilege to hop off of him at any time, you like that his hands feel like chains on your waist, like he won’t let you go. You like that he’s chasing after your kisses, and he likes how the feeling of your body against his clouds his mind in a comforting way.

You pull away for the third time, having made up your mind about how you want the night to go.

“Do you want to spend the night here, Levi?”

His heart pounds in his ears. He knows the way a gentleman would approach this situation is to decline and go home, but he really wants this. Can’t he do both? Be a gentleman and fulfill your needs?

He thinks it over for a few seconds, deciding to go with what he thinks is the safer choice.

“Only if you want me to.”

You grin. “Come on,” you say getting off of his lap and extending your arm for him to take it. He rises from the couch, following your lead.

“I can sleep on the couch if you-“ you interrupt him by pressing your lips to his, pinning him to the door and pushing so that it shuts. Not knowing how much of a control freak Levi was, you were surprised when he took the lead, and pushed you towards your bed, not breaking the kiss until he laid you down.

“Are we moving too fast?” You pant between kisses.

“No, not at all.” He says, pulling away to remove his shirt.

“Do you have a condom?” You ask, watching his body be unveiled in pure amazement.

He sits on his knees, his shirt off of his head, but still around his arms.

“No, do you?” The slight disappointment on your face gives him the answer you had yet to say.

You mentally cursed yourself for being unprepared, but you didn’t blame yourself too much. Sexual activity was rare for you, so you didn’t keep a box of condoms around your apartment. You foolishly always relied on the person engaging in sexual activity with you to have the contraceptive, because you were on birth control. This was one of the times you wished you had been responsible for the safety.

You sigh, frustratedly. “What should we do?” You ask, seeing only some of his face with the sheer moonlight.

“We can’t have sex, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah. It’s okay. Let’s just watch TV or something.” You turn towards your nightstand, searching for the TV remote.

You open the drawer slightly before it’s quickly shut again by Levi. His shirt is off, and you can see the toned muscles of his abdomen, his chest, and his arms. He hovers over you for a second before leaning down to kiss you. The kiss seemed innocent, like he was kissing you goodnight, until he started trailing downward. He kissed your chest, even went so far as to lift your shirt so he could kiss your bare skin. He went lower, down your abdomen, until he reached the waistband of your sweatpants.

He took his time, he had no reason to be hasty. He rolled the waistband down a little, revealing more skin as well as the elastic band of your underwear. Every inch of skin that he revealed as he peeled your sweatpants off your legs came in contact with his lips, and it made your stomach swarm with butterflies.

“Are you comfortable with this?” He asks, hooking a finger into the elastic band of your underwear.

“Y-Yeah,” you say, propping yourself up on your elbows to watch him.

“Lay back. I’ve got you.” He taps your stomach a few times so that you’re on your back again.

You tremble slightly beneath his gaze. It doesn’t go unnoticed by him, but he won’t make you feel more nervous than you already are by pointing it out.

“This isn’t your first sexual experience, is it?”

“No, why?”

You’re shaking, darling.

“First times should be special, is all.”

Your guts churn at the feeling of his hands running up and down your thighs.

“Would it turn you off if I told you this is the first time someone has gone down on me?” The question makes you want to shrink down to the size of an ant when it’s out in the atmosphere. There’s an uncomfortable silence between both of you. You’re worried he doesn’t want you anymore.

He lets out a short chuckle. You furrow your eyebrows, confused as to what’s so funny.

“No, it doesn’t turn me off,” he finally says, his lips brushing your inner thigh. “That just means I have to set the bar up so high that no man, no woman, no person, will ever be able to top it.” He looks up at you through his eyelashes, his lips sucking the plushy flesh of your thigh as he forms the first mark of the night. You can’t keep the eye contact without feeling your heart thrashing against your ribcage.

“Of course, only if you’ll allow me to.”

You sigh with a large amount of relief. His fingertips glide over the outer skin of your thighs, causing goosebumps to form over the soft skin. Something he notices in the time he takes to scan your body with his hands is that your hips are sensitive. Your stomach trembles a little when he brushes over the area.

“L-Levi,” you say breathily.

“Hips,” he mutters to himself, dragging his fingers across more of your body to try and find more of your sensitive areas.

You feel like you’re squirming. The concentrated attention is making your nervous, and you don’t know what to do with yourself.

You gasp when his hands run over your stomach and you feel the goosebumps begin to rise again. You hear a short hum from him before his fingers begin to slide from your stomach to your waist.

“Fuck, Levi,” you whisper, now actually squirming when he doesn’t stop.

“Stomach and waist,” he mutters to himself again. You know he’s making a mental list of your sensitive areas now.

He looked at your panties, visibly satisfied at the damp spot that littered the fabric.

“So wet from just a few touches. It’s cute, but I can do so much more for you.”

You blush furiously when he touches the wet spot, and you so badly want to scream. Your legs shut the tiniest amount but he immediately catches it and holds them open.

“Can I continue?” He asks, hooking a finger beneath the elastic band of your panties, then letting it snap against your skin.

You nod, a wordless response that does not roll with Levi.

“It’s yes or no, sweetheart. Your consent is the only thing that matters to me right now.”

“Yes, please, Levi,” you say sheepishly.

“You’re a goodie goodie, aren’t you?” He murmurs against your stomach, kissing below your navel.

“U-Um..” you buffer at the name, your cunt clenching at the feeling of his warm breath on your skin.

“Don’t be embarrassed. I love a woman with manners.” He rolls your panties down your legs slowly, staring into your soul while doing so. “You follow instructions so perfectly, and please and thank you is basically engraved into your vocabulary. What’s not to like?” He bends your knees to completely slide the garment off of your legs. You turn away when he notices how much of a mess you’ve made of yourself, which lures a short, deep chuckle from him.

He kisses your inner thighs looking up every few seconds to gauge your reaction to what he does. “Will you let me taste you?” He murmurs before leaving another mark on your thigh.

You nod enthusiastically, only verbally saying ‘yes’ when he shakes his head at your first response.

You shiver when his head dips and his tongue comes in contact with your slit. Your hands shake at the intrusion of his tongue merging with one of your most intimate areas, and suddenly your breathing is erratic. The more you paid attention to it, the more unnatural it felt.

“How’s that?” He asks, his index finger rubbing your clit in an unnervingly satisfying pace.

“Good. S-So good,” you respond as steadily as you can. The breathiness in your voice isn’t subtle to Levi. He almost smirks at how easy you are to unravel.

He dips down to get another taste of your sweetness, he didn’t expect to become addicted so quickly. Your taste isn’t the only thing he became addicted to, but also the wholesome way that you try to hold your moans in, and the way your body reacts to his touch.

His tongue replaces his finger on your clit, and his finger drops down to your entrance. He looks up at you through his lashes, full attention on you as he slowly slides a finger inside you.

A moan flows out of your mouth, the sound making his painfully hard cock twitch. You fist the sheets as he begins sliding his finger in and out of your clenching hole.

“Oh, you’re so delicate, sweetheart,” his voice is honey-like. A few pearls of slick slide down his palm. He watches the expression of pure ecstasy on your face—your pinched eyebrows, your eyes screwed shut, your bottom lip glossy from the amount of times you’ve licked and bitten it.

“Oh fuck, Levi,” you cry out when he nudges your sensitive area. You open your eyes, your face immediately heating up when you look down and catch his lustful gaze. His lips suck relentlessly on your clit as his finger fucks into you at a quicker pace than before.

“Can you take another one?” He asks, his middle finger prodding at your folds.

“Mhm, yes please,” you slur. Your brain has turned to mush, and you can’t think properly.

“That’s a good girl,” he murmurs as he stretches your hole with his second finger. He scatters kisses onto your inner thighs, biting occasionally.

You writhe as his digits curl inside you, willing you to let yourself go. To know that you’re the one receiving the pleasure, yet he seems to be just as aroused, is unbelievably attractive. He definitely knows his way around a woman’s body.

“F-Faster, please—ah—right there, Levi,” you push your head back further into your pillow, your face aimed towards the ceiling as moans and whimpers exit your mouth freely.

“Come for me, Y/N.” With that said, his fingers sheathe in and out of your pussy at a pace that makes your eyes almost roll out of your head. His mouth attacks your clit, the swollen nub already sensitive to the slightest of touches. You claw at your chest as he works you up until your cum drips down his fingers. He looks up at you, watching you lose the composure you held onto for so long. Your cheeks are red, your mouth gaped open and tears slide down your face. You’re a perfect mess, the way Levi planned for you to be.

“L-Levi, no more,” you whimper, your trembling thighs straining in an attempt to shut. Levi gets his last licks in, so that he can keep the taste of you on his tongue for a little longer. Your stomach quivers with every shaky breath you take, withstanding the overstimulation he provides.

“Fuck, you taste so good,” he finally says as he pulls away. “Damn,” he mumbles, looking down at his crotch where his cum began seeping through his pants. He made a mess of himself too.

You just lay there tired and half asleep. Sweat coats your body in a luminous way, and hair sticks to your temples and forehead.

“Hey, wake up,” Levi says, tapping your knee. You hum but don’t budge. “Go shower, Y/N. You’ll sleep better when you’re clean.”

“I’m tired,” you whine, turning to your side and curling up into a ball.

“I know, but you’re a mess. How about you take a bath? Sound nice, right? Relaxing.”

Your eyes stay shut and you don’t move. “I’m gonna go start the bath. I’ll come back for you.”

“Mm,” you respond.

Levi fills the tub with warm water, pouring some of the lavender scented bath salts you had in one of the cabinets.

“Come on, Y/N. The bath is ready.” He says standing in the doorway.

“Fine.” You stand up and follow him into the bathroom.

You remove your camisole and step into the tub, sitting down carefully to make sure you don’t get water everywhere. Levi sits on his knees next to you. He does the job of cleaning you up while you just lay there and relax.

Your eyes are closed, but you’re not sleeping. You can feel every time Levi gets closer as he cleans you up thoroughly. Only someone who cares about you would do this for you.

By the end of the night, you’re one hundred percent certain that Levi has ruined you.

[planetkiimchi]

ten things i hate love about lee | l.t

pairing: ten x fem implied!reader, highschool au, non idol!au, academic rivals

warnings: pg13, used a few curse words (fuck once for emphasis)

word count: 5.9K

summary — ten lee is practically perfect in every way. good for him, because you don’t care. except that he’s outshining you in areas you’ve never been outdone in before, and you hate him for it. maybe the reason you hate him is not because he’s talented, but because of how you’re falling for him.

a/n: thank you @ssunnae for beta reading the last part <3 i accidentally deleted my work on tumblr editor, had to try and copy and paste from docs, realised my docs wasn't the latest updates version, tried to restore the last bullet point from tumblr (which i had just tried to delete thinking i’d just use the docs version) when making this. it was hell. however, i did have a lot of fun playing with the chinese parts! please enjoy.

New year, new you. The careful arrangement of your stationery in your pencil case and the neat stacks of books in your bag are all leading up to one thing really. This year, this year is going to be your academic comeback.

#1: His academic prowess.

Now the thing is, when you say "academic comeback" you're not really talking about going from failing to passing. You're actually already at the top of the class. It's just that there's a certain boy called Ten Lee who constantly puts you on edge.

You're constantly competing in everything that you do now. Last time, you couldn't really care less if you were second or third in class, because you could run circles around most of the people during physical education (PE) class, play the piano semi-proficiently, and carry a tune.

Then, the year that you turned fifteen, a new boy transferred to your school.

He was Thai and had a deceivingly cute smile, and at first you couldn't wait to be friends with him.

"Hi! I'm Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul, but you can call me Ten. Because I'm a ten out of ten in everything I do!" was how he had introduced himself.

And honestly, it was a little cheesy, but you thought he was all the cuter for it. Especially because he had clarified the Thai system of nicknames and explained that it really was his name, not just a joke to boast about himself.

So that was fine, up till the point when everyone started comparing you to him.

When he got first in class for math, you were surprised but not disappointed. You had done your best, and since you hadn't studied that much anyway. you were proud of your solid understanding. Besides, you had seen how much he had studied and worked for his grades. It was understandable to you.

But not to everyone else.

Not when he could keep up with you during gym class. He said that he did martial arts, which obviously made a lot more sense, but his stamina was scarily good. It was insane how much he trained and the discipline he had, and your parents started calling you out for it.

"Why aren't you studying?" They would ask. "Didn't the new boy, whose first language isn't even English, do better than you in Literature? It's probably because you don't work hard enough." It was the first time in your not-very-long life that you realised you actually had to start studying and not just submit homework on time.

It was a realisation you could have done without, but it was starting to eat into you. Your friends would throw in teasing remarks from time to time about how "Ten Lee was so smart and hahaha Y/n you finally have a competitor!" without consideration for the fact that you didn't want a competitor. You were perfectly fine cruising through high school and you didn't need someone to put into perspective your talents.

You had been the prodigy for so long you couldn't comprehend someone threatening your status.

Getting used to it took a while. And by "a while", you meant three years. But this year, you were going to be eighteen. You were going to become legal, and you had new worries to think about.

Like adulting, and drinking, and several other things like when were you going to get a house or pay your parents back for your car? Trivial matters seemed to occupy your mind a lot, but it was all similarly linked to proving yourself in the eyes of your peers again.

Also, you missed being validated.

Speaking of which.... "Hey there. I'm... supposed to be sitting here?"

That voice sounded familiar, who was it? As you looked up from your phone, you caught sight of a very familiar, annoyingly handsome face. Ten Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul.

The universe must have been conspiring against you, because there was no way your luck was this bad. In a room with 20-odd teenagers, you still ended up with Ten, of all people? Seriously?

You gave him a stiff but polite smile (mostly to show him that you weren't above having manners either) and went back to fidgeting with your pen and trying your best to ignore his presence.

Sitting next to Ten was the worst experience of your life. When you previously a minimum of two seats away from him, how studious he was didn't bother you quite as much.

But it was a little more difficult to ignore the constant scribbling he was doing in his notebook (and they were good, neat notes; you peeked). His quiet confidence should have been contagious, but it was slightly disarming.

You were about to confidently explain why the work done against friction in your physics problem was 30.0 joules, when he lightly tapped your worksheet and said under his breath, "You missed one step. It's 27 joules."

Lo and behold, as soon as you looked at what he was pointing to, you realised he was right. Your skin coloured and you shook your head, lowering your hand as your teacher turned to look at you.

"Yes, Y/n? Would you like to answer the question?"

"It's alright," you mumbled softly. "I realised I missed something out."

The embarrassment seeped into your skin like poison, making you feel more and more terrible throughout the day. It wasn't the first mistake you had made, but that somehow made it worse. It made you wonder if previously Ten had noticed all your mistakes, and thought you were careless and silly.

You were still thinking about it at the end of the school day, as you collected your books and stashed it back into your bag, too tired to think about organising it.

"See you tomorrow," Ten smiled at you, waving as he left. Oh, how you hated the unreasonable way you disliked him.

#2: His chivalry.

"Good morning." Being greeted by Ten in the morning was one of those things you could do without. But it had been a good morning so far, and you weren't going to let him ruin that.

"Good morning," you replied, reaching for the door that both of you were standing in front of.

He beat you to it, opening the door before you could and gesturing for you to go first. You did, but with a slight huff, trying not to let it show how annoyed you were that you hadn't been faster.

It was a good morning though, he was right.

Firstly, your Chinese teacher was sick and not in school, meaning you had a free period. You and Yangyang decided to go to the library during your free period, happily speaking in Chinese all the way there.

Obviously, your teacher had assigned work, but the quiet confines of the library allowed you to be productive as you and Yangyang listened to music through your headphones (and his Airpods. Rich boy).

The hour passed uneventfully, and you headed back to class, refreshed from the cool air of the air-conditioned library. 

Secondly, it was Literature period. You were currently on the topic of poetry, and though some of the poems made little to no sense to you, "Five ways to kill a man" was one of the most interestingly satirical poems you'd read.

Analysing poems was not your forte, but listening to people give their interpretations of poems and seeing the influence of their worldview on their interpretation was definitely intriguing.

Time flew by, and before you knew it, it was time for break.

You would gladly and easily have slid back into the rhythm of ignoring Ten completely, except he suddenly seemed determined to be everywhere in your life.

As you queued up for your food, he moved back, allowing you to order first. When you went back to class, he pulled your chair out for you to sit. When you dropped your pencil and bent down to pick it up, he covered the edge of the table so you wouldn't hurt your head.

What was wrong with him? Why was he going out of his way to be so nice?

Ten was a nice guy, there was no denying that. Even when he was constantly overshadowing your achievements, he never bragged about it, especially not to your face. But never before had he gone out of his way three consecutive times to be nice to you.

Something had to have been up. Maybe he had had too much sugar in his coffee, and was channeling the energy rush through being nice. Maybe he had been dared to do so. Maybe-

"Earth to Y/n. Are you okay? You've been staring at the same math problem for five minutes now without lifting your pen."

You blinked rapidly and looked at Ten, then back down at your paper. He was right (again). It was an easy question, but you were so caught up in your thoughts that you hadn't even started it yet.

Hurriedly, you put your pen to paper and began writing, trying to forget how caught up you had been in your thoughts of Ten. 

#3: His generosity.

After a week of sitting next to Ten, his mannerisms became quite commonplace. You got used to his greetings each morning, coming to enjoy the positive way they started your day.

His smile and the way he threw his head back when he laughed — you grew used to it, to like it, even. He brought cheesy humour and dad jokes to class sometimes, muttering them under his breath and being surprised when you replied.

Slowly, your dynamic with him shifted from tolerance to acceptance, and his prominent existence in your life grew more and more bearable.

Take the time you bumped into him at the coffee shop near school, for example. You had left home early, as per usual, and were on your way to grab a cup of coffee from your favourite place just next to the school.

The shop was a small little place along the road that experienced high traffic in the mornings and afternoons when school ended. Students and teachers alike frequented the place, and you were no exception.

Like clockwork, you made your way there for your usual cappuccino (you liked milk) in the wee hours of the morning as the sun groggily rose. As per your usual morning routine, you were about to order your drink when you stumbled and bumped into the person in front of you.

Cursing your clumsiness, you immediately apologised. The person turned around, and you came face to face with none other than Ten Lee. You had been coming to the shop every schoolday for one and a half years and not once, had you seen Ten order anything from the shop. You’d never seen him step foot in it, nor bring a cup of the fresh coffee into class to savour.

It was so out of the ordinary that you froze, not quite sure what to do. Thrown off by the lack of habitual routine, it was all you could to pull yourself together to deliver your order.

“So sorry about that. I’ll pay for your coffee,” Ten told you, and the cashier nodded before you could protest. You wanted to tell him that really, it was fine, and it was definitely your fault, and could he please stop being such a gentleman?

But the words got caught in your mouth, and you stared dumbfoundedly at him as he paid.

Feeling a bit guilty and slightly awkward, you moved along down the queue, reaching out to grab your order. Thankfully, Ten didn’t try to initiate any conversation, and slowed down his pace when you briskly walked away.

That was, well. Perhaps not the best example of an encounter with Ten that was bearable. But you did understand his well-meaning intentions and were starting to get that maybe that was just what he was like.

After all, Ten’s generosity did seem to come intrinsically. He never failed to offer a pen when someone needed to borrow one, or to buy someone a gift when it was their birthday. (That was actually another thing you’d noticed. He remembered things about people.)

Once, you overheard him talking to Xiaojun about the upcoming NCT 127 concert. Xiaojun's bias was Jaehyun, and when Ten was buying them tickets, he'd purposely selected the category of restricted view seats that would be nearer to Jaehyun.

At the time, you didn't really think much of it, but thinking back on it, Xiaojun must have felt so loved to know that someone noticed his preferences like that. Ten's thoughtfulness in his gifts (not just giving costly, expensive and useless items) was something else that made you like him, just a little.

#4: Him being multilingual.

February 22nd was probably the first day that you didn't get greeted by Ten at the door. It was funny how over the course of a month, you'd quickly become accustomed to saying good morning to him. Although it was only two words, they did help to start your day on the right foot.

You had read somewhere that it took 59-70 days to form a habit. It might only have been about 50, but you had come to form the habit of greeting Ten each morning.

So when Ten was busy on a phone call that morning, you couldn't help but to notice that he seemed to be speaking in Thai. You had to confess that even after three years of knowing Ten, you had never heard him speak in his native language before.

His English was extremely good, and the accent could not be associated with his Thai origins, so the way he sounded in Thai was quite foreign to you.

"Y/n, why do you look so out of it today?"

"Hm?" You shook your head, shaking yourself from your trance to say hello to your friend Kun. "Oh, nothing. I was just thinking."

"What about?"

Ten Lee? You couldn't possibly tell Kun that. You'd sound like a silly little highschooler with a crush on your classmate! Instead, you shrugged and gave as vague of an answer as you could. "Projectile motion..."

Kun nodded, unconvinced. But he didn't press you for details, instead choosing to switch to Chinese, suspecting that you wanted to talk about Ten without him realising.

“Zhe shi yin wei li yong qin ma？” Is this because of Ten Lee?

“Ng!” You replied unhappily. “Wo zen me mei gan jue dao zi ji wu yi zhong xi huan shang le ta ne?” How could I have not realised myself unconsciously falling for him?

"It happens," Kun replied, not unkindly. "After all-"

"Wo hen you mei li a," Ten interjected. I have a lot of charm. You half-flinched, half-gasped. Since when could Ten speak Chinese? Yes, you were well aware that he could speak Thai, English and Korean fluently, but nobody had told you that he could speak Chinese!

If you had known, you would have saved yourself so much embarrassment. Luckily, Kun was as surprised as you, meaning he hadn't deliberately tried to put you on the spot when switching languages.

Oh, his multilingual brain was too much for you to bear. How were you going to explain yourself? You had basically just indirectly confessed your undying love for Ten in the least subtle way possible.

You buried your face in your hands to hide the blush spreading over your cheeks, and Kun patted your back comfortingly, trying to tell you that it was okay (it wasn't).

Just then, Yangyang of all people had to walk past.

Of course, the nosy boy wanted to know what had just happened. Kun pulled him aside, gently explaining under his breath the absolutely mortifying situation you were in, while you tried to ignore the amused look you were sure was on Ten's face.

"Are you done sulking yet?" He asked, the light-heartedness in his tone somehow making things worse. He obviously didn't understand how humiliated you were feeling.

"... No." You pouted and turned over so that you didn't have to face him, drowning out the sounds of Yangyang's laughter.

"Zumindest kann er kein Deutsch," he offered.

"It doesn't matter if he can't speak German," you groaned. "Neither can I, really! Ahh zhen bu hao yi si!" You cry into your sweater. This is so embarrassing!

Wait a second... you don't own a sweater.

Reluctantly, you sat up and looked at the sweater, checking for a name of some sort. Written on the tag of the sweater, in cursive, was Ten's name.

Of-fucking-course. He probably just draped it over you while you were wallowing in your sorrow, and you didn't realise because you were too busy being embarrassed.

"You can keep it," Ten supplied helpfully. "I've got plenty anyway."

You didn’t know why, but you were glad it smelled like him.

#5: His arms.

It was late when you left school that evening. Your extracurriculars had dragged longer than they were supposed to, and the sun was already setting by the time you climbed into your car.

It wasn't the first time that you were leaving school late in the evening, but you still felt like there was someone watching you, or following you. Afraid to draw attention to yourself, you quickly started the engine and drove off towards your house.

You were maybe fifteen minutes away from home when you realised that a car behind you had been following you for the past fifteen minutes. Instead of going home by the usual route, you turned left instead. (You were probably going to get lost due to your terrible sense of direction, but it was fine.)

The car followed.

You took another left, hoping against hope that it would finally stop tailing you.

But it didn't.

Nervous and unsure what to do, you noticed with a start that the street you were on was oddly familiar. Where had you seen it before... Oh, that was right. Ten's street was on the left. You'd seen it on his Instagram and thought it was unfairly good for photo taking.

With one hand on the wheel and your fingers shaking, you dialed Ten's number and turned left.

"Hello?" His voice sounded warm and inviting, and you wished you could be next to him right at that moment.

"Are you home? Can- can you open the door, please?" You asked, voice trembling. Ten didn't reply for a moment, but you heard his footsteps over the call and breathed a sigh of relief. Surely he would say yes....

"What's going on, Y/n?" He asked, voice hardening. He sounded annoyed, angry, even. It was not an emotion you were used to attributing to Ten. He always seemed happy all the time, and if he were mad because you were calling him, you didn't know where else to go.

"I think someone's following me. And I'm on your street. If the lights in your house are on, I'll be able to spot you," you forced yourself to say.

"Okay." Without asking any more questions, you saw the side gate of a house open. You abruptly came to a halt, trying to ignore the screeching of brakes as the car behind you struggled to come to a stop as well. You threw open the door and shut it behind you, fingers shaking as you tried to lock it and ran into Ten's house, stumbling into his arms as he hurriedly locked the door behind you.

"Didn't know where else to go," you mumbled, your legs turning into jelly as you shook nervously in his arms.

#6: His art.

It took a while before you felt alright again. It came slowly, as Ten handed you a mug of hot chocolate and sat you down on the couch. Every one of his moves was slow, cautious, careful not to jar you and gently bring you back to your senses. You hugged the sweater tighter around yourself, curling up and wiggling your toes, glad he did not mention that the sweater you were wearing was his.

Neither of you spoke, and instead you let your gaze linger over the vastness of the inside of Ten's house. You'd never been in it before, but even though it didn't feel sprawlingly big, it felt open and spacious, with plenty of space for creation, and more importantly, creativity.

Art was everywhere into the house, imbued in the very spirit of it. The mug in your hand was glazed, and you could feel the untouched base of the mug had something etched into it. If you flipped it over, you would have seen Ten's Thai name engraved there, a mark of his own work.

The wall was covered in wallpaper, but the wallpaper was blank, and acted as a giant canvas. On some edges, there were doodles in bold black marker, something he must have done mindlessly when he was bored. On the other sides, there were impulsive brush strokes drawn in large arcs, some dry and opaque, some more translucent, and some that were just delightfully textured.

It drew you to it, making you feel at home even in the house with all its modern furniture. The rug beneath your feet felt like his work as well, with the cow pattern on it reminiscent of his unique art style.

"Are you alright?" Ten asked, breaking the silence.

You would have liked to stay quiet for a little longer, absorbing all the little pieces of Ten that had slowly been absorbed into the house, to learn everything that made him him. But perhaps it was the art itself and the way that it made you feel that caused the words to spill and heave out of you like a waterfall.

You couldn't tell if you hated or loved the way you felt vulnerable and willing to overshare in the atmosphere that he had created, but when Ten gently smiled at you to go on, you decided that things could most definitely be worse.

"This guy was following me, and I didn't know where to go, so I tried to shake him off and realised that I was near your house and then I got scared and tried to call you and you picked up and well. I didn't know where else to go." The words tumbled out of your mouth, and you couldn't stop yourself from rambling.

"Hey. Are you alright?" Ten inched closer towards you, setting his open palm facing upwards on his thigh, inviting you to hold his hand. As soon as you reached out towards him, he clasped your hand tightly and comfortingly and said nothing for a few moments.

When you spoke, his smile had dropped, and you knew he was trying to hide his shock at the man following you. It was creepy, yes, and you had been so afraid, but you had always kind of known that this was an experience you would go through at least once in your lifetime. However, for a man, this could well have been one of his worst nightmares.

"I think I'm okay now."

#7: His willingness to help.

"You know, I won't be there every time if you're getting chased. You've got to learn how to protect yourself. I can teach you martial arts, if you'd like."

The offer came from nowhere, so you were a little surprised, but also inclined to take him up on it. It really was going to be a problem, and even if it wasn't, it was always good to learn a new skill from someone who's proficient in it.

You nodded numbly.

"Want me to drive you home?" You shook your head, reaching into your pocket for your phone to let your parents know where you were. Knowing them, they were probably worried out of their minds because you hadn't reached home yet.

Sure enough, when your mother picked up the phone, she bombarded you with questions. They were all very well-meaning, like asking you where you were and why you weren't home, and are you okay? You told her that you were at Ten's house, a creepy guy was following you, and you had been deathly afraid but you were all good now.

"Can I stay over at Ten's place?"

Your mum sounded doubtful when she replied, asking about your clothes and your books and where you were going to sleep. She sounded inclined to say no, telling you that you shouldn't overstay your welcome. She made you thank Ten several times, insisting that you leave.

Thank goodness for Ten, who charmed your mother into listening to him and agreeing to let you stay overnight. He assured her that you could borrow his younger sister's clothes and that not to worry, she was overseas and wouldn't mind.

Your mother told you to thank him (again) tonight and the next morning when you left his place. You agreed, reminding her that you love her and she hung up.

"Your sister doesn't really live in this house, does she?"

Ten looked at you confusedly. "Where else would she live?"

"I don't know, it just seemed like I'd never seen her before." You shrugged, looking around at the house again. "And, well, it did seem like you lived here all alone, but I guess it's too big of a house for you to manage on your own."

"I assure you that I live with my family. My parents are upstairs right now, and my sister's on an exchange programme right now so she's not in town. The reason they haven't come here is probably because it's a big house and they're busy doing something together. The last activity they were doing was solving a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle."

Ten's family seemed so chill and easygoing, a stark contrast to what you were used to. Ten brought you up to his sister's room to borrow her pajamas, and you took the chance to take a quick shower, wiping yourself down with a towel you had borrowed.

Afterwards, the manners your parents had ingrained in you caused you to insist that Ten introduce you to his parents, and you apologised for intruding and disturbing their evening.

However, they were absolute sweethearts. His father offered to make some food for you, if you were hungry, and his mother asked if you were quite alright after the ordeal. You insisted that you were fine, but they wouldn't stop worrying until Ten assured them that you're fine.

It was really all very endearing, because your parents fussed in a different way from them, and had never been so open to simply having people over. In fact, you couldn’t remember the last sleepover you had.

Ten brought you up, but his parents wouldn't let you sleep in his room. He brought you to his sister's room, and you fell asleep fitfully.

Image

#8: His proficiency in martial arts

You really misinterpreted what Ten meant by "teaching you martial arts". You thought he meant a chill session and some quick tips on defending yourself, maybe a few corrections. After which, you'd feel badass and ready to tackle any horny, screwed-up in their minds men.

You were dead wrong, because Ten had not meant any of those things.

You were only five minutes in and already drenched in sweat, your clothes sticking to your skin and droplets beading at your hairline. You lifted your arm to wipe the sweat away with your sleeve, and your biceps screamed out in pain, begging for mercy.

It turns out that the reason Ten was so physically fit was because his training routine was rigorous. Not pretentious rigorous, and not the type of rigorous that bodybuilders used to lose fat, either. It was the type of rigorous that strengthened your muscles and pushed them just shy of their breaking point.

If you had to do this every other day, you'd probably be in the best physical shape of your life, which was Ten's current situation.

Ten was determined to make you stronger, because according to him, you "can't defend yourself if you're weak." It was a really polite way of saying that you weren't strong enough to protect yourself, which was a humbling thought.

He told you that you were only going to be doing a warmup, since you were just starting and you had school the next day. ("I want you to be able to walk tomorrow" were his exact words. It was... encouraging to hear that. Not.)

10 minutes in, you were cursing Ten's proficiency in martial arts. And your own stupidity, for agreeing to it. Why had you thought you would be able to keep up with him? He was Ten, your archnemesis, your one and only competitor who could beat you if he tried just a little. Obviously, you never learned from your mistakes.

Ten decided that you should try to punch people first. But not the way that you wanted to.

Instead of cool punches and socking people in the jaw (you're sure Ten got to do that in training, but you weren't Ten), he made you hit your elbows upwards against his padded gloves until the muscles in your arms, shoulders and back that you didn't even realise existed throbbed.

Then, he simply moved on to the next exercise. You never got to throw him over your shoulder like a sack of rice, but you did get to practise almost breaking his arm. A hundred or so times, until you weren't even trying to hit him anymore. He would yell at you to try harder ("Where's your energy?") and then, when you gave him a tired look, lower his volume and say, "Let's try that again."

Again, he was not being unkind, but his focus and seriousness made him a very strict teacher indeed.

The most fun part was when he decided to teach you how to kick a man in the groin. (Not knee them. Because that would take away the advantage of distance, of course. Of course you knew that.)

He lifted his arms up, carefully moving himself out of the "line of fire" and positioning himself diagonally in front of you. Channeling all your rage, tiredness and desire to go home, you kicked your leg out as hard as you could-

And fell right on your butt.

Your butt hurt, but your ego hurt more. Especially when Ten failed to contain his laughter, gasping for air and even choking. Was he trying to be dramatic or was he always like that? It was a far cry from the stifled, polite laughter in class when you laughed at his jokes, but it was endearing all the same.

You couldn't fault him for finding it funny. You were, after all, on your butt on the ground and it was possibly due to your hubris. Maybe being overconfident while trying a new skill wasn't a good idea, especially when you were trying it out with your expert classmate (who maybe wasn’t really your rival anymore).

Ten knelt down, arms wrapping around you from behind as he pulled you to your feet, his warm embrace making you want to fall asleep in his arms.

#9: His back.

Wait... what?

Okay, this definitely wasn't a good idea. Thinking about falling asleep in Ten's arms, in Ten's house, after spending a night over? Yeah, this was a recipe for trouble.

Ten seemed oblivious to how you were feeling, since all he did was continue teaching you a new skill.

“So what if he tries to grab you from behind? Well obviously, if it’s someone you know, you might hug him back. But if it’s a creepy guy? You’ll want to be able to attack him regardless of how he’s holding you.”

To demonstrate, Ten tightly grabbed you from behind. You would have liked to protest, but he grabbed you so suddenly that you lost your balance, falling forwards. Reacting quickly, Ten rolled over and you landed on top of him, hyperaware of his arms and his body heat and the feel of his breath on you.

Your faces were so close to each other that if you moved too quickly, you might just kiss him. Which, honestly, didn’t sound like a bad idea at this point. Your locked arms were the only thing keeping your lips from his. And they were trembling from your exhaustion and the desire to give in to the tired pleas of your muscles.

Ten tried to lift your arm off of him, trying to stand up—which was a terrible mistake. Your elbow immediately gave way, and you crashed onto him, your chest falling onto his. Your heart was racing, and with the proximity, you couldn’t tell if the thumping sound was coming from your heart, or his. 

Just before you thought things couldn’t get any worse, Ten angled his face up and whispered in your ear, “Can I kiss you?”

You nodded dumbly and he gently kissed you, so quickly you couldn’t tell for sure if it was intentional. It was the slightest brush of his lips on yours, the brief contact making you yearn for more.

Before you could advance on him any further, he stood up abruptly, one hand carelessly pulling you up.

#10: His pretty face.

Ten’s face was flushed red and you were sure yours was too. He looked away quickly, composed himself, and turned back to you. “Shall we continue?”

Except you didn’t hear him, because you were too busy pressing your fingers to your lips in shock and staring into his eyes. 

He waved his hand in front of your face and you jerked back to reality. “Yeah- Actually, no. Let��s discuss this.” You gestured meaninglessly, realised how dumb you looked, and dropped your hand lamely.

Ten looked at you expectantly, clearly waiting for a greater revelation than that.

“Like, me sleeping in your sister’s clothes and you buying me coffee? And—goodness forbid—you flirting with me? And now this? Ten, I thought we weren’t even on speaking terms!”

It was only until the last sentence that Ten’s confusion dissipated, and you realised with a start that the pressure he put on you was very much one sided. To him, it was a friendly rivalry. To you, it was a threat to your pride.

“Y/n, we were always on speaking-”

“Actually, you know what? It’s fine. I’m just confused, but I’ll be fine. Please, continue.”

Ten’s hand reached out and grabbed your chin, tilting your head and forcing you to look at him. “You’re so dense! Is kissing you not obvious enough? Y/n, I like you!”

“I- I don’t understand,” you fumbled, desperately grasping for straws.

“I like you,” he deadpanned. “I don’t know how much more obvious I can make it. Is this not straightforward enough? What more do you want me to do?”

“Kiss me again,” was out of your lips before you could stop yourself, and Ten’s lips were on yours before you could process what you had just said.

“I blame it on that pretty face of yours,” you said as soon as he pulled away.

“Oh yeah?” He tipped his face upwards and laughed, the sound of his laughter as light as a feather. You couldn’t help but to stare at him, the curve of his chin and the tilt of his jaw, his scoff and the way he rolled his eyes at the same time. His cheeks were dusted pink and his eyes fixed themselves on you again.

He flexed his hand, adjusting the wrap around his wrist and you felt the sudden urge to give him a hug.

“I love you, Ten Lee,” you whispered in his ear, and although you couldn’t see it, he smiled, just a little.

glossary:

*这是因为李永钦吗？ (is this because of ten lee?)

**嗯! 我怎么没感觉到自己无意中喜欢上了他呢？ (yes! how could i have unconsciously fallen for him?)

***我很有魅力啊。(i have a lot of charm)

****真不好意思！(how embarrassing!)

[jessybarnes]

Shot Through the Heart

Pairing: Clint "Hawkeye" Barton x Reader 

Rating: Mature

Tags: Angst, fluff, aliens, explosions, mentions of fear, broken wrist, slight description of gore, language, kissing, implied sex, and implied feelings. 

Word Count: 1,237

Beta and Title Card: Yours Truly 

The whole building shook as another explosion sounded in the distance. Out of all the days for this to happen, why...why did it have to be the day your biggest report was due? Everyone on your floor had already evacuated, fearing for their lives as the Avengers worked to save the city from the aliens. 

Aliens. 

Something you never thought would cross your mind. It felt like you were stuck in a Men in Black movie and soon you'd be approached by Will Smith's character being made to forget everything you'd already seen.

Bullets shattered the large row of glass windows to your office floor pulling you back to reality and you moved to duck under a desk. The one day you decided to wear a pencil skirt and high heels, and you had to tactically hide from a deadly species? 

Fucking awesome. 

The sarcastic voice inside your head stopped suddenly, raw fear making your blood run cold. One of the monsters was stomping its way through the room, and it could smell you.

The awful sounds it made and the scrape of its clawed feet crept closer and closer to where you hid. Out of all the ways to die this was not even remotely what you'd envisioned. 

It stopped in front of the big oak desk, sniffing and snarling and you contemplated trying to fight it. Heels or no heels you weren't going down without at least trying to get away.

The desk was ripped from the floor, crashing somewhere behind you, and you took the opportunity to slip your left heel off and stab the creature in its abdomen. A loud pained screech pierced your ears and you backed yourself haphazardly away towards the opposite wall. 

The alien trained its eyes on you, drool dripping from the sides of its mouth where rows of sharp white teeth displaying its hunger. It ran toward you, a scream falling from your lips as you waited for the inevitable. 

Before you could blink, an arrow shot right through the creature's left eye, its body sinking to the floor like an anchor. Your chest heaved, tears of relief pooling in your eyes as one of the Avengers fell to his knees in front of you.

"Shh. It's alright...it's okay. You're safe now. I've got you."

Even through your teary vision, you knew who he was. He was even more beautiful up close. Short brown hair and the bluest eyes you'd ever seen stared down at you, filled with concern.

You couldn't speak, the shock made your body shake uncontrollably.

"Can I take your jacket off, honey? Just wanna see if you're hurt. That's all." A small nod was all he needed. 

His hands were gentle despite his well-defined arms. Those arms. The ones you'd only seen on TV. The ones you'd imagined touching you, holding you, pinning you beneath him as he made you come apart over and over. 

Oh, you were so fucked. 

He must have finished his assessment because now his right hand was pressed to his ear, his voice low as he spoke to an empty room...well, except for you two.

"Cap? Cap, can you hear me?"

His tongue flicked over his bottom lip and you shivered. A hot curl of arousal began to ignite like wildfire. Damn, this man.

"Got a female on the forty-second floor. She's got a few scrapes and possibly a broken wrist. You gonna be alright without me for a few minutes?"

After a few more seconds he turned his attention back to you. "Can you stand, darlin'?"

You let out a shaky breath, "I-I think so…" 

He helped you stand and steadied you with his hands splayed along your sides. "What's your name?"

"Y/N...I um...th-thank you for uh...for saving me, mister Hawkeye sir."

He snorted and shook his head. "Haven't been called sir in a long time. No need for formalities, sweetheart. Call me Clint. And you're welcome for saving you. Couldn't let that thing slay a pretty lady such as you."

Your breath hitched as you snapped your head up to meet his eyes. "Y-You...you think...me?"

Way to go, Y/N. Your internal conscience facepalmed at your lack of response. That's definitely the way to win an Avenger over. 

He smiled and brushed his fingers against your cheek.

"You're gorgeous, honey. S'not every day a pretty girl takes my breath away."

Blue eyes passed over your features and settled their gaze on your parted lips. "I usually don't do this," his voice was breathy and it made you weak at the thought of how he'd sound in a more intimate setting. "but I really wanna kiss you right now."

Somehow your brain was coherent enough to form a proper sentence. "So do it." 

His lips pressed against yours, tentatively at first, but soon became more heated. Taking care not to hurt your wrist, he slowly backed you into the nearest wall. His fingers curled around your waist, his toned body becoming flush with yours while his mouth trailed kisses along your jaw.

"So pretty…"

The feeling of his hot breath against your skin was intoxicating, your skin burned everywhere he touched you.

"Clint...please."

His teeth nipped at your neck before he soothed the fresh mark with his tongue. "I know, sweetheart...I got you." 

As much as you both wanted to, you knew now wasn't the time to take this makeout session any further. Reluctantly, Clint pulled away and rested his forehead against yours.

"I gotta finish the fight, honey. Will you wait for me? I can have Stark bring one of his suits to take you to the tower. They'll treat your wounds there."

Your mind was still reeling from his kiss, so it took you a moment to realize he'd asked you a question.

"You with me, love? If you don't wa-"

You shut him up with another kiss, your fingers sliding through his short hair. "Yes. Yes, call Stark." 

He chuckled, his eyes not leaving yours as he once again raised a hand to his ear.

"Tony, hey, you there?"

You were close enough to hear his immediate response.

"Yeah, Katniss. You need backup or somethin'?"

Clint rolled his eyes. "No, but I do need a favor."

Tony was quick to reply. "Robin Hood is asking me for a favor? Oh, this oughta be good."

"I need one of your suits to bring the woman I saved back to the tower for medical treatment."

Tony whistled, "damn Barton! Thought you were killing aliens not plannin' a date."

Steve chimed in before he could respond. "Language!"

"Seriously, Tony? Just lend me a suit and I'll buy you a beer or something later."

Tony sighed, "oh, alright fine. But I want a whole case of beer and some tacos. Oh! And some margarita mix." 

Clint caressed your face gingerly as you both waited for your ride. "Everything will be okay, honey. Don't worry about me. These creatures are nothin'."

You kissed him sweetly, "promise you'll meet me later?"

The sound of metal landing nearby caused you both to look up.

"I'm here to escort you back to headquarters, miss."

Clint led you to the robot and watched as it carefully lifted you into its arms.

"Clint, promise me."

He pressed a parting kiss to your lips and smiled softly as you were carried away. 

"I promise."

[muraenide]

@sweetlybite​ asked:  He stared, watching the taller eel's legs move back and forth from his spot deep under the bed that smelled like himself. Himself but bigger. Just like this eel moving around now looked like Jade, but kinda different. He smelled different too. Sort of like... dirt? Not sand, no, sand had a different smell. It had to be dirt, right? Cause they were up on land now, and the surface had dirt in most places, not sand.

Under it though, the other eel still smelled like Jade. Like home. A bit of salt, a little cold, everything that had been theirs when they lived out in the reef.

Those shiny shoes came closer and Floyd instinctively buried himself deeper under the bed. Deep enough that maybe only his yellow eye might show, if the bigger Jade looked beneath the frame and around the funny boxes crammed around him. His fingers itched, just like they did when unsuspecting prey swam too close to his hidey hole.

He wanted to burst out and latch on to those long legs, maybe wind his arms and legs tight around them like he and Jade would do to a fish just a little too big for just one of them to handle. It would be easier if he still had his tail, but legs could be useful too right?

The bigger Jade seemed to have stopped moving. He stared at the glossy shoes pointed towards his hiding spot, waiting for them to lift again.

The itch in his fingers was in the back of his head now, but he had to be patient. Patience was the better thing sometimes, even if it made him tremble and want to bite something when he had to wait too long.

Right as those shoes finally turned - to the door? was the bigger Jade leaving? did he have to go to the bathroom? - Floyd launched himself out of his hiding place with all the force of a bullet; smacking into the other eel's legs and closing his arms around them as tight as they could manage.

"Baaaah~" his voice rose in playful sing-song, sweet as candy as he grinned up at the taller version of his brother.

Jade is a better hunter than he’d let on. Perhaps this is a secret, or a rather unexpected concept to anyone who knew him only on surface-level, but there were just as many who knew what he’s capable of if Jade ever wished to be. 

And right now, he had suspected that something was off about their room the moment he’d stepped in, that he wasn’t alone, but in the amidst of a hidden presence he could pick out that there was no intention of malice. Jade smiles to himself and proceeds to pace around his half of the room, fussing over the position of his chair, setting them back to where he wanted them to be and not an inch astray. Then he paces over to Floyd’s half of the room and rearranges what he can without putting away things Floyd might have wanted to be in his line of sight when he’s at his desk. 

The position of the chair, any messy pile of clothing lying around, messy notes and sketches and pencils on his desk... once he’s done he stands back up, gaze falling low to consider rearranging the Tenebrae shoe boxes Floyd usually keeps under his bed, and it was then and there — he sensed something alive, something breathing, underneath his brother’s bed.

The security systems around Octavinelle were quite cemented. Intrusions seemed, in all honesty, unlikely. Any deliberate infiltrators would have to pass through Mostro Lounge before making it into Octavinelle, and would have been restrained already by then. 

So... who?

A beat passes, and Jade finally decides that he would opt for ignorance. Turning towards the door, he pretends to reach for the knob when, from the corner of his eye, he catches a tiny shadow shooting out of Floyd’s bed.

He’d expected it, but at the same time he had not prepped himself for what he’s supposed to see. 

“Baaaaah~” 

Goodness. Floyd had been the only eel he’d known that would have been so loud. That had been the first thought that went through his mind, until Jade turns his gaze southwards and realises, with a blink, that the eyes looking back at him weren’t far off from who he’d imagined. Except he was much smaller, much innocent-looking and lovely, and much cuter. 

❝Floyd?❞ 

A shadow of something akin to confusion and surprise flashes across his face, but as soon as it was there it was gone, like a passing shooting star, and Jade’s returned back to his usual look as if seeing Floyd back to his toddler form wasn’t something out of the ordinary. 

The sight of him wasn’t unfamiliar to Jade, in retrospective it all felt like it’s a memory from his past came into life. Jade smiles, this time more gently, as he reaches down to unwind the tiny eel from his leg delicately with both hands and taking him to sit into his arms.

❝It pains me to think that you have been crouching so unhealthily under the bed all these time. Why didn’t you came out to see me? Perhaps I’ve terrified you by how big I’ve grown?❞ He chuckles, tickling the child’s cheek with the tips of his gloved fingers. ❝I apologise for that. Considering what you’ve been hiding in between, I surprised to know that you’ve developed a liking to shoes so early in this stage. Want to take a look at my collection? And if there’s anything you like, perhaps we could get one of Father’s friends from Tenebrae to acquire a pair for us with your size.❞

With that he watches for a nod of approval before lifting his hat to put it on tiny Floyd’s head. 

[kudosmyhero]

Marvel Team-Up #50: The Mystery of the Wraith!

Read Date: February 26, 2023 Cover Date: October 1976 ● Writer: Bill Mantlo ● Penciler: Sal Buscema ● Inker: Mike Esposito ◦ Dave Hunt ● Colorist: Janice Cohen ● Letterer: Gaspar Saladino ◦ Karen Mantlo ● Editor: Archie Goodwin ●

**HERE BE SPOILERS: Skip ahead to the fan art/podcast to avoid spoilers

Reactions As I Read: ● Spidey goes to Dr. Strange to see if he can figure out if Brian DeWolff actually died or not ● ooo, so Jean doesn't think her brother is the Wraith--she actually suspects that it is her father, Phillip DeWolff. ● Spider-Man also doesn't believe that Brian is the Wraith… but if Brian's body was never found… which begs the question, how was he declared dead after only 2 years? Usually something like 7 years has to pass before a missing person can be declared legally dead by the family ● except now Jean is going to check the family crypt… so was his body found or nah? ● Spider-Man and Dr. Strange go to where the ambush happened, and his amulet conjurs up specters to re-enact what happened ● someone shot Brian DeWolff, and Phillip DeWolff shot that shooter before carrying off his son ● Tony Stark's analysis of one of Wraith notes also seems to point toward Phillip DeWolff being the Wraith ● the entrance to the Wraith's lab is in the DeWolff family crypt ● grr Phillip DeWolff is such a misogynistic pig! Please tell me he dies. ● it seems that the Wraith is the brother… but we already know the Wraith can make the mind see things, so can we trust anything going on? Short answer, no. Long answer, noooooooooooo. ● Iron Man on his way with a helmet he hopes will protect against mind manipulation

● still explaining what happened on that day 2 years ago, Phillip says that the link between Brian's nervous system and his mind had been permanently severed. He called on two men he thought he could trust--Karl Bonn, a banker, and Max Vorster, a wealthy landlord. though what he thought they could do just because they had money, I have no idea ● police-commissioner-turned-evil-scientist accidentally fused his mind with Brian's, but now he could control Brian's body with just a thought ● he sent Brian to seek revenge on Vorster and Bonn ● I see the family resemblance via facial expressions…

● aaaaand Phillip blames Jean for her mother dying while giving birth to her. Seriously. Fuck this guy. ● "Never turn you're back on a pair of heroes…" - you're? sigh ● Iron Man puts the helmet on Phillip so that he cannot send his thoughts to Brian's body ● Dr. Strange vows to Jean that he will do what he can to restore Brian to his old self ● 👏👏👏👏

Synopsis: Spider-Man, Jean DeWolff, and Iron Man recruit Dr. Strange to help them solve the mystery of the identity of the Wraith, believing there to be a supernatural element when evidence suggests that the Wraith is possibly Jean's deceased brother Brian. As Spider-Man and Dr. Strange go back to the scene of Brian's death, Iron Man reviews the forensic evidence and Jean DeWolff goes to investigate her brother's tomb. As Spider-Man and Dr. Strange learn that Brian wasn't killed on the scene, Iron Man finds that the fingerprints on the Wraith's notes match that of Phillip DeWolff, and Jean is shocked to find her father and the Wraith hiding out in a secret laboratory where she is captured. When Dr. Strange and Spider-Man arrive they too are incapacitated and taken over. Phillip then explains how he pulled his son off the scene of the crime and invested money on inventions that might restore him to life, and save him from the bullet wound to his head. The last experiment instead linked their minds, so that Brian, in his trance-like state, was able to be controlled by Phillip. Phillip created the Wraith identity to take revenge on criminals using lethal force. When the heroes break free, Iron Man also arrives with a specially prepared helmet. Iron Man puts the helmet on Phillip, incapacitating both he and the Wraith. Although they defeated their foes, Brian's health is still affected by the bullet. (https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel_Team-Up_Vol_1_50)

Fan Art: Iron Man and Spider-Man by JoinSpider

Accompanying Podcast: ● Untold Talks of Spider-Man - episode 09

[neonponders]

For the forced proximity tropes list: how about riding the same horse or teaching the other how to do something from behind them? :)

Harringrove seems to be going through a cowboy!au moment right now lol I do love a horse-girl!steve (and have written him a couple of times already lol).

BUT

I’ve been blessed with this painting on my dash, so here’s some art studio boys (and I’m sorry that it ends with bullet points. I ran out of time and it blew up into like a full fic idea lol).

~ CW for sex worker!Steve ~

• • • • • • •

The giggles and taunts building up to the day about having a nude model in the studio went silent once the young men fully realized what they were in for. Anticlimax. It’s not like Aphrodite was in the room, and there was something humbling about being with a naked body for so long.

That was the first day. The lady was clearly a regular, based on how she and the professor spoke to each other.

The second day...was not a woman. And they were late.

Billy looked up from his station when the young guy rushed in, ready with apologies to the professor. Billy wondered if he was a student from another class, here at a different hour in order to make up a session - but then he went behind the folding partition at the back of the room. Reemerged in a robe and Billy had the minutes it took the professor to introduce their model to prepare.

Maybe the others did not have their Aphrodite, but Billy found it hard to breathe. The man sat on the makeshift furniture on the raised palette in the center of the room and slipped the rob off, letting it fall back in aesthetic ripples and lines.

Simply, he was beautiful. Moles as small as freckles dotted all of him. If his dark hair were curly, he would be a living statue from antiquity, but the straight, voluminous tresses swooshed around his elegant bone structure. He even had the prominently arched, Cupid’s lips.

Where did he find this guy? Billy wondered with a look at the professor slowly pacing around the room. Billy had to get started. They only had a few minutes of each pose, and if he had nothing to show for it, Billy did not want the judgmental scrutiny of his pages.

So he gets to work, focusing on capturing the likeness of those limbs instead of gazing empty-headed at them. The room is loud with pages turning in the large sketch books whenever a new pose is called for, and it becomes almost easy to focus like it’s any other day.

The professor marked the halfway point by closing the curtains and igniting the lamps for harsh lighting. Pencils and crayons are exchanged for charcoal or even ink to practice contrast. The man stood up, and Billy felt his lungs freeze and his stomach slip all over again. Like his arteries were ice as his heart were an ember, beating warmth through his extremities and cracking himself open.

The light put the man’s lean muscles into blatant contrast, but for every shadow and long gleam of light, he looked soft. Real. Touchable.

Billy wondered if he ought to have gone into the marble studio; let the sound of hammers dull all of his distractions.

From the shine on his hair to the darker flesh of his groin, Billy sketched it all and then went back over it in patches, shading the contours of a shoulder and the side of his throat. Mapping out some moles while he was at it.

The man held his hands loosely behind his neck, as if he’d just risen from the bath or bed, naked and alive and honest and why are his eyes so big -

“We’re just about there. Finish where you are and pack up. Thank you, Steve.”

Steve. Billy wondered if that was his real name. Bit of a lackluster name for someone so pretty. A modest piece of art’s hypocrisy. Models with fake names; sex workers looking for safe and easy surplus income. Renowned artists making a living off of their portraits while their models stayed categorized as rats of society. Expect a man’s wife to attend his exhibit and charm the guests who come and see every lover with which he neglects her.

Plenty of models were just confident people spending their days off helping students. The man went behind the partition and dressed quickly. Being the last class of the day, Billy took his time and resolved to stick around. Goodness knew there were never enough pieces in a portfolio...

• Basically Steve comes back for some reason (Billy doesn’t know for a while) and sneaks up behind him to see what he’s working on.

• Scares the heck out of Billiam but Steve actually has genuine encouragement and advice for the art piece (the teaching him from behind prompt).

• Billy asks how he knows this stuff and Steve says something like, “One of my clients is an artist,” confirming that he is a sex worker.

• They spend weeks just being art pals until Billy just can’t take it anymore. He takes the leap and goes to Steve as a client. 

• But there’s drama like someone’s stealing art supplies from the studio and Billy thinks it’s Steve. But he doesn’t know why Steve would steal until Steve reveals that he was disowned from his family for wanting to pursue art and bisexual shenanigans.

• Steve doesn’t have an artist client. He is the artist.

• It takes even longer for Billy to find his art pieces and then realizes that the mystery, nameless artist that’s become all the rage is Steve.

• Steve is caught because he’s now successful enough to not be a sex worker. He’s loyal to Billy and in love (duh). But he can’t reveal who he is because of the scandal with his family and time as a sex worker.

• Billy is caught because he wants Steve to be safe with the money he now has, but could get kicked out of school for standing by while supplies went missing. And he can’t bear to look at Steve’s work because he believes every model is one of Steve’s clients.

• Steve tells him to come to his next show. It’s a challenge and a taunt. If Billy doesn’t like what he sees, then Steve will agree to be done. He’ll even reveal his identity for Billy, if Billy chooses.

• Billy almost doesn’t go, but he does, and he sees a whole gallery filled with fragmented portraits of himself. He knows his own lips, his own freckles, the mole on his shoulder.

• It’s when people complain and criticize the artist for repeating paintings and figure studies in the exhibit that Billy realizes that Steve’s portfolio isn’t a catalogue of johns. Steve’s work, his head, and heart are full of Billy. They’ve always been full of Billy, and he was too paranoid to notice.

• Billy is his muse. They get married. The end.

.

.

~ Prompt list here ~

[dreamwritesimagines]

Burn The Witch 4 - Making Believe [Bucky Barnes x Reader]

A.N: Thank you so much for your wonderful support and feedback my loves ! ❤ Here’s the next chapter, I hope you like it as well and please let me know what you think! ❤ Thank you! ❤❤❤

Warnings: Enemies to lovers, fake dating, mentions of blood, sex, violence, death, manipulation, language, guns, knives.

Summary: A lot can happen in a coffee shop. 

Series Masterlist

Considering all the missions your superiors had sent you, this wasn’t the first one to make you end up with a gunshot wound, but it was the first one that you were assigned to seduce the target and ended up with a gunshot wound as a first impression.

Now that you had met Bucky, the next step would be easier. You just hoped he wouldn’t suspect something was up like General kept warning you about, so you had to make sure to memorize every single detail of your cover story.

Instead of being a trained assassin, you were now working in a milkshake shop.

Instead of having lived there your whole life, you were now clueless about the city since you had recently moved there.

Instead of liking horror movies, you now loved rom-coms.

New identity, new apartment, new car, new everything. It was as if the real you had never existed, but none of that was your biggest issue right now.

It was your new uniform for the milkshake shop.

“Jesus Christ,” you muttered to yourself, looking in the mirror before fixing your skirt. Even after a week, you still weren’t used to wearing it, the uniform was some sort of a retro diner waitress costume with red and white stripes, cinched waist and a white apron over the short skirt. “I’m going to kill whoever picked this after I’m done with the mission.”

“Y/N?” Chloe called out from the living room, “Come on, we need to go over everything for today.”

You ran a hand over your face and walked to the living room to find your two best friends sprawling on the couch. Keith let out a laugh as soon as he saw you in that outfit, but managed to hide it by pressing his fist on his lips while Chloe kicked at his boot.

“I didn’t say anything!” He held up his hands, “Will you break my phone again if I take a picture?”

“Yeah,” you pointed at him, “I will, so don’t even.”

“We need to go over the plan,” Chloe said, “Today is the day you accidentally run into Barnes, he’ll be at that coffee shop.”

“How do you know where he will be?”

Chloe scoffed, “Hello? I’m a genius hacker?”

Keith sat up straighter, turning the pages of your file.

“Okay so,” he said, “You guys will probably make some small talk, let’s have some practice. Pretend I’m Bucky, how will you talk about yourself?”

“We don’t need to practice it, it’s not my first rodeo,” you reminded him “I got this.”

“Y/N, no offense but he isn’t some clueless civilian okay? The guy was going after targets before you or your parents were born for that matter. The tiniest mistake could tip him off.”

“He has a point.”

“Fine,” you sighed, fixing your nametag, “Let’s practice then.”

Keith took a deep breath and cleared his throat, “Look at that, we ran into each other again.”

You frowned at his deep voice, “Bucky doesn’t sound like one of those robots in the Terminator, Keith.”

“I’m in the zone, just go with it,” he said as offered you his hand, and you shook it.

“Yeah, hi again.”

“I haven’t seen you around here before.”

“Oh that’s normal, I just moved here. A month ago.”

“You just moved here?” he repeated “Really? Did you get used to the city yet?”

“A little.”

“I bet your family misses you.”

“Not really, I grew up with my grandmother. She passed away last year.”

“Any siblings?”

“No.”

Keith raised his brows, “Can you be less specific?”

“Keith—“

“You’re not acting like a civilian right now, you’re acting like a spy who has been forced to socialize and he will see right through that,” he told you. “You have to give him more details, civilians talk about themselves a lot.”

“It’s true,” Chloe said, “Once I was in this speed dating thing and just- don’t ask. They don’t stop talking about themselves.”

Keith pursed his lips only for a moment, stealing a look at Chloe before turning to you,

“Let’s try again. Any siblings?”

You rolled your eyes, “Unfortunately not. I’m an only child but when I was a kid, I kept begging my parents for a sister. My mom asked me what would happen if I got a brother, apparently I went like “but mommy, you can give him back then!””

“There we go, embarrassing childhood memories,” Keith grinned, “Good idea.”

You checked your wristwatch, “I gotta run,” you said, “You guys can see yourselves out.”

“I was actually hoping I could stay a little more,” Chloe said, “To make this place look a bit more appropriate. I suppose you’ll bring him here at some point?”

You pulled your brows together, looking around. “Yeah, so? There’s a bedroom.”

“Ever the romantic, this one,” Keith said and Chloe shook her head,

“Y/N, he needs to see something personal otherwise he might get suspicious.”

You pursed your lips, deep in thought, “You mean like sex toys?”

“Oh Jesus…”

“Contrary to popular belief, when people say they want to see something personal, they don’t refer to sex toys.” Keith stated helpfully, “That being said, we’re all screwed if you end up falling for a civilian, you have no idea how to act like one.”

“I meant personal as in stuff to make your place look more homely,” Chloe explained, “Things from your cover’s past that show him we didn’t fabricate this whole identity.”

“Even if we did,” Keith mumbled under his breath and she nodded.

“Even if we did. He needs to see something personal when he comes here, like…” she motioned at the walls, “Like your childhood pictures or your art projects from when you were seventeen.”

“I was learning how to use a pencil as a knife when I was seventeen, Chloe.”

“Exactly. Just let me handle it, I’ve been watching so many makeover shows lately.”

You shrugged your shoulders, “Knock yourself out,” you said, “I have milkshakes to fill, see you guys later.”

“Go get him tiger!”

“You got this!” Chloe called out as you walked to the door, “Just be confident and your milkshake will bring all the ex-assassins to the yard!”

You let out a small laugh, then closed the door behind you before throwing your shoulders back and going down the stairs.

                                                         ***

Approaching the target as your training taught you had to have certain steps. You couldn’t just implant yourself in their life, you had to wait until they thought it was their choice to include you in their lives. Sometimes it took more time than you had patience for, but in the end it was worth it.

Seeing that Bucky Barnes was no civilian, every single step had to be checked twice.

Well the uniform would help the mission, at least a little.

A distracted target was a good target.

You lowered the binoculars before pushing them into your purse and fixing the apron wrapped around your waist. Bucky was sitting with Sam at the coffee shop and they seemed to be in a deep discussion, not even aware of what was going on around them. You took a deep breath and approached the door before you pushed it, then slowly made your way to the barista.

“Hi, can I get a cappuccino please? Small.” You smiled at her and went to the counter on the right to wait for your order. Out of the corner of your eye you could see Sam looking at you with a frown before saying something to Bucky, nodding in your direction. You kept your eyes on the counter, rocking back and forth on the balls of your feet before you scratched around the tape of the bandage over the bullet wound absentmindedly.

Come on…. you thought Come on, approach me already, just come here….

“Here you go, miss.”

“Thank you,” you said, taking the cup off the counter before you started pouring sugar into it just to stall, and finally heard someone clear their throat behind you.

Bingo.

You looked over your shoulder and turned around, your jaw dropping.

“Come on,” you let out a giggle, “Is this real?”

Bucky smiled slightly and pursed his lips together as if he wasn’t familiar with the gesture, “Uh…hi.”

“Hi!” you said, your voice way too high pitched for a moment, “Wow. We meet again, my hero.”

His smile widened and he rubbed the back of his neck, “How’s your arm?”

“Healing,” you ran a finger over the tape of the bandage, “I didn’t die, that’s something. But the doctor said that was the worst bullet wound he had ever seen in his life.”

Bucky frowned, “Wait, really?”

“No, I’m just trying to look badass,” you admitted, making him chuckle, “They didn’t even think it needed stitches.”

“Ah,” he said and motioned at your uniform, “So you’re a…?”

You scrunched up your nose in what you hoped to be a cute manner and shot him an abashed look, “I know. I thought the exact same thing when I first saw myself in it.”

“I doubt that,” he mumbled more to himself and you tilted your head, batting your lashes.

“Hm?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly, “So the uniform?”

“I work at this milkshake shop just around the corner,” you said, “Apparently retro shops are popular nowadays. It’s supposed to look like this pin up style— can you tell me what’s wrong with the dress so that I can tell the owner what a ridiculous idea it is?”

He opened his mouth and closed it again, looking you up and down, “I don’t- it’s-“ he stammered “You know, it was such a long time ago. I think it looks perfectly fine.”

“Does it?”

“Absolutely.”

You grinned at him, “Well in any case, you should drop by sometime. Milkshakes are better than the uniform, I promise.”

“Yeah?”

You nodded, “Yeah! I would’ve invited you sooner but by the time I was done at the hospital you had already left, and they also told me you paid for the whole thing and the taxi, so…”

“Don’t worry about it,” he waved a hand, “It’s nothing.”

You bit down on your lip, “If you don’t mind me asking,” you said softly, “Why did you leave in a hurry? I mean obviously you didn’t have to stay, I’m sure you’re very busy and—“

“No no, it’s nothing like that,” Bucky cut you off, “I just didn’t want you to think you owed me anything, that’s all.”

“Huh,” you clicked your tongue, “I see. I was wondering what the catch was, didn’t have to wait that long. That’s good to know.”

He raised his brows, amused for some reason, “What’s the catch?”

“You’re too much of a gentleman.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Not really,” you taunted him “Just unfamiliar.”  

His gaze lingered on you as you took a sip of your coffee, keeping your eyes on him.

“I hope you got home safe though,” he said after a beat and you thought for a moment.

“I did, and now I know to stay away from dark alleys in New York,” you said, “Lesson learned I’d say.”

“You’re not from around here?”

“I- no, I actually moved here just a month ago,” you said, “I grew up in a small town, we didn’t really have robbers or anything. And I managed to get mugged within the first thirty days in a big city. A true New York experience, I feel like I belong here already.”

“Your folks must be losing their minds if you attract trouble that fast in the city.”

“No one is losing their minds, it’s just me,” you said and when you saw his quizzical glances, you felt the need to explain. “I grew up with my grandma and I lost her a year ago, so…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Ah it’s okay,” you said, “She wouldn’t want me to live in sadness, she told me that herself. You can’t focus on what ifs, you know? We just decide what to do with the time left for us and that’s it. Past would drive all of us crazy otherwise.”

He looked almost surprised at your take on loss and when you saw the soft light in his eyes, you knew you had just hit jackpot.

“You’re a glass half full kind of person, huh?”

Nope, I’m more of a “use the glass as a weapon” kind of person.

“Yeah,” you said, “There are enough pessimists in the world, and they don’t need me within their ranks. No one really did anything nice by thinking the worst anyways.”

“Oh you were definitely not raised here.”

Your jaw dropped, “You know what Mr. Barnes, I’d take that as an offense but lucky for you, you saved me the other day, so I’ll let that slide.”

“Mm hm,” He looked like he was struggling with himself not to laugh, “Lucky me.”

You narrowed your eyes at him playfully, then checked your wristwatch.

“I should probably go, my boss cares a lot about punctuality,” you said, “But is it okay if I gave you my number?”

He stared at you for a couple of seconds as if he couldn’t believe you.

“Wait- really?”

“I mean I was going to wait until you asked me, but apparently you’re too much of a gentleman,” you joked as he hastily grabbed his phone from his pocket and handed it to you. You typed in your number, then saved it.

Y/N (The Milkshake Girl)

Bucky tilted his head, his brows furrowed, “What, you didn’t think I’d recognize your name?”

“Well it’s better to be safe than sorry,” you joked, “Besides you should really come by sometime. We have the best chocolate milkshakes. It’s on the house.”

He smiled, “I will.”

You took a step, then held your breath and turned around as if you had just remembered something.

As if it wasn’t all practiced.

“But not after 4 on Mondays and Wednesdays,” you said, “I volunteer at the soup kitchen then.”

That light in his eyes was almost gentle, as if he was worried he could hurt you just by looking at you, but couldn’t stop himself from doing so.

“I’ll see you not after 4 on Mondays and Wednesdays then,” he said and you giggled, then turned around and walked to the door. Sam was watching you with a small, proud grin on his lips so you waved at him and left the coffee shop, still holding the warm cup tightly in your hand.

As soon as you were sure you were out of their sight, you dropped the smile, exhaled a relaxed breathe and grabbed your phone to touch the contact on the screen.

“I’m sorry, our delivery service is down right now,” the voice said and you scratched around the tape on your arm before telling her the code;

“That’s okay, I can wait until the rain stops.”

There was a click on the other line and soon enough you heard the assistant’s voice.

“Hello?”

“This is Shrike, put me through the General.”

“Of course, a second please,” she said and you tossed the cup into the garbage can, then General’s voice reached you.

“Shrike?”

“Sir, I just called to inform you that I’ve contacted the target for the second time,” you said, “Everything is going according to plan, my report will be on your desk by tonight.”

“He didn’t suspect anything?”

“No sir.”

“Okay,” he said, “Don’t move too fast, alright? We don’t want to spook him.”

“Of course.”

“And Shrike?” he said, “Good job.”

A smile lit up your face, “Thank you sir,” you said and hung up, closing your eyes and leaning back to the wall.

“Okay,” you whispered to yourself, “You got this, he’s just another target. Let the games begin.”

Chapter 5

[cockasinthebird]

It was awkward at first, which isn’t much of a surprise to Steve. This is a whole new world for him-  how would he ever even go about dating or flirting with guys, least of all Billy Hargrove. Girls he understood, flowers and chocolate and driving them to the mall and carrying their shopping bags, classic textbook stuff that he’s actually quite good at if he had to say so himself.

Hi was all he managed to write to Billy.

Hey ;) was the response.

Nerve wracking, dizzying, nauseating. It left him a mess for that entire weekend, making him incapable of ever even responding to any of his other matches on the apps, because he couldn’t stop thinking about Billy fucking Hargrove. Yet he also didn’t know where to go from there, and when Billy didn’t see it fit to send him a second message, it just died out right then and there.

But there was no relief, no Oh thank God that he wouldn’t have to even try and find out what it’s like with Billy- what sex is like with Billy. Yet the thought of it stayed. Every night, morning, day. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, all ruined by a crown of golden curls, broad shoulders, his musky stench, that ugly tattoo… It doesn’t make any sense to him still, but now whenever he thinks about how firm and strong Billy was, bumping up against him on the court, the way he almost admired Steve in the showers right before calling him a pretty boy, and his voice when he said it… it’s all too vivid now. Whenever there was a moment for it, his idle hands would slowly find their way past the border of his briefs, but after only a few strokes of his half chub he’d pull back with a loud and exasperated sigh.

Come Monday morning and he’s sitting in his car, hands gripping too tight around the steering wheel, students flocking to the front doors of Hawkins High. Yet somehow through the mess of reluctant teens, Steve still manages to spot Billy without even really thinking about it, like a gorgeous needle in a hormonal haystack, jeans clinging to his sculpted ass, the fabric around his thighs looking about ready to tear-

Steve shuts his eyes, squeezing till it becomes uncomfortable in an attempt to forget that he knows what Billy looks like naked; how freckles dust across his features everywhere, how smooth he is, how he’s oh so perfectly waxed-

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, shit.” Of all things that could have happened, Steve sporting a boner at school wasn’t rare but definitely the worst. Especially given the subject of his all too sudden desires. 

He had never cared to think twice about Billy when he wasn’t around, and now he’s the only thing on his mind. He can’t go in there like this, can’t face him like this, Steve’s body is too sensitive to even the slightest hint of Billy apparently. 

And he’s not going to jerk off in his car, that’s just… sad.

The fact that he makes it all the way home without a single speeding ticket is just dumb, lazy luck, and that he makes it to his bedroom before jerking off for the second time today is just impressive. At least he can still show some self restraint.

But only a little.

For when he’s done and ashamed of it all, he sluggishly drags his feet toward the shower, where as soon as the hot water hits his skin, he’s reminded of the locker room at school. And he’s reminded of all the times he has caught Billy stealing glances, only for those crystal blues to flee once they’ve been caught, maybe spit out a little toxic comment that’s barely heard in passing.

As he now looks down at his fully hard dick once more, yearning to a certain someone’s attention here in the nude, Steve closes his eyes only to be met by the prideful, girthy cock that even when flaccid Billy struts around with like he’s the king.

His lips pursed around a cigarette. His hands as they grasp the ball at practice. His fingers so nimble whenever he plays with a pencil in class. His smile that he flashes to all the girls. His tongue out to swipe as he grins at Steve.

“Fuck, ah-” he bites into his one hand as he cums into the other, white clashing with the pink of the bathroom tiles. And another, “Fuck!” as he slams the side of his fist against the wall of the shower.

Barely an hour passes before he’s hard and ready again, lying on the couch with old reruns of whatever on the tv, his eyes glued to the pics Billy has posted everywhere for his own conceited ego’s sake, and the hundreds of likes and comments he gets, of course.

But it’s hard not to like what you see, when you’re faced with self-confidence like this, and well earned at that considering his Adonis looks and frequent exercise routine. It wouldn’t shock Steve if he found out that Billy could lift him without breaking a sweat.

Actually it thrills him far too much to even consider, as he watches a video on instagram of Billy benching far more than what Steve weighs, and all the blood rushes into his already eager erection at such a speed he gets a little dizzy.

He almost misses the doorbell ringing in his intense, almost stalker-y field of view, and who the fuck even rings anyone’s door at almost 1pm on a Monday. A sigh and rubbing his eyes prepares him for the inevitable greeting of either mormons or jehovah's witnesses, or maybe he’s lucky to meet a travelling salesman who’s got a cure for crushing on people way outside your league.

The bell rings several times as he walks up to the door, and even after opening it up to the warm summer weather, it takes Steve several long seconds before he realises who’s standing there, toothy grin and denim clad with an arm up on the doorframe.

It hits him like a bullet to the heart, the shock of finding billy Hargrove here, in front of Steve who’s barely dressed and-

Billy’s eyes hone in on the obvious tenting of Steve’s green boxers, and that grin spreads into the widest, flashiest smile that Steve has ever possibly seen.

“Is that for me?” he drawls out, lustful and daring.

And it sets the poor trust fund kid aflame, his heart pumping so fast and hard he feels it pulsate in his dick. The blood rushing away from his brain must be making him dumb, because the only seemingly obvious reaction Steve can sort out is reaching for Billy and kissing that smug look from his face.

It doesn’t take Billy long to get in on it; he pushes his way through the door and closes it behind him, strips clean of his denim jacket before tugging off Steve’s shirt. It all happens so fast he can’t even follow, the taste of Billy’s spit and the feel of his teeth biting disorients him to a point where he can barely answer the question,

“Where’s your bedroom?”

With, “Upstairs and to the left.”

Suddenly they’re on his bed, the memory of them stumbling up the stairs as they undressed distant and nearly gone, as the throbbing of his cock has never felt louder than in this moment.

Of all the girls he’s been with, being with a man is… different. He’s nervous, almost nauseous with it, yet has never been more excited, turned on, or harder in his entire life. Hands are everywhere but where he desires them as they push him into the covers, smoothly runs up and down his chest and abs then all the way up to cup his jaw. His face feels wet with kisses and how eagerly Billy licks his lips to taste everything.

It’s a rushed mess yet it doesn’t go fast enough.

“Touch me,” he whispers without thought as he tries to keep up with Billy’s pacing.

“Yeah? Want me to touch you, pretty boy? Touch your hard, long cock?” Billy’s tone almost cruel and rough at the seams, his hands going down to grip Steve’s hips with near brutish strength.

“God yes,” Steve moans at the slight pain, “I want you to touch me so fucking bad- jerk me off, please.”

“Please?” Billy barks out a laugh at that, “Those bitches you fuck into all that nicety? Please and thank yous.”

“They love it,” Steve says with confidence that can only come from personal experience.

But it only makes Billy laugh more as he pulls away. He sits up on his knees, cock hard and thick where it stands at attention between his muscular thighs. “That won’t work with me, princess. Don’t gotta ask like a good guy for me to fuck you, just say it and I’m here.”

“How easy of you,” the words are out before Steve even thinks about it. The rivalry they have is still new and fresh, it can barely be helped, and for a moment he fears that he has ruined the moment.

Yet Billy doesn’t move away. He slowly licks along the arch of his upper lip, something deep and primal in the way he stares, and a hand runs through his golden locks to push them away from his irritatingly handsome face.

“Look who’s talking.”

In a rush that seems natural to Billy, he flips Steve onto his side before laying down behind him and pressing the head of his wet dick against the crevice of Steve’s thighs.

“Wait!” Steve almost shouts as the churning of his stomach makes him sick with worry about the more technical functions of… this.

“Don’t worry baby,” Billy’s voice all of a sudden like silk, a range so odd and unfamiliar compared to his normal boisterous attitude, “I’m not gonna pop your cherry the first time we do this. You got me too excited for that, don’t wanna wait while I prep you like you deserve,” he whispers against the shell of Steve’s ear, and it eases every single worry he had.

“Oh…” The pent up nerves in his stomach vanishes, like a knot coming undone, every single muscle in his body relaxes into the sheets.

Well, almost every single muscle.

“Yeah, oh,” Billy chuckles and rubs his nose against the back of Steve’s neck, kissing his back. “I can be a nice guy, too. You don’t gotta worry bout a thing, just let me take care of you.”

Today has been… a long, confusing mess. From the boner he woke up with after dreams of Billy, to the one in his car, the one in his shower, the one on the couch, to the way Billy so rudely shoved his way into Steve’s personal space, up the stairs, onto the bed. Rude and hectic from their first kiss till now. Now he’s… nice? Steve feels a fool for falling for it, but at least he’s aware as he lets down his guard and allows for Billy to… do whatever he pleases.

Is this how girls feel whenever a hot guy is nice to them? Whenever Steve is nice to them? Doesn’t feel like the worst thing in the world.

So he nods and hums a light agreement.

“Good,” Billy hums, too, and it makes Steve’s skin crawl in the best way possible; the shivers down his spine almost delightful as they go straight to his dick.

And when Billy gently pushes his heated flesh in between Steve’s thighs, the wet pre lubing up the skin perfectly, it’s weird and foreign, but also impossibly erotic and thrilling, and suddenly all Steve can think about is how Billy’s cock would feel inside of him.

It’s no lie that that’s something he’s thought about before - not necessarily with Billy mind you, just in general when sliding into a soaking wet pussy, he’d often get almost lost in thought about what that feels like, and if this is any indicator of it, he’s even more eager for it now.

So eager he can’t help the long, breathy moan that escapes him as Billy moves into his embrace till they’re lying flush together.

“That good huh?” Billy whispers from behind, and Steve can only imagine the self-satisfied smirk on his face.

Rather than responding he moves, closing his legs tighter and grinding back against Billy, as to test his own boundaries with all of this - which has been something of a win, considering he really went from his first kiss with a guy to this within ten minutes or so. And the way Billy groans all pleasant and pushes harder into their meeting of skin jolts through Steve’s cock like a bolt of lightning making him spurt out pre.

“Yeah, keep your legs just like that,” Billy speaks uncharacteristically soft as he moves one hand down, his burning hot palm smoothly moving over a thigh and staying there for leverage, as he starts rocking back and forth. In and out. 

Steve’s breath stutters and he can’t help but put a hand over his mouth. It’s not uncommon for him to be overly vocal and enthusiastic during sex, but this felt… almost embarassing, the kind of blithe and soft coos and moans rather than deep, throaty groans making his cheeks red.

“Don’t do that.” Billy moves his hand up to grab Steve’s and intertwines their fingers. “I wanna hear you. Let me know what I do to you.”

His cock throbs with urgent need at those words. Such a deep, baritone voice that excites Steve to a fever pitch, his body burning up where sweat gathers down his back between them. It’s gross and stimulating all at once, as Billy thrusts between his wet thighs and holds him close, he feels like a virgin again.

And maybe that’s why Billy is treating him so kindly. Not that he disagreed with the fervor earlier, how crude it was to be manhandled like that, but this? This gentle rocking of their bodies as they together find harmy in the rhythm, it’s intoxicating. Steve barely even notices when his own hand sneaks down to wrap around his hard length, so lost in the moment he can’t think straight, can’t stop the sighs and moans that spill from his body as he melts into Billy’s embrace.

“That’s it,” Billy speaks softly like summer rain, “God you’re so fucking hot. Can’t tell you how long I’ve admired you in secret, thought about every single mole and freckle as I jerked off at home. This is all I’ve wanted for so long, I thought I was dreaming when I saw you on the app.”

Steve wants to respond, wants to say something like, “How do you think I felt when we matched,” but his mind is a fog of euphoria, barely able to even hear what’s being so dearly and honestly said as he can’t focus on anything other than the slickness of Billy’s cock hitting the back of his balls, nudging him closer and closer to the edge with every thrust.

“Your thighs are so nice and soft, clenching around me just right, arh, you feel so fucking good, princess.”

When Billy speeds up, Steve naturally follows along.

“I’m so close.”

Steve, too. The pent up feeling that’s been quickly building to an unbearable pressure point is becoming too much, hot and ecstatic like a volcano waiting to erupt.

“Wanna cum between your legs so bad, baby.”

“Ah- please,” Steve finally finds words and it comes out like a pathetically needy little whine.

He wants to wait- wants them to cum together like he’s seen on porn as fake as that might be, but it’s a sudden and rampant thing, blinding him with fireworks behind his screwed shut eyes. A feeling that can’t possibly be expressed in any other way than a loud, prolonged, almost shocked moan, as he cums into his own hand that he jerks with ardent intensity.

Whilst not simultaneous, Billy is not far behind; urged on by Steve’s alluring keening he sped up his thrusting and grinding like he’s in a race for the finish line himself. And it would be kinda humorous if it wasn’t so hot how hard he slams into the gathering of warm, soaked flesh. Oh how he pounds into Steve with all his sweaty might, grunting and groaning till he cums with a loud and lustful moan, his hand still holding on to Steve’s with a near crushing passion to it.

And then there’s silence, as they breathe out together, muscles relaxing, dicks flaccid and sticky with cum. It’s warm and nice and cozy, but it’s hard to enjoy for Steve.

Is Billy actually this nice, or was it just a play to get off? Did he do to Steve what he does to every other bitch that he gets with? What now? What’s next? Are they gonna be a thing or just friends with benefits? Wait, are they even friends? Fuck buddies maybe? All the thoughts that he didn’t have time to be anxious about before comes rushing in fresh and clear in a post-climax-clarity moment, and it stirs the pit in his stomach alive again.

When Billy squeezes his hand gently, and asks, “What are you thinking about?” whilst nuzzling into the nape of Steve’s neck, kissing him lazily as if almost asleep.

It… helps. The thoughts aren’t gone per say but they’re in the distance now, and all it took was a simple question- a sign of caring.

Steve turns around in bed to look at Billy’s drowsy expression, before answering, “Thinking about taking a shower. You wanna come with?”

Billy’s nose furrows and wrinkles as he peeks out past ruffled curls. “Can’t we stay like this a bit longer?”

It makes Steve’s heart beat different.

“Sure.”

[moregaythanyourealized]

First Impressions

Otto Octavius x reader

Working with others wasn’t your strong suit. People think you’re vulgar and rude. You like to call yourself brutally honest. This job wasn’t an exception. A science company that needed engineers, mechanics, and strong minds like your own. You had only been working here for a few months when gossip about a new super project was being passed around. No one bothered to tell you, of course. You just overheard it on your coffee break. Apparently some great scientist was coming in and taking over the entire lab.

Usually you’d be excited for an advancement in the world of fusion. But this new rich snobby scientist meant that for however long this project took you’d have; No office, Less working hours (meaning less pay), and worst of all....small talk

It was the day the new scientist was supposed to come in, you now knew his name was Otto Octavius. Your desk and your co workers desks were moved out of the lab and into a much smaller space. Cramping you all together like rats. You wore your usual attire and annoyed look as you entered the building. Although today you dawned some stylish eyeliner. Not for him of course, everybody was working extra hard to look presentable and professional. You passed by a co-worker who you didn’t really hate as much,

“Yo, Kathleen, is that guy here yet? Or do you think he’s too busy getting the windows on his lamborghini re-tinted?” You snorted at your own joke waiting for her response,

“Uh, he’s upstairs I think...in the lab.” You thanked her and walked up the steps. You pushed through nerds and geeks trying to reach your desk. A folder of your ideas carefully sealed with colorful clips sat in your drawer.

“L/n!” Turning around your boss was at the end of the hall stomping his feet,

“You were supposed to be in the lab by 7:30!” You glanced at the clock on the wall, 7:46,

“My apologies sir. I didn’t realize everyone would have a stick up their ass this morning. Besides traffic on the way here is always shitty.” You absentmindedly looked through your folder and took one page out pinning it to your cork board, until your boss grabbed your wrist and turned you towards him. His breath was heinous,

“Listen L/n, on a normal day I’d let you get away with being like this. But this is too important for you to fuck up.” glaring at you he released your arm,

“Get your shit together.” He spat. Waiting until he rounded the corner you groaned and tugged at your hair. Today just wasn’t your day. Taking a deep breath you smoothed out your shirt and walked to the lab pushing the door open and continuing inside. The colder air made you relax a bit. Hoping you’d be able to get some work done you sat down on a metal table in the corner. Crossing your legs and looking over blueprints for the next big thing in New York. The above ground bullet train. Sleek design and smooth riding on the rails...you hoped.

Kathleen walked in and shyly rapped your shoulder,

“Did you meet Mr Octavius?”

“He hasn’t come in yet.” You replied glancing her way, admiring how nice she looked even when she wasn’t trying,

“He’s right over there.” She points to a hunched over man in a red sweater. You got off the table and stared,

“That’s him? I thought he was like a janitor or some shit.” The man looked up raising a brow.

Fuck...probably said that too loud.

Waving awkwardly you grabbed Kathleen’s arm and dragged her over to the main table with you,

“Hello, I’m Dr Octavius. I believe we’ll be working together for the next few weeks.” He smiled sweetly and stuck out his hand which Kathleen accepted greatly,

“Actually Dr,” You chimed,

“You’ll be working with people from the east wing. They’re just letting you invade our entire office.” Kathleen stamped down on your foot lightly before turning back to the doctor,

“Y/n was just going to get me some coffee, do you want any Dr?” He nodded and you walked out making sure to slam the door. Stupid jerk, wearing a cute fucking sweater, trying to act all innocent. Trying to play god and mess with whatever sanity I have left. Pouring two cups of coffee you sighed, watching the steam spiral from the cup in a calming manner. Putting milk and sugar into one and nothing into the other.

Re-entering the lab Kathleen was no longer there. A disturbing silence made you want to turn on your radio. Octavius was still leaning over the desk writing things down. You held the drink infront of him,

“Oh, thank you sweetheart.” Your eye twitched. That was the final straw. You yanked the coffee back spilling it a bit,

“My name is Y/n L/n, I may not have your money or title but I expect the same respect you’d give any man on this team. Do you understand me?” He stood up quickly. You didn’t realize he was so tall,

“Now wait a moment Y/n, just a few minutes ago you were cursing and accusing me. Respect is about the last thing on my mind when I think of you.” Ah shit, he was kinda right. You weren’t mad at him. You were just mad at the world. Still you had bad energy in your system,

“But I apologize for calling you sweetheart. It was a crude mistake.” You set both coffees down gently and folded your arms looking at your boots. Saying sorry was the right thing to do, even if it sucked,

“I’m sorry for the way I acted Dr, I guess I’m just a little upset with the pay cuts.” He paused,

“They’re cutting your pay?” You nodded and sat down in one of the metal chairs,

“Everyone here who doesn’t work 24/7 alongside you for the next month gets their pay cut in half until you’re out of here.”

“But you didn’t choose to work less, that doesn’t seem right.” You sighed and rested your head on the table,

“Tell me about it.” While enjoying the feeling of cool table on your cheek you noticed one of his papers. You grabbed it and a pencil before erasing some of his math. You could feel him focused on you,

“Staring is rude.” You said not taking your eyes off the equations,

“You seem to be as well.” Chuckling a bit he sat down and tapped your hand drawing your attention to his soft features,

“I think I know what’s bothering you.”

“I already told you what’s bothering me.” He shook his head and clicked his tongue,

“No, not that. When you left for coffee, Kathleen and I had a small talk about your behavior” Jesus, he sounds like a high school principal,

“She told me that you act like this a lot around other people. And it’s my personal hypothesis that you are intimidated by others who you believe to be smarter or better. You’re afraid of losing your job and not being able to prove yourself. I’m assuming that started in your childhood, either with an absent father figure or bullies at school.” You sat in disbelief. No one had ever really laid out your problems and made them seem so simple. Your face heated up and you clenched your hands. Why did this make you feel so stupid? Why did he think he knew more about your feelings than you did?

Standing up you turned away. Once a demanding and harsh voice was now quiet and small failing to hide your distraught,

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

————————————————

The rest of the day was slow. Your desk felt like a prison where time never moved forward. Rethinking what he said. The repeated movie in your brain of him lecturing you, All of it slowly morphed into him not making noise at all. His mouth moved but no sound, it was wonderful. You just imagined him, dark eyes, large stature looming over you, soft hands....

“Y/n?”

“Fuck!” You hit your head against the wall and turned to see Kathleen. She leaned in to make sure you’re okay, her perfume hit your nose and you tried not to seem like you were enjoying the moment too much,

“What do you need Kathy?”

“Dr Octavius asked me to give this to you.” She handed you an envelope and hastily exited the room. The crisp paper unfolded in your hands. Reading the letter was like fiery kisses to your skin. Words pouring out like water from a faucet.

Y/n,

We obviously got off on the wrong foot. I do not think of you as a subordinate and I certainly hope you do not think of me as a threat. We both overstepped personal and professional boundaries today. I apologize sincerely for making you uncomfortable. What is science if not testing the waters though? To show my attitude towards a better future working together I invite you to lunch tomorrow downtown. I will pick you up outside at 12:30

All the best,

Dr Otto Octavius

Pinning the letter up next to your project on the cork board you admired it smiling. Perhaps second impressions will set you both straight.