#but the roads are a mess bc all the houses are too close together and there's a huge hole in the middle of the village w 2 abandoned houses

[altfire]

i literally cant help but rp in any game im literally thinking abt the lore of my current. modded minecraft world w my friends. god

[wheresmymilliondollarman]

please do a part to the Grayson Hawthorn head canons maybe where he meets eve and that whole mess.

the moment i knew

grayson hawthorne x fem! reader

you're confident in your relationship with grayson hawthorne. that is until a girl who look exactly like emily laughlin shows up at the mansion.

(part of these hcs )

a/n: im SO glad someone requested this bc i had ideas while writing the hcs for this scenario. get ready for some drama and grayson being dumb💯 also finally happy to be back to posting!! been hectic but now i have free time <3 ty to everyone for being so understanding ur all amazing. listened to my sad playlist for the fighting part LOL also i wanted to make this fic format but i was already way too deep into the bullets to fix it.

word count: 7.2k (wayyy longer than intended)

warnings: angst (i love and hate it), swearing, eve, fighting, death threats, final gambit spoilers but also plot changes

dating grayson hawthorne was truly the most beautiful feeling. you would even consider it better than finding out you were going to inherit billions. that's not true, but dating grayson is a close second still.

he was a fantastic boyfriend who cared so deeply for you, and you greatly got along with his family.

the two of you had occasional fights, but it was never anything that lasted more than an hour of being mad at each other. plus, he always caved in first whether you were right or wrong.

life was truly straight out of a movie for you. you were going to be a billionaire, run a foundation, and have a boyfriend. freshman year you would never be able to believe it, especially the boyfriend part.

it was almost too perfect. you should've expected an event to come crashing down at some point. because, after all, this still was the hawthorne family you're dealing with.

the road to disaster was initiated the moment grayson hawthorne left the house. he'd gotten into the ivy league of his choice, harvard and you were more than thrilled for him. but you were unsure of where it put the two of you at. he would be leaving the mansion, while you were forced to stay.

your's and avery's contract had yet to end, you still had a few month to bypass - so you couldn't leave the residence for more than 3 consecutive days.

grayson assured you the long distance thing would work, and he'd visit you as often as possible, then when you passed the year mark, you'd be able to visit and stay with him for long periods.

the plan he formated has eased your worries about your relationship. however, a small, but growing wall had formed between you, and you feared him leaving would lengthen it. you'd begun to notice a distant feeling from grayson at times, it was as if he was still concealing a part of himself. it was a build-up of all the unresolved emotional stresses he's faces - mainly from the death of both emily and tobias.

there were moments when you had attempted to get him to open up - but he either never got the hint or desperately wanted to remain ignorant. you'd decided to leave it as is, and perhaps that was your first error.

before leaving the family had put together a party as a 'farewell' gift. since the night began, you sensed the distant feeling had returned and grayson wasn't entirely there.

when a young girl had fallen into the pool, and grayson was quick to save her, jumping right into the pool in his suit and tie. you were quick to approach them with towels; even after the girl was returned to her family, grayson stayed still with a distant look in his eyes. you called his name and shook him a few times before he finally snapped back. but before you could question anything, he sought off into the house - leaving you on your own.

you gave him time alone since that was what he obviously wished for. you were relieved to see avery return with grayson, so relieved that you were insensible to the tension between the two.

thought things weren't resolved when grayson left, you were still hopeful for the both of you.

it started off great; frequent texts, late-night calls, occasional visits, and even gifts delivered to you. you felt silly for not having faith in the long-distance thing.

but your doubts returned when those daily calls turned into weekly texts and updates and those every other weekend visits shifted to seeing each other once a month.

grayson's excuse had been he was adjusting and had a hard time getting a grip on balancing everything in his life. had it been anyone else, you'd believed it better, but because it was grayson hawthorne, who you knew could effortlessly take on any task - you were growing suspicious. but you had yet to have a serious with grayson about it.

your silence broke the moment avery sat you down and revealed what had gone down in the wine cellar with grayson the night of his party.

she started with her concern for grayson, then ventured onto what happened after grayson ran off. avery had been in the wine cellar getting a bottle at jameson's request when grayson stumbled in. she immediately noticed he was in distress, and it wasn't long before he started breaking down. avery did her best to help, but he just insisted she leave, then went on a tangent about seeing hallucinations of emily and all the stress caused by being a hawthorne. avery's first thought was to get you, but he begged her not to tell him, which is why she was silent until that moment.

you were too occupied on the information regarding your boyfriend to even get a little mad that avery withheld the information. you had an inkling grayson wasn't well, you hadn't known it had gotten as bad as it did, and it was probably much worse by now.

you made an urgent call to grayson the as soon as you got to your room, and it took a couple tries to get him to answer. he answered a bit agitated, but you didn't care and started hounding him for an explanation on everything avery had told you.

at first, grayson was taken aback by both the interrogation and avery betraying him, then he finally confirmed that avery's words were true.

your heart grew heavy, and he confirmed everything. it was silent on the line for a second before you spoke up again. the first thing you asked was 'why?' why didn't he tell you about his trouble, especially the fact he was having nightmares and hallucinations about emily, his ex- girlfriend. and why, why had he confided in someone else instead of his own girlfriend.

you weren't jealous of avery nor did you fret over something happening between grayson and avery, but it hurt like hell to know she was the first he opened up to, whether it was intentional or not.

grayson repeated apologies over the phone, but by then, you were over it and wished him goodnight before hanging up. and once the line went dead, you curled up in bed and cried til you were tired enough to pass out.

grayson called multiple times the following day, and you declined them all. when calls were a bust, he turned to a flux of texts hourly, all consisting of the same mantra of sorry's and 'call me back'. you still didn't budge. you continued that behavior for a week or so, still upset at him.

however, you couldn't help but feel bad - the last thing you wanted to do was add stress to this place. nonetheless, your emotions were also valid; no one likes their boyfriend keeping things from them, telling said secrets to another woman he used to live with at that.

what you didn't expect on your monday morning was grayson to show up behind your bedroom door when you opened it. knowing he came all that way just because you were ignoring him made your heart flutter, however, you kept you solid composure.

grayson begged you to hear him out, so you hesitantly let him into your room and sat on the bed, waiting for him to say something. then grayson gave permission, he spilled his guts.

he revealed to you all of the difficulties he was going through, and you listened with an open heart. by the end of it he was crying, and you didn't hesitate to comfort him in his arms, a gesture he gladly accepted.

when it was safe for you to speak, you told him he didn't have to face all of it alone, there were many people in his life who cared for him.

"hawthorne or not, i'm your girlfriend. you are free to run to me when things get hard. then we can take it on together, okay?"

"you still want to be with me even after i've cried on your shoulder like this."

"the crying actually makes me like you more." you joke, and he gives a small smile at that.

you felt everything had gotten better after that. you'd manage to knock down another wall grayson had built, and now the two of you were closer than ever. avery's birthday was soon, so any two weeks after that, you'd be able to see grayson much more.

you were going to surprise your boyfriend by telling him you'd been looking at apartments in cambridge and landed on the perfect apartment for yourself. so, as soon as the year was up, you were moving there. yes, it was a huge step for someone you hadn't even been dating for over a year, but there was no place you'd rather be than by grayson's side.

avery's birthday had been, as jameson described, an "introvert's ball." and to be frank, you'd prefer it that way. after the way the last big party ended u, you were happy to have it just be immediate close friends and family.

everyone had a great time, grayson had made time to attend, and the both of you danced almost all night long. by the end, you're feet were blistered and bruised, but courteously swept you off your feet and carried you in his arms and into his bedroom. you were out like a light, but not before hearing grayson say 'love you' when he thought you were sound asleep. you went to bed with a smile etched on your lips.

you would've never left his bed had you known what was in store for you both the next day.

you'd just eaten breakfast with avery when you had both been informed by oren of a visitor name eve. avery looked anxious about it, and you didn't wait for her permission to follow her to the gates.

from the distance, you'd assumed it was rebecca, but as you approached, you realized that wasn't her. the girl in front of you was an exact copy of emily laughlin, more than her own twin.

"what the hell."

you were stunned to see a version of emily in person, and not just from photos you'd seen. avery was shocked, but it wasn't because of her appearance, more so due to her appearance at the manor. you were highly confused and began to think you were still sleeping.

avery had no choice but to confide in you everything that had gone on with toby and grayson's father, and how eve was toby's daughter. it was all much for your morning brain. but you processed enough to know the hawthornes, mainly grayson, seeing eve was the last thing needed. a part of you wanted to halt the meeting for selfish purposes. but the issue with eve being at hawthorne mansion meant a bigger issue; toby was taken.

oren, you, avery, and eve were discussing how to proceed, but there was little time to discuss the matter because the first person to come outside was grayson. the last person you'd wanted to come out of the mansion.

"emily?"

he was, understandably, pale as a ghost. it wasn't every day you saw a replica of your ex-girlfriend. you ran up to him with no plan of action. what could you possibly say? 'oh, this isn't emily this is eve, who just happens to look exactly like emily. and she's toby's daughter. oh, and by the way, your father is actually dead.'

grayson walked closer to eve, the resemblance becoming clear as day. looked to you to verify if what he was seeing was real or another figment of your imagination. you could only nod in response.

grayson didn't look away from eve, even when you tried to pull him back into the house. eve was annoyed by his trance and demanded to be taken inside for a shower after all she's had to deal with for the day.

so it was decided that everyone would gather in avery's room while eve used her bathroom. jameson had already been in avery's room when you four entered. he obviously noticed eve but made no comment until she was into the shower. since eve locked herself in the bathroom, grayson's eyes didn't move from the door. you couldn't lie and say it didn't create a sour feeling inside of you.

you knew it was horrible to make your boyfriend's trauma about you, but you couldnt help it. you were worried eve having the same face as emily was going to bring back unwarranted feelings. you bit back your envy, seeing that jameson was unaffected by eve's face, in contrast to grayson who stared longingly.

"tell me everything, heiress one and two."

avery briefly went over eve's appearance and toby's disappearance. she believes toby being taken has to do with a disk he gave her, one eve didn't know about. she ended it with an open discussion on ideas on how to get toby back.

jameson was the first to recognize how little you all knew about eve, and if you could truly trust her. you were glad someone had similar thoughts and you wouldn't be the first to voice them.

"we have to help her."

you turned to grayson at his words, your lips turned slightly down. jameson and avery also looked at the brother weirdly. was he seriously defending eve because she was an emily dupe?

"gray, we don't know her."

"it doesn't mean we should leave her to her own devices."

eve stepped out of the bathroom with clothes provided by avery,and grayson now had a look in his eye you coulden't identify. you had just about enough and lamely excused yourself to your room.

a part of you stupidly hoped your boyfriend would follow, but he never did.

as you busied yourself in your room reading books of fantasy lands to forget your own reality, avery knocked at your door. you hollered at her to enter, and she did. you continued reading, waiting for her to speak first.

"what do you think of a few welcome festivities?"

you raised a brow, "what did you have in mind?"

"how does chutes and ladders sound?"

chutes and ladder did not sound very fun, and frankly you'd never heard of it until that moment, but avery needed everyone in the game to get eve on board. you were even less enthused finding out grayson had been where eve was.

'you trust your boyfriend. you trust your boyfriend. you trust your boyfriend.' you repeated over and over. maybe you would believe it at some point.

as everyone gathered in the study and took a seat, you took your usual place next to grayson. you clenched your fists in your lap as you witnessed eve do the same.

as xander droned on about the rules of the game, you subtly side-eyed the pair beside you. your attention shifts back to the game when xander instructs the first person to go is the person with the best-kept secret. so that meant each of you had to confess something.

grayson took the liberty of starting off, not before sparring a guilty glance at you, "a girl tried to kiss me at harvard."

your head snapped, "what?"

"seriously, it was nothing."

"i can't believe you wouldn't tell me, i thought we agreed no secrets!"

"i didn't think it matter, it obviously pushed the girl away."

"it was enough of a deal for you to choose it as your secret."

you got up from your seat and opted to sit between avery and maxine. grayson grabbed your arm in an attempt to stop you, but you shook him off and took your new seat. grayson attempted to throw apologies, but you disregarded them.

to lighten the mood, maxine continued revealing she had a tattoo and xander continued telling the room he found his birth father; most of you gasped and asked for more, but xander kept his mouth shut. avery went next, heartfelt, saying she felt tobias made a mistake choosing her. you couldn't deny you didn't feel the same at times.

then eyes shifted onto you, awaiting your confession. you had a plethora to give, but you settled for one that matched the vulnerability of avery's.

"not to speak ill of the dead, but sometimes i think tobias hawthorne is a coward for leaving a game in his will instead of an explanation."

the room was silenced by your voice. you and avery each gave a look toward one another in understanding. you couldn't bare to turn your head in grayson's direction for his reaction. plus, you were still upset at him.

eve took the moment to finish the circle of secrets with her own. she disclosed her relationship with her family and their resentment toward her. you didn't fully trust eve, but you sympathized with her story. part of that sympathy was broken off as you saw grayson lean closer to her without a second thought. you started to think you would explode if the game didn't start any sooner.

as you wished, the game commenced - no surprise to you when eve was decided to go first. then the rest of you followed, and the race began.

you truly had no intention of trying that hard for a game, but it seems your inner competitiveness took the lead when you noticed eve ahead and grayson trailing right behind her.

maybe your anger and irritation spurred you on, but in everyone's, including yourself, surprise - you were right on eve's tail climbing up the ladder behind her.

your next move was a dirty one, maybe even callous, but in all honesty, you hadn't meant to do it. you think.

trying to grab onto the next rung as fast as possible, you managed to also grab the heel of eve's foot - causing her to misstep, lose her balance, and hang off the ladder by an arm and a foot. you utilized the time eve had to stabilize herself to then slide past her. you shot her a sorry look on the way up, and opened the hatch to the rooftop, declaring you the winner.

eve was right behind, grayson and jamseon after, and avery after two minutes. eve shot you a glare but didn't say a word about the incident. grayson was making his way in your direction, but you steered the other way to where jameson and avery stood.

jameson chuckled, "i didn't know you had it in you to play dirty."

"it was an accident, she tripped!" you defended.

jameson gave you a knowing look, but raised his hands in surrender and walked away to where xander and maxine were on the verge of entering. (they got sidetracked by a pillow fight)

you told avery you were off to shower and change; you hadn;t realized how sweaty you got until that moment. she nodded and you made your way to the hatch, but before you went down, she grabbed your arm.

"between you and me, was it an actual accident?"

"it was... if you count grabbing her foot and dragging her down as an accident."

avery shakes her head, "can't say i wouldn't have done the same given the opportunity."

walking down the hall, you heard your name being called. on instinct, you turned; grayson was behind you. you figured avoiding him wouldn't work forever.

"can we talk?" he asks, interwining his hand into yours.

you open your mouth the respond, but he cuts you off - "actually, you don't get a choice. i'm going to talk, and you're going to listen."

his tone left no room for argument, so you conceded. grayson went on to apologize for the 'almost-kiss' incident and for the lack of telling you.

"forgive me, angel. it was idiotic of me to assume it wasn't a important matter to communicate to you. you are the only girl i'll ever want to kiss."

you were a sucker for sincere apologies, and his piercing eyes made for a compelling argument. you sighed, "okay, i'll forgive you. but next time a girl tries to kiss you and you don't tell me, i'm kicking your ass, then hers."

grayson smiles and leans in for a kiss, which you accept. as his lips ignite with yours, you can't help but think of how much of a hypocrite you're being by not telling him your emotions regarding eve. 'it wasn't the right time,' you told yourself. it was only her first day, you were jumping to conclusions too soon. everything would work out.

the morning made for a rude awakening; threatening note sent to the gates hadn't been on your to-do list. avery shook you so hard you jumped out of bed, thinking it was an earthquake and smacked grayson's face in your alarm. (he wasn't pleased at that)

the threat contained a photo of toby, and a crypt message you all decoded. everyone started to think of suspects for the culprit behind the kidnapping. number one being skye hawthorne.

however, the investigation proved to be fruitless because she didn't have toby, and the other suspects led to a dead end. the threats hadn't stopped either.

you found yourself sleeping in grayson's more frequently. grayson didn't feel comfortable leaving you in your room, but you also knew it was because he secretly loved cuddling you at night. he held off going back to harvard, claiming he couldn't leave while there was danger lurking. it made you feel safe, but you also wondered if eve had anything to do with it. part of you didn't want an answer to that.

on this night, the two of you were in the pool past midnight. now that you learned to swim, grayson wouldn't stop challenging you to races. you knew what the outcome would be, but you accepted everytime, telling him you'd beat him eventually. (doubt, but it was nice to dream). for every win, you'd award him a kiss per his demand.

on his fifth victory, you leaned in to kiss him, only to ambush him with water to the face. grayson pretended to be annoyed and claimed revenge. you quickly swam away, but it didn't take long for him to catch up to you. he hands attacked your sides, and you were tortured by the ticklish sensation. you begged for him to stop, but he refused and wanted an apology.

you were stubborn, but finally threw in the towel, and accepted defeat. even after he stopped, grayson kept you in his arms as you calmed down from your fits of laughter. for a moment, it was just the both of you gazing into each other's eyes lovingly. at the same time, you titled you heads and reduced the gap between your lips.

before your mouths made contact, the lights, alerting the presence of another, shone. you both quickly turned toward the direction of the light, and grayson made a swift move to push you behind him. you were half expecting it to be another hawthorne brother, or worst-case scenario - the kidnapper.

but instead, there stood eve. she wore a silk lilac nightgown with a small slit that stopped midthigh. you immediately recognized it as your own by the small tear on the strap. 'when did she get this from my room?' had she stolen it or did grayson give it to her? both answers made your blood boil.

grayson relaxed as he recognized her, but you stayed tense. eve apologized for the intrusion, she was walking around the grounds and hadn't realized there were others awake. despite hating the interruption, you assured her it was alright, and she should be careful roaming around at night.

you thought that was that, and she'd just wander off, but it wasn't.

"do you mind if i swim, too?"

"well we-"

"not at all."

you turned your head to your boyfriend and gave him a questioning look, but he ignored it. his attention was now on eve. you had no choice, but to go along with it.

eve was quick to remove her your nightgown and reveal a one-piece swimsuit under. you were a bit confused, didn't she say she was just roaming the grounds, why did she already have a bathing suit on? but you stayed silent.

she jumped from the edge of the pool and landed a few feet away from where you and grayson. for a moment she struggling to reach the top, likely from not expecting how deep the pool actually was. grayson, ever the hero, swam to her aid, grabbing her hand to reel her back to the surface.

at this point, you couldn't even blame eve for these little accidents. you were getting upset at how grayson never failed to aid her when she was in need.

eve laughed, and thanked him for the gesture. then they started conversing about a topic you didn't care to pay attention to. had you just become a third wheel? 'no, no. he's just being friendly. gray will come back to you any second, then you'll both return to his room.'

except that didn't happen. eve asked grayson to race her, and he gladly accepted. even teased her about how badly she'd lose. not once did he turn back your way. no, but as eve swam to the edge, she gave you glance, obviously noticing how you awkwardly floated in your spot waiting for grayson. but she didn't speak a word, and continued to race in preparation for the friendly competition.

you had more than enough at that point. you swam to the pool's railing and pulled yourself out. you stomped out the swimming area, not even bothering to get a towel, and walked back into the mansion. you'd apologize to the cleaners for the wet mess later.

you were more heartbroken than angry. which was worse in your book. you'd been trying not to act like a jealous girlfriend who couldn't trust her boyfriend, and you took grayson's trauma with the emily situation into account, so you made excuses for all of grayson's actions toward eve. but sometimes, you shouldn't deny what's right in front of you.

now, you were cold and wet. you just wanted to go to bed. taking on threatening notes seemed so much easier now.

with all your deep thinking, you missed the sound of running feet from behind you. when a hand grabbed your wrist so suddenly, you were startled, and on instinct - you hand went flying at whoever stood behind you.

seeing now that it was grayson, you gave a small apology, seeing him clutch his face in pain. but you weren't that sorry at all. you probably would've done the same thing if you knew it was him.

grayson collected himself like nothing, "why did you leave?" he gently asks, wrapping a towel, you just noticed he brought, around your form.

you feign innocence, "oh, you actually noticed i was gone? 'figured you'd be too busy racing your new best friend."

"what are you acting like this?"

"i'm tired. tired of standing by as you treat eve like she's a damsel in distress. eve's no better; she clearly knows the effect she has on you."

"you're misinterpreting the situation. eve is one of us, we have to protect her."

"i'm sorry, did we forget you launched a full federal investigation on avery and i as soon as we got here? even after the will reading, i don't remember getting this warm welcome from you."

grayson lips form a straight line, frustrated, "that was different. eve has no one else-"

"she's not emily, grayson."

"trust me, i know that."

"i dont think you do! you see her as your second chance. news flash grayson, she isn't, emily is dead!" you venomously spit out. you hadn't intended for the harsh words to come out, but you wanted to hurt him as much as he was hurting you at the moment.

grayson's fists clench at his sides, he eyes brim with rage toward you, "jealously isn't a good look on you, y/n." the blow cut deeper than you had wished.

"neither is ignorance." you bite back.

you angrily turn your back and storm off in the direction of your room. luckily, it was only less than twenty feet away. you hoped grayson got the hint to not follow.

"we owe her our loyalty, y/n." grayson calls out one last time in a calm voice - different from the aggravated one from a second prior.

you enter your room and turn to him, deciding your final words before closing your door, "your loyalty was to me first."

part of you expected an apology the following day, but it never came. you were unsure where the two of you stood, and you weren't going to waltz up to grayson door to ask.

you confided your feelings in avery and libby, both defended your stance. avery was also wary about eve, and libby just loved any chance to bash a hawthorne.

you were sure the whole house was aware of the argument, likely the laughlins and thea calligaris as well. news travels easily around here. you didn't even want the know eve's point of view on the whole thing.

you steered clear of grayson, and busied yourself with toby's kidnapping along with everyone else. (which honestly should've been the most important matter.) you ensured avery everything was fine because you felt selfish making it about you when toby was in serious danger.

even without being in the same room with grayson, the tension was painfully evident. you could always sense when his gaze was on you, and it took everything to not return it. when you both were in the same room, you made sure to stay on opposite ends. everyone else had trouble deciding on how to handle the situation, but there were no direct comments, at least not that you heard.

there were nights when you wished grayson would show up at your door and just apologize. you wanted a reenactment of those cheesy romance movies where the guys begs the girl for forgiveness, and then they kiss and makeup. truthfully, you would've taken him back in a heartbeat. but this wasn't a movie, and he never showed up at your door.

you wondered if he even felt half of the heart ache you were going through. by the way eve was still hanging around him, even after the argument, you were starting to doubt it.

the more the investigation ensured, the more you and avery grew suspicious of eve. though whenever you thought you had a smidge of proof, it never followed through. it only succeeded in making you look like the villainous ex girlfriend and eve the innocent protagonist.

you and grayson were in a forced proximity when you had to investigate the wine cellar, along with avery and jameson. it was an awkward situation for all four of you, especially pertaining to the event with avery and grayson. but nonetheless, it proved to be useful because the final clue was hidden in the crystals of the chandelier. 'DON'T TRUST ANYONE'

you shouldn't had been so surprised that it was another vague message.

after critical thinking, you and avery came to the same conclusion - eve. the game started with her, she had to be the one tobias was warning about.

however, jameson and grayson weren't convinced by the conviction. both inferring that it would've stated 'her' instead of 'anyone'. but you persisted, avery backing you up.

jameson sighed, "i think recent events are affecting your judgment, y/n." you were taken aback by the claim, especially it coming from jameson. hadn't he been suspicious of her as well?

"i'm not acting out of jealousy. the old man knew of her, even made a plan in the event she arrived to the mansion, yet failed to mention her to anyone. why is that?"

"y/n." grayson spoke to you for the first time in awhile, "this isn't like you to act so rash. if you gave evie a chance-"

"evie? what, you guys have fucking pet names for each other now? don't you see how she's played you since the beginning!"

"y/n, you're not thinking straight."

you shake your head, "no, i don't think it's ever been clearer than right now. so, i'm going to give you one last chance grayson. to, for once, take my side over eve's. because if you don't, you're going to lose me."

there was silence, a hairpin being dropped could be heard. grayson put his head down and said nothing. and yet, it told you everything. you laughed at yourself for expecting a different outcome.

you scoffed with a humorless grin, turned around and walked away. you heard avery call out for you, but you ignored it. you didn't want to see the pity she'd have in her eyes after that embarrassing debacle.

you made it all the way to your room before crying into your pillow. you finally got the answer of whether or not it was over. the pain of the night at the pool seemed like an easy feat to face compared to your anguish now.

when you calmed down a few hours later, you looked out the window and saw the pool. a flashback of pain seared in you at first, but then you noticed something peculiar you failed to notice before. there was a part of the tiles that weren't aligned with the rest. you likely would miss it if you were close to it, but from far away it was noticeable.

something inside you told you to investigate. maybe it was the need for a distraction, but you followed your gut, not even stopping to change attire.

once getting to the pool, you jump straight in to create enough force to reach the bottom of the pool more efficiently. there, you observed the tile for a second before attempting to move it. nothing happened, and you readied yourself to get a breath of air -but suddenly, a key popped out from a compartment under the tile. you got it and returned to the surface.

without the chlorine in your eyes, you were able to immediately know where to put the key to use; the chapel tobias built for nan hawthorne. you rushed there, not caring for how soggy your hair and clothes were.

luckily, nan wasn't anywhere in sight. you rushed to the statue in the center of the room and eyed it for a moment before finding the intended target, the statue's mouth. you fit the key inside and wiggled it around before hearing that 'click' to let you know it was unlocked. a second later, a small plate popped out and with it it contained a usb. you'd never been prouder of yourself for figuring out one of tobias's stupid puzzles without avery's help.

you pulled out your phone and pressed on avery's contact, and started ringing her. she picked up in an instant, "hello?"

"avery! you won't believe it i-"

your sentence was rudely cut off due to your phone being shot of your hand. by a bullet.

you gasped and snapped your head to the entrance of the chapel. you saw the gun at once and its owner; eve.

"sorry, i think you're going to need a new phone," she says innocently.

you let out a cheerless laugh, "i knew it, you psycho bitch!" obviously not the best choice of words to say to the person pointing a gun at you, but god, did it feel good to be right about eve.

eve rolled her eyes, "i suppose you did, but it wasn't like anyone believed you. i'll admit you and avery almost, just almost, got me. but eventually, i was able to fool her too. now give me the usb and i won't shoot you." she got you there.

you gripped the usb tightly in your palm, "why do you want it?"

"i'm getting what's owed to me, what was taken from my family by that stupid old man. god, was it easy to infiltrate the hawthornes. especially grayson." you flinched at the mention of his name and eve took note of it.

she laughs, "right, he's your boyfriend- i mean ex-boyfriend, oops." there's no sincerity in that apology. "you know, when i heard you two were dating i was prepared to work twice as hard to get his attention.. but it was proven unnecessary because as soon as i stepped on hawthorne mansion - i had him." ouch.

"enough chatting, now walk over here slowly and hand me the drive." eve commanded, emphasizing the gun in her hands.

where was your bodyguard when you needed him?

you followed her commands, and took slow steps to her. she took on hand off the trigger to open her palm toward you. you made a motion to place the usb in her hand, but then quickly charged at the gun.

you both struggled back and forth, moving the gun. suddenly, the weapon flew out of both of your grasps and landed in front of the angel statue.

with the usb situated in your pocket, you ran to retrieve it, but eve was quick and tackled you from behind, causing you both to land on the ground. you were both rolling up and down the aisle, trying to get the upper hand. eve roughly situated herself ontop of your waist, immobilizing you. then her hands slithered to your neck and squeezed hard.

it was getting harder to breathe, but you were a fighter. your armed flayed at her, grabbing whatever was closest. as a last resort, you clawed at her face.

"bitch." you mutter as your nails scratch across her face.

it worked, eve howled in pain and retracted her hands from your neck. you briskly shoved her off your body. having little energy from the lack of oxygen, you still take your chance and crawl toward the gun. but eve had recovered, and dragged you back by your heel. 'talk about karma' you thought.

you're crazily moving your feet to shrug eve's hands off as you continue to painfully crawl. but suddenly the gun is lifted off the ground, both you and eve look up to see grayson now clutching the gun. you're both relieved and worried.

you stand up on your feet, eve does the same. grayson waves the gun toward both of you and both hold your hands in front of your forms.

"gray, thank god you're here. i came here looking for a clue, and found a usb, but then y/n showed up.. s-she took the usb from me then pulled out a gun and tried to kill me." her voice was no longer diabolical, now it was full of vulnerability and fear.

"grayson, she's lying, she almost killed me!"

"y/n's been working with vincent blake, she plans on giving that usb to him."

"oh, you little liar!"

"look at what she did to my face!" eve points at the bloody scratch on her face, starting from her left eyebrow and ending at her lip.

grayson eyes went back and forth in observing both you and eve. the gun was pointed in the middle, still deciding its target.

his eyes landed on yours, as does the gun. "y/n. give me the usb." your stomach drops.

"grayson." you plead.

"y/n. now." he held his hand out. you knew that tone. it meant 'no room for argument'.

if he didn't believe in you even now, then you had no choice. you took steps toward him.

"careful, gray, pretended to give the usb to me and then attacked me." eve warned. you shot her a nasty glare.

grayson doesn't say anything and waits for your move. you drop the usb in his hand.

"thank you." you say nothing.

grayson turns his head to eve, "i've always known who to believe." eve smiles at that, "i just had to stall long enough for john to show up."

in an instant, eve is brought down to the floor. oren is behind her, holding her arms behind her back long enough to put handcuffs on her wrist.

you let out a large breath you didn't know you were holding. grayson believed you in the moment that mattered most.

grayson tosses the gun to the ground and engulfs you in a hug. you accept it, and grip onto him like your life depends on it. his hold triggers your emotions, and tears spring out from your eyes. you can't help it when you start crying into his shoulder. he soothes you, cradling his hand on the back of your head.

"im sorry." grayson muttered into your hair. "you were right. i can't let emily rule my life any longer."

"you're an idiot." you say in the midst of tears.

"i am." he agrees

"and i'm still super mad at you."

"i know."

"you're going to have to work really hard to earn my forgiveness, like beg on your knees and hold a boombox outside of my window type stuff." you croak.

"i will, baby." grayson smiles.

for now, you were happy to feel safe and protected in his arms.

bonus:

"is this really necessary?"

"very," avery confirms, "you broke boyfriend code, now your penance must be fulfilled."

"you guys only made up those codes a day ago," grayson counters.

it was true, after the whole eve fiasco grayson was willing to do whatever to earn your forgiveness. you were ready to forgive him, but you also wanted to give him a hard time. it might've been a little evil of you, but you thought it was well deserved. after a girl talk with avery and libby, you came up with a new set of rules you liked to refer to as 'boyfriend code.' inspired by the code the brother share.

"exactly why we ought to use you as an example for future culprits," xander justifies waving a hand in grayson's direction.

grayson groans, looking up at the ceiling, "i love my girlfriend. i'm doing this for my girlfriend." he murmurs to himself.

"that's the spirit" nash cuts in, he lifts his drink up.

avery looks around, "where is y/n, anyway?" she asks.

"here!" you announce, walking out from behind the stage, "i was just preparing the song." you take a seat next to jameson and grin mischievously at grayson, "you'll love it."

graysons eyes narrow, "i have a feeling i won't."

just then, the beginning of a song plays out from the speakers.

grayson eyes widen, and he looks at you, "no."

your smile widens, "oh, yes."

"c'mon gray, we're all waiting." jameson hollers from his seat.

everyone starts egging grayson on, cheering for him to commence.

he takes a deep breath, "guess i have no choice."

as grayson starts to sing the lyrics of "shake it off" by taylor swift, jameson leans over to you.

"gotta say, this is a brilliant punishment for him."

you nod in agreement, "and it'll be even better after when i reveal, i have ten other taylor swift songs for him to perform." specially, 'ME!' was next.

"yikes. remind me to never break boyfriend code."

[stranger-rants]

hey i was wondering if you had any headcanons (bc i always love how wonderful yours are 💕) about harringrove/metalsandwich and their domestic duties or strengths and preferences? like do the neighbors assume steve is the one who keeps such a lovely yard, when billy's the one tending and fretting over the flowerbed. did eddie ever buy those gargoyle yard ornaments? did steve go through an early 2000's phase and the other two had to talk him out of buying the molded hand-shaped chairs for the patio? what happens inside their home?

For some reason, Steve strikes me as the pool guy. I know it seems like something Billy would be good at and he is because of work but he didn’t grow up with a pool and he prefers the ocean. As far as buying the chemicals, measuring everything meticulously, opening and closing the pool, et cetera - that’s Steve. Steve and his sun visor and khaki shorts and flip flops going, “how’s the water?” Billy responding with, “I’m swimming in it, ain’t I?” Steve pumps his fist like a football coach watching his team score a touchdown. Dork.

Eddie is good at rigging things. Need Christmas lights up? He’s got it. He’s used to setting up PA systems for shows. To anyone else, his wires look like a chaotic mess of electronic spaghetti but he knows exactly where everything goes. So any household decorations that need some complicated setup automatically goes to him - and he loves it. Says it’s a puzzle for him to solve. If it were Billy, he would have rage quit a long time ago. Their house on Halloween is a sight to be seen.

Billy is the grill master. Just stands shirtless at the grill with a beer in one hand. He makes some good food too. It also means he doesn’t have to interact with anyone at the summer barbecue because he’s busy roasting vegetables and flipping burgers. Steve and Eddie know not to ask him when the food will be done or to break his concentration away from the grill unless they too want to be skewered alive. They can watch from the patio table and talk about more important things like how cute Billy looks in his little apron.

Steve has no sense of home decor. He thinks he knows but he doesn’t. Billy is a flea market bitch, Eddie is a ‘I found it on the side of the road’ bitch, and Steve is an ‘I ordered this from a catalog’ bitch. It gives their home an eclectic look, but every year they gotta get rid of a bunch of shit (they have a garage sale) and every time Billy and Eddie conspire to sell whatever weird lamp or vase or patio chair Steve bought for way too much money.

They all garden together, actually. They’re terrible to begin with, but learn how to do it together.

[sherifftillman]

omg hi lovie— congratulations on 2k! you deserve it so much <3 i would love to take a look around in the hall of mirrors 🪞💕

i’m a bit of a clutz sometimes, pretty lazy to be honest, trying to cut back on all the junk food i love but man it’s hard 😔 but i’m hard at work and thriving towards my goals for this year!

when i’m home i usually just hang out with my dog, watch way too many tiktoks 😭, lovingly gaze at all the plants i’ve gathered over the years that i always forget to water until somebody points it out to me or some leaves go brown.

i love a clean kitchen, so i’m always scrubbing it but all the other rooms in my house can be messy for all i care (though i do love a clean house) but my eye twitches every time there’s a mess in the kitchen, it’s sort of an obsession really.

i love reading books, but i tend to read them in phases. like if i’m in a reading phase, i’ll read multiple books in a couple of weeks, then i might not open any pages in months. i love puzzles too! sometimes i wish i could paint, but i’m horrible at it. my favourite season is summer because i’m sick of the icy wet roads and i’m always cold, my feet are like icycles - you can always find me under a blanket.

my morning routine has been the same for years— i wake up, check my socials, then i go pee, and i can’t start my work before a cup of tea ☕️ forest fruit flavor is my favorite 🥺

i have a huge phobia of snakes (specially big ones, like anacondas n stuff), my favorite holiday is christmas and i think my all time favorite comfort movie is the wedding singer w adam sandler and drew barrymore 🫶🏻

i hope this is enough! ily 💜

okay so i went looking on your blog for more inspo/research and uhh hi?? you're so cute????? anyways:

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ 2k follower celebration event ongoing! ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

i think you'd work at a cafe, that way you can get all of the good tea ☺️ but also the good tea 👀 bc everyone frequents your cafe so you hear all the good gossip, which of course, you keep to yourself... until friday night, when you and your besties all get together, get some wine, rent a movie and discuss the week's findings, seeing if you can match anybody's stories together. it's great fun.

usually, the others pick the movie, but on this particular occasion, they've asked you to. as you hand steve your movie of choice, the first thing he notices is how cold your hands are, wrapping both of his around yours. you know he's a serial flirt, and it's always annoyed you a little how he assumes he can charm the pants off of anybody. you're even more annoyed at the fact that it's actually working. you feel butterflies in your stomach while he's holding your hands, and when he's negging you for your choice in movie, you hate how you're even more giggly in your defence.

you hate how you still think about the fact he winked when he finished your transaction throughout the entire following week. you hate how, when your friends are planning this friday's hangout, you're the first one to volunteer picking a movie. you hate how easy it is for you to blurt out why you rent out a movie every friday to steve and robin when they're serving you. you hate that their reaction leads you to inviting them along. you hate how, no matter where you sit that night, even if it's between your friends, steve always finds a way to sit as close to you as he can.

you hate even more that it's working. you absolutely hate the fact that you are falling head over heels for steve harrington. and yet, when he kisses you for the first time that night, there's not a single ounce of hate in your body.

[katbrando]

[ questions are from this post, 1-10 here, 11-20 here, 21-30 here, 31-40 here, 41-50 here ]

51-60 - DAILY LIFE

🧡 What does the daily schedule of this home look like? we both work, so we spend most of our time away from home 😭 but we make sure our days off align so we have opportunities for lengthy dates :))) he's up for the sunrise every day, he goes on his little jog every morning, comes home to make breakfast for us (sometimes he has to fight to get me out of bed LOL)

🧡 Who is more of a homebody, and who’s the breadwinner? we're equal as far as that goes! he encourages me to work less but we know if we want to keep our cute little life afloat then we both have to work, not just him. it feels good to put in equal effort, anyway.. i like providing for him, he likes providing for me

🧡 What do your sleeping arrangements look like? Do you sleep together, or in separate beds?  we sleep together, i'm big spoon he's little spoon :'))) hes also a blanket hog because he gets chilly so easily.. he acts as if he's sleeping beauty or somethin but he tosses and turns so much, he looks a mess every morning LOL.. i'm no better tbh

🧡 Who’s the early riser, and who has trouble getting out of bed? Who falls asleep first? diego looooves his early mornings with a good cup of coffee and a stunning view of the sunrise.. and i hate mornings LMAO, being awake before 10am for me feels like torture.. he's extremely insistent about me getting up with him and engaging in his morning routine, and it definitely causes fueds for a while but eventually he chills tf out and decides it's best to maneuver our disagreement in better ways, like offering breakfast in bed and waking me up with little kisses and soft sweet words :')) and I'M the one who always falls asleep first.. when we're spooning i always have my arm draped across him so we can hold hands, the way he rubs my knuckles and the sound of his soft breathing are a combination that always results in an immediate KO, i'm out cold all night

🧡 Who handles what chores around the house? we both Hate cleaning (who doesn't, i guess) but doing it together works great, it's something about the mutual effort towards making our living space clean and healthy not just for ourselves but for each other :')) we do LOVE laundry, though.. his favorite thing is pulling a sweater straight out of the dryer and baking in it while we fold clothes together

🧡 Who deals with the spiders/bugs? HE DOES LMAO i Cannot do bugs 🤢 who knows how he specifically handles them bc i always leave the room

🧡 Who’s the better driver? Do you argue on the road? by default he is, LOL, he's actually a pretty good driver, and even before we met he would frequently take long drives to nowhere in particular. he has to have his seat pushed up a lot because he's also short, and that sight, along with the way his tongue pokes out when he's focusing really hard, is very very very cute :')) also we don't argue on the road, even if he tried to i'd be too busy trying not to get carsick (im Sensitive)

🧡 When you go shopping, who takes the longest? Who’s the worst to shop with? for most shopping, we're about the same! especially clothes shopping since our tastes align very closely and if one of us gets bored then it's basically a guarantee that the other feels the same. grocery shopping with him SUCKS though, he's so picky and pretentious, turning his nose up at things i want to buy LMAO, doesn't matter what he thinks tbh i'm gonna eat what i want anyway (and he's more than okay with that, he's just an Asshole)

🧡 How comfortable are you with sharing? Clothes, personal items, spaces like the bathroom etc. as for me, i'm very comfortable with it! we share clothes all the time, especially. he's okay with sharing most of the time but boy does this man treasure his shower/bathroom time LOL.. interrupting him is a Bad Idea but it's also funny how worked up he gets.. however he doesn't like sharing some of his possessions, namely the ones he inherited from his mother. it's like an unspoken rule: don't touch anything he held on to after she passed away (her old cookbook, jewelry, photo albums, that sort of thing). eventually he becomes more okay with sharing but his mom is such a sensitive topic, it always will be for him

🧡 When you take pictures together, how do you pose? Do you like taking pics together? we love taking photos!!! especially silly ones, but also i fuckin hate it because he can't take a bad picture no matter how hard i try (i succeeded Once by taking a photo of him waking up from a nap, he looks a mess and it's my lockscreen despite his pure hatred for the image) sometimes we take ourselves way too seriously and try to take outfit photos but tbh we're just sooo silly goofy that it shows through in any photo we take 💀

[msookyspooky]

I loved the hunter s.o with Severn and I just re-watched near dark last night so, I hope you don't mind dropping some HC's in! <3

- okay, so, you and your family moved to texas when you were 13-14

- you had to move because you burnt down your school gym because there were a ton of vamp- I mean, asbestos.

- Yeah, let's go with that.

-now, you knew about vampires, your family were hunters after all.

-so, your life was totally normal until you turned 16. Your friends convinced you to go out to a party and you did, leaving your parents and younger brother behind.

- after you drink just a little too much, you call your house to have your parents come get you, but no one answered. Your friend thankfully drove you home.

-you arrived home to a dark house. Thinking nothing of it, you go in, closing the door behind you.

-it's not until you take your shoes off and step into a puddle of blood that you knew something was off.

-you began to carefully search the house, that was thankfully small, going room to room. You finally come to your parents room and come across the bodies of your parents and brother...along with Severen.

-you just run and hide. You hide until sunrise. You honestly didn't know what to do; you called the cops and fled, hoping they wouldn't think you did this. You knew who -no what- did this.

-before calling the cops, you packed a small bag; clothing, money, a silver cross from your mom, and other important items.

- fast forward to years later, you're still hunting down the monster that messed up your life, which is when you come across the hooker clan.

-you were at one of the bars they targeted and you instantly knew they were vampires, hunters instinct I guess.

-you find yourself staring at Severen. (Cue him staring back, smirking. He totally knows you're a hunter LMAO)

-you're about to cause some chaos before Sev goes to shoot the bartender...you find yourself unsuspectingly jumping in front of the bartender, taking the bullet...straight to the chest. You black out.

-when you come to, you find yourself in the back of the R.V, Sev's jacket over you (soft Sev makes my brain go brrr~) you have dried blood on your clothes and you feel your neck hurting, also with dried blood...doesn't help you have a major headache...

-this alerts the clan, DB explains what happen; after you stupidly jumped in front of the gun to protect the bartender, Sev thought you were dead and got blood from you. Surprise surprise, he didn't take enough to kill you. Rather it be on accident or purpose is up to you.

-to your surprise, you take the news that you are now a vampire rather well. You don't know if it's because you're in shock or what but immortally doesn't seem all bad.

-you get along with all of the clan alright, you're much closer to DB and Mae. You stray away from Sev thought, something just doesn't seem right. He looks....familar.

-after a year or two passes, you take to on the road life much better. Severn manages to get you to date him, and you couldn't lie and say he wasn't hansom, so, what the hell!

-it's not until 3 years into you living with the band of vampires and 6 months into your relationship with Sev does the pieces start to come together.

-the knowing of your home town, your last name, him saying you look familiar, and other little things he said that you thought were strange but shrugged off.

-you finally get confirmation after you accidentally go through Sev's things at a motel and find a silver pendent with your family's crest on it and a bracelet belonging to your brother...

*Que you going Selene from Underworld a vampire ready to hunt other vampires in a fit of rage at what happened to your family*

I love this! It's giving Buffy and Van Helsing and Underworld all wrapped up into a Near Dark reader/Oc!!

HC: Sev knew who you were,maybe was going to kill you that night and since he couldn't get you saw his opportunity years later bc no prey escapes him or turned you on purpose, played it off as a game/him having fun corrupting you and making a hunter the very thing they hate bc he's a sadistic asshole, accidentally falls in love with you, now he has this VERY annoying foreign thing called guilt and when he accidentally lets that cat out of the bag you hate him and he's has more of a human reaction to it/ absolutely devastated then he's been for most of his existence. He doesn't know what to do while you struggle with your own turmoil of loving the man that ruined your life.

SOMEONE WRITE THIS 😤

[hannahhasnofriends]

two people one bed | dream

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

summary: famous bed sharing trope!

pairing: dream x reader

warnings: swearing, fluff :)

word count: 1.7k

a/n: this fic was weird to write bc i normally write that the character calls him clay but with the setting it didn't seem right lmao – also psa, i have very little knowledge about constellations but i thought it was cute so i left it in lol

many members from the dsmp decided to take a road trip together (yes they clowned on dream the whole time)

it was a week long trip and it was finally the last day! you'd went cross country, stopping at a few different airbnbs along the way

and at this point, you were kind of over it😐don't get me wrong, it'd been an amazing trip, but you'd had little to no alone time in a week and you were just relieved to be going home after this

until you saw the last house, where someone had to share a bed.... and you and dream had just happened to pull out the two shortest straws…

‘Damn it.’ You mentally rolled your eyes, of course you’d end up the one to share a bed on the last day. You’d been driving all day and considering it was only one night, you had no mental energy to argue over sharing. Dream didn’t even seem phased at the fact, honestly you almost felt bad about how annoyed you were with everyone with how nice he’d been about it all. But he was always like this, he was always kind to you.

That was until you rolled over for the hundredth time that night. The space between the pillow wall you'd built and the edge of the bed was seeming to get smaller and smaller as the night went on. Even though the air was thick in the room, your feet were cold from Dream hogging the blanket and the bed would shake every few minutes from his constant movement. You could tell he was awake even though he was staying silent, and you tried your hardest not to let out an annoyed huff.

Finally, he shifted to peer over the pillow wall. In the dark you could still make out his green eyes and fluffy hair.

"You awake?" He whispered. You groaned internally, literally why does this man want to have a conversation now?

"No."

"Oh come on now, you can't say that and be asleep. I cant't sleep. We should do something." He shifted again so his forearms were leaning against the wall, basically destroying it.

"We are doing something. It's called trying to sleep so we can wake up at a good hour and go home." You sighed, screwing your eyes shut.

"It's only like 1 in the morning, we have plenty of time to sleep. Come on.. please, it'll be fun." Whatever, fine, maybe he'll actually calm the fuck down after this.

"Fine. What the hell can we even do right now." You opened your eyes up again, staring at the ceiling.

"We can go for a drive?" You can hear the smile in his voice. This man's love for driving was absurd.

"Uh how about no? We've literally been in the car all day and I'd rather not go back until we have to." You finally turned to face him, he wore a lopsided grin and a crooked pajama shirt. Cute.

"Fine, fine. How about we just go for a walk, yeah?" You grumbled, swinging your legs over the edge of the bed and grabbing the hoodie you left on the floor. No way in hell were you changing for this, it was bad enough you were even indulging in it.

“Alright,” He grinned in your direction, slipping a pair of shoes on. “We can walk to that clearing with the little pond we saw on our way here, it's not far."

"That's fine but can we please not be out forever? I'm serious about getting sleep." You recalled the place he was talking about, it was pretty over there. Plus, you were pretty sure you could see the stars tonight.

Dream hummed, "Yeah, yeah grumpy. Let's go and be quiet, I don't want to wake anyone."

"Didn't seem to mind waking me up." You rolled your eyes, the audacity.

"Not my fault you got stuck sharing with me." He elbowed your side lightly.

You decided to keep quiet after that, slipping out of the airbnb. It wasn't cold, but there was enough chill to make goosebumps rise on your skin.

The walk there was silent, both of you just taking in the scenery. Your mind was replaying all your favorite moments from the past week, sure you were tired and ready to sleep in your own bed, but you were grateful for the people around you and how happy you'd been the past 6 days. Dream had invited you to come along almost last minute compared to everyone else. He had messaged you one night and told you he was paying for everything and would be happy if you came, and who could say no to that?

"What? What is it?" Dream had his eyes on you as you came to a stop, reaching your destination. "What's with the smile, I thought you were grumpy."

"Shut up. I'm just thinking about the past week. I had a really good time, I'm really glad I came, thank you for inviting me." You rolled your eyes, but the smile stayed put.

Dream hummed, "Me too. Honestly I thought you were gonna say no when I asked you." He chuckled as his arm raised to the back of neck, scratching slightly.

"Really? What makes you say that?" Your nose scrunched slightly, you guys had always had a good relationship, you always enjoyed hanging out with him.

"I don't know! I guess I thought you wouldn't want to spend that much time with me." He was smiling, but you could tell he was being serious.

You frowned, "I'd never say no to something like this. I know I'm 'grumpy' or whatever but I seriously like spending time with you, all of you."

"Thanks, I like spending time with you too." He turned to face you, but you tilted your head up, getting a good look at the stars. Your heart softened at his words, he really was a good man.

There was a moment of silence before you spoke up again, "Do you know any constellations?"

"Uh, I can find Leo probably." His head tilted up to match yours and you snorted.

"Of course you can." You smiled and shook your head, typical Leos.

"Oh, there it is, here look." His finger pointed up at the sky, your eyes following where it led.

"There?" You asked, raising your own finger. Dream shifted behind you, close enough to feel his breath on your neck. He hooked his hand on yours and moved your finger up slightly, "Here." He murmured. His skin was soft against yours, you felt his heartbeat on your back and you could smell his aroma.

Neither of you moved, you could feel him turn his head to look at you. Your cheeks heated and you slowly lowered both your hands. You tilted your head to meet his eyes, your noses were barely touching. The beating in your chest grew faster and your mind whirled as you saw him lean in, just so slightly.

You pulled away and turned around quickly, "We should get back." You cleared your throat. Your palms were still sweating, but for a second your thoughts went blank.

"Um, yeah sure." He shoved his hands in his pockets and started his way back to the airbnb. You stood there for a moment before following after him.

What the actual fuck just happened. You were going to kiss him? Or was he going to kiss you? None of that even matters since you'd just rejected him. You cursed yourself as you kept trudging on.

This whole thing was a hot mess, it wasn't like you didn't like him, it was just you'd never thought about it before. Sure, you'd flirt with him in call or make dumb suggestive jokes, but you'd always assure yourself there was nothing underlying there. They were just jokes.

But now you couldn't stop thinking about it, his soft skin against yours, his heartbeat, the way his eyes looked so intensely into your own. Your brain kept repeating it over and over again, it made you sick.

By the time you reached the airbnb again, you began to hate how you yearned to be touched by him again. That, ok fine, you did want him to kiss you but you chickened out. He didn't help by holding the door open for you when sneaking back inside. You mumbled a thanks, not daring to look at him. You could still feel him behind you as you tiptoed back to your room, which you just conveniently forgot you had to share.

You got situated as fast as you could, climbing back into the bed, holding your breath as you went. You waited to feel the dip in the bed signally him coming to lay next to you. When it didn't come, you peeked at his side, he stood there gathering a pillow and his phone before turning to leave. Your heartbeat sped up again.

"Clay," You sat up before you could stop yourself. "Wait, can- can you stay. Please." Your voice wobbled, but the moments back at the clearing kept playing again and you couldn't just sit there anymore.

He turned around shifting his feet, "Yeah, yeah sure." His eyes seemed to soften at the expression on your face.

Your hand swiped at the pillow wall, this time completely dismantling it and you lied back down. You felt the weight shift as he settled next to you, your breath was still shaky. He lied down facing you, eyes searching your face.

"Hi." You whisper, nerves come rushing back now that he's here again.

"Hi." He chuckles and smiles softly. His eyes are still searching your face, he looks uncertain.

"I– Well I–"

"Listen, don't worry about it. I was dumb I don't even know what I was thinking. We can just forget it." He interrupts you, his eyes darting down and cheeks flushing.

"That's not what I was gonna say." You faltered. He stares quizzically, silently asking you to continue. "Well I-I first wanted to apologize, I was a dick back there. And um.."

The words taper off, lost. You feel his gaze bore into your face, he tentatively raised his arm from inside the covers, hooking your chin with a finger.

"It's ok." He whispers affirmatively. The consequences are instant, your nerves slow and you can only focus on how close he is. His eyes find yours, and he no longer seems uncertain. "Can I kiss you?"

You can only nod, so sure of your decision.

And he does.

[dreamescapeswriting]

Cabin In The Woods [M] ~ BC [Request]

WORD COUNT: 4K

GENRE: SMUT, non idol au

PAIRING: Chan x Fem!Reader

A/N: I had to name the camp this there was no other wayyyyyy Hope you like it!

Camp crystal lake home to some of the most adventurous kids every summer the camp would be home to 200 kids with 16 camp counsellors all in charge of them and you were there every year, along with one of your best friends Bang Chan who was a counsellor as well as a lifeguard that worked on the lakes. The entire camp was huge despite there only being nine cabins that the kids could stay in. Eight of them would house 25 kids within their age ranges since kids from the ages of 13 to 17 came to the camp you had to keep them all in different groups so that group activities were fair to everyone. While the younger kids stuck to swimming, football and other outdoor activities the older kids got to learn and do more. Archery, boating, horse riding, and many more things were all part of your daily activities around the forest. There were two major lakes in the camp, Wilderice lake and Crystal lake the one that the camp was named after and each was just off from the cabins that went on a long stretch of road. Everything was pretty close together the only cabin that was far away from the rest of the camp was Seneca, which was known as the punishment cabin. Mostly because kids who had done terrible things were sent up there, only allowed out to go to the toilet, or meal times other than that they had to sit there bored while everyone else got to do the fun activities. Not completely unsupervised of course, that would be dangerous. A camp counsellor would always go to check on them to make sure they weren't doing anything they would regret or that they weren't in any danger.

"Y/n!" You turned around hearing your name being screamed from the entrance and smiled as you saw one of your favourite kids rushing over to you. A bag around her shoulder as she sprinted into your arms, you span her around a little. 

"Hey Alice," You laughed as the small 15-year-old girl began telling you how much fun she was going to have over the summer with everyone. 

"I invited my best friend along, Brenda!" A brunette turned around when she heard her name being yelled and jolted over to you and Alice. 

"We wanted to see if you and Chan were dating yet," You laughed loudly upon hearing Alice, Chan and you were known among everyone as the flirting pair but it was nothing more than playful banter. 

"You're too young to think of boys that way," You began messing up Alice's hair when she moved away from you, whining and straightening out her hair. 

"I'm not, I'm 15 and I know you and Chan lovvveeeee each other," You glared at her playfully about to tell her she was wrong when Chan came to stand beside you. 

"Ah the trouble maker," He whined out, pretending to be upset that Alice was standing there. She was by far your favourite kid there, always willing to do whatever it took to have fun and even helping out around the camp when she needed to. 

"We were just saying how-" Alice stopped speaking when her mother came over, kissing her on the cheek as she began to cry about leaving her at the campground as she did every year. Not that you blamed them, it must have been a nightmare leaving your kids somewhere for two weeks and having no means of communication.

"I'm new, you must be Chan. I've heard a lot," Brenda said as she began shaking Chan's hand with a giant smile on her face, blushing as she turned to look at you. 

"Good choice," You pushed her and Alice towards the bus that would take them down into the camp and you ignored as Chan asked what that was about.

"Go, you have your first round of kids at the lake in an hour." You whined as he walked up behind you, tickling your sides as he demanded to know. 

"Tell meeee," He whispered in your ear, it felt as though a bolt of lightening ran through your entire body and you whined at him once again. Slapping his hands away from you and shaking your head, 

"Go to work, I'll tell you later." Later meant you had enough time to come up with some sort of lie instead of telling him that Alice and Brenda thought you had a crush on him. Which you did but he didn't need to know that. Things between you were good and you didn't want to ruin that by admitting that you had a crush on him, playful flirting was easier than losing him. 

"Who have you got this year?" Chan asked as he sat down beside you in the archery field. It was pitch black sine it was around midnight, the two of you had been so busy with the first day of camp you'd barely seen one another besides a brief encounter at the lake.

"Ages 13 to 14, what about you?" You questioned as you looked up from the folder you were studying from, every year you liked to try and get to know each of the kids you would be looking after for those two weeks. Getting to know their names, likes and dislikes as well as what they were allergic to and everything else you would need to know. 

"16 to 17," He said with a giant smirk plastered across his face, the camp counsellors that were blessed with the older kids barely had to do a thing around the camp. Take them on the odd walk around the forest or make sure they weren't trying to kill ne another with equipment but that was it. They were practically adults and could look after themselves, of course the counsellors would be around if they needed them. 

"You're going to get stuck with the younger ones one summer, even if I have you force you to myself," You joked as you jabbed him with the end of your pen, leaving a small black mark on his white crystal lake shirt.

"Already in uniform?" You frowned looking down at him as you realised he was wearing the red shorts and white shirt combo that was giving to you every year. 

"I thought I would be the first one...That and I accidentally spilt a drink down my only good pair of jeans." He mumbled as he looked at you, you began laughing softly before laying your head on his shoulder tiredly. 

"It's going to be a great summer," He whispered to you as he nudged your softly, 

"Fire night, bring your scary stories and marshmallows!" Someone screamed making you move apart from Chan and nod your head. 

"I've got the perfect scary story," You smirked. Fire night was the night camp counsellors got together to try and tell the best story as well as sharing food something you did every year when the kids all went to bed on the first night. It was somewhat of a tradition amoungst everyone for old and new counsellors to get to know one another. 

"You probably stole mine from last year," Chan rolled his eyes at you jokingly and you rolled yours back, 

"Oh yes because yours about the child who had diabetes was so scary Christopher, I'm still shaking." You pushed his shoulder and got up from the seat you were sitting on, watching as people began filing over in the direction of the fire grounds. It was a huge campfire with logs around it so that everyone could be warm.

It turned out that your story had nothing on what Chan was telling that year, your story was about a girl who got lost in the woods but Chan's was far more creative. 

"Jason was never seen again after he entered the lake and every year when the counsellors came to the camp to set up they were all murdered!" He clapped his hands together making you jump as he continued to tell the story of a masked serial killer killing off counsellors one by one using different ways that were all nearly impossible yet creative. 

"Then just when the counsellor thought she was safe in the water Jason swam up and dragged her down to the bottom of the lake!" Chan finally finished and you did your best not to act as scared as you were about it. It wasn't as though the story was completely impossible, the thought of someone randomly walking onto the camp was easy and they could just as easily kill everyone if they wanted to. 

"You okay?" Chan questioned when he sat back down beside you on the log, giving you a hot chocolate as you stared into the flames. 

"Y-Yeah, peachy," Your voice cracked and Chan knew that you weren't okay, he wrapped his arm around your shoulder. 

"I'll keep you safe," He whispered as you snuggled closer to him just enjoying the feeling of being that close to him.

"I'm heading up to my cabin, walk me?" You questioned as you noticed how late it was getting, you weren't scared of the woods but walking around in the dark wasn't something you opted to do alone most nights especially after the story that had just been shared by Chan.

"Sure," He chuckled softly as he began walking down the field with you heading in the direction of your cabins, all 25 kids seemed to be sleeping so your night was going to be easy. 

"Are you scared?" Chan nudged as you clutched onto his hand tightly as you stood outside the cabin debating going in or staying with him a little while longer. The sparks you were getting from his hand begged you to stay and feel them longer but you knew you had a long day tomorrow and couldn't. 

"N-No," You lied obviously as he smirked at you, hugging you tightly. 

"I'll be right next door, if Jason comes for you I'll save you," You pushed him away before going over to the door and opening it up.

"Night," You whispered to him before heading into the room, Chan stayed outside for a moment just waiting for you to come back out but you never did. He hoped you would come back out and beg to stay with him for the night because you were so scared but you never did.

"Night," He whispered to himself before walking in the direction of his cabin for the night which was right next door to yours. 

The next day was ruined by the thunderstorm that seemingly appeared out of no where. No outdoor actitivties could be done since it was unsafe for everyone to be in the water and no one wanted to get sick out in the cold. 

"Does anyone know where all the board games are?" You questioned as you sat in the dinning hall, 200 kids all staring up at you with unimpressed looks on their faces. You didn't blame them, this was supposed to be one of the best summers of their lives and yet here they were spending it trapped inside where it was raining so hard you thought it was night time.

"Punishment Cabin, we kept them up there last year for Tommy and Ned since they were in there so much." One of the counsellors mentioned as she looked at you, none of you could figure out how to get the kids to calm down so if this was the only way then so be it. Board games and indoor games it would be. 

"Christopher. We're going for a walk," You ordered as you grabbed him by the back of his jacket, pulling him towards the door as you stared out at the rain. It was coming down so hard that it looked as though it was a tap gushing out water, 

"Why? Why can't you go alone? I'm so dry in here," He whined looking at you but all you did was give him your large puppy dog eyes and he melted, giving into you right away and grabbing his umbrella. 

"Let's go." He grumbled as he began heading out into the rain, the two of you sprinting off in the direction of the cabin which was secluded from everything else around the camp. 

"Punishment Cabin," You mumbled as you looked up at the cabin, the roof was leaking a little and the door was wide open thanks to the wind. 

"Let's get the games and leave," You told him as you headed inside finding everything practically ruined that had been on the floor. It was all soaked in water and the roof was leaking inside and on the beds dripping onto the mattresses. 

"Oh shit," He whispered as he looked around noticing everything, a clap of thunder sounded and you jumped back knocking into him as the door slammed shut behind you both jamming in place. 

"What the fuck?" You asked as you twisted the handle trying to open it but it was locked in place, not even budging a little no matter how hard you tried to pull on it. 

"Here, let the man do it." You scoffed stepping away from the door and watching in amusement as Chan continued trying to do the same thing you had been but with little success, 

"Let the man do it," You mocked playfully before sitting down on one of the dry chest of drawers. 

"You're just going to sit there?" You shrugged your shoulders since there wasn't much else you could do, the windows were bolted shut from the outside and it wasn't as if you could just smash them open. 

"Look, they know we're up here. They'll come looking when we don't come straight down." You reassured him as you shivered a little, it wasn't exactly the warmest in the punishment cabin but you would only be there for an hour at the most. 

An hour turned into three and you were sitting in front of the fireplace together trying to stay warm. No one had bothered to come to look for you but not because they didn't want to but that they had planned for this. As soon as the counsellors saw that it was going to rain all day they set their plan into action deciding to take matters into their own hands. They were going to arrange for you both to go up to the cabin and have someone follow behind you, locking you inside and only letting you out when they knew that you had finally confessed your feelings for one another. It was juvenile but they didn't care, every year it was the same. Endless flirting together, the costant hints that you btoh had a crush on one another and they were finally going to make sure you ended up together in ways that were more than just friends. 

"I'm cold," You shivered as Chan started up the fire place that was in the cabin, he'd found old scraps of paper and some matches in the drawers you'd been sitting on and started it up. The thought of you getting sick made him feel bad as he looked over at you,

"Here," He whispered as he began laying down dry blankets and pillows in front of the fire. 

"We'll warm up together," He promised as you sat down on the floor beside him, his arm wrapped around your waist as he pulled you closer to him. Maybe it was the cold or the fact that you were snuggled together in such a romantic setting but you couldn't help but stare up at him in awe. 

"Thanks," You stuttered out as he kept you close to him, your body felt as though it was going to surrender to him. Sitting so close, hearing his heartbeating and the way his fingers traced small patterns on your skin was doing all sorts of things to you. A wetness dripped betwee your tighs as you squeezed them together trying to ignore the sensation and focus on getting warm but it was hard with him right there. 

"You know what might warm us up faster," You finally broke the silence as you glanced up at him, the two of you had been sitting in front of the fireplace for ten minutes. 

"What?" His voice was smooth as he looked down at you, eyes seeming to sparkle in the light of the fire, one thing came over you and you kissed him. Smashing your lips against him and rolling him back against the floor. At first he didn't do anything, he held onto you until he realised what was happening and gave into the feeling of having your lips on his own. 

"F-Fuck," He stuttered out as you pulled away to look at him, his lips were pink from the kissing and you could feel your body heating up from the embarrassment of randomly kissing your best friend. 

"I-I'm sorry...I don't know...I just wanted...I've wanted to do that for so long," As soon as the words left your mouth Chan kissed you once again pulling you to straddle his lap as he kissed you softly. 

Your hips began to move out of habit and you felt him harder beneath you which meant he wanted you just as much as you wanted him.

"N-No one is around," You whispered breathlessly as you began to kiss down his jawline and down his neck. Whimpering at the thought of finally lettin him take you the way you had always dreamed, 

"We would warm up faster," He smirked as he ran his hands down your hips pushing at the red short shorts you were wearing. Your whole body tensed as you realised it was finally, really going to happen. 

"Do you want to?" You nodded at his question and he kissed you again, making out with yo as you both slowly removed one another's clothes piece by piece. 

Laying down completely naked in front of him should have made you nervous but with Chan you weren't at all, he looked at you as if he admired every inch of your skin. Taking a good look as he licked his lips, kissing your lips softly, 

"You're so beautiful," He whispered as he ran his fingers down your stomach until he was at your clit, slowly rubbing your wet bud in circles as you let out a whimper. 

"So wet, how long have you wanted me?" He smirked as he pushed a finger through your folds, your toes dg into the floor as you mewled out, 

"Tell me," He whispered again as he pushed two of his long fingers into you, curling them up to hit your g-spot again and again making your head spin. 

"A while!" You stuttered out as you began squirming underneath him as you moaned out his name. 

"Me too,2 He whispered as he began kissing you deeply, thrusting his fingers deep into your soaking core. Wet noises filled the cabin as Cha continued to take you with his fingers. 

"C-Chan," You breathed out as you gripped onto the blankets that were surrounding you, you felt intensity building up inside of you.

"I-I'm gonna-" You couldn't cum before he took his fingers out of your abruptyly and smirked as he began kissing you possessively, your legs wrapped around his waist pulling him close to you. 

"So needy," He chuckled as you let out a hiss when his cock ran through your folds, 

"Shut up and fuck me, we've waited too long." You begged as your breath as heavy, he smirked shaking his head and kissing down your body. 

"I want to taste first," He whispered as he kissed towards your core, he lingered above your cunt and looked up at you to check that it was okay. Once you gave him a nod he dove his tongue between your lips and began flicking your cunt with his tongue. 

"Oh shit!" You screamed out as your hands worked their wayy into his hair, pulling him closer as he continued to eat you out, biting down softly on the part of your outer labia making your eyes roll back. 

"J-Just like that," You cried out as you felt your orgasm building again, he hummed against your cunt and you shuddered over and over again as he continued to eat you out like you were his last meal. 

"C-Cumming," Your voice cracked as the pleasure exploded in you without warning, your head threw back against the pillows and you filled the cabin with your desperate moans of his name. 

He kissed you sweetly as he lined his cock up with your opening, teasing you with the tip as he smirked against your lips. 

"No teasing," You whined out, too desperate for any games that he was planning in his head. 

"As you wish," He pushed his hips forward slowly, sinking into you. You moaned out squeezing your eyes tightly at the stretching, he stayed still for a moment wanting you to feel comfortable before he even tried to move inside of you, 

“Y-You can move," You whimpered as you opened your eyes, his cock felt incredible inside of you, you felt full as you gripped around him as if he had always belonged there. 

"Shit you're so tight," He whined out as he grunted, slowly pulling out of you only to thrust back in as he let out a small moan. 

"Mmm Chan, please," You begged, digging your heels into his ass wanting him to move faster than he was and he smirked, 

"Chan please," He mocked playfully before he began to move his ips faster, fucking into you as you let out moans of pleasure he was sure people would have heard even from the dinning hall. 

"Just like that!" You screamed out as he began thrusting harder into you making you squeal out as he rammed in and out of you. Cock hitting so deep you thought if he came it would be deep in your gut. 

He continued to fuck into you hard, changing between slow and passionate thrusts to hard and fast ones as he stared down into your eyes. 

"Holy shit," You cried out as you felt yourself tighrening around him, the build up becoming too much as you began to cry out his name, pleasure reeling inside of you. 

"You close?" He questioned as he felt you tightening more and more with each thrust of his cock. 

"Cum for me," He whispered as he bent down into your ear, biting down as you wrapped your legs around his waist drawing him closer if that were even possible until you finally came undone around him. Grunting out he pulled out of you, cumming onto your stomach as you giggled up at him. 

"Shit," He panted watching in awe as you ran your fingers through the liquid and licked your fingers clean. 

"Y-You're going to be the death of me," He panted ashe laid down beside you and took a deep breath.

"We should move babe," He whispered an hour or two later after you had been laying there, the sun was out and someone was bound to come looking for you now that you had been gone for so long. 

"Here-" He handed you the shirt he had been wearing and then your shorts before he slipped on his coat since he had used your top to clean up your stomach. 

"Babe?" You looked at him with a smirk on your lips,

"You don't think I'm going to just have sex with you and leave it be, do you? I'm in love with you." He whispered as he kissed your lips again, the door opening just as you kissed each other. 

"They finally kissed," Someone announced out of the door, if only they knew the two of you had done a lot more than kissing in that cabin that day.

Tagline: @taestannie @sw33tnight @acciocriativity @mwitsmejk @minholuvs @anxiousbobatea @justbangtanthingz​

[ahtsumu]

the mystery of love ; kuroo tetsurou

pairing: kuroo tetsurou x f!reader

synopsis: kuroo tetsurou does not believe in soulmates. he believes in science, himself, and sometimes other people. but that doesn’t mean he can’t believe in love.

tag(s): sweet summer lovin’, friends to lovers, inspired by call my by your name, university student!kuroo tetsurou, lab intern!kuroo tetsurou, so much pining lol, fluff, angst, slow burn ; warning(s): profanity, mentions of alcohol ingestion (it’s legal bc they’re in italy!), suggestive themes ; wc: 4.8k

a/n: happy birthday tetsu!! i hope you guys like this. i really enjoyed writing it ♡

Kuroo Tetsurou does not believe in soulmates. He believes in science, himself, and sometimes other people. At least, that’s what he tells you. Sometimes you treat this information as a source of hope; other times, you’re not sure what to make of it.

This, you realise with his shoulder pressed against yours and both your bodies sprawled across his wrinkled bed sheets, is one of those other times. You turn your face to look at his.

“What?” he asks, one side of his mouth curling up in a smile.

For a moment, you wonder what would happen if you just said it. You could blame the alcohol. Get away with it scot-free. While you mull the option over in the dead silence of his room, your brain suddenly registers the music still playing from the living room. The low bass reverberating through the walls. How close your lips are. The sound of his breaths.

“Earth to Y/N?”

And like that, the little what-if that rose in your mind falls back with its tail between its legs. You bite your lip, look around his room like the walls have a script printed on them. Unfortunately, they do not.

“I was just thinking about my shirt.” It’s not great, but it’s the best you can do while still feeling the vodka and orange juice burn in your stomach. And smelling it on yourself.

Kuroo’s laugh booms through the room and you can’t help but giggle along with him. “I said I was sorry!” he says, hazel eyes twinkling with mirth. He pauses and glances at his closet, then nods his head in its direction. “Take a hoodie. Your pick.”

A smile–– one you try to downplay but fail miserably to–– creeps up your face. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Kuroo replies. “You can also shower here if you want. It's the least I can do after spilling my drink all over you.”

When you emerge from Kuroo’s bathroom in one of his thinner hoodies, a lot soberer and drying your hair, he’s not on the bed anymore. Quietly, you step out of his room and look for him through the house. People are crashed everywhere–– on the sofa, over the kitchen counter, even propped up against walls. The floor is covered with plastic cups and mysterious pools of liquid. Wrinkling your nose, you try your best to step around the messes, looking in every corner in the house for the raven-haired boy.

You find him back in his room, actually. He’s back on his bed scrolling through his phone, the light illuminating his sharp features. When he hears you close the door behind you, he looks up, eyes immediately zeroing in on the black hoodie over your torso. The corner of his mouth twitches up.

“Where’d you go?” you both ask at the same time. He chuckles; you grin. Crawling back onto the bed, you tell him to go first.

“I went around to make sure nothing’s broken,” he explains. “Perks of being the only sober intern in the house, I guess.”

A beat passes.

This house is rented. You forgot about that. All his expenses are paid for by your mother’s lab. You forgot about that. He fits in your world so well, like maybe he’s always had a spot there, that you forgot that Kuroo Tetsurou is only here for the summer.

“Right.”

Kuroo raises a brow. “And you?”

“I went to look for you.”

He smiles and holds his hands out like a magician at the end of a trick. “Well, you found me.”

“Yeah,” you muse. “I guess I did.” Aren’t you lucky.

With that, something shifts in the air. A contemplative expression crosses Kuroo’s face. Maybe he’s realised how his words come out sometimes. Kuroo often says things that sound like they have more than one meaning and it used to throw you off, but now you just go with it. You’ve even picked up that habit yourself. “Do you ever wish that you’d met someone earlier? Maybe under different circumstances?” he asks.

Sighing, you fall back against his mattress and stare up at the ceiling. Telling the truth feels easier when you can’t see him. “Yeah. All the time.” A few seconds pass. “Do you think we would’ve been friends if we went to the same college?”

He also lies down. You’re both back in the same positions you were in an hour ago, but something’s changed. “No,” he admits. You’re not surprised–– that’s what you’d expected. “I’d be a junior and you’d be a freshman. We probably would’ve never met. And even if we had, I wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with a… freshie.” He chuckles softly at the end. “And look at me now,” he adds softly, more to himself than you. You look over at his face. A contemplative smile rests on his lips.

That urge to just say it returns.

“Kuroo, I think––”

“You’re my favourite p–– oh, my bad. You first.”

And it goes away again.

“Um, uh,” you stutter, “how long do you have left here?”

Kuroo raises his brows. “On this planet? Hopefully a while, Y/N.” He sees your unamused expression and drops the front. “Three more weeks.”

Your eyes widen. Eight weeks have already passed. Blood rushes to your ears. Eight entire weeks have already passed, meaning that in three weeks, Kuroo Tetsurou will leave forever. And in four, you will, too. Except you’ll come back. You’ve done so every summer since you were born, probably will do until you die.

But this place will never be the same as it used to. Not after him.

“Y/N?” Once everything comes back into focus, you see the concern riddling his features. “Everything okay?”

“Hmm? Yeah.”

Say it.

“You didn’t have too much to drink, right?”

Say it.

“I just got buzzed. What about you?”

“The only drink I was planning on having all went to your shirt.”

Say it.

“Kuroo.”

“Yeah?”

Not yet.

“Let’s go on an adventure.”

At two AM, everything is different. The streets feel different, the villas look different, and you–– you can’t put your finger on it but Kuroo Tetsurou has changed, too. He sits behind the wheel of your father’s white 1953 Cadillac with the convertible roof down, unruly hair blown back by the breeze, a euphoric grin stretched over his face. In the passenger’s seat, you sit with an equally large beam and your hands raised into the dark sky.

“Where to, Miss?” he shouts over the wind.

“The stars,” you shout back with a laugh. Kuroo’s cat-like eyes briefly flit over to your side profile, lips curving to form a smaller, more tender smile. But you miss that–– your gaze falls on him just a second after his return to the road.

“I heard you say Jack’s,” he says, smirking.

The 24/7 diner sticks out like a sore thumb in the row of sun-baked stucco and stone buildings with its bold neon lights and shiny exterior. During the day, it seems gaudy, way too American for a small town in northern Italy. But at night, this place feels like home. You’ve been stumbling into Jack’s completely shit-faced since you were sixteen. Of course, all those other times had been with the kids of your mother’s coworkers. All those other times, you could hardly remember what you even ordered when you woke up hours later.

But this time, you walk in with Kuroo Tetsurou at half-past-two in the morning, the chemicals running through your bloodstream epinephrine and dopamine, not ethanol; if you’re drunk then it’s on a feeling and your only poison is the boy next to you. You study his face and consider that thought. No, he’s not poison. He’s the antidote.

“Y/N!” the server exclaims, rushing over with two menus. “And Kuroo! My two favourite customers, but together this time!” Giovanni ushers you two to a booth by the window and takes your orders, purely for show, of course. He knows your orders by heart: the Lorenzo for Kuroo and the Quentin for you.

“With fries on both, please,” Kuroo adds, throwing you a wink. “Aren’t I a gentleman?”

“You only did that to have more for yourself,” you reply drily. Having him over at your house for dinner every night made picking up his idiosyncrasies so unbelievably easy. You know them like they’re your own. You know him like he’s your own.

Kuroo clutches his chest and pretends to be offended, then changes the conversation to what happened at the lab today, or rather, yesterday. That your mother and the other researchers are so close to finding a cure for the strain of virus that’s recently hit crickets in southern Italy.

“You should drop by again sometime,” he says. “Last time you came around was, what, two weeks ago?”

Your face breaks in a grin. “Are you saying you’ve missed me? Chemistry getting boring?” you tease, drawing a loud laugh from him.

“Sodium hydrogen, you little shit.” Your mother’s used this one on you before, but hearing it from him makes you giggle anyway.

Giovanni comes back with two plates, each loaded with fries. You both say your thanks and he retreats to the kitchen again, but not before wiggling his eyebrows at your reddening faces. Wordlessly, you grab your fork and knife and transfer at least half of your fries onto Kuroo’s plate. Kuroo stares at you with the slightest smile. That look sends your stomach into flips.

“What?” you question nonchalantly, cutting into your burger.

“Nothing,” he says, mirroring your actions. “Nothing at all.”

It’s hard to imagine that after spending almost every day together for eight weeks straight that there’s still more to learn about each other, but there is. You tell him more about your real home. Your best friend who called you at 3 AM last night because of timezones. Stories from every summer before this one, when you were a different person in the same place you are now.

He tells you more about Kenma, his best friend from high school. How they played on one of the best volleyball teams in Japan. Stories from training camp, literature class, the metro ride home after school–– you listen to every single one in rapt attention. There’s not enough time in the world for all the things you want to know about Kuroo Tetsurou, so you take what you can get. If only you’d known him before you’d known him.

“If we’d met earlier here, do you think we would’ve been friends?” you ask after paging Giovanni for the check.

“No,” he replies, picking up a few remaining fries with his fork instead of his fingers. The corners of your mouth turn up. That’s your thing. He considers the scenario seriously. “I think we met right when we should have.”

“What about the future?” you press, leaning into the conversation. “Let’s say we meet in two years here, instead of now. Would we be friends?”

Kuroo sets his fork down, eyes you steadily. “What’s this about?”

You blink. “What?”

“What’s with all these hypotheticals today?” Perhaps worried that he came off too harshly, Kuroo adds, “I thought I was the scientist.”

“I just… it feels like I’ve known you since forever.” This feels like it was meant to be, you don’t say. And I want to know you forever.

A sigh–– fond, but still a sigh–– blows through his lips. “Don’t tell me you believe in soulmates,” he says with a wicked grin.

“Are you calling me your soulmate?” The question, shamelessly genuine, painfully hopeful, leaves your mouth without you intending it to and you regret it instantly. Because Kuroo Tetsurou has told you many times that he does not believe in soulmates.

Is it so bad to dream, though?

You watch him carefully but he doesn’t say anything, just continues smiling wryly like you’d intended to tease him. Like he knows that you know better. But you don’t.

“Are you?” he suddenly replies. Sharp eyes hold yours, daring you to respond. Do you dare?

At that moment, Giovanni returns with the check. “Who’s paying?” he asks, unaware of the tense exchange that just occurred across the table. Inaudibly, you sigh in relief. Kuroo is about to say that it’s on him when he catches himself in the middle of his sentence, looks your way, then back to Giovanni. He says you’ll go Dutch. You nod in approval.

“So,” Kuroo drawls once you’ve both paid for your meals. “Where do we go from here?”

Good question.

Kuroo Tetsurou has never been to an outdoor club period. And though he’s been clubbing, he has never once gone dancing in his lifetime. You tell him that’s about to change as he parks the car in a lot near the venue. Before him, all your summer nights were spent here.

“You’ve been here for two months and you haven’t been to an outdoor club yet?” you ask while unbuckling your seatbelt. That can’t be possible. If you’d been in his shoes… an attractive college student in a foreign country for the summer, you would have gone wild.

“Nope. I’ve been a little busy, y’know, spending my days in a lab, handling chemicals, studying viruses, washing lab equipment, writing up reports for your mother and her colleagues, working on my own research on the side… the usual.” He flashes you a bright, sarcastic smile.

“Poor baby,” you coo, ruffling his hair. Kuroo laughs while you continue messing with the dark locks. “Was your first full day here the only tourist-day you’ve had so far?” His weekends, you already know, are spent either lounging around cafés, pools, or the great outdoors with you or the interns. But you’d assumed he’d had time to do some exploring on his own.

Kuroo nods. “And my guide wasn’t even that great,” he mutters, shooting you a dark look. “She sped through every attraction and hardly spoke a word outside of the tour to me. I think she hated me.”

You giggle and open the door, letting the music from the outdoor speakers infiltrate the bubble inside your car. “Maybe she was just nervous!” you say as you get out. That’s a lie.

“About what?” Kuroo follows suit, the gravel crunching beneath his feet. “I was so friendly to you and you just brushed me off each time.” He pouts.

But you don’t reply. Instead, you just grab his hands and pull him towards the venue. As you step into the boundaries marked by fairy lights and rustic wooden fences, Kuroo stops in his tracks and tugs on your intertwined hands. You glance down before up, trying to memorise how his hand looks around yours in the few seconds you can steal.

“Y/N,” Kuroo says. The strobe lights paint his skin pink, blue, purple like it’s a canvas. “Tell me why you were nervous.” Grammatically, it’s a command. And yet it sounds like he’s begging.

“What’s it mean to you?” you ask, feeling your heartbeat speed up in your chest. So what if you just… said it? What would happen?

“Everything?” he replies with a cheeky smile. The odds that he seriously means that are slim. But… they’re there. You shake that possibility out of your mind. That’s just the hope talking.

“Depends how convincingly you say it.” You tug on his arm. “C’mon. Let’s dance.” But he doesn’t budge–– he just continues to stand by the entrance of the club with an expectant look on his face. People are starting to stare.

“Fine,” you say with an eye roll. “I’ll tell you." Kuroo smirks, something self-congratulatory ready to leave his mouth, but then you let go of his hand and dance backwards into the throng of moving bodies. “But first, you’re gonna have to dance with me!” 

You allow yourself to be swallowed by the lively music, the people, the moment. Seconds later you’re deep enough into the crowd that you lose sight of Kuroo. Something in you says that he’ll show up soon, though. For now, you let yourself breathe. Forget about the heaviness of what-if’s, the itch to confess, the dread of the aftermath. Feelings are a lot like gravity. Sometimes they keep you grounded, other times, they weigh you down. This is one of those other times.

You dance up to a friendly-looking group of teens your age. Three guys and two girls. You shout your name and follow up with how it’s nice to meet them, hoping one of them finds you nice enough to keep around. Dancing alone in a club is one of the worst things that can ever happen to someone. Luckily, one of the girls–– the one wearing a purple wig–– pulls you in for a hug, drunkenly shouting back, “Bianca!” Bianca pushes you into their circle next to one of the guys and, just like that, you two start moving to the beat, feeling it in your feet, shoulders, hips. At one point, you turn around and take a good look at his face. The guy’s cute enough, but he’s not Kuroo. Still, you say nothing as he moves closer to you and grabs your hand, lifting it up and motioning for you to twirl.

Suddenly, a pair of hands grip firmly onto your waist and pull you out of the circle. “Hey!” You look down, suddenly realising they’re Kuroo’s. A shiver runs down your spine. He spins you around to face him. His lips are set in a firm line, eyes completely devoid of humour, nostrils slightly flared.

“Hi,” you say quietly, testing the waters.

“Hi,” he replies curtly. His hands are still on your waist. Selfishly, you choose not to point that out. Instead, you try to defuse the situation with a light question. Playful tone.

“Where were you this whole time?”

“Looking for you.”

“Well… you found me.” You flash him a sheepish grin. A peace offering of some sort.

“I did.” He doesn’t take it.

“Lucky you.”

Irritation finally seeps through his features. “You just left me on the dance floor!” he snaps. “And then when I find you after searching the entire venue, you’re dancing up on some random guy!”

“It was in good fun!” you retort, wriggling out of his grip. “And I wasn’t dancing up on him.” You want to ask if he’s jealous so badly, but you take a good look at his face and decide against that.

“Fun?” he asks incredulously. “Worrying about losing you, worrying about myself getting lost, then having to worry about that guy after finding you isn’t very fucking fun to me, Y/N!” The words fly out of his mouth like daggers without pause. Once finished, he looks at you with a disappointed gaze, shaking his head lightly, chest rising and falling with each heavy breath.

“I’m sorry,” you say, looking down at your shoes. It doesn’t matter if you disagree with him–– a sort of shame drills itself so deeply into your conscience that all you can think about is making things right again. “I didn’t think my actions through.”

A second passes. You wonder what he’s thinking.

“Hey, look at me.” Kuroo lifts your chin up with an index finger. Your wide eyes meet his narrow ones. Just as a pink beam glides over his face, his gaze softens, falls down to your lips. And then you feel his thumb on your chin, barely grazing the skin of your bottom lip. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down. The revelry in the background fades to dull beats against your eardrums. Suddenly, you register that he smells of, as usual, blackcurrant and amber.

But now you also smell of blackcurrant and amber.

You’re wearing his clothes. You smell of him.

Kuroo’s eyes crawl back up to yours, wide like he’s just been caught in the middle of a crime. You blink expectantly, ignoring the furious way your heart pounds in your chest. Shallow breaths puff through your slightly parted mouth.

“I am.” It comes out barely a whisper. C’mon. Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me––

You gently touch the hand he has on your chin. Kuroo jolts back like he’s been burned. “I’ll, uhm, I’ll be in the car,” he stutters, looking away from your face. He pushes through the sea of people, leaving you all alone on the dance floor, body doused in blue light, fingers touching the area his thumb had been as if preserving its print.

Kuroo hardly notices you slip into the passenger’s seat minutes later. He’s got his forearms hanging over the steering wheel and gaze fixed ahead into the darkness, mind probably running off to a place he wishes his body was, too.

As soon as you’ve buckled yourself in, Kuroo starts the car.

The entire drive home is silent.

Once Kuroo pulls into your courtyard and parks, he turns off the engine, unbuckles his seatbelt, and steps out of the car. Wordlessly, you follow his actions and meet him by the stairs to your door.

“Hi,” you say quietly. He doesn’t look at you.

“Hey.”

The two of you stand outside your front door in silence as you both consider what to say next. This can’t be the way it ends.

“I shouldn’t have… done that,” Kuroo says first.

“Done what?” You choose to play dumb. Call it selfish, but you want to hear him say it. Maybe then it’ll feel as real as it had been. Kuroo sighs and leans his shoulder against the stone wall, crossing his arms over his chest. There’s no way he can dance around what happened. Perhaps the past two months can be summed up as the development of a strong friendship with skilled doublespeak and metaphors and just enough artistic licence, but this can’t. And Kuroo knows that. He can’t feed you an alternative truth like he’s done so many times before. What’s more, he can’t lie to himself anymore. So maybe it’s better just to not speak at all.

Your eyes burn holes into the side of his face. Fine. You’ll concede first. “I was never nervous.”

Kuroo blinks, turns his head around to look at you. “What?”

“I was never nervous. I was playing it cool because I didn’t want to risk befriending you and getting attached.” I’m still playing it cool, you don’t say. And I’m already attached. “Guess I just came off as a bitch instead.” You laugh. “But can you blame me? You were this cute, older guy. Smart, too, since you were interning with my mom. You were my dream guy.”

An amused breath blows out of his nose. “Were?” he questions, grinning, only remembering the fragility of your platonic relationship a second later. “Um––”

“Are.” It slips out of your mouth without you realising. Fuck. Kuroo stills. It’s too late to take back your words now, so you might as well just keep going. “You still are my dream guy.”

Seconds pass and neither of you says anything. Sweat gathers in the palms of your hands. You start to feel your heartbeat through your neck. The buzz of the cicadas grows louder. Oppressive. Behind Kuroo, the sky is starting to turn pale blue and pink in the horizon. That means it’s almost sunrise. The night is almost over, and, hopefully, so is this awful conversation.

“And… you don’t feel the same.” Funnily, you feel like you’re lying. You’re telling Kuroo how he feels and you think you’re lying. Does that make sense? None of this night even feels real. God, you hope this has all just been a dream. Mustering a soft smile, you say, “That’s okay. Thank you for the party. And the adventure.” It was fun while it lasted. You feel the house key in your pocket and turn to unlock the door. “I hope this doesn’t change anything between us, Kuroo. Can we still be friends?” The words leave your mouth feeling like barbed wire. You know damn well you can’t still be friends.

And suddenly, you feel his calloused hands around your cheeks. Suddenly, his hot breath fans over your face.

“Can I kiss you?” he murmurs.

Your eyes close instantly. “Yes, please.”

And suddenly, his soft lips are on yours.

Kuroo breaks the kiss seconds later. “Fuck,” he whispers, resting his forehead against yours, touching the tips of your noses together. “Y/N, I don’t want to be friends. Fuck.” A dry chuckle leaves his mouth. He pauses to collect his thoughts but decides that that can wait. Instead, he presses another kiss to your lips so fervently that he backs you up against the wall with no space between your bodies. You wonder if he can feel your heartbeat like this, chest to chest. Kuroo’s hands travel down your waist and rest on your hips. His tongue runs across your tongue, your teeth, the insides of your mouth. You gently suck on it, drawing a satisfied moan from him. When the kiss ends, you see that his lips are red and cheeks are swollen. A warm feeling spreads through your chest. “I thought I could be happy just being friends with you but I can’t. I want you so bad it hurts. Not to mention, when I saw you in my hoodie?” His fingers pinch the material. “I thought God was testing me or some shit.”

“Sure didn’t feel like you wanted me that way,” you retort, still breathless.

“In my defence,” Kuroo says, thumbs tracing your cheekbones, “I was very scared.”

“Of what?”

It looks like he’s about to tell you, but he changes his mind and doesn’t answer. He grabs your hand and pulls you back to the car with a cheeky grin. “I’ll tell you only if you tell me where we can watch the sunrise.”

Kuroo holds your hand, stroking your thumb the entire drive there.

After a short hike, you plop down on the grassy hillside, supporting your body with outstretched arms in the back. Kuroo sits down beside you with one of his hands covering yours, fingers intertwined like a honeysuckle vine around a hazel tree. You tell him that you grew up running along this hill with your parents. It used to be your playground. Maybe, you think, it’s time to make new memories here.

“Beautiful,” Kuroo breathes, a wonderstruck look in his eyes. The sun’s just risen halfway above the pink and blue horizon, the saturated orange casting the entire city below gold. It’s not just the city, though. He’s also gold. He’s just as beautiful. You watch him with a soft smile on your lips, noting how his wide eyes and slack jaw return to normal as he stares off into the distance. After resting your head on his shoulder, you fix your eyes on the sunrise ahead. You wonder what he’s thinking so quietly about.

“Penny for your thoughts?” you finally ask once the sun has finished revealing itself.

Kuroo blinks, returning to reality, but continues to stare straight ahead. “I was just thinking about… soulmates.”

You lift your head off his shoulder. “Don’t tell me you believe in soulmates now,” you tease.

“Hmm.” He turns to look at you, the sun turning his hazel eyes the colour of honey. That same wry smirk from Jack’s returns to his face.

“You wanna know why I was so scared?”

“Pray tell.”

“Because I’ve never felt this way towards anyone.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“No,” Kuroo laughs, laying his head down in your lap, looking up into your eyes. “I’m serious. I used to purposely stay away from girls in high school. Same in college. Same all the way until you somehow wormed your way into my life. That’s why we wouldn’t have been friends.” You cock your head to the side.

“Why?” you ask, running your fingers through his hair.

Kuroo’s eyelids flutter shut. He inhales deeply before talking. “My parents are divorced. The years before the divorce were… very ugly.” 

(He spares you the details of the midnight arguments, the smashed plates, the holes in the walls. He spares you the details of how he only ever knew how to fall asleep with his head sandwiched between two pillows, how he hasn’t seen his sister in a decade, how he’ll curse and snap but never yell because he always feels like a child again around the noise. That’s for another time, if you’ll have any.) 

“I still remember all the fighting and yelling. For the longest time, that’s all I knew about marriage and relationships.”

“Did you think all relationships were like that? Fighting and yelling?” you ask.

“For a while, yeah. I’m still a little scared of that, to be honest. Ending up in a relationship where all you do is fight.” Kuroo sighs. “But that’s not the only thing. I thought I wouldn’t know how to love someone, growing up like that.” At that, your fingers pause in his hair.

“Wait,” you say, furrowing your brows. A wave of immense sadness (not for yourself, for him) washes over you. “You think you wouldn’t know how to love someone else?”

“Thought.” Kuroo cracks open his eyes and smiles up at you. “I’m in the process of changing my mind.”

[ricksroaches]

Jungkook - Dysphoria ch. 1

pairing: Yoongi x Reader, OT7 x Reader (platonic)

summary: Jungkook, a burnt out gifted student, comes home from summer camp not ready to start his sophomore year of highschool, but his friends are there to help him feel better. Although not in the best of ways.

notes: This is a Euphoria-ish au but mostly it's just heavily inspired by the show (I use a few quotes), and each chapter is based on a character. There's a few parts where I cue a song title that's because I made a soundtrack to listen to while reading but I deleted it a while ago so :( if you feel like it listen to the ones I did write down. I'm apologizing now bc my writing can be a bit choppy/rushed its just cuz i have a more drabble-like style and don't know how to write between big scenes. THIS IS A DARK FIC. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Hope you enjoy and sorry for this big ass paragraph.

word count: 3.9k

warnings: ass-load of angst, mental illness (depression, anxiety, bipolar, OCD, and probably more), drugs (all of them. just all of them), underage drinking, cursing, mentions of self-harm

Next chapter

[Slideshow - Labrinth]

When Jungkook was 5, he wanted to be an astronaut. He wanted to fly into the sky and zip around space exploring things never before seen. His little mind was so strong, wanting to learn anything and everything. When he first learned how to read, he would read every sign he passed in the car and play games with the letters he’d find. It wasn’t long before he was placed in advanced classes with kids he'd never seen before and for the first time in his academic career, he was challenged.

When Jungkook was 10, he wanted to be a doctor. He wanted to wear a white coat and glasses and race around a hospital busy saving lives everyday. He wanted people to look to him for advice and treat him with respect. He wanted to feel needed.

When Jungkook was 14, he wanted to be a paramedic. He didn’t think he’d be smart enough to become a doctor so an EMT would have to do. His classes had begun to pile up in work to the point where he didn’t have the time to think about anything but school. He ate, slept, and breathed homework, projects, and term papers.

When Jungkook was 16, all he wanted to do was graduate. He no longer had any desire to pursue his childhood dreams. When he was asked what he wanted to do when he was older, his mind was a void. He couldn’t see any future for himself past high school. He went day to day not bothering to care about what might happen the next day. He coasted through all of his classes and dropped out of the advanced programs that his parents put him in.

His potential was like a flame. It was small at first, but still had loads of potential, so more kindling was thrown on top. The flame received it well, quickly spreading over the new material. But they kept stacking kindling. Stacking and stacking and stacking putting more and more pressure until finally….the flame died. All because he liked to read.

[Forever - Labrinth]

The clouds inched across the sky and rows of crops and fencing whipped by the car window. A stark contrast between the two. Jungkook rested his head against the glass and watched as the car began to pass more and more houses. The familiar area told him he was almost home. He should’ve been glad, elated even. He would finally get to see his friends again, but after three weeks of summer school to catch up on the class he skipped last year he’d lost the ability to smile or show any form of positivity. To say he felt like a zombie would be an insulting understatement.

The car pulled into the ever so familiar driveway and the rest of his family piled out of the car. He didn’t move. He heaved a long, anguished sigh before snatching his duffel bag from the other seat and throwing open the door.

He was out the front door again before his mom could even ask him where he was going. Speeding his bike down the empty road that he’d ridden countless times before. He could make this route with his eyes closed. The house in question came into view and Jungkook pedaled harder to close the distance. He swung one leg to the opposite pedal and straddled it until he swerved to a stop in the driveway. The house was old, hadn’t been lived in for years, wasn’t on the market, yet wasn’t scheduled to be torn down. It was the perfect place for a group of teenagers to tear apart and put back together. Without knocking, he stepped inside and was hit with the welcoming scent of booze, pizza, and weed with notes of cigarettes and coffee. Music blasting from a distant room in the house led him to the living room where he counted one, two, three, four, five people sprawled about the room. Upon noticing him standing in the doorway, they jumped up and raced to pull him into the room.

“Kook! How you been man? How’d surviving summer school go?” Taehyung was Jungkook’s best friend and unsolicited wingman. He was always trying to set him up with girls so he could get his v card punched. Taehyung was ever the ladies man. Never had trouble finding a date or a hookup. No one could blame him though. If they had that flawless, arrogant face they’d use it too. Despite his fuckboy nature, he was the best friend Jungkook ever had. They’d gone to the same school since they were 7 and Taehyung’s untamable charisma sniffed out Jungkook’s shyness rather quickly. They were inseparable and the rest is history.

“Fine I guess.”

“Kookie, come sit down! I’ve been saving your spot on the couch for you!” Jimin pulled Jungkook to the left corner of the C shaped couch. Jimin was like Taehyung in the sense that he also had no issues with finding partners. He wasn’t near as promiscuous as Taehyung, but he made up for it with his bisexuality. He had an entire other gender to choose from. Jimin was probably the nicest of the group. He always gave the best hugs and was their personal therapist. His aura seemed to coax you into opening up to him even if you hadn’t originally planned on it. He had a way of saying all the right words to make you feel better, even if it was just for a moment. On the other side of him, he was the biggest party animal the group had ever seen. Anywhere else, he was the purest angel that everyone believed could do no wrong. But at a party? Park Jimin was a demon. Seductively dancing in a stylish jacket, pants low enough to show his v-line, sweaty hair flipped back pounding shot after shot until he was the last man standing. That guy could party from sun down to sun up like it was a baby shower.

“Did you at least learn anything you missed last year?” Namjoon. Ever the parent. He was surprisingly humble given his father’s status and money. He easily had the best grades among the friends. School always came easy to him, no matter what it was. However, if you saw him outside of school, you’d never be able to guess he was one of the school’s top students. He carried an energy with him that dared anyone to mess with him or his friends. Although you didn’t see it often, he could make himself scary if he wanted to. All in all, he’s just a gentle giant that made sure everyone turned in their work.

“Absolutely nothing. I don’t know why they keep wasting their time on me.” Jungkook sighed. Hoseok threw a pillow from across the couch, smacking him in the face.

“Yah! Don’t talk about yourself like that!” Hoseok was the human charger. It didn’t matter if someone’s mama died if Hoseok was in the room there would be shenanigans. He was always the one to make some crazy dare that would end up getting them in trouble but they wouldn’t be mad because it was totally worth it. He also had great music taste and almost always was on aux. Hoseok’s vice was coke. Often the driving force behind his hyper nature, it started out as just a thing he did at parties, but slowly creeped into his everyday habits. It hadn’t become a problem yet, he vowed that as soon as he started getting nosebleeds he’d stop, although Jungkook was wary of how difficult that was going to be.

“Where’s Y/N and Yoongi?” Jungkook asked after noticing their usual spots empty.

“They left to get food. They should be coming back soon.” Jin assured him, giving him a comical slap on the thigh. Jin was the eldest, but rarely acted like it. Whenever he wasn’t making stupid dad jokes or eating he spent his time at the classical theater where he worked and sometimes acted. He planned on pursuing acting given his “world wide handsome face.” “It just has to be seen! People around the world need to swoon at my beauty” as he would put it.

No one heard the front door open and shut or noticed Y/N and Yoongi standing in the doorway of the living room.

“Food’s here.” Yoongi finally croaked. Hoseok and Jin yelped and sprung up.

“JESUS! Ever heard of announcing yourselves?! I swear you guys are the exact same person!” Y/N just gave a shrug and plopped onto the large bean bag that she’d claimed.

“Hey, Kooker.” She dragged out.

“Hi Y/N..” His unusual bland reply didn’t go unnoticed by her, but she brushed it off.

“You ready to get shit faced?” A playful grin plastered her otherwise tranquil face. A small smile poked at Jungkooks pursed lips. There was something about her character that always put him in a better mood. She was the one who invited him and Tae into the friend group in the first place, and because of that, he couldn’t be more grateful.

Yoongi tossed him a beer can and his car keys. “Start us off Jungkook.” Yoongi was by far the most terrifying one. It took some time to get to know his true person but there were still times when he still scared the shit out of him. Jungkook remembered when he first met Yoongi. He looked like he’d served time with the seasoned look in his eye that said he’d seen some shit in his day. He hadn’t spoken the entire time the group was talking and Jungkook was beginning to worry that he didn’t like him. It wasn’t til he finally spoke that Jungkook could release the breath he was holding. For someone so stoic and cold looking, he never expected him to have such a low, soft voice. He realized, Yoongi wasn’t scary, he was just quiet like him.

Jungkook took the keys and poked a hole in the bottom of the can. He pressed his lips to it and pulled the tab, sending the amber liquor shooting down his throat. He finished it with ease and crushed the can in his palm while the room cheered and chanted.

The loud music, laughing, and drugs drowned out everything in the outside world. It felt like the world ended and they were the last people left on Earth. Nothing mattered but what was right in front of them. The hours flew by until it came time for everyone to crash. Most of them were still raging drunk or high which only made them fall asleep faster. Jungkook didn’t drink much and he barely smoked. He just couldn’t get in the right headspace to enjoy any of it. So there he was, laying awake among a pile of snoring boys at some ungodly hour of the night. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He fished it out to read the text in his notifications.

[We All Knew - Labrinth]

Y/N💜: come to my office

He shimmied out from under Taehyung and Jimin and tiptoed out of the room. He followed the smell of weed through the house because where there was weed, there was Y/N. He stepped into the backyard and found her leaning against the wall, blunt between her fingers. The tip of the dark stick swelled into a bright orange when she took a drag. Smoke rolling out of her nose, she held it out for him. He hesitated.

“You're upset. Take it.” Which was a dead-on observation for Y/N, who’s not normally revolving in the same direction as planet Earth. He hesitantly took a puff from it before handing it back. She spread her arms lazily and looked at him with a beckoning stare. He sighed and walked right into her arms that wrapped around his back. She was only older than him by a year, but her old soul and almost motherly demeanor made him look up to her like she was his idol. Sometimes, he forgot he was a whole head taller than her. “Welcome home, Kookie.”

Hers was the only welcome he got that day that brought a genuine smile to his face. She had a way of making him feel welcome and wanted even if she was in a bad mood. She broke the embrace and without a word headed to the old couch by the empty swimming pool. He eventually followed her and flopped down next to her. Another gush of smoke entered the chilly air and it was handed back to him. Feeling better, he took a healthy drag and sighed out the smoke as he sunk further into the couch.

“Was it that obvious?”

“Was what obvious?”

“Me being upset.”

“Not really.” She flicked the ash off the tip of the brown stick, her gaze not breaking from its spacey stare.

“Then how’d you know?”

“Pain recognizes pain.” Y/N wasn’t one for her genius epiphanies, given that nine times out of ten on any given day she was stoned out of her mind. She wasn’t dumb, god no. He wouldn’t doubt that she was smarter than him, but she rarely exercised her ability. As great of a gift that her mind was, it was an even worse curse. An inescapable tomb of her worst fears, thoughts, and intentions, with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. So naturally, she tried anything and everything to silence her mind; alcohol, weed, acid, coke, molly, you name it, she’s done it.

Jungkook wasn’t angry or disappointed by the lengths she went. He knew she was just trying to feel better, and to him, that’s all that mattered. He’d take high Y/N over no Y/N at all.

“Y/N?”

“Yep.” There was a silence while he worked up the nerve to speak.

“How…uh….how long have you felt…the way you feel?” She chuckled and let her head fall back against the couch.

“Well I smoked a blunt with Yoongi in the car this morning and then-”

“No, I mean like…w-without drugs.” Her lazy smile didn’t change, but her eyes unfocused and she grew quiet as if lost in a flashback.

“How long do you think I’ve felt this way?” He didn’t anticipate this question.

“Uh…I don’t know…you hide it really well.”

“I couldn’t tell you when it started. I don’t remember much before 7. I’m told I was a happy kid, but it didn’t feel like it at all. All my life I’ve looked around and seen that everyone was so much happier than me, and I’d ask myself, ‘Why can’t I feel like that?’ It wasn’t until I was older that I learned…I was born to suffer. That’s just my place in the world.”

“When did you finally tell anyone?”

“I didn’t. My parents found my razors.” Jungkook always thought he saw scars on her arms and legs, but her milky skin made it hard to tell. It hurt his heart to know that it was true, and that every one of those once caused her pain. The image of her forearms and thighs slick with her blood brewed tears in his eyes.

“They determined they didn’t have the knowledge to help me, so they asked me to take a tour of this mental hospital and think about their suggestion….” She paused to keep her voice from cracking. “I didn’t make it home that day. Never really forgave them after that.”

There was a long silence after that. Jungkook didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. Besides, he knew she hated condolences. “What made you start using drugs?” She took a drag of the blunt and thought about it.

“I was 13.” Really? “I found my brothers stash of weed in one of his shoes. I already knew what weed was and what it was used for, so I took about a gram and a rolling paper and taught myself how to roll a joint on my bathroom floor. I was shaking like a dog shitting peach seeds but when that joint hit, I thought…” She tilted her head to peak at him with an epiphanic smile, “This is it…This is the feeling that I’ve been waiting to feel my entire life. I thought I was sure to get caught and sent to juvie, but I wasn’t. The world went on, and I found a way to live. Now could my lifestyle kill me? Will it kill me? Yeah probably I don’t know, but at least I could’ve had a few years where I wasn’t begging the universe to put me out of my misery.” She paused to take another hit. “People often ask me, ‘Y/N why don’t you try therapy? Drugs aren’t the answer.’ Yeah well, drugs work. Therapy’s a guessing game; you never know if it’s gonna actually help or not and end up wasting your time and money. But when I take that hit, that line, that tab, the world starts to slow…and everything goes quiet…and I feel safe. In my own head. And I can see the world in color again.”

Jungkook watched her blissful face while she was lost in thought. She must’ve been pretty high because this is the most personal she’d ever gotten with him or possibly anyone that wasn’t Yoongi. “Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“W-what if I don’t feel what everyone else feels either..?” He pinched the skin between his fingers to keep his tears at bay, a nervous habit he’d picked up from her. She reached over and took his hand in hers, the webbing between her fingers had white and pink stripes from years of fingernails digging into the flesh.

“Jungkook,” she didn’t use his nickname, “I know how hard it was for you to say that. I want you to know how much I appreciate you telling me, because if anyone knows how you feel, it’s me. You can talk to me whenever, wherever. Even when you think it’s a bad time it’s not, because nothing in that moment is more important to me than you. I don’t want you to go through the same thing I did, so please, even if you don’t want to talk, maybe I can at least keep you company.”

For the rest of the night, Jungkook told her everything. About the pressure, the stress, the desire to collapse and let the world go on without him, his inability to see a future where he was fulfilled. The words often caught in his throat, having never said them out loud before. Y/N didn’t say much, she just wrapped them in a blanket and stroked his hair while she just let him talk. Sometimes, he’d have to stop to cry and she’d hold him a little tighter, wipe his tears away with her thumbs, and wait til he was ready again.

Eventually, he had nothing else to say, his tears dried, and his body stilled.

Babies didn’t sleep that good.

Y/N nodded off a little later but was woken up by a raccoon tipping a trash can. She rested her cheek on his head and tried to go back to sleep, but it never came. She just continued to rest her eyes while playing with Jungkook’s hair and tracing lines along his features.

She didn’t know how long she laid there but soon the birds began their routine morning songs and she was sure she wouldn’t get back to sleep now. The faint tap of shoes on the concrete perked her ears, but she kept her eyes closed. The footsteps stopped behind the couch where she sat. It was quiet before the person chuckled quietly. A warm hand smoothed back the hair in her face and a little kiss was planted on her forehead. She couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face.

“Yoongi, I’m awake you creep.” She cracked her eyes open to see her boyfriend laid over the back of the couch hovering above her, his dark hair tickling her nose. He smirked.

“Well in that case,” he grabbed her chin and tilted her head up before capturing her lips in a playful kiss. When they parted, he glanced down at Jungkooks still sleeping figure. “You guys stay out here all night?”

“Yeah,” she looked down at him and smoothed his hair back, “he just had a few things to get off his chest.” Yoongi almost asked what it was about but her face gave him an idea.

“It’s cold, you want me to take him inside?”

“It won’t wake him up will it?”

“If he’s as out as as he looks, he won’t.” She nodded and Yoongi circled around and slipped his hands under the sleeping boy’s body. Much to Y/N’s pleasant surprise, he lifted him bridal style with ease and she followed him into the house where he placed him next to the other slumbering boys.

When he straightened back up he saw her in the sliding glass door, gazing at the now dusty blue sky. She could feel his body heat on her back against the nippy outside air.

“I always loved the time just before dawn.”

“Why is that?” He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his cheek to hers.

“It’s so calm and peaceful. And incredibly quiet besides the birds. It’s the only time I feel truly left alone.”

“You want me to show you my favorite time of day?” She turned to him with a curious look. “Follow me.” Not long after, the two were perched on the flat portion of the roof with Yoongi’s bong sitting between them. His angular fingers effortlessly packed the bowl and held it out to her. “All yours.” She took it with a smile.

“What a gentleman~”

Soon, the sky went from a pale blue to pastel shades of orange and pink. He looked over to see her fiddling with a thread on his hoodie she was wearing. “This,” he took her jaw and guided her eyes up for her to see the sunrise, “is my favorite time of day.”

“Why?”

“It gives me hope. Kinda like you.” He was glad she didn’t say anything. She was lost in the color palette of the scene before her, the weed making everything so much more vibrant and striking. He could see the sky reflected in her eyes, making the view ten times better. More time went by and she rested her head on his broad shoulder while they watched the rest of the sunrise.

Back on the ground, Yoongi cleared the bowl and poured out the bong water before setting it on a table by the couch. Y/N was on her back in the center of the empty pool, slowly tearing a leaf above her face and analyzing how it separated cell by cell. He stood on the edge above and watched her do this another four times much to his amusement. “You wanna get breakfast?”

She was out of the pool and in his face before he could finish his sentence. “Like you have to ask.” He chuckled and rolled his eyes before turning and walking to his car. “Hey, Yoongi.”

He turned back.

“Carry me to the car like Jungkook.” He broke into a smirk and walked back to her.

“Yes ma’am.” She let out a yelp when he scooped her off her feet and marched the two of them to his car waiting on the street.

Cover photo: @BIGHITTED on Twitter

[over-under-through1]

Have any more headcanons for Robin, Mike, Robike(Them together), Miblo and Buttercup?

i’ll try to get a few of these down ><

Robin, Mike, and Robike gen headcannons:

Robin is deathly allergic to shell fish. she found this out okay her and mikes 2nd date, where he took her out for sushi, she got a tempura shrimp roll, and 10 minutes later had to be rolled out in an ambulance. never again. (don’t ask how she had never eaten it before)

in solidarity to her shell fish allergy, mike refuses to eat any kind of shell fish as well. call him a romantic.

mike is a HORRID singer. boy sounds like a car’s rev engine. it’s bad.

this fact does not stop him from tearing it up on karaoke night at the Utonium household

he is also a hopeless dancer. white boy dance moves for days. some of his favorites include: the lawmower, the sprinkler (basically any dance that’s named after backyard machinery), the running man, and worst of all, flossing

once again, this does not stop him from trying. “BABE!! BAE!! HUN!! LOVE!! LOOK AT ME GO!! COME OVER HERE LETS DANCE TOGETHER!!” *cue groaning and hiding behind Buttercup on Robins behalf as Buttercup laughs her ass off with Butch and records*

don’t get between Robin and her ice cream sandwiches. my girl turns into a banshee the second she spots one.

Mike cannot swallow pills. he has tried so, so hard, but year after year he ends up gagging and crushes them up to drink down with water. poor guy, don’t even bring advil liquigels into his line of vision

Mitch, Pablo, and Miblo gen headcannons:

when Mitch first saw Pablo walk into his 10th grade homeroom, he gay panicked, blue screened, mumbled at Buttercup “pretty… boy…” then zombie walked past her, the teacher, Pablo himself (who noticed and was immediately enamored with Mitch), out the room, past the vice principal, then trudged 4 miles home in a daze with Buttercup flying behind him shouting. he woke up an hour later with no recollection of any of this

Buttercup still makes fun of him to this day for the incident. she tells the story in her toast as best woman at the Miblo wedding

Pablo is a giant. he is a good 7 inches taller than Mitch (as stated in my height headcannons post). Mitch makes Pablo carry him around practically everywhere and Pablo ALWAYS hits his head when he walks into Mitch’s trailer. always. every single time. it doesn’t matter that he’s come over hundreds of times, or that he tells himself beforehand each time “Pablo, you will not, under any circumstances, hit your head on the door frame this time. Mitch will not make fun of you because it will not happen.” it still happens. it’s not preventable.

it doesn’t even matter that even people TALLER than Pablo (cough Boomer cough) can enter Mitch’s trailer without hitting their head. Pablo keeps a cool head most of the time, but he has broken and threatened the door many times in the past.

Mitch is a mini space heater and Pablo is the coldest man alive. many-a-cuddling sessions happen in winter (and though Pablo won’t admit it, fall too. and spring.)

Mitch is friends with basically everyone at their school, he’s very extroverted and good at making conversation with people, he tries making friends with at least one new person a day

so, so many people ask Pablo if he’s on the volleyball or basketball team. they are very, very wrong, my boy is the editor of the school paper and he could not be prouder of his position. FANTASTIC writer, and when you have an in with the schools very own superheroes, there’s nothing really stopping you from climbing your way to the top

Mitch was highkey terrified of Butch when Buttercup first introduced him, but now there is literally nothing that Butch could do to make Mitch feel intimidated. if Butch even tried, Mitch would be right on his ass making fun of him for it

gen Buttercup headcannons (tw: mentions of panic attacks):

still has a fear of spiders, but instead of screaming over them and flying away, she gets a very dark look in her eyes and will not hesitate to destroy the house in order to kill the vermin. her sisters and all of her friends have to constantly be aware of any 8 legged bugs around them so they can keep it out of BC’s sights, if only to preserve the land within a 5 mile radius around them

has been begging Prof.Utonium to let her get a lizard for the past 4 years. she had one for a week but her dad found it and immediately set it free

her ears are the most sensitive of the groups, they all have supersonic senses, but BC’s are especially heightened, possibly due to her lack of “special powers” (total fucking bullshit btw, fuck you ppg writers for treating BC like shit)

i think?? i’ve mentioned her ability to see in the future before here?? that’s because of the her senses. no one ask me about the science behind it, just go with it, okay? super eye sight= glimpses into the future

this ability has saved many of her teammates from colossal damage before, but (angst warning), because she’s had to see those images in her mind to be able to warn them about it, it’s left lasting trauma on her and has made her very protective of her friends and family. do not fuck with anyone that BC is close with, she will mess you up for it

one particular prediction she got showed Butch in a very… gruesome situation. i don’t want to go into detail, but it fucked her up for a bit, and there was about a week where Buttercup couldn’t/wouldn’t leave Butch’s side in fear of what could happen to him

she still sometimes gets flashes of that memory and it’s caused a couple panic attacks. when she found out, Blossom taught her some breathing exercises to help her through it if one comes on

THAT GOT SAD IM SO SORRY I FULLY INTENDED FOR THAT HEADCANNON TO JUST BE ABOUT BC HAVING A SPECIAL POWER AND IT DIVERGED INTO THAT

okay one SWEET headcannon for the road. Buttercup really values quality time with her loved ones, and though she doesn’t admit it often, everytime the team + the norms have their little hang out sessions, she sees it as a time for her to chill, and it’s those times that she feels her happiest and like she can genuinely be herself without judgement from classmates or the press

thank you for the ask!! i got a random burst of inspiration that i haven’t felt in a bit when this was sent in, i appreciate you for that :))

[watchyourbluesturngolden]

cats and babies

This is the first piece I’ve ever written so if anyone sees this be nice pls and thank u

There could be typos/ weird formatting, this was typed entirely on my phone

I also feel the need to say all of my medical knowledge is from Grey’s anatomy and googling things I saw on grey’s anatomy so this is probably not that accurate ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

Word count: 6,160

Warnings: Car accidents, blood, angst (but with a v happy ending ofc bc sad endings are Not For Me), hospitals/medical stuff, again a very happy ending, I would like to emphasize the happy ending so no one gets scared away from reading this, did I mention there’s a happy ending?

"So, what'd'ya say? Chinese?"

They were deciding where to go for dinner after a long day of touring their favorite art museums. Harry and Y/N had been dating about two years now, and (cheesy as it sounds) they loved each other more and more every day. 

"Chinese sounds great," Y/N smiled, glancing over at Harry. The golden sun reflected off his curls, making him look absolutely angelic. 

He smiled, which turned into a chuckle, which turned into full blown laughter. She was confused. "What is it?" What's so hilariou- eyes on the road!!" 

"Sorry, sorry," he laughed. "Nothing, just- do you-" he breathed slowly, calming down a bit. "Do you remember the first time we had Chinese food? She blushed, laughing with him at the memory. 

Their first date had been... disastrous, to say the least. They had both been nervous, but both trying to act confident. They had decided on a nice, fancy, black tie restaurant, and Y/N was excited. When he picked her up in a limousine, she was hardly unable to contain herself.

However, their plan fell apart almost from the beginning. When they got to the place, a big red sign read "CLOSED FOR REPAIRS"

"Ooook... that's... weird," Y/N had grimaced. "What should we do now?" 

"Uh... we could... try the one a few blocks over? Yeah, that's a good place too, I know the owner. He always has a table for me. That'll work!"

Y/N hasn't quite cared about the wrench thrown into their plans. She really liked Harry so far, and she though he liked her too. So she chirped "Sure! Sounds great."

She hadn't noticed how embarrassed he looked when he opened the car door for her. He couldn't believe his luck! He was finally on a date with a girl he really liked, really wanted to impress, and the best restaurant in town closed with no notice? How could this happen? But he shook it off, climbing in after her and alerting the driver of their change of plans. 

When they got to the next place, Harry immediately got worried. It looked very crowded, and while the owner usually held a table for Harry, it didn't seem so tonight. 

He pulled out his phone.

"Hey, Luke! Yeah, I'm great! Listen, do you by any chance have a table-" He paused, and then his face fell. His voice kept its happy tone, though. "No, no problem at all, I understand. Yeah, for sure, a different night. Thank you!" He hung up, looking more than a little dejected. 

Y/N put a hand on his arm. "It's ok, I promise. I swear I didn't just agree to go out with you for the fancy food. We can go anywhere, 'Im really not upset!" 

"Agh, thank you. You're very sweet. But really, you deserve a fancy place. Only it seems everyone in the world is determined to make sure we don't get to do that," He huffed. "Maybe..." And he pulled out his phone again. He glanced at her curious face. "How do you feel about Chinese?" He asked sheepishly.

  Y/N beamed. "I love it," and there was no trace of insincerity on her face. 

"Right then, Chinese it is!" he found the closest place on his phone, telling the driver the address.

After a few minutes of eating, Y/N looked around the table for a fork. She could handle big foods, like the chicken, with the chopsticks, but definitely not the rice. 

Harry asked what she needed. She was a bit embarrassed to tell him she wasn't good enough with chopsticks to eat her rice, but he was kind about it. He helped show her how to use them without making too big of a mess. Still, she dropped half her plate on a napkin in her lap. 

At the end of their meal, Y/N burst out laughing when she picked up her napkin. Harry looked at her, confused, until she placed what was basically a full serving of rice on the table. He was also unable to contain his laughter, to which Y/N responded by throwing a few grains of rice at him. 

He threw a balled up napkin at her, and she blew a straw wrapper in his face. This escalated until she splashed what was left of her water glass on him. There was stunned silence for a moment, and Y/N thought she went too far. Then he looked at her and burst into laughter. She sighed in relief, laughing with him. "I'm sorry, that was too much," but she couldn't keep the smile off her face at the sight of the water dripping down his face.

"A little water never hurt anyone," he said, his eyes twinkling as he splashed her with his own water. 

Y/N was pulled from the happy memory of their first date when the car skidded on the ice. 

"Careful... if I'd known it was this slippery we'd have found a closer place," she said nervously.

"Nah, we've talked about this, the only good place is the one two towns over. I understand you love Minnesota and all but it is NOT the best place to find good Chinese food," he smirked.

"I will not have this Minnesota slander, not in this house. Maybe you're the issue, with your sophisticated taste and all," Y/N said, laughing at his disgruntled look. "Sophisticated? I took you for Chinese food on our first date. Nothing about that screams "sophisticated" to me." 

"Yeah, but we were dressed VERY fancy. That counts," Y/N laughed. 

"Oh really? that's what makes me sophisticated? alright then, you're right, I'm, extremely-" 

The car slid just a little too far for Y/N's liking. 

"Harry, are you sure it's safe to be driving on this? I think it's getting worse, and- look, it's starting to rain." She checked the weather on her phone. "Yeah, it's at that weird temperature where it's halfway freezing. The road will be worse on the way back." 

"I think we're ok," He reassured her. "The car has 4 wheel drive, and I'll go slow. I think the biggest danger is us not getting our Chinese food," he smiled at her. "Uh, no," Y/N said, rolling her eyes. "I'd say the biggest danger is crashing and dying in a firey car wreck." 

"Always so negative, Y/N," Harry laughed. "We're perfectly fine-" he spoke too soon, because right then the car slid again. A lot, this time. They almost slid right through a stop sign. 

Y/N clutched the armrest. 

"We're almost there, you better not kill me before I get my Chinese food, Styles. I finally know how to eat rice with chopsticks without..." She stopped halfway through her sentence because she was laughing so hard. "Without... dropping all of it on my lap." 

They dissolved into giggles, especially when Harry said, "got any more water to throw at me?" 

The car slid once more, and Y/N felt her pocket nervously. She had bought a ring for Harry. It was nothing too special, but it was the one year anniversary of the first time they had gone to an art museum together. She wanted to commemorate that with something special, so she had gone to the museum gift shop and found the perfect ring. It had a silver band, a little thinner than the rest of his, and a labradorite stone set into it. She thought it would complement his other jewelry nicely. 

She kept her hand on the little box in her pocket, careful not to make Harry suspicious. 

He wasn't looking at her, though; he was completely focused on the road. His hands gripped the wheel hard enough to turn his knuckles white. Y/N felt a little more nervous seeing this. Harry was an excellent driver, and he usually had one hand on the wheel and the other holding hers. He only gripped the wheel this tightly when he felt unsafe driving. 

Y/N looked out at the darkening sky. She was not a fan of storms, especially ones that make the roads icy. Like a true Minnesotan, she knew that under the right circumstances, a bit of rain could make it nearly impossible to drive.

A car sped past them, almost veering into their lane when it went over a particularly icy patch. 

"Harry, really, I don't know if we should keep going," Y/N said nervously.

"I know, but I'm not sure what we should do. I think it's safer to just keep going and hope the rain stops. We're about 10 minutes away, but if we turn around it's almost a 2 hour drive." 

"Yeah... you're right. It's better to just keep going. Just... go slow," Y/N said, biting the inside of her cheek. 

"Stop doing that," Harry chided in a singsong voice. 

"How can you even tell? you weren't even looking at me," Y/N laughed. 

"I know how you are when you're nervous, Y/N. Biting your cheek won't do anything but hurt." 

Y/N smiled. She had never had someone care this much about her. Someone who knew her this well, almost better than she knew herself. She was so hopelessly in love... 

She was so busy thinking about what she would say when she gave him the ring that she didn't hear the horn blaring. She looked up just in time to see the truck driving straight down the middle of the road towards them. 

She could tell instantly the driver of the truck couldn't do anything. He was sliding on the ice like they had before. Harry jerked the wheel to the right, moving the car out of the way. 

It wasn't enough.

Y/N heard a horribly loud crashing noise, and then there was nothing. 

Y/N shot straight up out of the bed she was in, gasping. Someone put their hands on her shoulders, trying to soothe her and get her to lay back down. She pushed the hands away as her vision came into focus. She was in a room filled with people and noise and 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦.

She panicked for a minute before she realized where she was. Clearly an Emergency Room. There were 4 doctors and nurses around her, checking her eyes, ears, reflexes, pulse, breathing. She threw her arms out to try and get some space. One of the nurses caught her hand, holding it in both of hers. 

"Y/N, you're alright. You're in the hospital. You were in a car accident. Do you have any pain? Whe-"

"Harry! Where's Harry?? I need to see him, I have to, I have to go-" She stuttered as she pushed the doctors away from her, trying to get up again.

  The same nurse held her back.

"Y/N, we need to make sure you're ok before you can get up. If you let us help, you'll be able to see Harry sooner. Can you lay back? Do you have any pain?"

  "No, no I'm fine, I'm ok! I need to see Harry, I need to know if he's ok! Please!" Y/N looked frantically around at the doctors, hoping one of them knew something. 

The doctor who appeared to be in charge ordered, "Someone go get an update on the guy they brought in with her. See how he's doing." 

"Thank you, thank you so much," Y/N breathed, finally laying back. 

"There we go. Do you have any pain Y/N?" The nurse asked again. 

"No, I'm totally fine. I'm- " Y/N brushed her hair out of her face. When are brought her arm down, she saw that her hand was covered in blood. "I'm bleeding!" She cried, panicking. 

"It's ok, it's not too bad," one of the doctors said, examining her head. "It looks like it'll need maybe 5 or 6 stitches. We can fix that up right away." 

Y/N closed her eyes. How had this happened? Harry moved the wheel, she knew he did. How had they crashed this badly? 

The doctor who had been sent to check on Harry came back into the room. Y/N snapped her eyes open, looking at her expectantly.

"He is stable. That's the important thing right now. However, he's been pretty badly injured. He broke his femur and clavicle. He has a small brain bleed, and he is covered in cuts from the glass. He's also pretty bruised from the airbag and seatbelt. He is intubated, because he was having some trouble breathing. He might need surgery to repair the brain bleed, but right now they're waiting and hoping it will get better on it's own." 

Y/N exhaled. "But... he's ok? I mean... he's alive?" 

The doctor smiled. "Yes. He's doing ok." 

Y/N finally allowed herself to breathe. She noticed she was crying but she didn't do anything to wipe her tears away. 

"Ok, Y/N," said the doctor stitching up her face. "I'm finished here. You need to stay here for a little while longer so we can monitor you. There is an IV in your arm to keep you hydrated. If you need anything, call for a nurse. Also, and this is important, don't get out of this bed without someone helping you. You've been through a lot today, but the adrenaline is wearing off, which might make you feel shaky. Do you need anything right now?" 

"No, I'm... I'm fine. Thank you," Y/N said, wiping her eyes. 

After he left her bed, she felt her pocket. She breathed a sigh of relief when she felt the ring still there. Then she mentally kicked herself for being worried about a silly ring when Harry was... no. She wouldn't let herself think that. Harry was 𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦. They were both alive, and they were both ok.

About an hour later, a nurse came in. After confirming that she felt totally fine, Y/N anxiously asked when she could see Harry. 

"I'm sorry, the ICU is family only," The nurse said. She really did look sorry, but this did nothing to make Y/N feel better. 

"I- I'm his wife!" Y/N said quickly, not even thinking. She most definitely was 𝘯𝘰𝘵 his wife. She wasn't even his fiancee. She slipped the ring from her pocket onto her finger, then held up her hand to the nurse. 

The nurse pretended not to notice the fact that the ring hadn't been there before, and that the ring was easily a size too big. "Oh! Then of course you can see him," She said, helping Y/N off the bed slowly. "I'll take you to his room." 

"Thank you so much," Y/N said, taking her first few steps slowly. 

"Careful- you're still attached to this IV pole," The nurse said, adjusting the tubing so it wasn't in her way. "You can hold onto it for support- yes, just like that." 

Y/N got more nervous with every step towards Harry's room. What would he look like? Would he be in pain? Would he know who she was? Would he... be mad at her? 

When she walked into his room, she almost started crying all over again. He looked, well, awful. He was covered in cuts and bruises. He had several tubes and wires connected to him, as well as a large tube taped in his mouth. He had a cast on his leg and a sling on his arm.

Y/N looked at the nurse who was taking his vitals. 

"How is he?" She asked in a small voice. 

"He's ok for now. He is stable, which is very good. He's unconscious, but we hope to see him wake up soon. You can sit with him, hold his hand, talk to him. If you need anything, just press the call button." 

She left, leaving Y/N and Harry alone. This time, she really did start crying. This was awful, and it was all her fault. She was the one who wanted to go for Chinese food. She was the one who picked today, the first wintery stormy day of the year to go for a long drive. And now.. 

"Harry... Harry I'm so sorry," Y/N said, sniffling. She held onto his hand, the one that wasn't attached to a broken collarbone.  "This is all my fault, and now you're... and I got off with nothing but a cut on my forehead, and it's not fair and I'm so sorry," She let out a sob. 

She continued on like this, crying and talking and crying some more, for a few hours, before she fell asleep in the chair next to him. She woke up around 9 the next morning with a stiff next and puffy eyes. She looked at his face, still covered in bruises, and kissed his hand. The nurse came in to check on him and told Y/N to go get some breakfast, reminding her that she couldn't care for Harry if she didn't care for herself. Y/N reluctantly agreed, going as fast as she could. The nurse had disconnected her IV sometime in the night, and she could move much faster without it. 

She got back to the room with her bagel and resumed her position in the chair right next to Harry. She talked to him as if he was awake, imagining she heard his beautiful voice responding to her. 

She had managed to keep the crying to a minimum today. She kept telling herself that if- no, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 Harry woke up, she didn't want to look like a monster with red eyes. 

Her phone had been found by some paramedics, so she found Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone online and began to read to him. It was a little weird, but Harry loved these books, especially when he was sick.

Y/N was used to just imagining she heard his voice with her in the room, but suddenly she heard something that wasn't her. She gasped. 

"He's choking!! Nurse!!" She yelled for help, frantically pushing the call button. "Help!" 

Several nurses rushed in. One ushered Y/N back and out of the room, telling her to give them space to work. 

"What's- What's happening? What are they doing??" Y/N tried to go back in, but the nurse held her shoulders. 

"He's trying to breathe over the tube, Y/N. That's a very good sign. It means he's breathing on his own," The nurse said, trying to keep Y/N calm. 

"Does- does that mean he's waking up?" Y/N asked, not wanting to get her hopes up. 

"Not for sure, but it's a very good sign."

After a few minutes, the nurses came out of Harry's room, looking excited. "Y/N, he's awake! He's very groggy and can't speak yet, but he is definitely awake. You can go in and sit with him again if you'd like. We gave him some more medicine for the pain, so you have about 15 minutes to talk before he starts going a little..." She made a swirling motion next to her head. 

Y/N didn't care if he was high on morphine. She just cared that he was alive and awake and didn't... hate her. 

Harry was laying in the bed, looking at her with great concern in his tired eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but no noise came out. Y/N rushed over to take his hand. 

"It's ok, they said you might not be able to talk for a little while yet. It's ok, I'm here, it's ok," Y/N said, smoothing his hair. 

Harry cleared his throat, coughing. He gestured toward the water cup on his side table. 

"Oh, of course." Y/N picked up the pitcher and poured him a glass, setting it in his good hand. 

He raised the straw shakily to his lips as   Y/N watched carefully to make sure he didn't spill. She gently lifted the cup out of his hands when he held it up to her.

His small smile was enough to make Y/N cry all over again.

"Oh, Harry," She cried, holding her head in her hands. "It's all my fault. I'm so sorry this happened, I did this to you- you almost died!" 

"W-what?"

Y/N whipped her head up. "You can talk?" She said, overjoyed.

Harry coughed and spoke again. "Of course I can talk." 

His voice was rough and it sounded like it hurt everytime he spoke, but it was the most beautiful thing Y/N had ever heard. 

"What are you talking about, it's all your fault?" He rasped, looking utterly confused. "What even happened?" 

With tears leaking from her eyes, Y/N explained all she knew, which still wasn't much. Harry remembered everything as she told him, both their eyes watering as her voice shook.

"Why... why're you crying? Does your forehead hurt? I can call the nurse..." He reached for the call button.

"No, no, I'm ok," She took his hand in hers. "I'm just so sorry, because it honestly is my fault, I'm the one who wanted Chinese food and picked 𝘵𝘰𝘥𝘢𝘺 of all days to drive 2 hours away and-" 

He cut her off by raising his finger to her lips. 

"It's not your fault... it's mine. I'm the one who convinced you the only good Chinese food is so far away and I'm the one who was driving. I couldn't keep you safe..." 

Harry had never looked so sad. 

"No!" Y/N exclaimed. "Do you not see me right now? I'm absolutely fine, you did keep me safe. You swerved out of the way... wait a minute," She paused, realization hitting her. "You didn't think we could avoid the truck at all, did you? You knew it would hit us either way, but you made sure it would hit as far from me as possible." 

Harry looked down. "I figured you're more important than me, I had to do what I could."

"Harry Styles!" Y/N whisper-yelled. "If you weren't so 𝘪𝘯𝘫𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘥 I would 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘬 you right now! How could you do that? How could you put yourself in 𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 like that?" 

"Oh, that's actually why I got so injured, because I knew you'd try to hit me for this," He smiled charmingly at Y/N. She just scowled. 

"Did you really expect me to just say, "oh well, guess she's a goner! bye Y/N! nice knowin' ya!" No, of course not. Of course I'd put myself in danger for you. Always." 

Y/N's lip trembled. "Why do you have to be so romantic after you do such stupid things? it makes it really hard to stay mad at you," She said, wiping her eyes. 

"Yeah, that was the goal there," He laughed. 

Then he caught sight of the ring on her finger.

"That's pretty, when did you get that?" He mock gasped. "Did you get engaged while I was in a coma?" 

“No," Y/N laughed. "It's funny actually. I bought it from the museum gift shop. I wanted to give it to you as a present, for the anniversary of the first time we went there together. I was going to give it to you over Chinese food, and it was going to be 𝘢𝘸𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 and 𝘯𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘨𝘪𝘤 and 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘶𝘭." 

Harry smiled. "That's lovely of you, darling. Why... why's it on your finger though?" 

"Oh! right." Y/N sheepishly pulled the ring off her finger. "They wouldn't let me see you because I'm not family, so I threw it on and said we were married," She said, blushing furiously. "Sorry about that." 

Harry smiled. "Why are you sorry?" 

"Um... we're 𝘯𝘰𝘵 married... so... I don't know, I just thought you might think it's weird, or, something..."  Y/N finished lamely. She held the ring out to him. 

"Happy anniversary." 

"Why don't you keep it?" 

"Right, of course, you don't need a reminder of this day," Y/N slipped the ring back into her pocket, on the verge of tears because she messed up 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯.

"No, that's not... I meant, why don't you keep it... on your finger?" 

She pulled the ring out of her pocket again, looking confused. "Why?" 

Harry plucked it out of her hand, holding it up to her. "Because I want you to marry me," He said, slipping it onto her finger with the sweetest smile she had ever seen. 

Y/N smiled at him. "It's ok, Harry, you're very high on all the painkillers right now. I won't hold you to anything you say," She laughed a little. 

"I'm not... why would I be on painkiller... oh yeah," Harry grinned, looking around. "I remember why I'm high right now." 

"Riiight." 

"I might be high, but I still want to marry you," he said is a singsong voice. 

Y/N laughed. "Harry, why don't we talk about this when you're sober, ok?"

Harry pouted. "Please? Please marry me? I love you, and you're so pretty, and you're so nice to animals..." He started crying, apparently at how nice Y/N was to animals. "And... a cat! We can get a cat together!" 

"Harry, baby, don't cry, of course we can get a cat," She gently wiped the tears from his bruised face. 

"I won't stop crying until you say you'll marry me," Harry said defiantly, gripping    Y/N's arm. "Pleeeaaase?" 

"Ok, Harry, yes, I will marry you. Sure. You can stop crying now, ok?" 

"That's good, I'm glad, because you're my favorite person, and I looooove you, and you're my baaaaby..." 

At this point Harry was just singing random words, usually circling back to "baaaaby" and "looooove youuuu". 

Y/N felt happy for the first time in what felt like years, while really it had been less than 24 hours. 

Eventually, he wanted to see the ring again. Y/N held up her hand and he gasped. 

"It's so beautiful! I'll buy you a real one though, a real ring for our real wedding. Then we'll get a real house and have real babies, and a real cat," He said, with the dopiest grin Y/N had ever seen. 

"Oh? We'll have babies, huh? How many babies will we have?" 

"3," He answered quickly. "Two girls and a boy. No... 4. Two of each. That way they won't team up one of them." 

"Oh, sounds like you've thought about this a lot," Y/N laughed.

  "Every single day since we started dating, you know why?" 

"Why?" 

He motioned for her to lean closer.

  "Because I looooove you," He sang in her ear.

She pulled back, kissing his swollen cheek. 

"You're a sweetheart," She said affectionately. 

"So're you," He smiled. 

"I kind of like drugged Harry," Y/N laughed. "He's very cute." 

"Drugged Harry also likes drugged Harry, he feels like he's floating." 

"Oh, so drugged Harry talks about himself in the third person?" 

"He does now!" Harry smiled at her again. "Drugged Harry is tired... he's just going to..." 

Then the monitors started beeping rapidly. Several nurses ran in, bustling around and shouting various medical terminology. Another nurse ushered Y/N out of Harry's room for the second time that day. 

"No! No, I need to stay with him! I can't-"

"Shh... it's alright. They're going to do everything they can to help him. You have to let them help him. Why don't we go to the waiting room?"

Y/N exhaled shakily. If she couldn't stay with Harry, she might as well sit instead of hovering around the corner. 

"Yes, let's go to the waiting room," She said, after a few deep breaths. 

Y/N had been sitting on the waiting room for what felt like an eternity, but a glance at her phone told her it had only been 45 minutes. 

A woman in a surgical gown approached her, and Y/N stood up quickly. "What happened?" She asked immediately.

"Unfortunately, your husband's brain bleed did not resolve itself like we had hoped. He is in surgery, and for right now he's doing well," the surgeon said, looking sympathetic. 

"Ok... why did the monitors freak out? Did his heart stop? Is he going to wake up from surgery?" 

"The monitors went off because his heart was having trouble, but they were able to resuscitate him through CPR and defibrillation. It's too soon to know if he will wake up, but the surgeon is hopeful. I will come back to update you as soon as I can."

"Ok, thank you," Y/N said, sinking back into her chair.

  She felt a pain in her chest, like real, actual pain. What would she do without Harry? How would she live with herself, knowing he died trying to save her? 

She caught a glimpse of the ring on her finger and choked back a sob. Would she tell people she was engaged? No, of course not. Harry had been completely out of his mind when he'd asked her. 

She slumped down in her chair, wanting to curl up and cry. Instead, she called her mom. Through her tears, she explained everything that happened. 

"Oh, honey," Her mom sighed. "I'm so sorry. I'm on my way. I'll be there in about 7 hours, I'm sorry it'll take so long. Do you want to stay on the phone with me?"

  "No, I can't," Y/N sniffled. "I have to call Harry's family."

  "Do you want me to do that? I wouldn't mind, they're-"

"No, mom, thank you, but I should. I- I'm going to go. Love you," Y/N said, hanging up the phone. 

Checking her phone, Y/N realized it was the middle of the night in London where Harry's family lived. She didn't think she should wait, so she called Anne without another thought. 

"Oh, Y/N, I'm so sorry. We're getting the soonest flight. We won't be there until tomorrow morning. Will you be alright alone? Is your mother coming?" 

"Yes, my mom's on her way. I'm ok, thank you," Y/N said, rubbing her eyes. 

After she hung up the phone, it set in just how exhausted she was. She had slept poorly the night before, because of the awkwardness of sleeping in a chair and because she was so, so, worried for Harry.

She drifted into a fitful sleep where she dreamed of cars crashing, rings flying around, and Harry standing just out of her reach. He was like a rainbow, the closer she got to him, the more he faded. 

She startled awake and realized there were tears on her face. She checked her phone, seeing that it had only been 3 hours.  

She saw the same woman from before approaching her, this time wearing just scrubs. 

Y/ N stood to meet her. 

"Harry is out of surgery and doing well. We were able to repair the brain bleed. His heart stopped on the table," Y/N gasped at this, "But we were able to get him back. His ribs will be very sore and possibly even broken. All that aside, he is doing well, Mrs. Styles, and you can see him now," She said, Leading Y/N to the elevator. 

Her breath trembled as they walked towards his room. 

Harry was laying in his bed, looking like a fragile child. Even though he was so much bigger than her, right now he seemed so... small. 

Y/N looked at the nurse, asking to sit with him. She nodded and explained that two of his ribs were fractured and his collarbone would hurt him a lot when he woke up. 

Y/N held his hand with a featherlight touch, unwilling to jostle him even the smallest bit. 

After about an hour of her reading to him, she felt a small movement, barely even noticeable. Was it...?

She felt another movement. This time she was sure of it. He was squeezing her hand.

"I'm here Harry, I'm right here," She soothed,  moving her chair closer to him.

  He groaned sleepily before opening his emerald eyes and looking at her.

  "Hi," he smiled, squeezing her hand again. 

"Hi," Y/N said, crying more than a little bit. 

"What... did... are you ok?" Harry's brow furrowed. He seemed to have a hundred questions, but he settled on asking how she was. 

"Yes, Harry, I'm ok. How do you feel?" 

"Hurts," he said, closing his eyes. "But if you're ok, so am I." 

Y/N kissed his hand. "I see drugged Harry is still here? The one that is 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 cute and sweet?" 

"No, he's not. This is just regular Harry. I can tell because everything 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 hurts," He said with a small grimace.

"Oh, I'll get the nurse. They'll give you something," Y/N started to get up, but Harry's grip on her hand tightened. 

"Wait," he said pulling her back to him. "Before they make me go all loopy, I just want to say-" He paused, looking at the ring on her finger. "I love you, to my fiancee. I think it counts more when I'm not high." 

"Your- your fiancee? Harry, I told you I wouldn't hold you to anything you said before. You weren't in your right mind at all, I didn't even think you'd remember saying all that." 

"Yeah, but I remember asking you to marry me and you said yes. You might not be holding me to anything I said, but I'm holding you to that," He grinned. "You really want to deny a dying man his last... dying... wish?" 

Harry flopped his good arm dramatically over his forehead, wincing at the motion. Y/N helped him slowly lower it again. 

"First of all, you're not dying. Secondly, I don't want you to go through with this because you feel obligated, or because you think I'll be upset if you aren't ready to propose. It's totally fine, I promise, but why don't we talk about this when you're feeling better?" 

"No, I feel fine," He insisted.

Y/N gave him a look. "Really? You do? Aren’t you the one who just needed help moving your arm?" 

"Irrelevant. I feel fine, like, mentally. If you don't think you're ready to be engaged to me, that's ok. But don't say no because you think I didn't mean it. I did, with every part of me. I love you, and I want you to be my wife." 

"...Really?" Y/N asked, cheeks heating up.

"Really," Harry smiled. 

"And according to drugged Harry, you want to have a cat and 4 children." 

Harry laughed, wincing immediately.

"Don't make me laugh, my chest really hurts," He said, still holding her hand. 

"Sorry, sorry, they said you have some broken ribs. Also your collarbone. Also your femur. Geez, Styles, you're kind of a mess," You laughed. 

"Yeah, really," He smiled. "But seriously, will you? Will you be my wife?" 

"Of course I will, Harry. I love you so much, of course I will," Y/N said, gently kissing his cheek. 

"Great," Harry beamed at her. "Now that we've worked that out, can you get the nurse? Drugged Harry is ready to make a comeback." 

"Oh, right, sorry," Y/N said, reaching over for the call button. 

The nurse came in, giving Harry more medicine. 

"You'll start to have some relief within a few minutes," She said, leaving them alone again.  

"One more thing Y/N," Harry said. She could already tell he was a little more relaxed. "I have to get you a ring!" 

Y/N smiled, holding up her hand. "I already have one, remember?" 

Harry waved her hand away. "No, no, a bride can't buy her own ring! What kind of... chivalrous... gentleman... would I be if I didn't buy you a beautiful ring?" 

"Ok, Harry, as soon as you get out of here, we'll go ring shopping," Y/N promised. 

"And... to the cat shelter? You said we could get a cat... a kitty, a cat, a little kitty cat..." 

Harry had started singing mumbled words about cats and love and babies. Y/N knew it was going to be a long night. Still, she had never been happier.

[whump-town]

Puzzle Peices

Warnings: the vague mention of Emily smoking, child abuse bc Hotch, and major character death but like... not heavy

No pairings

Just not the best but I haven't managed to write anything in like forever and this happened today so what the hell?

As a boy, Jack had thought his father something akin to a knight. Adorned in an armor that he could not peel away as simply as the suits he wore to work each morning. As humble as a knight and lucrative in speech and behavior as only one from the highest order. A right hand to the queen, though Jack could never decipher exactly who that was. Perhaps one of his aunts. Many times he’d seen a customary bow out of his father, carrying a wailing Henry around to give his mother a break or moving Penelope’s couch around to as many absurd places as she requested. Even as protective, as demanding as one. Dragging himself limping and bleeding home to recount a lie meant for Jack’s ears only for Emily to tell him, hushed by the late hour of the night and the novelty of time spent together, that his father had done something heroic. Brave but so very stupid.

Bravery, Jack would come to understand, in his father had always been linked in arm with stubbornness.

He was four when his mother died, too young to understand exactly what had happened. He wasn’t alone in that confusion. The circumstances of her death had been abnormal. No one seemed to be able to understand, least of all his father. Who had held her body in his arms. Who had been pried away, sedated to get him out of the house. Now laying supine and dazed. Repeating his slurred questions for anyone willing to answer them a third time.

Haley had been an attentive mother and with his father’s attention hazed in and out by drugs, Jack had felt the startling icy fingers of solitude seeping into his bones for the first time in his life. Never before had he been so alone. His mother dead and his father stumbling to follow after. Startled into silence he’d sat by his father’s bedside, left swaddled in his suit jacket to wait out the instruction of an adult more put together than Hotch.

Jack remembers his father’s weak cries, his voice dried out and confused. Asking again and again for Haley, until he couldn’t even manage to get words to pass his pale lips. Until his dark eyes sunk shut.

Jessica took him in her arms that night, a habit she formed that day in the hospital and never kicked until he was too big to collect like a baby and nestle in her lap, and told him about his parents. A story mutilated time and time again to create an almost, not even a half-truth. His mother, the prom queen, and his father the too shy, too reserved bad boy. About the night she won the crown and tore out of that dance with her fancy, expensive prom dress to go dance with his father. The delinquent who had been expelled the week before, who couldn’t attend the dance but was adamant she go without him.

But Jack couldn’t imagine his father like that. Only as he is now, only as he has always been in Jack’s memory. The past he could see written out on his father’s flesh, a roadmap that dated him back to this boy Jack could not comprehend him as. Scars raised like mount peaks and valleys of tissue and muscle that Jack traced his fingers along, hoping to catch a version of the truth in their layers. There was still a boy in the depths of his father’s aged eyes. In his falter to punish Jack, never raising a hand but losing control of his voice. In the hot tears that streamed down his face in the aftermath, in the way that Jack felt more guilt over those tears than what he’d actually done. Sometimes in his father’s light, jovial laughter Jack could catch a glimpse of that boy. The one Jessica could only whisper about, the one she’d thought was buried alongside Haley.

How could his father have ever been so young? Knocked around by emotions too strong for such small bodies. In part, Jack couldn’t understand it because he knew nothing of his father’s childhood. He could trace his fingers along scars and date them by his father’s willingness to speak about them. Accidents, the majority of them. The clumsy stumblings of a twenty-seven-year-old, a story to be told with a gently sad smile. Refocused narratives that tell him more about his mother than the scar. Gunshot wounds and horror movies slasher bad guys with knives. Those were the stories told by the light of the lamp on his bedside table. Told in the low grumble of his father’s sleepy voice, ones Hotch didn’t even look to see just laid there and knew by touch which ones were being inquired upon.

It was the scars on the great expanse of his chest, the perfect circles on his wrists and by his elbows that deserved no comment. That Jack learned to know better than to ask about.

“My father smoked a lot,” Hotch began but his eyes would get this haze and he’d fall silent before shaking his head. “Don’t worry about it buddy,” he’d decide instead. Keeping to himself the secrets of those scars. Bit by bit Jack still learned to put together the intricate truths until he understood for himself how those perfect circles made their way onto his father’s arms. Until he understood why Emily never smoked around his father and why she always did her best to stop. His father’s impressive armor torn to shred in Jack’s curious fingers and he no longer wished to understand the human underneath.

His father was unforgivingly private.

Never prone to gossip nor betrayed secrets, or pried into Jack’s life. He asked about grades when he felt it necessary but trusted that if there was a problem, he’d know about it. He never went through Jack’s room, wouldn’t even take out old laundry or pick up dirty dishes. If asked he’d give one of his solemn nods but never followed it with a comment. Never passed judgment on Jack’s frequently messy room, simply went in and left. It never occurred to Jack he’d do anything different. That he’d search through his drawers or scold him for his mess. The boundaries were set. Parent and child and Hotch did not easily forgive these boundaries being scorned in others.

Jack did not find it easy to reciprocate these boundaries with his father.

His gravely sullen father had only ever interested him. The moment his father left in the mornings or in the death of night Jack would find himself in his father’s room. Unzipping the bags holding those larger than life dry-cleaned suits, softly rubbing at the material. Hoping to find something, a puzzle piece to connect to the choppy image he has of his father. Not even the pictures Jack found of the closet answered his questions. There were pictures of his mother, countless in their abundance with his father appearing seldom. Always in the corner, just out of focus.

That’s how most people see his father. The figure standing just to the side of the action and out of focus.

Between the ages of four and sixteen, Jack heard over a dozen versions of the story about his mother being crowned prom queen. He’d seen pictures of her that young, understood why it was that people liked her so easily. She had effortless charm but Jack was left with his father’s fumbling shy ways, reserved where his mother was bright and cheery. Over the course of that time, the story changed a little every time it was told.

Jack placed his own version, understood what parts were truths and what parts were not.

That night Hotch hadn’t been at the prom (that part is always the same) but it wasn’t because he was expelled, he was in the hospital. There’s a scar on the back of his neck, unphased by time and still thick and ugly despite the decades it’s had to heal. Hotch had flipped his old truck the week of the prom, laid up pretty bad in the hospital. Bad enough Haley had been afraid to leave him for the night. Hadn’t wanted to leave him alone that long or even to go have fun without him. She had gone but only because he’d begged her to and when she’d won she hadn’t even waited for her dance. She’d come back to the hospital in her flowing gown and crown, plucked the silly thing down in his messy hair, and decided she was saving her dance for him.

He’d danced with her three weeks later. Having worked hard to stand again, nurses and his physical therapist standing close by just in case he couldn’t make it through the whole song but he had. She was wearing a summer dress and he was wearing her crown.

But he doesn’t learn this in one fell swoop.

On his seventeenth birthday, he walks out of his bedroom, shuffling outside in his boxers and still squinting through the sun when keys are pressed into his hand. A truck, “I had a similar one when I was your age”, and the customary crooked smile his father often wore when speaking about his childhood. Later that night he’d ask what Hotch’s truck had been like, why he got a truck of all things. And, in the spirit of the day and because at night Hotch was always a little more willing, to tell the truth, Hotch had told him about his truck.

He’d spent two summers saving up for it. Working towards his license and the truck and saving to ensure he could keep it on the road. He’d flipped it when he was eighteen. That’s why he hadn’t made it to see Haley crowned prom queen.

But that wasn’t the full truth either.

Hotch really did flip his truck but those injuries were minimal enough he’d driven home and there his father beat him within an inch of his life. The sort of injuries that left nothing but a gaping hole in Hotch’s memory and the need for a story to tell the nurses. With enough panic and tears, they made it through the E.R. and no one mentioned the lack of blood in the cab of the truck or the hand-shaped bruise wrapped around Hotch’s throat. They noticed. They had to but no one said anything.

Jack doesn’t learn about that truth until he’s in college, old enough to cave to curiosity and far enough away from his father to lack the guilt he should have for prying. He’d spent an afternoon looking over newspaper articles from that time. One article is dedicated to the beautiful, radiant Haley Brooks. All charm and intelligence, no one could think of a better girl to win prom queen. The other a hazy black and white photo of that old pick-up truck and his father, so young Jack can’t believe it’s really him, laying in a hospital bed. A tube down his throat but his eyes opened to slivers, giving the camera a thumbs up.

Jessica tells him about the dance and how serious the injuries had really been. She was only a little bit older than his parents but she’d still been young. Scared watching in slow motion as the weight drop off of Hotch. Leaving him skeletal and so still. They moved him around, kept a walker at hand to try and get him to move but most of the time he couldn’t even manage to hold himself upright. The night of the prom he’d been sitting in a chair by the bed, moved to try and make it look like he’d done it by himself. All for the benefit of Haley. All the nurses were in on it, he’d been hard to argue with during these days. No one really knew if he’d make it and it made his soft request impossible to deny.

So Haley had been welcomed by his illusion, blankets covering the chest tube in his side and pillows sitting him up. Her aim for the night was to stay here with him, another request she knew would be breaking the rules but they were just so hard to say no to. But he’d been adamant, breathlessly fighting with her, until he won. She’d caved seeing him gasping for breath, shaking under the exertion it was taking to fight with her. So she went.

Jack grew obsessed with these stories.

Held onto every piece of his father that anyone was willing to tell him about.

Collected newspapers about him. Articles he was mentioned in. Watched interviews. His intense search for his father made it feel more like Hotch was the dead parent. The one just out of his grasp but Haley had always been available to him. He had home videos of her. Photos in bountiful supply. Stories from everyone who had ever known her. He knew about her childhood. He knew she broke her ankle when she was eight and that Roy had been impatient with her. Harder on her because he thought she was too soft, too comforting and he knew someone would take advantage of that.

His father… there was only mystery.

So Hotch was everywhere Jack could put him. In pictures when he was four. Drawn out like a wisp of smoke, dark and thinly stretching up towards the sky. In the stories he fought out with action figures. The broken hero there to save the day at the very last minute. Crashing through the ceiling, shouting down the hall. The hero.

Hotch always encouraged an open, broad education. Boy scouts. Soccer. Swim team. Drama club. Writing classes. Two semesters of ASL. One semester of Arabic. It didn’t matter if Jack stopped the swim team after three months, so long as he learned something. Hotch hadn’t cared that Jack gave up soccer after sophomore year of high school. Not even when the coaches called and begged him to make Jack keep going. Jack was good but Jack hadn’t wanted to play anymore, so he didn’t.

Jack preferred writing.

Writing out his stories when he thought himself too old for those action figures, even if he keeps the collection under his bed in a tote. Sitting for hours recounting every detail Jessica or Roy or Emily or Dave could give him about his father. Constructing a story for the man he thought without one. Until he had one. Put together slowly through the course of years and bound loosely together. As rough and uneven as his father’s skin.

The one book that remains unpublished.

The one Jack can’t bring himself to speak of. It’s not his story to tell. It’s not even his story to know. But he learned a great deal about his father. That he really can read Jack’s mind but chooses not to. How most people regard his father as this thing to look past or as something akin to a dancing flame, edging around his larger-than-life presence afraid to be burned.

It’s how Jack knows he’s dying.

Writing about people had made him something of a profile. That and growing up with a man like his father had meant a lot of silence, communicating through side-eyed glances and grunts. His partners always hate it, “don’t motion at me, just speak Jack. Tell me what you want”. But the silence is a blessing.

Emily thought it was funny that Jack had found a partner worth marrying in James, a deaf man. His father had nothing to say on the matter but it was funny, they all could see that. No one could deny that.

But with James, the silence was never questioned. It was natural to answer James with his hands, to never shatter the silence his father had taught him to treasure.

“Your father,” James signs one night, the two of them stretched out in Dave’s lawn just watching the ever-growing crowd of his family dance. “Your father is odd.” It takes Jack a long moment to understand. In the ways that Jack is bad about not answering his phone and spending far too many hours at his desk writing, James has a brutal way with words. And not in the “brutal” way that Jack’s publicist compliments him on. In a way that leaves much to be desired.

Jack brushes it off, “he’s always been odd.” But he sees it. He knows what James means.

Hotch is standing a few feet away, eyes watching Hank and the younger kids, while Dave and Emily talk on. His attention not on them at all. There’s something in his eyes, Jack can’t tell what the expression is but it’s not good. It’s a type of sullen he hasn’t seen in a very long time. Not since he was just a little boy sitting by the hospital bed, asking for his mother and hating how confused and weak his father was.

They don’t actually talk about it. When Jack gets a call from the hospital, that his father has had a procedure and can’t drive himself home, he goes without comment. Pulls up with milkshakes and takes him home. Double checks things around the house before setting himself up in the old office, and getting to work. James shows up once he’s off work, welcomed into their easy silence.

James tries to get one of them to say something. He mentions it several times, asks Jack if he’s going to force a confession or not. Jack gets another call, his father’s in the hospital with pneumonia and they needed to contact the next of kin. It’s right there. Jack’s spent his entire life pushing at his father’s for more, to tell him something and now he can’t bring himself to ask, to pry and find out.

So they don’t.

They don’t ever talk about it.

It’s dark now. The bedroom door kept shut to muffle the sounds of the others moving throughout the house. To stifle the rounds of sobs taking them all by surprise. Fine one moment and torn the next.

Jack sits softly on the side of the bed, careful not to jostle the mattress too much. “Hey, dad.” He knows his father can’t see him well, his glasses on the nightstand, and the room too dark. He smiles when he hears his name rasped back, just the thin parting of Hotch’s lips. “James is gonna come in soon,” he promises. “He’s just giving us a minute.” He’s thirty-some years old and he realizes he never came out to his father. Just held a string of girlfriends and boyfriends until James. Of course, he’d been nervous to bring anyone home but he’d never stopped to think to warn his father who he might bring home.

“I love you.”

They’ve always said it a thousand other ways but this time it feels like too much. Too heavy. Too painful. Jack starts to cry, big heaving sobs until he can’t breathe. Consumed by his grief until he curls over himself and leans into the palm Hotch puts his cheek. Lays his head down on his father’s chest and allows himself to be held, to seek comfort like a little boy. Drawn in by thin arms and held close.

James comes in at some point.

Jacks only sort of aware of the two of them talking over him.

This is goodbye.

What had he thought he’d find at the end of this puzzle? It’s done. He put it together. He figured it out.

James folds Jack into his arms and Jack can only cry harder. Recognizes the shift is made. The way James is now the person who’s supposed to love and protect him. That his father’s role in his life has come to an end.

The mystery has died.

[kimnjss]

best friend | loy!smau

⤑ series: less of you

⤑ pairing: fratboy!jimin + dancer!reader

⤑ genre: angst!!

⤑ rating: PG13.

⤑ word count: 3.9K

⤑ warnings: kinda sad idk.

⤑ chapter song: the knowing // the weeknd

⤑ A/N: another written chapter because this just would not!! work as a text part. read it and let me know what you think bc all im gonna say is... yall..... 

DECEMBER 23RD, 2019 | 17:34

[17:34] she's my girlfriend: just to push it a few hours... or maybe rain check for tomorrow? promise to make it up to you.

“'We'll go to the place you like this time, hm?'” Jimin reads the thread of messages flooding his phone sent from you out loud. Back slouched against the couch, mind working a mile a minute to figure out what kind of emergency could Miju be having right now. And why were you always so willing to drop everything to be there for her.

Being bitter was the last thing that he wanted. Rocky roads with your best friend are something that takes a long while to sort out for girls, he could see that. Just hoped that you'd soon realize that something's gotta give. That he wouldn't always be so keen on letting Miju shift the plans that he made for the two of you.

All of this could definitely be fueled by the fact he's now pushing telling you what he should have a long while ago until the next time you were both free to spend time together. It won't be that bad, right?

[17:36] to – she's my girlfriend: yeah, baby. it's fine. if things clear up before late, let me know nd ill come pick you up.

The best he could do at this point, he'd just wait for you to have a free moment. He was done pushing this off, knew that speaking to you should've been at the top of his list since he found out about it. Would've been able to do it today if it wasn't for Miju. Would there ever be a time where he wasn't falling second to her?

“What's with the scowl on you face?” Yoongi's voice is breaking through Jimin's thoughts as he crosses the living room, entering the kitchen. He rummages through the cabinets before pulling down a box of cereal, head cocked to be able to see Jimin who's shifting his position on the couch.

“Yn canceled on me.” Saying it out loud made him feel shittier than he had been originally. What kind of boyfriend couldn't buck up when their girl had important matters to tend to? Got sulky because she needed to handle an emergency. At least she had the decency to text him about it, right?

You could've just stood him up.

Yoongi doesn't stop the snorted laughter that falls from his lips, shaking a large amount of cereal into an even larger bowl. He moves toward the fridge to fish out the half-finished carton of milk he hid behind Joonie's growing vegetable collection.

“What she finally get tired of you?” A lighthearted joke directed to his best friend that has Jimin's eyes rolling instantly. He rises to enter the kitchen where his friend had just sat at the island.

See? Why couldn't girls make up like this? Had, had his own dispute with Yoongi weeks ago and they were back on speaking terms – the normal way. No need for some serious sit down that wasted both of their time. Just the understanding of who was in the wrong and the changes that needed to be made to fix it. 

Girls were too emotional, always wanted to talk and talk about everything when really?? telling someone when they're being an asshole is the most effective form of friendship counseling in Jimin's opinion.

“Yeah, right. She's crazy about me.” Jimin gloats, reaching for the cereal box Yoongi had left out and pulling a handful out. “That girl had some type of emergency so she wanted to reschedule... help her sort it out,” He shrugs his shoulders, opening his palm to pick out the marshmallow pieces instead.

“Her friend? You mean Miju?” Nodding, Jimin drops the cardboard tasting pieces back into the box, dusting his hands off in front of him. “Wait. Miju told Yn that she had an emergency which made Yn cancel on you?”

With a short laugh and a roll of his eyes, Jimin is nodding again. “Yes, that's what I just said. You feeling alright, buddy?” He teases, not noticing the perplexed look on his best friend's face.

It takes a few short seconds for Yoongi to put the pieces together, eyes widening at his realization. There's no way she'd do anything like that, right? He had been talking to her for weeks and it seemed like she had given up on her whole 'catch them in the act' plan. But this wasn't catching them in the act, this was just... wrong?

And there was Jimin, no the wiser, picking marshmallow pieces out of the cereal box without a care in the world. He had to tell him. That's what any self-respecting best friend would do. Especially with the growing regret in the pit of his belly, the knowledge of the mistake he made with letting the information slip.

The last thing he thought Miju would do was try and ruin this for Yn. Had it set in his mind that if she was able to get through this maturely with his help then she'd start looking at him the way that he had hoped she would. Maybe he was wrong.

That was a conversation for later, though. Right now, he had to prepare Jimin for the shit storm that was coming. The shit storm that he had unintentionally caused when he refused to mind his business.

“I don't think Miju actually has an emergency...”

DECEMBER 23RD, 2019 | 17:49

 With a quick tap to your thumb over the blue button, your promise to try and make it tonight was being sent to your boyfriend. Ooh, your boyfriend. Just thinking sent a flutter through your chest.

Your boyfriend. Jimin. Park Jimin was your boyfriend. Yours. And you were his. And finally, you were starting to feel comfortable with him. Despite everything. It was like nothing could put a damper on the shine in your heart.

Not even the walk up to Miju's front door, knowing the conversation you were about to have. The conversation that you were going to have to force onto her no matter how much she tried to fight it. You were done feeling guilty, you were done lying to her. Finally ready to just be at peace with Jimin and if she wanted to support you great, but if not?? too bad.

Definitely, Jeongguk speaking, but you were sticking to it. If she didn't want to support you, then too bad!

The front door is swinging open before you even have the chance to knock. Miju stands opposite of you, wearing a pair of frilly shorts and a tank top despite the chilly weather outside. She greets you with a large smile, waving you into her warm home while stepping out of the way for you to enter.

DECEMBER 23RD, 2019 | 17:47

“You told her!?” Words can't describe how angry... how betrayed Jimin feels right now. Out of all the low things he could imagine someone he had referred to as a close friend doing to him? This had to be the lowest.

It wasn't a secret that he wasn't a huge fan of Miju, so why did Yoongi think that it would be a good idea to share his business with her? All because of his stupid crush? A crush that was pretty much one-sided at this point. The boy needed to open his eyes and realize that she was using him. For this exact purpose.

“Listen, I didn't think-” Yoongi starts, but Jimin is cutting his words. “Didn't think what? That she'd do something irrational with the information you've given her? Use what she knows as a way to hurt Yn, you didn't think she'd do that? And for what reason?”

Jimin was the most laid back in the house, what pissed him off pissed him off but he was never one to raise his voice. Always one to keep a level head in an argument, careful not to let words slip that might ruin things in the long run.

But right now and lately? It's like Yoongi has been testing his patience almost on purpose. For what? He had no clue, but he was starting to get tired of it. And it was starting to show.

Yoongi could see it. That he had royally fucked up. That Miju wasn't the person that he thought she was and it would take a lot more than just a few late night conversations to get her to see the error in her ways.

Her only focus was getting back at Yn for humiliating her and sleeping with Jimin. Nothing else mattered. No one else mattered. He was starting to see that now.

“I've been talking to her and she seemed-” Yoongi stops himself this time, the fact that he's been keeping quiet contact sort of a secret up until this point. Knew that it wouldn't sit well with his friends if they knew he was getting close to them who they all perceived to be the bad guy.

She never seemed all that bad to him, though.

“Jimin, be honest. Do you think she'd really go ahead and tell Yn? I mean, you guys were pretty fucked up for going behind her back – but do you really think she'd stoop that low?” Yoongi's words have Jimin's eyebrows lifting, hiding underneath his bangs.

What type of seed did that girl plant in his best friends head that had his mind all screwed up? Could he not see the blaring signs right in front of him? Was he just that against lying or was he really this pussy whipped?

Level headed, level headed. “Are you really trying to blame me right now?” He tries not to hiss his words but can't help the way they slip through his teeth. “Yes, Yn was wrong for lying about our relationship and I guess I was wrong for going along with it. But-,” 

Hit with a sudden headache, Jimin is stopping his words. Hands washing over his face as he paces around the kitchen. A sigh leaves Yoongi's lips, his butt sliding off of his seat to make his way over to his friend.

“Look, Jimin. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything,” It really had been an accident. He didn't agree with how Jimin was going about things, but he would never sell him out like that. They were best friends, it just came out. And he's telling him all of that, Jimin only half-listening past his racing thoughts.

Desperately trying to figure out how he was going to fix the mess that was being made right now as they stood here talking. “I need to call her,” Rushing to find his phone, Jimin is quick to scroll through his messages to find your contact.

DECEMBER 23RD, 2019 | 17:52

“You came fast,” Miju notes with a smile, watching as you loosen the belt of your light coat, pulling it from your shoulders. It falls heavy on the couch with the added weight from your phone in the pocket. “Yeah, you said it was an emergency.” You nod, taking a moment to peak around for any 'emergency signs'.

The air is tense, tight. Suffocating in a way. There's this awkward silence looming over the two of you as she stands there staring with those big accusing eyes of hers. Clearing your throat, you reach your hand up to push your hair back. 

“What's the emergency?” You wonder, generally curious what had her texting you 911 when everything seemed fine? 

The usual pout that she wears settles on her lips, eyebrows furrowing slightly to add to the whole look. “It's in the kitchen.” She turns without another word, leading you out of the living room and into the kitchen.

And you follow behind her, eyes landing on the mess littering the kitchen counter. “I have nobody to make everything but the kitchen sink cookies with me.” Her arms spread out at all the different ingredients she has laid out, peaking over her shoulder to shoot a large smile in your direction.

“We use to make these all the time when we were younger, remember? And this morning I woke up craving them, which is so weird because I never crave sweets.” She's moved to the other side of the counter, picking up the half beaten bowl of batter she left out. “And who better to share these treats with than my best friend, right?” She smiles, but there's something else written in it. 

You don't have a second to analyze it because she's waving you over with a wooden spoon, handing you the utensil once you're close enough.

“Was this really it? I had plans tonight...” Despite the disappointment in your tone, you're still taking the spoon from her hand, reaching for the bowl that she had kindly set out for you.

Miju's ears perk at the mention of your plans, wondering if you'd actually let it slip what you had intended to be doing tonight. “Plans? Who with?” She asked, feigning curiosity, although she knew all the answers to her questions.

“Just plans. And when you said emergency, I didn't imagine you meant baking cookies?” Not paying much attention to your words, Miju busies herself with reaching for the sugar, measuring some out into her bowl.

“It's not about the cookies, it's about our friendship, Yn.” Her attention quickly shifts to you, pinning you with that 'duh' expression that she likes to pull when it seemed like people just weren't getting it.

Your friendship. Right. So right now is as good as time as any. If she had been thinking about your friendship recently, then she'd maybe take the news well, right? Not blow it out of proportion once you're able to give her all the details, remind her how much you thought about your friendship the entire time. How hard it made things for you. Jimin. And that you were done lying and sneaking around, that you were ready to come clean to her. For the sake of your friendship.

“Actually, it's funny you say that, because-”

Her words overlap yours in panicked haste, bowl clambering onto the counter, the large spoon falling suit. “And I've been really sad, lately!” As expected, she's hitting you with a large pair of sad eyes, paired with a pouted lip. She doesn't wait for you to ask what's wrong, she doesn't need to. Know that you'd listen despite the fact you were literally in the middle of a sentence.

“I know we haven't really been talking to each other, about boys and stuff... but I found out earlier that.” She pauses, reaches to push the loose strands out of her face. “Jimin is moving... to New York! And things have been so weird?? with him lately. I'm just- I can't believe he's leaving.” There's a whine in her voice, paired with a stomped foot.

But your mind is so far from whatever fit she's throwing. Eyes blinking slowly as you try to register the words that had just come out of her mouth. Jimin was leaving? Like moving, leaving? Packing up and going to New York... and he didn't tell you?

No way he wouldn't tell you something huge like this. No way he'd leave you clueless for God knows how long until you're finding out in your best friend's messy kitchen in the midst of making cookies. No way he'd do that.

“Jimin's leaving? How do you know that?” She must've got the wrong information, overheard it wrong. Jimin wasn't leaving. He wouldn't just leave and not say a word to you about it.

She's raising her shoulder in a slight shrug, eyes focused on the thickening cookie batter. “Yoongi told me.” Yoongi? As in Jimin's best friend? So if he was saying it then it had to be true, right?

“Yoongi told you? Or you just heard it?”

Miju's sucking her teeth at your pestering, facing you to get a good look at your face. Taking in the distraught crinkle of your brow, the frown on your lips, the widening of your eyes. “He told me. Jimin is moving to New York. Next semester.” She repeats, slowly just in case you couldn't hear.

Her brow furrows in mock confusion, head tilting to the side slightly. “Why do you look like that? Does Jimin moving mean anything to you?” She lets out a laugh to add to her facade. “I should be the one frowning. I mean, it's my crush moving six thousand eight hundred and sixty-three miles away. I looked it up.”

Miju doesn't take her eyes away from your face, lifting her hand to suck the batter from her thumb. You can only imagine how you look right now, could literally feel your heart shattering in your chest at the thought of Jimin being so far away.

Being so far away and not telling you about it. There was no telling the way it showed on your face right now. “You're getting really worked up over a guy that you're not even interested in, Yn.” She pushes, dropping her spoon again to set her hands on her hips, looking at you expectantly.

Jimin was leaving and he didn't tell you. He kept it from you. He lied to you. The two of you didn't lie to each other. Maybe to other people together, but never to each other. And here was Miju, staring at you – enjoying this all too much. She knew, didn't she?

That's why she had invited you over. That's why she made up this whole stupid cookie emergency. What? Did she want to rub it in your face? 'You may have stolen my crush but he's been lying to you this entire time'. Well, she won.

“Are you mad? That's so weird. You're mad?” She continues and you can feel your blood boiling just from the sound of her voice.

Droning on in your ear as if she had no end. Asking if you were mad, wondering why you would be mad about someone that you had no involvement with whatsoever moving away. Why would you even have an opinion on the matter whatsoever? It's not like you're the one that's in the love with him – and that's where you snap.

“God quit it! Alright!? I'm with Jimin, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear? He's my boyfriend. Happy?” Voice much louder than you had intended it to be and you see her flinch from the way you're yelling at her.

Yet, you can't stop yourself. Can't find it in you to use your inside voice. “Is that why you called this whole fake emergency? Not two fucks given about 'saving our friendship', or whatever bullshit you made up. Just wanted a chance to get back at me?” 

“You've been lying to me for weeks, yn! And you're supposed to be my best friend!? Best friends don't lie to each other.” You don't bother to mask the bitter laugh that falls from your lips.

Best friend. Best friend. The way she threw the word around as if it meant nothing. Treated it like it meant nothing. Just a label. Only close because you lived that way, but all the other best friend elements? Zero to none. The way she went out of your way to do all of this just proved it, more than anything.

“Are you supposed to be mine? Have you ever stopped to think why I felt like I had to hide this from you, huh? Or did you even think about how much it was killing me knowing how badly this would hurt you? Because that's the last thing that I wanted to do.” You're not yelling anymore, voice oddly level. And it's more off-putting than the sound of your shout.

“And I bet you thought I jumped at the chance to be with him, huh? Did you think for a second that I tried to fight my feelings for in, for your sake, and couldn't? Fuck all of that, right? Why would you have to worry about that, it's not like it matters, right? No, fuck the fact that I've actually fallen in love with the guy – which is much more serious than a stupid crush, might I add. Fuck all of that, because it makes you unhappy, right?”

There's more at the tip of your tongue, so much more than you've been holding back for the past seventeen years. Things that you didn't even think had bothered you before, but it's like the list keeps going on and on. You want to lay it all out, but your head is such a mess and it feels like everything is slipping all at once.

Tightness growing in your chest and spreading to your cheeks, eyes feeling heavy like they always do before you start crying. Sad about Jimin. This stupid friendship that you wanted so badly to save. Realizing that you had been the only one that cared that much.

“You don't love him. You were just trying to take him away from me like you always do...” Her words have your eyes bulging out of your head, jaw-dropping in disbelief. This girl really didn't quit, huh?

“What?” You try because maybe you didn't hear her right. Maybe she didn't disregard all of what you had managed to get out, focusing on the one bit that had absolutely nothing to do with her. “Name one thing that I've ever taken from you, Miju. Because how I remember it I've been bending over backward just to keep you from falling apart.”

She scoffs, rolls her big eyes before answering. “Yeah, exactly. You were always looking down on me. 'Ooh, poor little girl can't take care of herself, let me swoop in'. Always two steps behind me all the time, making sure nothing happens, protecting me when I never asked you to!”

“You're mad because I looked out for you?” Disbelief is evident in your tone. Slightly convinced that she might be joking, because if she was really mad about something like that then she should've learned to hold herself up a long time ago.

Not made it seem like she was so needy all the time, acting helpless until you were forced to swoop in and fix everything. Like you always did. Without a moment of hesitation, but not anymore. Way past over it. Over the worrying. Over this fight. Over this conversation. Over her.

“I can't do this,” You're deciding with a shake of your head, a defeated raise of your arms. “I can't even be around your right now.” You're turning to leave the kitchen, scooping up your jacket discarded earlier.

Miju is hot on your trail, flops hitting against the hardwood as she moves to catch up with you. “Wait. Where are you going?” You don't say anything as you pull your jacket back on, her being the least of your worries at this point.

There were more important things than this childish back and forth with her. You had tried to tell her, the right way – maturely. She didn't want that, and instead came up with this whole plan to do what exactly? Hurt you as you had done to her? Make you feel humiliated? Great, she did it.

Got her way like she always did, you just couldn't bring yourself to care like you always do. “I'm going to see my boyfriend.” Eyes piercing as you lift your gaze to her, tightening the bow on your coat before turning and exiting her house.

Letting the door slam behind you without bothering to look back. 

PART TWO OUT TOMORROW!

– girl code rule #1: never, ever, under any circumstances fall for your best friend’s crush. but what happens when your best friend’s crush checks all the boxes of your ideal guy… and to make matters worse… he’s crazy about you too.

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A/N: timestamps make sense throughout the fic. to be added to the taglist, send me an ask !! feedback is highly !! appreciated, it’s the motivation i need to keep the fic going nd fun for you guys!!<33

[cheegu3]

omg i have an idea for the jay series if you have the time 🥺 where you try to escape again and get outside but he catches you and brings you back in, but once inside again you get out of his grasp and hide somewhere in his house and he has to find you cat and mouse style 😶

Ty for saving me u genius bc I was running out of ideas again 🥴💜💜 this is quite a long one tho yikesss

TW / Trigger warning: yandere themes, violence, kidnapping, mentions of a dead body, mentions of stockholm syndrome

Word count: around 2k

Trapped Pt. 3 ~ Yandere Jay series

Cat & mouse 🔪

After your little morning ordeal with Jay you two went up together, eating breakfast and cuddling. You found that he was in a better mood than usual not even bringing up your escape attempt once. Maybe he was over it by now, being confident that this time you actually wouldn’t try it again or rather if you did, he’d always find you.

When the movie you’d been watching together ended he stopped stroking your hair and it was quiet except for the pouring rain outside. These were your favourite kind of days.

‘‘ Will you take a day off today, we can stay in and watch more movies ‘‘ you said in a small voice still testing the waters.

He bit his lips, sitting up on the sofa now and pushing you away slightly.

‘‘ No I have something important to do, but‘‘ his eyes narrowed ‘‘-you better behave ‘‘

For a moment you caught yourself enamoured with him, ready to follow his orders and stay home waiting for him exactly like he wanted you to. But you caught yourself thinking these things and felt disgusted. Must be Stockholm syndrome, besides this is the perfect opportunity to escape again.

‘‘ y/n? ‘‘ he raised his voice making you flinch and quickly look up at him

He clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction, watching you closely.

‘‘ I said, IF you behave I’ll give you a better treat than the one I gave this morning ‘‘

‘‘ Oh, yes yes okay, I will ‘‘ you said distracted. Your head was buzzing thinking of all the ways to escape and the possibility of him finding you again. The anxiety was hard to keep under control as he got ready to leave the house. 

‘‘ I’ll call you every hour ‘‘ he made sure that you were listening as he put on his jacket and headed out, giving you a kiss and locking the door behind him firmly.

An hour. You had one hour to escape, only this time you had to be smarter. You began to frantically go over the different plans over and over again. The anxiety and fear of him finding you again wouldn’t stop bugging you. But you made up your mind, gathering a few things, like a scarf and glasses for a disguise and was out the door in mere minutes after he’d left. You made your way quickly to the village when you were reminded of the incident there last time, so you decided to go past it, keeping your head low as to not make any of them spot you. They seemed to be too busy anyway, chatting to each other while carrying large boxes of various vegetables and fruits. As you passed by them, by now having spotted your destined location, a bus station, you caught a few words.

‘‘ I heard Jay gave the girl a very hard time ‘‘ a woman said

‘‘ A deserved one ‘‘ a man answered snorting

‘‘ Indeed ‘‘ another said

Instinctively you wrapped the scarf around your head a bit tighter and increased your pace. They paid you no attention though and the chatter eventually got more distant as you made your way over to the booth. Well there, you were extremely grateful as you saw that a bus would be coming in under a minute and when you looked up you saw the blue rectangular vehicle approaching. Its sign read the name of the town your friend was living in which earned a sigh of relief from you, growing more anxious the longer you stayed here. The bus got closer and stopped with a squeaky sound flinging the doors open. You practically ran onto it and sat at the back. Bouncing your leg up and down anxiously, you kept your eyes on the door waiting, begging for it to close as if he’d jump on any minute now. 

Then, it finally closed and the bus was in motion. You looked behind through the window at the back of the bus as the village, landscape and that damned house swept by. You were free at last. How could he possibly find you now, you didn’t have a GPS or a tracker because you didn’t have a phone and the villagers didn’t see you. Leaning your head back, resting it on the seat you began to relax telling yourself that you were no longer in danger and everything was going to be okay.

A sudden stop that threw you forwards jolted you awake. Confused and newly woken you looked around and to your relief you weren’t back in the house. You were at the final stop, your friend’s town. As you got off the bus you quickly phoned your friend, and when the rain started to pour again you took cover under the station’s roof. She thankfully arrived in a few minutes, rushing to the car as soon as you’d finished explaining your...situation. The familiar blue sedan pulled over to the side right in front of you and you practically ran to it, swinging the door open and checking several times if it was locked.

‘‘ Hellooo? ‘‘ your friend snapped her fingers. You had been too busy being paranoid to even pay attention to her and it made you feel guilty now.

‘‘ I’m sorry, you know I’m just really paranoid. What if he’s here he- ‘‘

Your friend clasped her hand over your mouth muffling your protests.

‘‘ It’s fine y/n, you know I live at sea in a very small fishing town. How would that psycho even find us? ‘‘ she gave you a reassuring smile and playfully hit your shoulder.

Then she pushed the gas pedal down and down the bumpy road you two went, towards the little cottage sitting alone on the top of the hill. Your anxiety came back once again when you saw the fast approaching cottage. It was in the middle of nowhere, quite literally. If he were to find you here, you’d be dead. The nearest neighbour was what...3 miles away? Your friend noticed your breathing increasing slightly and gave you a few pats again as she forced the small car up the hill. She stopped it, stepped out and slammed the car door. She’d taken your stuff inside and left you there probably to cool off a bit. It didn’t take long until you followed her inside because you had made up your mind. She was right. He’d never ever find you or hurt you again. You were safe here and she said that you could stay as long as you wanted to.

You spent the rest of the night talking mostly about lighthearted stuff to not make you scared again but then you explained a bit about him, how he treated you and how he really was. After you chat was over and the sky had turned dark you went to your separate bedrooms. You climbed into bed and turned off the light falling asleep shortly after.

A loud bang awoke you making you open your eyes. It was still dark outside and the fear instinctively came onto you expecting the worst. Listening closer, having gotten out of the bed and laying your head against the door, you thought the noises sounded like muffled screams, whispers and thudding. Was he here? Without thinking you pushed the squeaky door open and as your friend’s cottage was very small you walked right in to the living room where you saw the scene which had been making all the noises.

It was your boyfriend, sitting on top of your friend’s lifeless body with his hands wrapped tightly around her neck.

‘‘ Get away from her! ‘‘ you screamed lunging towards the pair.

But when he stood up you already knew it was too late. You could see that she wasn’t breathing, her eyes looked soulless and she laid there like an empty shell staring into nothingness.

‘‘ Found you ‘‘ he smiled, a smile that broke you. Because looking at him you could see that he hadn’t struggled at all to find you. He wasn’t stressed, worried, surprised, angry or a mess. It made your heart sink. You truly never could escape from him. You didn’t even notice when his guards lifted you up dragging you towards his car, not even when they had strapped you in and started driving had it kicked in. You felt so numb, so helpless. 

Through the whole car ride none of you spoke a word but you could sense that he was satisfied. Perhaps he wasn’t that angry because he had killed someone you loved so dearly, your best friend. That’s a greater pain than any hits or cuts could ever do, and he knew that. He leaned back during the ride and really enjoyed the look on your face, replaying your face over and over again as you saw the lifeless body of your friend. 

The car ride came to an end way quicker than you would’ve liked it to. The guards were sent off by Jay and he turned to you.

‘‘ So naive. You didn’t learn a thing from last time did you? ‘‘ he said mockingly.

The hate was bubbling up in your chest and all you wanted to do was to punch him, kick him, anything, even kill him the way he brutally killed your best friend. But what you wanted more than anything right now was to get away from his mocking, smirking face that you wanted to punch so bad. But you knew if you did punch him you’d get it back but ten times worse so instead you stepped out of the car. When you did so, the guards stopped and watched you closely.

Suddenly you darted in to the mansion. You had to find a hiding spot. Anywhere away from this monster, even if it was for a minute would be ideal right now. And then, you’d try again and again. This incident wouldn’t stop that..surely. He took his time walking in after you and shouted out.

‘‘ Oh. So you wanna play darling? ‘‘ he sneered and you held you breath as you ran into the library, one of the rooms closest to the entrance which had caught your attention. It was huge and messy which made it the perfect hiding spot. You walked in, trying to walk as silently as humanly possible and crouched behind the first row of bookshelves in case he had gone into this room. When you didn’t hear anything you went to the inner corner of the shelf and sneaked along the walls, looking to your side on every aisle in case he’d be there waiting, ready to pounce on his prey. 

When you had reached the end you saw a hiding spot that caught your attention. In one of the corners, in the large bookshelf there was a small space behind the bookshelf where you could squeeze in. Having done so, you pushed the books closer to each other as to give more coverage and waited. A few seconds had passed, then minutes maybe hours? And your hope had started to come back. Listening a bit closer the silence baffled you and left you almost breathless. He must be on the second floor now, now was your chance to escape.

As if on cue, your hopes were crushed when you heard the slow footsteps that you were all so familiar with. 

Click, clack, click, clack.

They got closer and closer. Even though your heartbeat started to beat wildly the closer they got you were still hopeful. Your hiding spot was way too good. But when he came to the end of your row, the hope started to fade. They way he slowly walked made him seem confident and amused, something you recognised too well. But, to your surprise he walked right past you continuing slightly down the row closest to the wall where you had been walking along.

‘‘ I know exactly where you are ‘‘

He turned his back to you, stopping in his tracks and you swear he could hear your heart jump out of your chest by now. 

‘‘ And, ‘‘ he said threateningly, growling slightly ‘‘ if you don’t come out dear little mouse I will play with your family instead ‘‘ the evil smirk came back.

You made a run for it as soon as he had said these words. The books you knocked down caught his attention and he had you down in just a few meters after you had tried to run. He had expected you to. Your face hit the cold floor causing you to cry out and the pain only increased when he twisted your arms painfully behind your back. You could practically hear the twisted sadistic joy in his voice as he said,

‘‘ I win ‘‘

[spidersbane]

Hello! Can I get MCU, The Hobbit, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. ship? 💚

Appearance: She/her. 179,5cm tall, rectangle body shape. Fair skin complexion with quite a few birthmarks. Dyed brown with honey-red highlights, shoulder-length, straight hair with bangs. The left eye is a mix of two colors – a smaller portion of (darker) greyish-blue and a larger portion of hazel; while the right eye is just a (lighter) greyish-blue. Heptagon face shape with two dimples on the left cheek and one on the right cheek (only visible while smiling). A gap between the upper front teeth.

Personality (good and bad traits): Ever since I was a kid, I was always quite mature for my age – I identify myself as an old soul. I come off as polite and well-mannered to strangers, yet I tend to keep it to myself by being reserved. But, that’s because I have social anxiety and I’m nervous and shy when meeting/talking to people. The only people I’m comfortable with being with my inner circle – closest friends and family. I am usually more “open” with my friends than with my family. With my friends I can be my “truest-self” – I smile more, I laugh more, I feel more accepted and understood. I am the mom and the fashionista of the group. Don’t get me wrong, I am fiercely protective of my family, especially of my mother and younger sister. But, lately, I’ve been feeling like the “black sheep” of the family, Cinderella who’s been taken advantage of. I express my affection for the people I care about in little, but practical, ways. I can be a little stiff when it comes to open, gushy displays of affection. Others turn to me for help and advice. I’m kind-hearted and generous, always ready to help a person in need. Always have been motherly towards children. Very awkward at keeping small talk (usually with people that I’m not that close with). Absolutely, hate speaking in front of a public, and if I do, because of my nervousness, I tend to mess up my words and/or I practice whatever I’m about to say in my head at first. I appreciate the simplicity and am often most comfortable when I’m not getting too much attention from the world. I am sensitive – both to criticism and to others’ feelings (I sponge up the feelings and moods of people and the environment around me). Have a hard time saying no or expressing my true thoughts, feelings. I get influenced by other people’s opinions/thoughts quite hard (I take everything to the heart), that is why I tend to keep a lot to myself (may come off as a little bit tense, secretive, mysterious). I avoid the harsh reality by daydreaming (almost every day) – imagining myself in situations far from my current circumstances. Sort of like a self-escape. I worry a lot and overthink almost everything. I am easily distracted and my attention span can be quite short. I have an internal struggle between my needs and wants. I can lack focus and be indecisive as a result – when I decide on one route, I am pulled in another direction at the same time (“But what if…”, “on the other hand...”). That is why I’m having a bit of a struggle with deciding what I want to do in the future (career-wise). I am easily overwhelmed by pressure and stress. There is a self-destructive side to me (self-critical, lack of self-confidence) that I’m working on by confronting my fears (coming out of my shell). Don’t like taking pictures, or other people taking pictures of me. I feel most content when I’ve straightened out all the details of everyday life. I have a routine, that I follow by mostly every day, and if something small changes in that routine, I start to have a small internal anxiety attack. Also, I like to do things my own way, like, when it comes to cleaning the house or organizing stuff, etc. I get triggered even if people don’t do the laundry the way I do. I guess you could describe me as a perfectionist, clean/control freak. In triggering situations I can be impulsive, spontaneous, quick to act. Quick flare-ups of anger/annoyance when being provoked on my patience. Even when I’m feeling low, I manage to find humor in life and have fun with whatever I do have. Although I tend to bottle things up, I am an emotional person and my emotions are genuine – I love and care deeply and passionately and wish no ill will upon anyone, yet it hards for me to imagine someone falling in love with me or just liking me.

Hobbies, likes: My hobbies are cleaning, writing (re-writing song lyrics, making small notes, writing stories), listening to any type of music, catching up on my favorite films and TV shows, hanging out with friends, going to the cinema, or the club, being out in nature, reading, traveling. I like history, cooking, fashion magazines (or fashion in general), road trips, spirituality, mythology, books, orange juice, previous decades, cottage-core, dark academia.

Overall: Hufflepuff. INFP-T. Bi-sexual. Pisces-Aries cusp sign. “Looks like could kill you, but is actually a cinnamon roll.” A feminist, support LGBTQ+ community. That’s it, thank you!

hey @pataim ! thanks so much for sending in your request, and thank you so much for your honesty about yourself. like it takes a lot to air yourself out like that, and I admire your strength for it. but also fINALLY a 'Man from U.N.C.L.E' ship! I love that movie and attempt Illya's accent all the time, so this will be fun :)

For the MCU/Marvel - I ship you with Steve Rogers/Captain America ! 

no one can tell me that Steve doesn’t have a set routine honestly, so let me just get that out there 

he seems intimidating at first, esp as a public figure and Avenger, but Steve is nothing but passionate about what he does. so it may clash w your lack of direction, but I could honestly see him envying that a lil bit, like it’s not that you don’t have direction, it’s the fact that you still have a choice in the matter. 

your love of history put you in a museum, here you bumped into Steve in a horrible disguise. he struck up the conversation first, and once you got past the whole “holy crap that’s Captain America”, you could actually engage with him in the material and boi was he smitten 

he would love to join you when your rewatched your fave things, bc not only is he catching up on more media he missed out on, he’s also getting to know your interests in a way that’s comfortable with you. it avoids all the small talk, but leaves room for discussion after the film/show ! 

since you tend to sponge up a lot of what other people believe, it’s totally Steve who actually tries to question what you think and what you feel about things. he’s someone who encourages you to have your own opinions and to stay true to those thoughts. so while with him, you can rely on him to learn about yourself, you also gain skills for independence

overall, Steve is super patient, and despite his chaotic job as Cap, he takes comfort in his routine, and would find comfort incorporating a partner’s routine into his life. and as you grow in a relationship with him, he’s patient about teaching you how to be your own person, and helping you learn more about yourself. and while it’s uncomfortable, you grow stronger throughout being with him :) 

For The Hobbit - I ship you with Bilbo Baggins !

Bilbo is the definition of introvert, and you're right there with him

not that introversion is ever a bad thing, bc it isn't. but Bilbo is quite content to sit in his little hobbit hole and vibe. like Gandalf had to come find him, ya know. dude disappeared from his own bday.

but anyways. it's not that Bilbo lacks purpose, it's just that he's more content with a quieter life. and it seems like his quiet life would balance you out well! like the Shire is so so chill, and there doesn't really seem to be a lot of pressure on the hobbits to pick a profession. like they just genuinely do what needs to get done.

similarly, Bilbo is the type who seems a little bothered by mushy displays of affection. exhibit a: disappearing from his own bday. like he's much more the type to refill your tea when y'all are reading by the fireplace, which he would totally do w you

it will probs take you a little while to warm up to each, given just how introverted you both are. but when he explains that he has set ways of doing things, then if they're compatible w your ways of doing things, then it doesn't take you long to open up to him

like it'll be a little jarring, but he takes comfort in his routines too. and it'll be an event trying to incorporate both of your ways of life together, but he's willing to do it

overall, yours is a very quaint partnership, built on deep respect for one another. neither of you are going to push the other to do things you aren't into. and y'all just live your best lives together tbh :)

For The Man From U.N.C.L.E - I ship you with Illya Kuryakin !

I love my big Russian spy so much, so this is fun for me

so Illya is the epitome of reserved and generally quiet, so it might take a while to really break down his walls and talk to him. and he's not quite sure what to do with you once you join the team

but, he's playing his game of chess alone, and when you sit down and ask to play with him, he opens up a little more after that

if you're one who get sent out on mission with the team, get ready, bc sometimes those missions require a lot of improvising. but you'd probably be at whatever 'base' was, helping run operations from a more secure place. but Illya and Napoleon improvise a lot, leading to a lot of headaches for you and Waverly

Illya has small bursts of anger, but similar to Gaby, most times, you can intervene and he doesn't get violent. or when he does, he tries to make sure it isn't in front of you. but bc you care so deeply for him, you're there for him in the aftermath. and that's how you show your love for him.

by patching him up if he gets cut, by talking him down when he's angry. and just generally trying to take care of him. and he totally does the same for you, especially if you get sent out into the field

and much to Illya's dismay, Solo doesn't refrain form making jokes about you. but if you can take them in stride, then Solo welcomes you into the team just as well :)