#button down but all it did to that copy was wrinkle the cover a bit | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

myherowritings · 4 years

Text

PART 7. WHAT’S BETTER THAN EATING THE RICH? THE RICH EATING YOU OUT

SUMMARY. Todoroki Shouto was a wealthy, young CEO who inherited his father’s enterprise. You were a barista at a local cafe who wouldn’t mind some extra cash. One day, Shouto came in during an early morning shift and tipped you such a large sum of money, you were certain it had to have been an accident. To your surprise and complete pleasure: It was not.

PAIRING. ceo!todoroki shouto x barista!reader

WORD COUNT. 4.7k

GENRE. ceo/barista au, fluff, eventual smut

WARNINGS. the filthiest thing i’ve ever written, fem!reader for this part and shouto uses “princess” an excessive amount of times, sir kink i’m sorry, cunnilingus, unprotected sex (just bc i totally forgot abt condoms ok my bad), too much foreplay?, shouto’s a soft dom i think?, very much so 18+!!! and the title is exactly what it sounds like

A/N. here we are !! the final part !! my first shouto series i didn’t put on hiatus LMAO,, the moment you’ve all been waiting for HFSJKG ;) this was very fun to write i hope it’s not too bad BHFBDSHS i’m so in love with ceo!shouto and this series was my fav to write in a while!! now without further ado pls enjoy some smut with feelings :3 xx sof

SERIES MASTERLIST

You almost didn’t make it into the elevator to Shouto’s penthouse before you wanted to pounce on him, but to your complete frustration, he was showing such restraint that the only contact he let you make was holding his hand.

For someone who was so eager to kiss you earlier, he was showing a lot of patience now, you thought with a huff.

You tapped your foot against the tile flooring as Shouto took his sweet time unlocking his suite. Even when he entered, instead of taking you straight to the bedroom like you anticipated, he pulled out two glasses and filled them with water.

Handing you one, he asked, “Did you want something to eat?”

“No. ‘M not hungry right now,” you mumbled, trying not to appear too pouty.

Apparently, it didn’t work very well since he stifled an amused chuckle. “How about some water?”

Your eyes narrowed but you begrudgingly accepted the glass. “Hmph.”

“Someone seems a little tired right now, hmm?” he placed his glass down and led you towards his bedroom. “Maybe we should go straight to sleep—”

You couldn’t help yourself any longer. “Shouto,” you whined, drawing out the ‘o’ sounds, your lower lip jutting outwards in a frown.

“Yes, Y/N?” His tone was too innocent for the events he had in mind for the night.

“If you don’t take me to bed and fuck me right now, I’ll…”

“You’ll…?” Shouto teased, but the darkened gaze in his eyes told you his own restraint was wearing thin.

You turned away with a huff. “I’ll be upset!”

“Well, we don’t want that.” He laced his fingers through yours, bringing your hands up to his lips to give them a kiss. You were slightly placated, but that was still nowhere near the amount of contact you desired. “But I think you’d find it more comfortable if we continue this with your dress off first. Come.”

Your stomach clenched at the simple command and you willfully followed behind him into the second door to the right. You hardly had time to admire the design of his room and size of his bed before Shouto moved from his spot next to you to one behind you. He placed one hand on where your waist met your hip and the other on the small of your back, making your spine straighten at the touch.

“Did you need help taking your dress off?” he asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

“Yes, please, sir,” was your airy reply.

His breath caught in his throat and his grip on you tightened. When he spoke, his voice was hoarser than normal. “Since you asked so nicely.”

So, he liked when you called him sir? You made a mental note of that with a smirk.

But your cocky expression didn’t last very long when Shouto skillfully unfastened the top few buttons of your dress, softly placing his lips on your now exposed skin and gently planting kisses all the way down your back. He didn’t stop until he reached the curve of your ass, unbuttoning the final button and nipping a kiss right at the base of your spine. You jolted, hugging the fabric of the dress to your chest so you wouldn’t be completely exposed.

“Finished unbuttoning your dress for you, princess,” he said, placing one final kiss on your spine before gently twirling you around to face him. At your flustered gaze, he smiled. “Now what would you like for me to do to you?”

You lifted your chin despite your slight embarrassment at having to voice your desires. “I want you to kiss me.”

“Hm. Have I not been kissing you this whole time?”

“On the lips,” you emphasized, tugging at his tie as you tried to pull him closer to you. You batted your lashes at him. “Could you please kiss me on the lips, sir?”

A small chuckle escaped him, but he was happy to oblige. “You know, you’d be good in business. You certainly know what to say to get what you want, hmm?”

You answered with a smile as he finally—fucking finally, after a whole week of waiting—pressed his lips against yours. They were soft and warm and tasted like strawberries and ice cream, his favorite flavor of the candies the two of you stole from the gala.

Delicious.

Shouto must’ve thought the same thing since, not long after the start of the kiss, he coaxed your mouth open with his tongue, deepening the movements, one hand softly cupping the area where your head met your neck while the other was hot against your exposed lower back. He applied the slightest bit of pressure at the right time—just enough to make you sigh in pleasure.

Your own hands found a way to tangle themselves in Shouto’s hair, completely abandoning their job clutching your dress to your body. Now, you were so tightly pressed up against him, the only thing that could possibly keep the fabric up was his chest against your own. One sudden movement and it might just…

He nipped at your lower lip with his teeth and you jumped, gasping at how good the light stinging sensation felt. You felt your dress slip down your body to expose the swell of your breasts, but before it could fall any further, Shouto gingerly picked you up and laid you down on his bed.

“Oh—” you managed to say as your head landed on a pillow and your back on the plush, silk sheets that covered the mattress.

His left arm rested on the pillow beside your head as he hovered over you. “Have something to say, princess?”

“Y-You may continue,” you sniffed, lifting your chin up. Your heart skipped a beat at the teasing pet name and then another beat when Shouto leaned down to give you a kiss. But instead of landing on your mouth again, he chose to leave an open-mouthed kiss on the sensitive part of your neck, gently biting and sucking at the skin.

His feathery light touches tickled you, your nerves working on overdrive and every stroke feeling like it was amplified. You couldn’t help but giggle at his soft nibble and he paused to look at you questioningly.

“Tickles,” you replied, laughing at his confused expression. “But it feels nice.”

Shouto hummed, the vibrations buzzing against your neck. “That’s good to hear.”

Returning to your lips, he kissed you with a smile creeping on his face and you returned it. His forehead rested against yours as you toyed with the fabric on the front of his suit. You unknotted his tie as your lips clashed against each other, the motion no longer soft and gentle but instead more fervent and intense.

Finally getting his tie to come undone, you flung it off the bed and worked to unbutton his shirt collar, not caring if it got wrinkled in the process. Shouto reciprocated the eagerness by sucking the tip of your tongue with his mouth before pulling away from you completely.

A whimper left your lips at the sudden loss of warmth and you couldn’t help but pout, grabbing at his shirt again to pull him back.

“Be a good girl and be patient, okay?” he said, running the tip of his index finger against your jawline.

You huffed. “I’ve been plenty patient. I want you to do something now!”

In other times, you’d probably be embarrassed about how whiny you sounded, but at this moment all you wanted was for Shouto to finally touch you more.

He nipped at your collarbone before looking down at you. “Hm. Are you a princess or a brat?”

“I can be both. I’m very multifaceted,” you said haughtily, sticking your tongue out to let him know you were only joking.

“You are,” he agreed.

It seemed Shouto decided to finally listen to your pleas since his attention swiftly returned to that of your neck, dragging his lips down until he reached the swell of your breast. Over the fabric of your dress that was barely clinging onto you, he placed wet, open-mouthed kisses over your chest, his teeth accidentally grazing against your nipple.

You cried out quietly and he felt encouraged by the sound, this time taking your peak into his mouth with purpose. He formed his mouth into the shape of an ‘o’ and softly sucked your nipple, the tip of his tongue making circles around the bud. His saliva wet the fabric of your dress, leaving you to shiver at the cold against your wet breast when he pulled away from you.

“S-Shouto,” you whimpered, squeezing your legs together to relieve some of the tension. “More.”

“More? What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I want you to…” You gestured towards your body.

“To what? Take your dress off and fuck you? Or just continue playing with your breasts?” he asked, listing off suggestions in a low rasp. He kissed below your chest and down your stomach all the way to your navel. “Or maybe you want me to go lower until I reach that pretty pussy of yours.”

You nodded fervidly, not trusting your voice. “A-All of the above?”

He chuckled in amusement but was ready to dutifully continue his work.

“But…” you murmured, running your hands down his half-unbuttoned shirt. “I want to see you too.” You looked down at his crotch area then back at his face, biting your lip nervously. “And I want to make sure you’re also having a good time.”

A guttural noise sounded from the back of his throat as he ran his hands down your body, giving you an appreciative look. “I’m having the best time.” He kissed you chastely. “Are you?”

You looked like a mess sprawled out on his bed, dress half hanging onto your chest and the fabric of the skirt only covering one of your legs. You didn’t know for sure the state of your hair and makeup, but you were sure it was thoroughly roughed up as well. “I think it’s quite obvious I am, sir.”

Shouto smirked, caressing your cheek with his knuckles. “Good.”

Instead of answering him, you brought your fingers to the lower-half of his shirt, unfastening the final buttons and untucking it from his suit pants. His shirt hung open, exposing his lean yet muscular torso. You ran your hands up and down his chest and abdomen, absentmindedly brushing against his nipples which caused him to shiver. When you reached his collar, you threw the fabric behind his shoulders and he got the message to take his shirt off.

“So pretty,” you whispered breathlessly.

“Your turn.” Slowly, Shouto slid down the silky fabric that was just barely covering your breasts all the way to your navel. He tapped your thigh and said, “Up,” and you immediately obliged, lifting your lower body up so he could remove the dress completely.

Taking his sweet time—much to your frustration—he folded the dress and placed it on a dresser near his bed. When he turned his gaze back to you, you were holding your arms over your chest, feeling bare in nothing but your panties with sheer detailings.

His stare burned holes into you. You felt like his gaze was leaving a trail of fire against your skin. Shouto’s expression looked sensual but soft as he admired you, giving you enough confidence to lay your arms down by your sides instead of over your chest. He zeroed in on your breasts as he gave them a kiss.

“Beautiful,” he whispered and your cheeks burst into flames. Your whole body felt hot as you folded one leg over the other so he couldn’t see the arousal gathering at your thin undergarments.

Noticing the movement, he raised a brow at you and uncrossed your legs with his large but slender hand, his grip firm on your thigh to prevent you from covering yourself like that again. Shouto pressed one of your thighs into the bed with his palm, and your other thigh with the gentle weight of his knee, holding your legs open for him.

The cool air from his room hit your wetness seeping through your underwear and you felt yourself clench around nothing.

You shifted under his weight, desperate for some release. “Shouto, please.”

It seemed he no longer had the restraint to tease you further since he nodded, moving lower down the bed so his face was hovering above your clothed pussy. “May I?”

“Fuck— Yes,” you moaned, core heating up in anticipation.

Shouto landed his lips on your fabric-covered cunt, licking a stripe across your slit. Your growing arousal mixed with his spit through your panties, a lewd noise sounding when he pried the fabric away from your pussy. He slid them off your legs, holding it up to examine the arousal slick on the garments. As if he had no shame, he politely folded it and placed it on top of your dress with a smile.

“T-That’s not what a gentleman would do,” you managed as he returned to his position in bed in front of your now-bare cunt.

“And what is it that a gentleman would do, princess?” he whispered dangerously close to your most intimate parts. “This?”

Without warning, he tenderly kissed the bud between your legs. You moaned, legs attempting to kick out in surprise and pleasure, but they remained immobile since Shouto held them down in place.

“Or perhaps this?” Shouto ran his tongue down your folds and back up to your clit, rubbing small and steady figure eights against the sensitive nub.

“Yes!” you cried out, canting your hips towards his mouth in pleasure. “Oh, god— Yes to all of it. Please… Don’t stop.”

“I won’t.” He hummed as he continued his ministrations on your pussy, the vibrations shooting right up your core and causing more wetness to seep out onto his face, but he didn’t let that bother him. In fact, it only seemed to encourage him further.

Not removing his mouth from your clit for even a second, Shouto hooked one of your legs over his shoulder while leaving the other flat against the silky sheets of his mattress. He dragged his opened mouth down to your dripping pussy lips and entered into your slit with his tongue. The new position sent ever more waves of euphoria through you and Shouto licked and sucked at your folds.

You lifted your hips higher and he nuzzled his head deeper, his tongue reaching places you had only ever imagined. The lewd noises of Shouto’s mouth smacking against your slick cunt filled the quiet room. As you moaned, your hands threaded themselves into the base of his hair, lightly tugging him even closer than either of you thought possible.

With his hand that wasn’t holding your thigh down, Shouto found his way to your chest, reaching up to palm at your breast all while still sucking your pussy. He flicked your nipple and gently rubbed it with his thumb and forefinger. Your breathing hitched at the mix of sensations, your core tightening and heating up as Shouto continued to eat you out. “Fuck— Oh— Shouto!” you cried, unable to hold back the volume of your voice.

As if he knew what was coming, he removed his hand from your breast and briefly paused, though his face was still resting against your thigh and pussy. “Not yet, princess. Do you think you can hold on for me?”

You whimpered at the thought of postponing your release, but you trusted that he would make up for the wait. “Okay, sir. For you.”

“That’s my good girl.”

Shouto continued his attack on your cunt with his lips, this time bringing his hand down to rub lazy circles around your clit. His tongue was deep in you, his nose teasingly bumping against your sensitive bud as his fingers flicked against it harsher. Rougher. He nuzzled his head from side to side to hit places far within you as you whimpered and moaned.

The stimulation of both his fingers and his mouth on your pussy was almost too much to handle as your thighs quivered and your cunt clenched uncontrollably.

“S-Shouto, please I—” Your voice broke off as a moan of pleasure ripped through you.

“You can come now, princess,” he murmured into your folds, the vibrations only pleasuring you even further.

And so you did.

You felt yourself orgasm as Shouto continued to suck at your cunt and brush against your clit, moving slower and more gently as you came down from your high.

When he finally looked up from your pussy, the lower half of his face glistened with your fluids, sending you into another state of desire. There was something about the way he looked at you that made you want more of him.

Shouto smiled as he wiped the fluids of your arousal and ecstacy on his chin with his index finger. Instead of taking it into his mouth, however, he held it in front of your lips. “Look at the mess you made for me, princess. See how good you taste.”

After only a moment’s hesitation, you brought his finger that was coated in your arousal into your mouth, swirling your tongue around and sucking him, giving him an idea of what you would do if that were his cock. You released his finger with a soft ‘pop’ and smiled innocently at him.

“Are you going to fuck me now or should I suck you off first, sir?” you asked, tone of voice all too pleasant.

His bulge strained against the snug fit of his pants and you wanted nothing more than to relieve some of his pressure. “You’ll have plenty of opportunities to take my cock into your mouth, but right now I just want to feel you around me. Is that okay?”

“That’s fine with me!” You nodded eagerly, the thought of being filled up with Shouto now taking over your mind completely.

He chuckled at your excitement, though he was feeling the same thing himself. Swiftly, he removed his belt and took off his suit pants. You helped by tugging his black boxer briefs down and watching gently stroking his erect shaft in awe.

Was every part of Shouto pretty? He was just a gift that kept on giving.

Your mouth almost watered in anticipation, biting your lip as he lowered you back against the mattress, your head falling onto the plush pillows. He positioned his member against your slit that was still dripping wet from his spit and your first orgasm.

Shouto rubbed his tip against your already sensitive clit and your slightly parted folds, not yet entering deep enough to satisfy you. He moved his cock back and forth against your pussy as you both watched, the fluids of your arousal and his mixing for further lubrication. Your eyes were fixated on the sight, the thick head of his member disappearing into your sopping pussy lips before coming back out, slowly getting you prepared for his full length.

It was sweet of him to be so patient, but you were on the verge of tears at the frustration you felt. “Please, Shouto! More.”

“What should you call me again, princess?” he drawled, continuing the leisure movements of rubbing his head against your lips. The fluids smeared all over your pussy and dribbled down onto your thighs and his bedsheets. If you weren’t so aroused, you might’ve been a bit embarrassed. But there was no time for that when all you wanted at this very moment was for Shouto to fuck you silly.

“Sir—!” you corrected yourself in a whimper. “Please, sir, I want your fat cock to fill me up.”

He groaned at your words, pulling out of your folds until only the very tip of his dick was touching you and then thrusting forward into your wet depths as you let out a loud cry of pleasure. You felt a stretch inside you as you adjusted to his length, Shouto taking note of how you stiffened and giving you time to get more comfortable.

He began to nibble at your breast, sucking and biting your perk nipples as your arousal built. He nipped you, causing you to gasp in surprise (a very pleasant surprise) before soothing the bite with his tongue. As you arched your back, he swirled the tip of his tongue around your nipple and you hooked your leg around his hips, pushing into his lower back with your calf to signal for more.

“Ready now?”

You nodded fervently.

“Words, princess.”

“Y-Yes, sir,” you managed, voice shaky from your gratification being filled by Shouto. “Use my pussy to make you feel good. Please.”

“You always make me feel good, Y/N,” he said sincerely, removing his mouth from your breast to kiss you on the lips. Your tongues intertwined and you tasted yourself on him. “You’re amazing, you know?”

You smiled into the kiss. “Show me how amazing you think I am with your cock then.”

“Anything for my princess.”

With that, he pounded into you, holding you at the waist to steady your squirming. You hitched your leg higher and higher around his back, canting your hips to let him thrust into you at deeper angles until he hit the spot.

“Oh—! Oh, god,” you mewled in satisfaction, his cock making you feel so good you were certain your eyes almost rolled back into your head. “Fuck, right there, Shouto— Yes!”

At your vocal encouragement, Shouto pushed into you even deeper, his swollen tip rubbing into you at the perfect angle. Your head lolled to the side and your cheek pressed against the soft pillow as you salivated at the intense feeling of his cock thrusting in and out of your weeping pussy.

“Mn,” he made a noise, softly tapping your cheek. “Keep your eyes on me, princess. Don’t look away.”

You struggled to blink away how dazed you felt, feeling so good it was almost unbearable. Somehow, you managed to turn your head back to face him, trying to hold eye contact. “‘M sorry. You feel so good,” you sighed contentedly. “Like your cock was made for me.”

He held your leg higher and you just about screamed from pleasure. “You feel so good too,” he said, one hand stretching your leg up and the other reaching down to toy with your clit. “Never want this to end.”

With his fingers and thumb rubbing against your clit and his member hitting your g-spot, you were certain your throat was going to grow hoarse by the end of the night from all your screaming. You swore you saw stars.

“Want to,” you panted, thrusting your hips up to match his movements, “do this...with you...every...day.”

“Please.”

When his lips found your breast again to tug at your nipple, you couldn’t help yourself any longer.

“S-Shouto, I— I’m going to come,” you told him, voice pleading. You really hoped he let you come.

He hummed in agreement. “Me too. Come with me, princess.”

You lifted his head from your breasts to meet your mouth, kissing into him as you both felt the sweet release of pleasure coursing through your bodies, all the way from the top of your head to the curl of your toes.

His pace slowed as he carried the two of you through your highs. Shouto removed his finger from its position of making circles onto your clit to let you cool down with him. In a state of euphoria, you kissed him, both of you riding your orgasms until you felt nothing but completely happy and thoroughly satiated.

Still not taking his lips off of yours, he moved from being on top of you to lying beside you. Your eyes fluttered shut even as you kissed, nuzzling into his hot, sticky body and ready to pass out.

“‘M sleepy,” you mumbled onto his lips. You just wanted to stay like this. Forever if you could.

Shouto smoothed down your brow, his thumb moving in gentle strokes. “Let’s get you cleaned up first, princess. Then you can sleep.”

The rational part of you knew it would be best to clean up. But your overwhelming desire was simply to never let go of him. “Wait! I still want you.” Lazily, you murmured, “Let’s do it again.”

“You’re about to fall asleep but you want to have another round?”

You nodded. “I...might fall asleep during it, but yes. Want to do it with you again and again.”

Shouto smiled, shaking his head in amusement. But you pouted. It wasn’t a joke, you meant it. You just wanted to stay by his side.

“We can,” he said and you instantly brightened up, “another day.” You huffed. “When you can stand on your own two feet without falling over.”

Your lower lip jutted out in a frown.

“Don’t look so down, princess.” He kissed the top of your head. “It can be tomorrow or the next day.”

Slowly, you perked up again. “Or the day after that? And the next day after that?”

With a laugh, he nodded. “Anytime you want me. I’m yours.”

“I’ll always want you, Shouto,” you told him sincerely, gazing into his eyes.

His face was colored a light pink, his hair plastered to his forehead, and his lips were swollen and bright red. He looked beautiful. It was a sight you’d never tire of.

“I’ll always want you too, Y/N. More than anything. I...love you.”

And in that moment, there was nothing else in the world you would rather hear. No one else you’d rather be with. You were happy to have Shouto and that was better than all the money in the world.

“I love you too.”

— ✩ —

A few days have passed since the fateful night you exchanged ‘I love you’s with Shouto and now you were back at work.

As usual, you were working the morning shift with some cranky customers, trying your best to make the start of their day go as smoothly as possible. And, as per usual, Shouto walked into the cafe a few minutes after rush hour to spend a part of his morning with you.

“Good morning, sir. How can I help you today?” you said teasingly, giving him a brief kiss over the counter, chaste enough that no one else would notice but you two.

“Morning, princess.” He smiled. “I’ll have a medium flat white, please.”

“Of course. And could I interest you in some of our fresh pastries?” you laughed. “Oddly enough, we have your favorite today.”

He perked up at your words. “Cheese danishes?”

“Yup!”

“I’ll have five boxes of a dozen, please.”

Humming to yourself, you entered his order into the register and told him the price. “Your order will be to your left when it’s completed,” you recited, knowing he’s heard this plenty of times before. After he paid and got ready to walk away from the counter, you playfully called out, “So, no tip this time?”

Shouto smirked, glancing back at you with a teasing glint in his eyes. “Maybe I can pick you up tonight and give you a tip then.”

“A...tip?” you asked, stifling a giggle behind your hands. “Was that an innuendo?”

“Innuendo—?” A look of realization crossed his face and his cheeks colored.

You grinned to yourself. As confident and well put together Shouto could be (which you very much enjoyed and found incredibly attractive), you also got extreme pleasure in seeing him blush and grow flustered.

“No… I didn’t intend it like that.” He paused, thinking on it. “Well, I guess I did. But I didn’t mean to make a pun of it…”

Your laughter rang out across the whole store, smile spreading bigger and bigger. “You’re cute, Shouto. Thanks for the laugh.”

He looked sheepish but nodded. “Thanks for letting me hear your laugh. It’s radiant.”

“Smooth talker.” You stuck your tongue out.

“Just the truth.”

“Hmm,” you sighed happily, a feeling of contentment and euphoria settling within you. “But about your tip…”

Shouto blushed.

“I’d love to come over tonight,” you told him. “Any excuse to see my lovely boyfriend.”

“You never need an excuse to see me. Because I always want to be with you too.”

The two of you kissed again, unable to help yourselves. Though it was brief and light, it still sent tingles down your spine.

Shouto was sweeter than any cheese danish or chocolate croissant you could ever make, better than any tip you could ever receive, and you couldn’t wait to continue your life with him.

a/n: omg...this is the end ╥﹏╥ thank you to every who read and commented and sent asks and just supported this series in general ! it was very fun to write and i have a toothache from all of shouto’s sweetness and fluff hfjhggg tysm for reading ily !! xx sof

#PHEW THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT GOING IN THE MAIN FANDOM TAGS LFMDSOGFO #very filthy and also unedited but i really hope u enjoy the final part of etr!! <333 #bnha x reader #bnha fanfiction #bnha imagines #bnha smut #mha x reader #mha imagines #mha fanfiction #mha smut #todoroki shouto smut #todoroki smut #todoroki x reader #todoroki shouto x reader #todoroki shoto x reader #shouto todoroki x reader #shoto todoroki x reader #bnha x you #bnha x y/n

2K notes · View notes

luvknow · 4 years

Text

anything for you | lee felix

genre: rich kid!felix x reader | rich kid au ; friends-to-lovers au ; food ; swearing warning ; alcohol warning ; drinking and driving warning ; abuse warning summary: felix’s family owns the largest restaurant franchise in the country and your family works under them. you two have spent your entire lives together and somehow you’ve turned into mini versions of your parents with a boss and secretary type relationship. it wasn’t until last year on his birthday when he tells you he loves you while drunk that your friendship dynamic dramatically changes, and it’s not for the better when he pretends it never happened. wc: 11.2k

You and Felix were two peas in a pod.

From the moment you two were born until your last months at university, you were tied in this relationship for life. Were you two dating? No, of course not! Were you two friends? Well…

Your friendship with Felix was complicated because it was kind of… bought. There was no way to put it lightly, that was simply the origin of your relationship. It all started when Felix’s rich ass CEO of a Dad hired your Dad to be his right hand man in all decision-making aspects of the company he ran. You thought of your Dad as a Chancellor to the King, which I mean was still a high position in the company, but your peers around you thought otherwise.

You attended all the same schools as Felix (thanks to his Dad’s connections), attended the same after school activities (also thanks to his Dad), and even attended the same overseas summer camps (thanks to his Dad who owned the plane that flew everyone). Even then, after being on the same level as Felix for over twenty years, everyone saw you as Felix’s Secretary who waited on his every word. As a kid, your Dad was transparent about how all the privileges you had were all because of Felix and his family and that you should always treat them with respect. And as an impressionable kid, of course you took that a little too literal.

Your Secretary title started in Pre-School when Felix was crying because he forgot his toy to take a nap with at home, so you offered yours. Those small, kind gestures turned into getting him drinks and snacks whenever he wanted, to tutoring him in subjects he had trouble with, to completing essays he didn’t want to complete, and you did it all without ever complaining.

So despite receiving all the same opportunities as all the other inheritance-dependent kids, you were the bottom-feeder of your entire grade.

“_____ ~” Felix whined while entering your apartment. “I’m hungry.”

You exited your bedroom fixing the last couple buttons on your dress shirt. You’re not surprised to see him in the least, as you’re used to him coming in whenever he pleased since he owned the other copy of the apartment keys. “I have food in the fridge.”

“I don’t want a huge meal before the shareholders meeting.”

“You know where the snacks are, what are you waiting for?”

“I just wanted to ask just in case.”

The excited boy wasted no time invading your pantry and grabbing a handful of fruit snack packets, some he stuffed in his dress pants pockets and some he immediately tore open. He made himself home by flopping on your couch, also known as his second bed, and scrolled through his rotation of dating apps while waiting for his dear friend to finish getting ready.

“Don’t lie down like that!” you nagged. “Your pants are going to get all wrinkly!”

Rolling his eyes, Felix sat up straight, to which you immediately fixed random strands of hair that strayed away from the rest of his slick-back style.

“What are you, my mom?” he mumbled, swatting away your hands.

“Don’t you know how important this meeting is? We could land our internships today.”

“Do you really think I need to worry about that?”

“I guess not… You don’t even want to try out another company for a semester? Scope out your partners?”

“That’s exactly why I shouldn’t be doing that. I’ll look so shady! You probably shouldn’t be thinking about doing that either.”

A small pout emerges from your lips. As much as you owe the Lees and their company your life, you’d like to think the possibility of freeing yourself from their financial shackles was high, even if it was for just one semester. But Felix was right - in order to avoid any spying controversies, it was probably best to not even think about another company. Basically, you were trapped with this company for life.

“Ready to go?” Felix broke the silence. He was the first to leave your couch and head for the door without even bothering to wait for you to catch up.

When you finished locking your front door, you caught Felix looking at your business casual outfit a little too closely. If you weren’t so quick with your reflexes, you would have bumped right into his oddly bulging chest (has he been working out lately?). Still, his foxy eyes scanned you up and down, slowly and intimately.

“Wh-What are you doing…?” you asked nervously. “Is my outfit too bland? It’s ugly, isn’t it? I can’t really glam up for a business meeting, you know.”

“Chill, why are you being hella defensive right now?” he teased. “No, you look good. Honest. Good enough to stand next to me, at least. I wouldn’t stand next to Father if I were you.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“You kind of fit that secretary stereotype you like so much. Especially since you’ll be following me around all day.”

“I do not!”

“Yeah, ok,” Felix tossed you the keys to his expensive black sports car, to which you were also covered as a driver by his insurance. For someone who owns several expensive cars, he sure hates driving them. “Shotty.”

“There’s only two of us…”

The car ride was mostly silent other than the deafening rap music that blared through the subwoofers. Felix could tell you were nervous depending on how talkative you were. If you were blabbering on about how you looked or something arbitrary for at least fifteen minutes, you were probably nervous about a date or maybe a quiz that was coming up in class. If you were silent, he knew that the matter was much more serious. Silence meant that you believed no matter what you did to change yourself or improve upon past mistakes, there was no hope and that whatever was coming was absolute.

“Don’t worry about today,” he reassured after reading your mind. “It’s not like you’re talking in front of hundreds of people at the meeting.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re used to this type of crowd.”

“Are you not? We have class with those good-for-nothing kids of theirs, it’s like the same thing!”

“It is definitely not the same thing! These people have power and they’re smart! The uni is full of idiots who got in with bribes!”

“And you don’t think our shareholders do their fair share of bribing?”

“Of course they do, and that’s what makes them even more terrifying, Felix! They have that kind of power to either buy my entire life or buy out and make sure I never see anyone’s faces again!”

“You say it like you haven’t been shackled to me for over twenty years.”

“That’s different ok, I was a commodity, I couldn’t change anything as a fetus.”

“And now you think you can?”

“I mean, I’d like to think so. Am I crazy?”

“No, not at all.” Gingerly, Felix patted your head like a little kid. “You’ll be just fine ~ I can even introduce you to the ones you want to talk to if you’d like.”

“That’s ok. I’d like to try on my own.”

He understood completely. How he wished he could have that little bit of freedom… To even think about leaving the company behind to work for someone else was blasphemous.

The shareholders meeting was a social event like no other - like, it might as well be a ball with all the people attending and all the press surrounding and being in the building. You pulled up to the normal valet guy who only chuckled at your shocked expression. Felix, on the other hand, wasn’t all that surprised and was rather annoyed at how something as simple as a meeting was getting this much attention.

After dodging all of the press and making it through several thresholds to reach the conference room, you helped Felix prepare for his opening speech.

“You seem more nervous than me,” Felix teased while you quickly smoothed out the wrinkles in his jacket.

“I'm nervous all the damn time.”

“Well, can you quit it before I start sweating? This outfit was expensive. Do you have my speech?”

Searching through your trusty bottomless bag that held everything from tips from your part-time at the cafe to snacks in case Felix got whiny, you pulled out a medium-sized notepad with his opening speech written on it.

“Really, _____? Hand written?”

“My sentences sound better when I write them down instead of typing it!”

“At least it’s legible.” Felix’s Dad announced over the microphone on stage that the meeting will begin shortly. He saw the both of you standing off to the side and waved happily, to which you both could only wave back. The boy in front of you sighed, and it’s the first time today he seemed only slightly nervous. He turned to you. “How do I look?”

How did the most handsome boy you’ve come to know look this morning? Dressed in navy with a white button-down, ears bejeweled and shining in the bright lights, his eyes and his smile sly and foxy, so of course to you he was the only one in the room who you had your eyes on because no one else could ever compare. That’s how it’s always been.

Gentle fingers startled Felix, only for him to realize you were fixing his monogrammed silver tie clip. “You look just fine.”

“‘Just fine’? Not the sexiest man in the entire world?”

“I’d hardly call you a man…”

“Welcome to the YONGBOK Inc. Shareholders Meeting,” greeted your Father while on stage. Felix noticeably cringed at the sound of his birth name slash company name. “We will begin this meeting with an opening remark from Mr. Lee’s son, Felix.”

“Go get ‘em, Tiger,” you whispered with two thumbs up.

A loud round of applause erupted from the audience filled with press and shareholders. Lee Felix was named one of the most influential people under twenty-five this year and has consistently landed spots on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list so yes, Felix was always highly anticipated as a guest to fashion shows and charity balls and even more so as a speaker for his future company. Though it was only less than a minute ago he was jittery with nerves, the second he stepped on stage in front of the podium, it was as if he was born to be a public speaker.

“Good morning, honored guests,” he began in his deep voice that startled unfamiliar guests..

His speech - your speech - wasn’t that long, since it was a simple welcome to all the rich people who gave the Lee’s their money. Regardless of its length, Felix somehow drifted his gaze towards the right where you stood. You, who always stood by him and was his friend through everything, stood at the sidelines giving him your unwavering support, even through this minor milestone. Despite this huge corporate building being the last place you want to be, still, you were here by his side.

In your eyes though, it looked like maybe his stage fright was worse than you expected, so you gave him two thumbs up again for reassurance. You couldn’t really tell what he was thinking because he seemed totally fine, in fact his execution was quite flawless, it was just… Why wouldn’t he look into the cameras? The stage lights that shined on him showcased the bright grin he gave when he saw how confused you looked.

“We will continue to work hard together so that YONGBOK will continue being the best restaurant franchise in the country,” was the motto of the company and how Felix ended the speech. With a deep bow and a wink for fan service, he exited the stage.

He fell into your arms clutching his heart. “Ugh, that was so scary!”

“You did fine,” you mumbled, quickly pushing him off before any cameras caught you. Still, he swung an arm around your shoulders unapologetically.

“All right, let’s ditch this popsicle stand.”

“You know we can’t do that or our Fathers will kill us.”

“You think I haven’t died and resurrected like a rising phoenix dozens of times?”

“Leave if you want, it’s your suicide.”

“You won’t come with me?” the handsome boy pouted.

“I’m not actually your secretary, you know.”

“I know, but I’ll be so lonely… Did you at least bring a snack?”

Felix decided to stay when he realized you weren’t kidding about wanting to sit through the entire meeting. Your right ear was focused on all the questions shareholders and the press had while your left ear focused on the child you were babysitting playing with the chocolate bar wrapper. Eventually the conflicting sounds merged into one when the lack of caffeine in your veins made it hard to concentrate for long hours.

“Bet you wished you left with me a couple hours ago, huh?” Felix teased once everything was over.

“Whatever. The important thing is that it’s over now.”

“Are you going to go talk with some of the shareholders?”

That was the original plan - to land an internship at a different company and slowly but surely escape the bubble that is the Lees’ world, but what was the use of making life harder on yourself if you’ll just be seen as a spy? What was the use in anything anymore when your life was determined the moment you came out of the womb?

You shook your head tiredly. “Nah, I think I’ll save that for another time.”

Felix linked his arm with yours like you were the gentleman and he was the lady. The warmth of another body so close to yours was only familiar when it was his, and you wished your body was unbiased and rejected anything within a five feet radius. “You wanna hang out with me that much?”

“Who said I’m hanging out with you? I’m driving you home.”

“No come on, let’s hang out today! Neither of us have class and when was the last time it was just the two of us?”

By ‘just the two of you’, he meant when was the last time you and him hung out without any business involved? When was the last time you and him had pizza together after a long week of midterms and studying, or the last time he picked you up from your part time at the cafe to have a cup of coffee, or the last time you talked about anything other than being ordered around by the Prince himself?

The answer to that question was last year on his birthday when he got too wasted and you didn’t have the strength to carry him up his multi-story mansion, so instead you carried him up to your humble apartment and let him crash on your bed the whole weekend (insisted upon staying the whole weekend because all the puking made him ‘weak’ and ‘dehydrated’).

Truth be told, you loved Felix’s company, whether it was business or personal. The hesitation was because you wondered if he truly felt the same way, especially since he never spoke about that night on his birthday. That night, a lot was said, but nothing was ever confirmed, so you were left in limbo while Felix managed to live in ignorant bliss.

It was better this way.

“I guess it’s been a while…” you trailed off.

“It’s been forever, love. Can we go to your cafe? I’m really craving the strawberry milk latte thing.”

“Anything for you, Felix ~”

“That’s what I like to hear.”

“Felix,” the haunting voice of his father echoed from behind. “Come here for a second -”

“That’s our cue!” The wild blond took you by the hand and sprinted out the conference room doors before his dad could catch him.

As if already predicting the time of events for the shareholders meeting, the valet already had the sports call pulled up and tossed you the keys for maximum efficiency.

“Hey, you’re hand-eye coordination is getting better!” Felix teased while hopping in the front seat.

“And your fear for your dad is not.”

“It’s not fear, it’s pure distaste. Completely different.”

The short ride to your cafe was anything but quiet as Felix filled you in on his most recent Tinder match. The story was something along the lines of ‘she was hot, but kind of stupid’, and you weren’t exactly sure what came after that because, well, you didn’t care. Hearing about the guy you were in love with slash your childhood friend slash the guy whose family bought out your family’s current dating app situation wasn’t exactly the most ideal setting, but hey, it beats sitting in that conference room for any longer.

The cafe was surprisingly not as busy around lunch time, even though it was Friday. Other than a few customers, the only other person in the cafe was your coworker Wooyoung who was busy dramatically singing to whatever drama OST was playing over the intercom.

“Are you making it?” Felix asked, referring to his strawberry latte.

“I wasn’t planning on it since I’m not working.”

“... Can you?”

“Are you serious!?”

“The last time someone other than you made my drinks, they tasted watery!”

He wasn’t wrong - a lot of the baristas here were a bit lazy with the job. You and Wooyoung were among the very few who genuinely cared for the cafe, the menu, and its customers. You supposed you could take a moment to step away from Felix - you sort of missed the barista behind the counter, anyways.

“Sit tight,” you told Felix, who obeyed happily at his favorite table.

Wooyoung with his cutesy cheeky grin chucked one of the ugly brown work aprons right at your face, to which you only whipped right back.

“I’m not working and you know that!”

“Can’t a guy dream to have the same shift with his favorite coworker? What are you doing here then?”

“Making a strawberry latte.”

“For yourself or for His Highness over there?”

“Do you even have to ask?”

Wooyoung knew all too well what your relationship was like with Felix and that was because he was also one of the elite, also known as a trust fund son. Wooyoung and Felix were from the same side of a coin, reigning from families whose net worth could buy out entire towns. The circle of the elite had a lot of members, but it was tight-knit, so everyone knew everything about everyone else. You were included in Felix’s dossier.

“You know, _____, you are your own person,” Wooyoung tisked as he hovered over you making the fruity drink. It was as simple as pouring milk over some strawberry compote (Felix liked it when there was extra compote) and shaking vigorously.

“You telling me that whenever I come in with him totally makes it more valid than the last time.”

“You know I’m just looking out for you.” His soft fingers gently pinched your cheeks. “You’re so sour today, I kind of like it.”

“Aren’t you known for liking people who have zero interest in you?”

“Exactly, so you better watch your attitude or I’ll steal you away from Mr. Lee Felix ~”

“You’re so weird!” Even so, Wooyoung stole a kiss on your bruised cheek before helping the customer at the counter. The aftermath left your face burning up, even though you were used to his flirtatiousness by now.

Of course Felix saw the entire interaction. Though he tried to hide behind his phone, he made sure to still have a view of whatever you and that spoiled ‘I-own-a-yacht’ Wooyoung were doing. You were much different around him than you were with that cheeky bastard behind the counter. With Felix, you were strict, quiet, and pouty, but with Wooyoung you were able to smile more and joke around and even laugh when you flicked whipped cream in his hair. In those short five minutes, that was a type of you he hasn’t been able to see since high school.

But now? You were so cold and distant. He could barely hang out with you without it seeming like it was some business meeting. What changed?

Felix watched you walk back to him holding his pink drink with your cheeks to match its color.

“I didn’t know you two were so close,” he said bitterly after you both exited the cafe.

“We work together, of course we’re close. You’re welcome, by the way.”

You’ll take his happy humming as he inhaled the latte as a thank you. “You talk about how much you hate some of your coworkers all the time!”

“I guess I do… but he’s different.”

“Of course he is…”

The handsome and pouty boy beside you did his best to ignore your accusing glare. “Do you have some beef with him, or something.”

“No,” he said simply in between gulps. “I just don’t like him.”

“You don’t like any boy I talk to.”

“Exactly.”

“So what happens when I really like someone? Do they need your ‘Lee Seal of Approval’?”

“Yup.”

You sighed heavily. “Why do you enjoy making my life so hard?”

“Because I love you, that’s why!”

You couldn’t count on all your fingers and toes how many times Felix has said ‘I love you’ since his birthday party. With his special day coming up again, the words hit harder than usual, even when you knew he was joking, but no ‘I love you’ hurt more than the first time he said it last year before he passed out on your bed.

Speaking of which, “Sooo ~ Guess what next week is ~?” Felix sang cheekily after hopping in the car.

“Uh, midterms week?”

“No ~”

“Buy one get one free soju at the karaoke place?”

“No…”

“Oh wait, isn’t it Han’s birthday next week?” He knew you were trying to push his buttons, but it clearly worked by the way he was glaring at you. “Yeah, that must be it.”

“So mean…”

“Are you two throwing a joint party again?”

“Yeah, but I think we’re skipping the club scene and throwing it at his house instead.”

“Wow, the Lee Felix is tired of the club scene?” you scoffed. “Never thought I would see the day.”

“Maybe it’s just my eyesight getting worse - I’d like to see who I’m hitting on for once.” One sharp stab in your heart. “Will you help me plan?”

Did you really have any other choice? “Of course.”

“Yes ~ This’ll totally top last year’s party!”

You sure hoped so, and you hoped you wouldn’t remember a single moment of it.

Planning for the party didn’t start until a couple days before the big date. Since Jisung was hosting, it was Felix’s responsibility to come up with all the decor and the theme and literally all the smaller bits and pieces of the party.

“Honey, I’m home ~” Felix sang as he walked into your apartment. An aroma of fresh spices and cooked meat and roasted vegetables hit his nose upon entering. “Whoa, are you cooking!?”

“We can’t plan on an empty stomach,” you stated the obvious. Immediately, a bowl of rice and the fixings was handed to the grinning boy.

“I love it when you cook. I haven’t eaten your cooking in a while.”

“I didn’t know you liked my cooking,” you blushed. “I haven’t cooked for you that often.”

“It’s because we’re both always so busy or we just eat the restaurant’s food when we’re lazy.” A happy hum came from his lips. “You have a mad talent for this, you know.”

“Do I?”

“Of course! The Boy with the God Tongue himself said so!” Being the future heir of the country’s largest restaurant franchise meant ridiculous chef-related nicknames, to which Felix enjoyed whole-heartedly. “You know this means I’m never going to let you leave YONGBOK.”

“Can you stop, you’re so embarrassing, it’s not that amazing!”

“You stop! Quit undermining your talents.”

“If it’s so good, what do you like about it?”

“For one, there’s tons of balance between the flavors. It’s also not as salty, which is what some of the chefs in some locations are having trouble with lately. But the best part is that it feels like home when I eat your cooking.”

“Like home? Like… as if your in-house chef was cooking it?”

Felix chuckled cutely. “No, I mean it feels like someone who loves me very much made this with lots of care.”

You’re too stunned to say anything right away. It felt as if Felix caught you in his trap and was forcing you to admit something that he knew from the very start. But now was not the time nor was it the place. As a response, you turned away and chugged the rest of your glass of water.

“Right,” you cleared your throat awkwardly. “G-Glad you liked it.”

Felix wondered why you wouldn’t look at him. “S-So, let’s get started?”

You took a bowl of food for yourself and refilled Felix’s before settling down at the table. “Do you have an idea for a theme?”

“Ok, hear me out - casino themed?”

“Isn't that underage gambling? Sounds super illegal to me.”

“Right, right… Ok, how about, uh, a masquerade?”

“Not bad, but a little cliche, no?”

“But it’s so sexy! Classy clothes, bejeweled masks -”

“Choreographed waltzing?”

“Yes! For the first half of course, then we’ll probably bump the real shit after a couple of drinks.”

“Hm, I actually like that.” You entered the theme into your notes. “Cool, we have a theme down. Now for all the decoration…”

That itself took about an hour. Imagine, talking about banners and balloon arches, and personalized masks for a whole hour with the most indecisive human being alive. How he’s expected to make major decisions for a multi-million dollar company one day, you’ll never know.

“Ugh,” you were over it, at least for another hour. You couldn’t take comparing different shades of gold and different grades of champagne anymore. Your couch was supposed to be your safe space away from Felix, but he followed you like a puppy and laid his head on your lap.

“This weekend is going to be so much fun! Did you get me a gift yet ~?”

“Uh, maybe…”

“What is it?”

“It’s a surprise, silly.”

“Can I at least get a hint?”

“Probably the cheapest gift you’ll get.”

“Hey.” Felix silenced any doubt you had about your gift by taking one of your hands in his and holding it over his chest. He closed his eyes, tired from the day, tired by your constant doubts, tired of it all. “You know I don’t care about that kind of stuff when it comes to you.”

“I know, but I do.”

“Well, don’t. My favorite gifts have always been from you.”

“Even more than the diamond chain from Chan?”

“... Your gifts are my favorite after that one.” Your free hand poked his freckled cheek, causing him to laugh and smile brighter than the sun. Lying here with you made him happy. “I miss hanging out with you like this.”

“We hang out all the time!”

“Not like this. We never just chill out together and not worry about anything. We’re always worrying about something, especially since we started uni.”

“Uni sort of defines our future, so of course there’s tons to worry about.”

“Not for me. My life has been predetermined. If you think about it, uni doesn’t define your future, either.”

“I wish you didn’t tell me that,” you groaned. “You’re so right. What’s the point when the two of us are just going to take over our Father’s positions, anyways!?”

“Does our future together sound that miserable to you?” he teased. You wished he didn’t word it that way.

“Not miserable, but doesn’t it suck that we don’t have that sort of freedom? You and I have had our lives predetermined since birth!”

“Perhaps it was fate that you would be my Chancellor and I would be your King,” Felix snickered.

“Call it whatever you want, but where’s the joy we could get from spontaneity and disorder?”

“Good point. But I think you and I will find that joy just fine.”

“You think so?”

“Mhm. Life will always be a joy if I’m with you.” A tired smile spread across his lips. “You and I make a disorderly pair.”

You and him were definitely a disorderly pair. It was like you two were in a modern-day forbidden friendship that was only seen in royal fairy tales. Felix was the Prince, the apple of everyone’s eye, the boy with the highest ranking just below the King. You were the lowly common person who devoted their life to the castle and serving the royal family. Somehow, even with the drastic gap between your social classes, you both found each other and became inseparable.

Through childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, the time spent together naturally formed your feelings for Felix to nothing less than love. You were the number one witness of seeing him laugh, smile, cry, and scream through all his happiness, sadness, and anger. You were the only one who knew the exact number of freckles that dusted his cheeks. You knew what specific snacks he wanted for certain craving occasions, his favorite orders at every restaurant, how he liked his instant ramen (with egg, American cheese, and green onions), and especially his cafe drink orders. When they say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, you supposed that was especially true for Felix.

After over twenty whole years together, how the fuck were you supposed to avoid falling in love? How were you supposed to look at Felix and feel with your whole chest that you were not madly in love with his beautiful face and his kind heart? When Felix told you he loved you with slurred words on his birthday last year, how were you supposed to let that go and live on like you didn’t cry in the shower for a whole month afterwards?

You put the blame for the disorder in this messed-up friendship all on Felix, but you couldn’t help but clean it up and do your best to keep it together. So when he forgot he said those magic words, you did your best to forget them, too, but the best you could do was bury the memory away and cover it up with work and school. It wasn’t the most ideal way to deal with the issue, you knew that, but the important part was that it was working even if it was just a little bit.

Felix was the first to wake up the next morning. You didn’t move a single muscle and ended up sleeping upright since he used you as a pillow. Still, your hand was in his and the other tangled in his messy blond hair and truly, being here with you was the only place that felt like home.

The day of the party was filled with chaos on your end, as you had to wake up at 6:00 am just to make it to Jisung’s pool house in time to set up the decorations for the joint birthday party. You ended up directing all the crews to where the cocktail tables needed to be set up, where the instagram photobooth should go, and where the Michelin-star chefs were going to set up for dinner. The most important part was the dance floor, which would be clean with nothing but some shoe scuffs for the first couple of hours and probably stained with different colors of liquor by the end of the night.

By noon you were totally wiped out having a stomach full of only coffee and a granola bar. The worst part was that you didn’t get a chance to buy a mask yet and would probably have to settle for some cheap recycled paper with sequins and feathers glued on it from the birthday party store down the block.

But as if the Gods’ translated your feelings telepathically to Felix, your Prince in shining armor came to the rescue with a sandwich, more coffee, and something in a matte black gift bag. The gesture, though small, made your cheeks burn the brightest of pinks. It was your first time seeing and talking with Felix since he left the comfort of your lap a couple of nights ago. Although you were unsure of yourself (as with any situation, am I right?), the Prince didn’t seem so phased.

“I figured you could use a pick-me-up,” he grinned brightly, handing you all the goods.

“You are a blessing,” you sighed, chugging the iced coffee. “What’s in the black bag?”

“It’s a surprise. Open it.”

“I thought today was your birthday?”

“It’s nothing big, I promise!”

You shot him a skeptical look, but opened up the gift regardless. Inside was an intricately bejeweled mask for tonight, colored perfectly to match your outfit.

“I went to your apartment because I thought you’d be there,” Felix began shyly. “I went to your room and saw your entire outfit laid out, but no mask, so I figured you didn’t have one yet. I bought one to match your outfit and to match mine! Mine looks exactly like that, but black.”

“You really didn’t have to,” you pouted, though staring at the shiny jewels adoringly. It was gorgeous and you never thought in your lifetime you could own anything so glamorous. The gesture lifted an extremely loaded weight off your shoulders and you couldn’t help but hug the birthday boy as a thank you. “You’re the best, thank you.”

“Anything for you, love.”

“Also, please stop going into my bedroom.”

“What, afraid I’m going to raid your panties?”

“Yes.”

“That’s fair.”

Felix spent the rest of the day helping you make the pool house perfect since it was also technically his job as the co-host. Holding the ladder while you hung up crystal decor was reminiscent of past Christmas parties that his family hosted. Your two families would come together and prepare the cookies, the eggnog, and the presents for the whole morning before the big party that started around dinner time, and you and Felix were in charge of the Christmas tree. He’s not too big on heights, so he always made you hang the ornaments on the top layer. It was a very adult networking and old people gambling games type of party, so you and Felix would always sneak off into his basement and play video games or watch corny movies with a stolen tray of sugar cookies.

The Christmas before uni was probably the last one where you two felt like kids and didn’t have to worry about what kinds of feelings would get in the way of your beautiful friendship.

“Ugh, my calves are burning,” you whined on your way down from the ladder. Your legs gave out on the second step down and the weight of your tired body pulled you down, causing you to drop to your death from a mere five feet above.

Luckily, your Prince had quick reflexes and caught you bridal style. As kids, it was surprising when Felix could carry anything even half his weight with his twiggy arms, but the fact that he could hold you without struggling or even breaking a sweat was the closest you’ve ever experienced a miracle.

A gentle, handsome smile came from his lips. “You ok?” he asked in his deep voice.

No, you’re definitely not, but lying was ok in this situation. “F-F-Fine! I am fine!”

“Are you sure?”

“Y-Yes! Uh, you can put me down now…!”

“Hm, but I kind of like holding you like this.” You hit his rock-hard chest lightly, to which he recoiled dramatically before placing you down gently. “Is that how you thank your hero!?”

“Thank you, My Hero.”

“That’s more like it.”

It wasn’t until around dinner time when you left Felix alone to be in charge of guiding all the caterers to their cooking spots while you sped home to get ready as fast as you could. You didn’t want to leave Felix in charge for more than an hour, otherwise there would be more room for error.

You must have had such little faith in him because he did as was told without any issues and was done well before the party was going to start. He took the down time to put on his satin black suit and fix his blond hair before putting on the matching mask. While looking in the floor-to-ceiling mirror, of course he admitted to himself that he would be the sexiest one at the party, but something about the view didn’t seem right. He didn’t have you beside him hyping him up like always. The view in the mirror was lonely without you.

“Good job with the chefs!” you called into the dressing room unannounced.

Felix could see you jogging in wearing the full outfit he saw on your bed this morning, now complete with the mask he gifted you in the reflection of the mirror. The view of you was stunning, so much to the point that the Prince himself was too afraid to turn around and look at you with his own eyes. You reminded him of the story of Medusa, who would turn men into stone if they dared to look at you, and Felix thought that he was well past that point, already frozen in place with his jaw dropped and hands fixated on his crooked tie.

Luckily, you didn’t seem to notice as you stepped in between him and the mirror. The feel of your knuckles brushing up against his chest broke him free of his frozen state, causing him to hitch his breath in his throat. It was very un-Felix-like to be this nervous, especially before an event that circled around him, but perhaps it was his sobriety that made him jittery.

“You good?” you reciprocated after a long moment of silence.

Prince Felix cleared his throat before speaking. “Yeah.”

“Nervous?”

“I guess so.”

“What do you have to be nervous about other than being the center of attention in front of hundreds of people?” you teased lightly.

“It’s not like I know everyone, though.”

“What do you mean? You and Han invited all the people you normally party with.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like I’m friends with all of them. I don’t hang out with them before 10:00 pm.”

Even behind the mask, you could tell his nerves were sincere. “Are you having regrets about this party?”

“I wouldn’t say regrets… I don’t know. I’m sorry, I know you put a lot of work into this.”

“Do you not want to go -”

“No! No, I want to go.” To ditch a party you worked on for forty-eight hours would be like slapping you in the face and he knew that. But he also knew if he said yes, you would follow him wherever he’d go in a heartbeat because that’s how much you loved him. He cleared his throat once more. “Will you stay with me?”

You raised a brow, unsure if you heard correctly. “Stay with you?”

“As in, will you stay by my side tonight?”

“You want me by your side the whole night?” Oh, how the tables have turned, in which Felix with his blushing cheeks couldn’t look you in the eyes as he nodded shyly. It was hard to believe what you were seeing with your own eyes and you wondered if you were dreaming. “Ok.”

“Really?”

Softly, you straightened his mask. “Anything for you, birthday boy.”

The anxiety from the claustrophobia of the party was replaced with the thought of being with you the whole night, but this is how he’d rather be. No longer did he want to stay in this room he filled with bad energy, so he took you by the hand and led you back to the main room where guests quickly filled in. Anxiety filled his chest again and you felt it through his hand squeezing yours tightly, as if afraid you would let go and slip away into the crowd where he’d never see you for the rest of the night. You’re not sure what’s gotten into him and you didn’t want to make it worse, so you led him to the tables of food hoping he could fill the emptiness in hopes of loosening up a little.

Even while eating food, Felix refused to let go of your hand, so you had to act as his free hand and feed him gourmet finger foods.

“You’re even more of a baby on your birthday,” you scoffed.

“But you love babying me, right?” he teased.

“I don’t know if ‘love’ is the right answer…”

The beginning of the night was nothing short of energy-draining as every single guest came up to greet Felix on his birthday and greeted you second. It was crazy that even in a room full of hundreds of peers, the crowd was still able to distinguish the birthday boys from everyone else, but you supposed it was easy because who else was blond and this handsome? The same way you looked at Felix, everyone else also had their eyes on him because he was truly that stunning in a crowded room.

It was occasions like these when you felt most out of place. You only ‘belonged’ here because Felix was your ticket in, but you would never become one of the elite. You didn’t have all the luxury of buying a new outfit or new jewels for every occasion like everyone else here. You were a simple person in your humble apartment living your predetermined life and getting by without any conflict, all thanks to him. That was what made you believe for twenty years that you had no right to fall for Felix the way you did - you were nothing more than the King’s hired Chancellor.

Even so, when the whole room was looking at him, he only looked at you.

The next song was a common waltz song that was played at every masquerade party on the planet. With a hop in his step, you found the birthday boy in front of you bowing with his hand still in yours.

“Will you dance with me?” he asked dramatically like he was playing a character.

“Why, of course, Your Highness.”

Waltz dancing was definitely not the first talent you’d think of while wondering what Felix was good at, but to your surprise, it was like he’d been taking classes for years. You knew little-to-nothing about it yourself, but it was easier when your date took the lead and you didn’t have to think, just follow. It was a ride, honestly, and you couldn’t stop yourself from giggling, even when the dance finished with Felix dipping you, faces close and noses barely touching.

You hardly noticed his eyes shift to your lips in the midst of all the giggles. “When did you learn to do that!?”

“Last night,” he admitted sheepishly. “Are you impressed?”

“Very.”

“Then those three hours of Youtube tutorials were worth it.”

Your predicted cycle of food, dancing, alcohol, and back to food was correct. Several rounds lasted several hours to the point where you were at the perfect amount of tipsy, but still able to navigate, although if any more rounds of alcohol were going to happen, you might be in trouble. Keeping up with the birthday boy was so hard!

But you didn’t mind, because the poison made you forget about how much you didn’t belong there and swept any overreaction to Felix’s affection under the rug, though it was getting harder to do the latter, as each shot meant closing the distance between you and him. Somehow, you went from holding his hand to his hand never leaving your waste, with your bodies keeping close contact, a feeling you’ve always been familiar with even when sober, but this time was different.

“So,” he began in the middle of the dance floor. “When do I get my gift?”

“How about after your birthday cake?”

“Birthday cake?”

On cue, the lights dimmed and the music stopped. Jisung found his way next to Felix and all the chefs rolled out a giant tiered cake with candles on it, cueing all the guests to sing happy birthday. You made sure to keep the design simple, but the flavors immaculate and matching the boys’ palates because that was the most important part. Even from afar, you could smell the chocolate.

You tried to step away from him so that he and Jisung could have the spotlight together, but even then he didn’t want you to leave. He squeezed your side a little tighter, a silent gesture that said, ‘please don’t go.’

By now, you were starting to sober up a bit and that was a bad sign because now you were realizing that this whole night would be forgotten tomorrow, just like last year. Still, you stayed by his side because that’s what he wanted.

Why it had to be you, you’ll never know, but the feeling was too right to question it.

At the end of the song, the birthday boys blew out the candles and the cheers deafened your ear drums. What shocked you next was the feeling of soft lips on your cheek.

“Thank you,” Felix whispered with so much adoration. “For everything.”

You’ll never be able to recover from tonight. “Why are you like this all of a sudden? Have you had too much to drink?”

A cute giggle escaped his lips. “No, I’m fine. This day feels extra special, that’s all. You’re the reason.”

Felix was such a smooth honey talker when there was a little something swimming in his bloodstream. You should know better not to take these words to heart, but you can’t help it when they’ve all you’ve ever wanted to hear. A repeat of last year was bound to happen any second.

You did your best to avoid the compliment. “Do you want your gift now?”

“Ooh, yes!”

The gift was hidden in the room you find him in earlier today. You were too embarrassed to set it up next to the gift table that was dressed in bags with brands like Cartier and Gucci, so you stashed it away from the rest. The bouncy and excited boy had the widest grin on his face, impatiently waiting for you to present him with what you had.

“Close your eyes,” you demanded.

Felix held out his hands with his eyes closed and expected something small, like a watch or a cupcake or some plush toy that he could strap on his keychain, but instead nearly stumbled forward holding something as heavy as a textbook.

“Ok, open your eyes.”

He wasn’t too far off, actually. In his hands was a thick, heavy book titled “Felix & _____” that you printed out on an embossed label maker. Inside were infinite pages of pictures, stamps, receipts, travel brochures, foreign currency, movie tickets, anything and everything from most if not all the memories you spent together over the past twenty years. The first few pages were filled with old film pictures and polaroids you had to steal from your parents and the later pages progressively got more crowded with trinkets and things when you two were old enough to hang out on your own.

For a while, Felix was silent as he flipped through all the memories. There wasn’t a smile on his face, no tears streaming down his cheeks, in fact he was emotionless and now you were confused. He told you he didn’t care about money or the cost of gifts when it came to you, but…

“You hate it,” you stated rather than asking.

Felix looked up at you, completely sobered up, with the most incredulous expression. “Of course not,” he reassured softly. “I love it. So much. You saved all of this…?”

“I saved every receipt that wasn’t smudged with barbecue sauce or oil and every movie ticket since the start. I had boxes full of it and I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I didn’t have the heart to throw it away, so I made you a scrapbook. It took forever, but luckily your family’s historian captured a lot of the earlier stuff.” Felix was listening, but his eyes were fixated on the last page, where you pasted a single picture of a selfie you two took just a couple days ago. “Happy birthday, Felix.”

Flipping through the scrapbook made him realize that yes, so much has changed between the two of you. There’s so much growth and care and love in between the pages and the fine lines that isn’t seen unless you look for it. As he looked at you, with your cheeks dusted scarlet and wearing your heart on your sleeve, perhaps him pretending he didn’t tell you he loved you last year was what was slowly drifting you away from him, because how were you going to deny to his face that you didn’t love him, too?

Perhaps it was best you would admit it to him on your own time. For now, he hoped a gentle kiss on your forehead would push you a little bit.

His rose petal lips left your forehead tingling. “You’re the best. Thank you.”

When Felix tried to close the gap in between, you took a large step back. You couldn’t look him in his eyes and now he’s confused and his heart hurts.

“Why do you keep doing that?” you asked.

“Doing what?”

“Holding my hand, holding me, kissing me…”

“Oh, I thought you were ok with all of that.”

You take a deep breath. You can’t let last year repeat itself. “You’re wrong.”

“I’m wrong?”

“You can’t just do that whenever you feel like it.”

“Do what!?”

“Play with my feelings!” You took another breath to calm you down and prevent anymore tears that were about to pool. “I have feelings, Felix. You can’t just use me whenever you feel like it and take it all back like it never happened the next morning!”

“I have feelings, too. How the fuck else was I supposed to deal with the night I told you I love you and you didn’t say it back?”

You’re left stunned and speechless. Felix just admitted to you that he once told you he loved you. He didn’t have to say when for you to know that he was talking about the inebriated self on your bed mumbling those three words as you tucked him in on his birthday last year.

“You didn’t say it back and I thought you didn’t feel the same, so I pretended to forget all about it. But now I know you feel the same,” he begged desperately. “I just know. Tell me I’m wrong, _____. Tell me I’m wrong to think that after all these years together, I think you fell in love with me the same way I fell in love with you.”

You couldn’t say anything. You couldn’t admit that he was right because he was drunk then and he’s still a little intoxicated now. But even if he’s right, even though you both knew how much you loved every cell of Felix, what if all this sweet talk was brewed by the mix of drinks that settled in his core? What if he forgets again tomorrow and you’re left in a worse state than you were last year? What if the alcohol just jogged last year’s memory that was stored deep in his cortex that only tequila was able to unlock?

The more you tried to make an excuse for it, the more ridiculous it sounded...

When you didn’t say anything right away, Felix was sure if he had his ribs broken that it would hurt less than the pain he felt in his chest right now. But that wasn’t your fault - nothing was ever your fault. This was all his doing because that’s what Felix did best - screw everything up.

The blond’s once hurt expression turned to stone before he dropped the scrapbook onto the cushioned chair next to his belongings.

“My mistake then,” he muttered before leaving you alone in the room.

“Felix, wait -” but it was too late, he was already out of the room to do something stupid to forget what just happened.

You ran after him, but the party room was so loud and dark and filled to the brim with guests that you couldn’t find him. In a room full of people, you were always able to find Felix no matter what, but it’s like he changed the makeup of the atmosphere to make sure that wouldn’t happen again for the rest of the night. You tried looking for blond locks from high ground, you tried snaking your way on the dance floor, you even checked the private rooms and men’s bathrooms in the whole house and none of them worked. You were afraid that after all the heartbreak, you wouldn’t see him again for a long while.

You bumped into Jisung in an empty hallway, who seemed out of breath like he was running a marathon just now.

“You have to come with me,” he gasped in urgency.

“What happened?”

“It’s Felix. He’s about to race Wooyoung.”

Those five words sounded like a terrible ad-lib in the newspaper, but when you followed Jisung to the front of the pool house, lo and behold half of the guests were gathered around the two boys who looked like they were about to get into a fist fight. In Felix’s hand, you could see that he was holding the keys to his sports car that was already parked out front.

Wooyoung’s the first to see you run to them from the crowd, with Jisung following behind you. “Hey, _____. Can you tell Prince Charming here that I’m not about to race him and go to jail?”

“That’s because you’re a pus -”

Jisung held Wooyoung back before he could get a swing in and you stepped in between. This was the first time you got a good look at his face, which was tear-stained and flushed red, all because of you.

“What are you doing!?” you muttered harshly.

“Trying to understand what you see in this guy. It’s not his looks, or his brains. Can’t be his car either, but I just wanted to prove my prediction just in case.”

His breath smelled like freshly poured alcohol. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Am I ridiculous, though? I think I might be onto something when I said there’s something that you see in him.”

“There’s nothing, so can you please give me your keys so we can talk inside?”

“I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

Ouch. “Ok, we won’t talk. Let’s do something else -”

“I don’t want to do something else with you. I want to race and kick his ass.”

“You want to crash and burn that badly?” Wooyoung screamed over Jisung’s shoulders. “Fine, let’s drive!”

The crowd cheering only boosted Felix’s ego more, so he broke free from your wall and walked towards his car.

“Felix, don’t do this!” you cried out desperately, and for a second you could see the hesitation, but it was easily overcome.

“If you don’t want to be here, then go home. I don’t need you.”

The crowd oohed in unison and your left in the middle of the circle humiliated, watching the boy you loved the most get into his car and prepare to race your coworker. There’s a myriad of scenarios that fly through your mind of what could go wrong and you’re not sure if you should stay for the mess of the aftermath. But Felix said it himself that he didn’t need you, so maybe you should follow his advice and go home.

If something were to happen to him and you weren’t there to pick up the pieces and mend them back together, you would never forgive yourself. Your life’s purpose had always been to help Felix mend his pieces together whenever he needed it. But maybe this was his way of telling you that you were no longer needed for that - that you were free of all your duties as his personal fake secretary and since he thought you didn’t love him back that you served no purpose to him anymore.

When Felix said he didn’t need you, he meant that he didn’t need you to be the person you always were. He didn’t need you to be his babysitter trying to stop him from doing something stupid, he needed you as someone who wanted to stop him because you loved him and was afraid that he’d get hurt. And perhaps it was his mistake for saying it so harshly because you didn’t bother to stop him after that. But it hurt him to his core that you believed him when he said he didn’t need you anymore, that after twenty years you so easily believed that he could cut you out of his life, just like that. How many stupid mistakes could Felix make tonight? He was too far into this that he couldn’t back out, so all he had to do was race and make it out alive to see you again.

From the rear view mirror, he saw your distant figure fade away with the night.

It has been a long sixty-eight hours and twenty-four minutes since you arrived home from the birthday party. Hermit crabbing for the first twelves hours was stressful - you couldn’t sleep until 6:00 am, you only slept for a couple hours, you sent mass text messages to multiple people, including Felix, curious about his whereabouts and no one got back to you until twelve hours after that.

han solo [8:43 pm]: sorry darling, i like just woke up. he’s fine i guess.

you [8:44 pm]: what do you mean you ‘guess’!?

han solo [8:44 pm]: i mean they both came out unscathed and his dumbass won so physically he’s fine! but he didn’t seem too happy that he won. i think he’s back home with his parents atm.

That settled your racing heart only a little, but at least you knew he was fine physically, at least. Still, your hundreds of texts sent to him were all left on read, meaning he saw all your desperation and worry and didn’t bother to ease any of it.

You couldn’t eat for those long hours, but now it was getting unbearable and you needed to eat something. You had all the ingredients for Felix’s favorite soup, and as much as you didn’t want to constantly remind yourself of him, you couldn’t help yourself. The process was nice and slow, where you took extra care into washing the vegetables and bringing the broth to a gentle boil before dropping everything in. You could imagine the look on his face if he smelled what you made with your own hands.

Cooking for Felix was a very rare occasion because you were still self conscious about your abilities, especially as someone who was going to work for the country’s largest restaurant franchise. But the times he’s tasted your creations, his reaction was nothing but sincere bliss, cleaning his plate or bowl or several every time. He was the only one who truly believed in your talents and far-off dream when your parents wanted you to follow your Dad’s footsteps. You always cared about what Felix thought about you and your actions and nearly everything, but what he thought about your cooking was one of the most important things and his constant support for your craft was what made you fall for him so much harder than you already did.

The aromas of the soup made you miss him even more. If you didn’t hear back from him today, you were going to take drastic measures and find him yourself.

A quiet, eerie knock came at your door. You hesitated, wondering if you should just pretend you weren’t home, but then a voice spoke up.

“I know you’re home,” Felix said. “I can smell you cooking my favorite soup.”

You dropped your wooden spoon and hurried to open the front door. Behind the door revealed a tired Felix with one bruised up eye and cut up lip. Though the tears quickly fell from your eyes and you covered your gaping mouth, he still gave you a weak smile in hopes of easing any worry you now had.

“I kind of need you,” he admitted softly. “I really need you.”

Speechless, you took Felix by the hand and sat him on your couch before grabbing your massive first aid kit. He’s not surprised that you took him in with open arms without any hesitation because that was the kind of person you were. He loved that about you, but there’s guilt in his heart because he’s the last person who deserves this treatment. He knew you didn’t exactly forgive him yet because you still haven’t said a word, even as you were wetting a cotton swab with isopropyl alcohol.

“Is it going to sting?” he asked. You didn’t bother answering and let him feel the pain for himself. “Motherfucker!”

Through all the cleaning and wincing, though your facial expression didn’t move much, a waterfall of tears fell from your eyes at a constant speed. Since you were kids, Felix’s Dad was big on spanking and physical discipline, but this was a whole different level than you’ve ever seen before - this wasn’t discipline, this was intentional. Even so, Felix still smiled, even through all the stinging.

“Stay still,” you whispered, voice shaking. Your free hand held his face in place by pressing your palm into his nonbruised cheek. The wound still stung, but the wincing at least lessened. When the cotton swab dried up and you weren’t sure what to do, Felix calmed your racing thoughts by placing a hand on top of the one you had on your cheek.

He liked the way your thumb gently brushed across his cheek. Your touch always left tingles in its absence.

“What happened?” you finally asked.

“Dad found out about the racing because it was in the tabloids as ‘Future YONBOK CEO Caught Racing Under the Influence. Is the Future of YONGBOK in Good Hands?’ and, well, you know how that turned out.”

You said nothing while shaking your head. You took your hand back and stood up to get something and the fear of you leaving him again left Felix sweating and tears of his own pooling in his eyes. But you came back with a bag of frozen peas to press against his bruises and swollen lip.

“Are you hungry?” Felix nodded silently. “I made your favorite soup.”

“I know. Did you know that I was coming?”

“No. I guess I’m lucky.”

One of his hands is on top of yours holding the frozen peas and the other grabs hold of your other free hand. Felix wanted to hold you in every way possible, but for now this would have to do until you accepted him.

“You know I love you,” he told you. “And you know I will always need you. I’m sorry I pretended to forget about telling you last year and I’m sorry if that made you think I was insincere the second time. But now you know for sure that I love you. Was I really that wrong to think you felt the same?”

“It seems like you already know my answer.”

“I need to hear you say it.”

You sighed heavily. By now the tears had stopped, but you wouldn’t be surprised if they started up again. This was the first time you would admit aloud that you loved the stupid boy who tried to hide his smile sitting in front of you.

“I love you, Lee Felix. I always have.”

“Knew it ~” he sang. “Tell me when you fell for my handsome looks.”

“Remember Prom night?”

“Prom night!? Seriously?”

“My date standing me up and you offering to dance with me the whole night sounds like the perfect formula to fall in love with you, does it not?”

“I guess! I just thought it’d be longer than that!”

“I’m sure it has been longer than that.”

“Really?”

“Prom night was just the point of no return - that no matter what I did, my feelings were absolute and I couldn’t be in denial anymore. But I didn’t feel any different… And that’s when I assumed I just always loved you.”

“Even when I do stupid shit like this, you still loved me that much, huh?”

“Even with a busted lip, I still think you’re the most handsome.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” he chuckled. “Do you know when I knew?”

“Uh, last year?”

“Nope. On your tenth birthday.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. When you shared your birthday cake and gave me the corner slice with the most icing flowers on it, I knew you were the one for me.”

“Can you be serious for once!?”

“Baby, I am dead serious! Look me in the eyes - well, my good eye.”

“I hate you.”

“I know.” Felix pressed a long kiss to your forehead and then rested his own up against it. “I’m sorry for worrying you.”

“And being an ass.”

“Yes, and being the biggest ass.”

You dared to kiss his lips, but just enough for them to touch, too worried about hurting his bruise. Felix didn’t care - this was the only time you’d have your first kiss and he wanted it to be long and slow, putting his all into your very first kiss even if it hurt a little. His lips were hungry for yours and so were his hands, making you drop the frozen peas on the floor so he could pull you into his lap to deepen the kiss. Wandering hands traveled your waist and your own in his hair and all your worries about wondering if love was truly real melted away with every second. Even when you broke free to come up for air, Felix refused to loosen his grip on your waist, holding you so close that he buried his face in the nape of your neck. He short breaths tickled your skin and when you giggled, he peppered kisses all over. Your laugh was music to his ears.

“Do you forgive me?” he said in between kisses.

“Mm,” you hummed. “Just don’t leave my side again.”

“Never again. I promise you.”

“Well… Where do we go from here?”

“Hm… I get to eat my favorite soup with the love of my life?”

“I like the sound of that.”

“And then straight to bed.”

“But it’s only 9:00 pm?” A playful, naughty smirk spread across Felix’s lips. “Lee Felix!”

“What!? I won the race, can’t I get a prize!?”

“Stop.”

Soup was always better with your love and a cup of frozen peas.

#lee felix #felix lee #skz #stray kids #skz felix #stray kids felix #felix scenarios #stray kids scenarios #skz scenarios #i wrote this in less than a week so if it sucks that's why #bleh finally a felix fic......................... it's been like a year LOL #ok lemme know how u like it mwah

894 notes · View notes

softpine · 4 years

Photo

- recoloring tutorial -

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

how to recolor with solid colors, patterns, and graphics

how to find patterns & import them into photoshop

how to recolor an item that doesn’t have a white or solid swatch

WHAT YOU NEED:

sims 4 studio

any photo editing software (i’ll be using photoshop cs6)

dds plug-in

difficulty level: beginner

1. open the clothing you want to recolor in sims 4 studio (s4s) and find the white swatch.

if there’s no solid swatch at all, skip to the very end of this tutorial where i’ll show you how to fix this! (look for the pink line)

if there are solid swatches but no white swatch, find the lightest color you can. even though there’s a white swatch in my example top, i’ll use a colorful one to show you how to fix it.

[for this tutorial, i’ll be using simiracle’s judd shirt.]

2. click the green “export” button. save it as “white swatch”.

3. open it in photoshop.

optional; if your swatch is already white, skip this step: to get rid of the color, simply decrease the saturation & vibrance all the way down. if it still looks too grey or dark, increase the brightness & contrast. finally, merge your layers. here are my settings and what i ended up with:

4. create a new layer and check “use previous layer to create clipping mask”. color everything in completely with a pure white brush.

5. on the layer tab towards the right side of your screen, change “normal” to “multiply”.

now your texture should look exactly like it did back in step 3! (i promise you didn’t just waste your time lol)

optional: if you have recoloring actions ready, now would be the time to apply them. if not, carry on!

6. right click on your new layer and click “blending options” at the top. here, you can either click “color overlay” or “pattern overlay”.

either way, you’ll want to change the blending mode to “multiply”.

here’s an example of what you can do with color overlay:

and here’s an example of pattern overlay:

but wait! you might be thinking “where do i get cute patterns like that?” and my answer is... everywhere. try searching for things like “seamless patterns”, “tileable patterns”, “fabric swatches”, etc. it’s even easier if they come in a .pat file (here’s a quick guide to using .pat files!)

here are some good patterns or places to find them:

my patterns pinterest board

mothz patterns

free pattern site

deviantart patterns

free .pat files

more .pat files

even more .pat files

yeah... more .pat files

okay, now that you’re all loaded up with patterns, let’s get back to the tutorial!

7. adjust to your liking. i prefer my recolors to be more faded and worn-looking, so i turn down the opacity a bit and i tend to use patterns that already have a vintage look to them. but do whatever you prefer! you can even mix color overlay & pattern overlay together to create an entirely new design.

8. save as a PSD!! trust me, you’ll be really sorry if photoshop crashes and you have to do all of this over again.

9. merge your layers and save as dds.

optional: now i’m going to show you how to add graphics. if you’re not interested in this, skip ahead to the next green line.

1. find your graphic. preferably, it’ll be flat, on a plain colored background, with minimal wrinkles.

2. i like to use the website 6 dollar shirts because they have a nice worn look already!

here’s the image i’ll be using for now:

3. make it transparent. there’s many ways to do this! if your image is really simple, you can outline it with the lasso tool and delete everything outside of it. but my image is a bit more complicated than that, and i don’t have all day... so let’s use the color range tool. (select → color range)

click on the color you’re trying to get rid of (in this case, the light tan color) and crank up the fuzziness to the max. press OK.

now all of your background color should be selected. press ctrl + X to delete it.

4. make it look nicer, depending on the image. if it’s blurry, try sharpening it. if it’s crunchy, try using topaz clean. if there are still some spots of color, use the color range tool again as many times as you want. make it black and white. decrease the brightness & increase the contrast to the max. it all varies, just try new things and see how it looks!

5. when you’re done adjusting, copy your image and paste it onto your shirt. you can do this on a solid color shirt or, if you really want to go crazy (lol), paste it onto a patterned shirt. adjust the opacity settings so it looks like it’s blending into the shirt nicely, not just sitting on top of it.

ta-da! you now have a cheesy graphic tee :-)

BONUS TIP: if your graphic doesn’t look worn, but you want it to, you can use these free overlays to roughen up the design! there’s even a little tutorial on the page.

10. if you haven’t already, add the file you’re recoloring to your sims 4 studio mods folder. here’s what it looks like:

11. reload s4s. under “cas” click “create cas standalone”.

12. sort by custom content, click the first swatch of whatever item you’re recoloring, and click next. name your file.

13. now click the blue “import” button and import your first texture. then click “add swatch” and import again for all your other swatches.

BONUS TIP: for the swatch thumbnails, you can right click one of the empty boxes and it will pull up a dropper tool that you can use to match the color of your cc.

14. save!

you’re done!!

if the item you’re recoloring doesn’t have a solid swatch...

1. find the simplest swatch you can. some swatches won’t work no matter how hard you try, but it’s always worth a shot!

i’ll use the yellow moon-patterned recolor i just made as an example.

2. turn the saturation & vibrance all the way down. increase your brightness & contrast. increase curves (if necessary). here are my settings and what i ended up with:

now comes the tedious part...

3. use the patch tool to remove the pattern, piece by piece.

here’s a demonstration:

here’s my progress so far:

you may notice that the patch tool doesn’t work well on the outer edges of your clothing. for that part, i use the clone tool.

i can’t screenshot this part, but basically all you do is hold alt and select a blank spot directly next to the pattern you’re covering up. then hover over the pattern and click down. make sure you move your cursor in a completely straight line, otherwise the seam will look wiggly.

we’re finally done! here’s what my final image looks like:

now that you have a white swatch, jump back to step 4 to continue the tutorial ♡

#my god i spent my entire night on this..... :o #tutorial #sims 4 #ts4 #recolor #recoloring #recolor tutorial #graphics #graphic tutorial #just trying to make sure this shows up when someone searches my blog for it lmao

1K notes · View notes

uas-fics · 3 years

Text

-Title: Flower Crowns

Rating: G

Summary: Half lost on his walk, Leon finds a frustrated Piers attempting to weave flowers together.

Ships: Leon x Piers

Content Warnings: N/A

----

What a wonderful day for a walk. The sun shone over the yellow-green of the land. Not a single cloud floated across the blue sky. Flowers swayed in a gentle breeze. Rookidie chattered in the trees as bug pokemon skittered along the ground.

Simply a wonderful day outside of...Well, Leon didn't know exactly where he was, but he was at least sixty percent sure he was outside of Hulsbury. Or maybe Tuffield? He was on one side of the Northern Wild Areas.

Probably.

He stretched his arms up. His jacket sleeves rolled down to his elbows. The worn blue jacket had been his grandfather's and was still a little too big for him, even now that he was an adult, but it was comfortable and warm enough for spring days. He kept it with him when he wanted to go incognito since it wasn’t as distinguishable as his sponsor cape.

He could use more days off like this, more calming walks in nature with nothing but the plants, wild pokemon, and--

"Oh, c'mon!"

Leon jumped, nearly knocking his hat from his head.

Who was that?

He titled his head, listening. Someone swore up a storm not too far away. Half in an attempt to help, and half to seek confirmation of his location, Leon followed the colorful language over a small hill to its source.

Amongst a field of wildflowers and tall grass, someone kicked at the dirt. Grass, flowers, and dirt sprayed into the air.

"And you’re no help, you piece of--!" They spun around, throwing something.

Leon ducked just in time to avoid coming face to screen with a cellphone. The phone landed with a dull thud in the grass behind his feet.

Regret welled up in Leon's stomach. Maybe he should have just called the Pokemon League and asked them for help getting home. This person seemed too upset, and Leon interrupting their rage would just make them angrier, won't it?

"Champion Leon?"

Leon jumped at the sound of his name. Taking his gaze off the phone on the ground, he looked towards the phone's owner.

The gym leader of Spikemuth winced.

"Sorry 'bout that, mate." Piers raised his hands, palms facing forward as if he expected Leon to throw something back at him.

Leon shook his head, both to shake off his shock as well as to placate Piers. He picked up the phone.

"It's nothing to worry about," He reassured, wiping the screen on his jacket sleeve. On the screen, some sort of brightly colored webpage stared back at Leon. In a curling font, the header read 'Just A Unovan Country Gal' with 'recipes, DIYs, and patterns for good old girls' written underneath.

Deciding not to ask about the site, he pressed the power button as he passed the phone back, darkening the screen. Piers put the phone in his pocket. He hadn’t noticed Leon staring at the screen or didn’t acknowledge he knew Leon saw it, at least.

"You're lost, aren’t you?" Piers didn't hesitate to ask.

"What? Of course not. I know where I am," Leon lied, unsure why he did. Everyone in the Pokemon League knew he was terrible with directions. Every gym leader had to come to find and escort him to their gym at some point or another, including Piers.

"If you need help gettin' home, I can take you,'' Piers offered. "I'm done with...I'm done for today."

"Done with what?" Leon couldn't help but venture. The Unovain website flashed in his mind’s eye.

He couldn't figure why Piers of all people would be in a wildflower field in the middle of the day so far from Spikemuth. Was he picking flowers for a special someone? Searching for a certain pokemon? Training his team? Did it have to do with the website he had open on his phone?

Piers wrinkled his nose. "None of your business."

It was Leon's turn to hold up his hands. "Sorry." He took a few steps past Piers. "Didn't mean to pry. I'll leave you to it if you can point me toward Hulsbury."

Piers eyed him up and down, slowly, calculatingly. A shiver ran up Leon's back. Why did his stomach twist into knots? It wasn't like Piers planned on stabbing him.

With a heavy sigh, Piers pinched Leon's jacket between his fingers, stopping him from wandering off.

"Flower crown," he muttered, refusing to look at him.

"What?"

"Flower. Crown. I was trying to make a flower crown." Piers took his hand away to run it through his thick bangs, pushing them back away from his face. A tinge of pink blush dusted his face.

Leon bit the inside of his cheek to keep a laugh in. Flower crowns? Piers was the least likely person to be making flower crowns. Leon tried to imagine the dark-type gym leader with a ring of wild daisies and dandelions around his head but only succeeded in a snort of amusement at the idea.

Piers glowered and raised his hand. All of his nails had a sheen of shiny black paint, except for the middle one lifted at Leon, which was a matte white.

"If I left you out here, you would die of exposure before you found your way back."

Leon covered his mouth before another snort could make its way out.

"Sorry, sorry, but..." He took a breath, "why do you need a flower crown? It doesn't much match your..." he gestured to Piers’ punk, monochromatic outfit, “aesthetic.”

"It isn't for me," Piers snapped. "It's for Marnie, my sister. She wants one, not me."

Leon wasn't sure he'd ever actually met Piers' sister. He rarely went to Spikemuth, and when he did, he just stopped by the gym to deliver papers to Piers and get out. Had he ever even seen Piers’ sister before? She was about Hop's age, he knew that, but he couldn't remember if she was a little older or a little younger.

"Oh, of course. That makes sense," Leon said. "That's nice of you to make her one."

Piers searched his face for any sign of insincerity. Leon flashed him his champion smile. Whether that helped or not, he didn’t know.

Piers snorted. More to himself than Leon, he muttered, "It'd be nicer if I knew how to make one. Stupid website wasn’t any help..."

At this, Leon finally took a gander around. Most of the flowers had been plucked in the immediate area. They either sat in a pile or as parts of what Leon could only assume were attempts at flower crowns.

He knelt and picked a crown up, holding it carefully. Yellow daisies made up the crown. Each daisy had a slit cut in the stem with the next daisy slipped through until the end where the last stem was tied to the first. It was crude and the spacing of the flowers uneven, but not the worst flower crown Leon had ever seen.

Before Leon could look closer, Piers snatched the crown out of his hands. Pale yellow petals fell to the ground.

He glared, the tips of his ears burning red. “Making flower crowns isn’t a life skill they teach you in school, you know.”

Leon tilted his head to the side then asked, "Do you want help?"

"Help?" Piers tossed the crown into the tall grass. "You know how to make them?"

Leon nodded. "I grew up in Postwick." He fell back to his bottom. "Everyone knew how to make a proper crown." His lips twitched up into a smile. "I remember chasing down a wooloo to stop it from eating the crown I'd just given it."

He took a few daisies from the pile next to him. It took mere seconds for his fingers to remember the motion of wrapping stem over stem.

"Silly thing was someone's prized wooloo, and the farmer spoiled it rotten," Leon continued, occasionally looking down at his hands, "so when it saw me coming towards it with a handful of flowers, it thought it was getting a treat."

He laughed at the memory. He couldn’t have been more than seven or eight at the time. His mother still brought it up when she wanted to embarrass him in front of guests.

“I remember looking out the window and seeing my little boy, nearly in tears, shouting at a fat old wooloo.” She’d laugh. “Oh, he chased that thing for an hour trying to catch it!”

As Leon continued rambling, Piers watched his hands weave together daisies, dandelions, and corncockle. He sat back with his hands resting across his knees. He puffed his cheeks a little as he watched, breathing only through his nose. Whether he noticed he was doing it or not, Leon wasn't sure and didn't ask.

"And that's how I broke my arm for the first time," Leon finished, holding up the crown. He placed it on Piers' head where it sat unevenly on top of his ponytails. Leon beamed at Piers, proud of his work as if they were children playing in the fields of Postwick and not young adults.

Piers brushed his fingertips against the soft petals. He took a dandelion and a wild clover flower from one of the piles. With his face set in determination, he started to copy what he'd seen Leon doing. He wove together six flowers before tossing his hands in the air.

"What am I doing wrong?" He demanded.

Leon scooted until he sat next to Piers then took the crown to examine it. He nodded to himself. Without asking, Leon took Piers' hands in his own.

"You're doing it backward. See here?" Leon made Piers' thumb press against the first wrap in the crown. Instead of locking around the flower, the stem went behind it. A simple mistake for a first-time crown weaver to make.

Piers pulled his hands back.

"I think I got it." He took a meadows cranesbill and corncockle and began the wrap and lock method Leon showed him. He held up his attempt for inspection.

"That's it. Just keep doing that until it's long enough."

"This is going to take a while," Piers said, adding a daisy to the chain.

Leon shrugged sympathetically. "It might," he settled into a more comfortable, half-reclined position, "but it'll be fine. I'm here to help."

Piers paused and looked over at Leon, eyeing him once again. This time, however, Leon didn't feel a chill run up his back. Instead, heat crept up his cheeks at Piers' half smile towards.

Leon's pride wanted him to hold Piers' gaze as he would with any other gym leader, but he broke away to look at a patch of foxgloves in the distance.

"Thanks." Piers turned back to his project.

They sat in comfortable silence for a while before Piers held out a flower. Its stem was too short.

"D’you know what this is?" He asked, dropping the flower in Leon's lap.

Leon picked it up and spun it in between his fingers. Of course, he knew what it was, but he shrugged and pretended to think it over.

"Primrose, I think." He said. "My grandma kept some fancier varieties in the house when I was growing up."

The memory of cleaning up broken pots formed a smile on his face. Sonia and he landed themselves on his grandmother’s naughty list for killing her primroses, even if it was an accident.

Piers hummed. "I thought that's what it was. And this?"

Leon moved next to Piers. "That's a ragged robin. This is a cornflower. That's chicory." He continued pointing out the names of the flowers he knew, silently thanking his mother and grandparents for explaining all the wildflowers to him when he was a kid.

Of course, he didn't know them as well as Milo. He couldn't tell what medical uses dandelions had or how to make coffee from chicory, but Piers seemed impressed nonetheless with his botanical knowledge.

Leon picked up a flower from a failed crown attempt. He held it up, about to explain what it was, but Piers spoke first.

“That’s a wild violet.”

Leon slowly nodded. He was a little disappointed he didn’t get to explain it but shoved the feeling away. Of course, Piers would know such a common flower.

Piers smiled down at his work. “Marnie made me fill a whole basket with them once. She learnt you can cook with them.”

“Did you--cook with it, I mean?”

“Unfortunately.” Piers snorted. “I’ve had pot brownies that taste less like grass.” He paused, then added nonchalantly, “Before I was part of the league, of course.”

, Leon snorted a laugh to himself. That was a lie, he knew, but instead of remarking on it, he said, “Did you use the flowers or leaves?”

“Marnie baked them, not me. I just turned on the oven. I think she just put the whole plant in there, roots and all.” He laughed. “I’m going to have to tease her about that when I get home. Thanks for reminding me about that.”

Finally, Piers held up his crown. It was far from perfect, some of the flowers lost their petals and long stems stuck out at odd angles, but Piers held it out as if it were a royal crown. His expression wasn’t unlike how Leon’s mum said he looked when he finished making a crown for the spoiled wooloo.

"Wow, it looks great," Leon complimented.

Piers snorted with a smile. "For a first attempt, I guess." He looked at his flower crown, then at Leon, then back, before reaching up. He took hold of the bill of Leon's baseball cap. With a flick of the wrist, he tossed it off then replaced it with the crown.

He smiled at him. “You look like a prince, champ.” He teased before bending down and picking up the hat.

“I could say the same.”

The two shared a laugh and grins. Their fingers touched as Piers pushed the hat into Leon's hands. Leon wasn’t sure the touch was unintentional.

"It's getting late."

Leon looked up at the saturated orange-red sky.

"If you get me to Hulsbury, I can get a taxi home."

Piers chuckled and shook his head. "You really are lost, aren’t you? We're not too far outside the Spikemuth Tunnel, mate."

Leon dropped his hat. He held his head in his hands. The heat of embarrassment crept up his face. He had wandered farther off the beaten path than he thought. How did he even get so far away from where he started like this?

With a sympathetic smile, Piers put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

"How about I take you back to my place, as a thank you for teaching me this." He gestured to the crown on his head. "I'll cook you up a little somethin' then you can hitch a ride on a flying taxi back home."

Leon's heart skipped a beat. He swallowed the embarrassment down and smiled.

"That sounds great."

----

AN: I stopped writing this halfway through to go outside, find some flowers, and learn how to do this because the way I described Piers doing it is how I've always done it. XP It is a completely valid way to make flower chains don't get me wrong, but it doesn't look nearly as fancy.

Anyway, maybe a little too sugary sweet, but I wanted to write some short fluff and doggone it I did!

Check out @uas-art for more of my drawings.

#pokemon #fanfiction #one-shot #piers #leon #champion leon #gym leader piers #swsh #piersxleon #leonxpiers #fluff #Still don't know the ship name...le sigh

34 notes · View notes

jungshook69 · 4 years

Text

Love is a myth :: 03

DISCLAIMER: This doesn’t represent the members’ actions or the army’s actions in any manner it’s pure fiction. This is an original work, do not copy. The taglist is open if you want. Taglist is now closed.

WORD COUNT: 4.3K words

MAIN PAIRING: musician! Yoongi X waitress! female reader

SIDE PAIRING/S: Jungkook X female reader ; Taehyung X female reader

GENRE: FWB! au ; Strangers to lovers! au

WARNINGS: Implied smut (Forgive me cuz I suck at writing it, no puns intended) ; Mentions of alcohol and smoking (I do not condone smoking) ; Profanity ; Mentions of infidelity ; Heavy angst ; Self loathing (Namjoon’s about to wack me in the head with his slipper) ; I apologize in advance if there’s any spelling errors.

SUMMARY: "You covered your bare form with the silk sheets beneath you, as you watched him walk out your door without a word." // "Love is a myth. All that existed between you two was pure lust." // "The last rule was if anyone of the two of you caught feelings for the other, the deal would be off."

SERIES MASTERLIST: Trailer » Meet the cast » Chapter #1 » Chapter #2 » Chapter #3 » Chapter #4

STATUS: Complete

It was a pleasant morning, and you thought it couldn’t go any better. At least that’s what you thought, before your luck was inevitably snatched away from you.

You heard a gruff voice clear their throat, in close proximity to you, before they spoke up, “Y-Y/N?”

You looked up through your round lenses, and your jaw dropped open at the sight. Your eyes roamed the man’s face, unwilling to blink. It took you a nice long 10 seconds, to find your voice, which still came out small and slightly wavered, “J-Jungkook?”

“Hi…” his soothing voice managed to mutter, his shocked expression mirroring your own.

“Long time no see…” you say with a heavy breath.

You observed his figure. His beautiful doe eyes were shining with the same sparkle as they did back when you both were lovers. His face had gone from being a bit boyish, or babyish as you liked to call it, to a bit more structured. His jaw had sharpened, although there were no visible wrinkles lining his face, except for some adorable smile lines beside his crescent eyes. His hair was far different from what is was back then. You used to call him coconut head, in owe to his soft brown hair that lay across his forehead. But now his hair was much longer, and a dark shade of black, lengthy enough to be easily pulled back into a man bun. His shoulders were broader and his body looked much more buff, and his arms were fairly big as compared to a few years ago. He was adorned in black trousers and a white button down, with the top 2 buttons undone, giving you a slight peak at the tattoo you had grown to love, on his right collarbone.

“Do you mind if I take a seat beside you?” his melodious voice asked softly, contrary to his rough exterior.

“Y-yeah sure…” you said, shutting your journal close and making room for him on the small park bench.

You lay your hands across your lap, unsure of what to say next. But he saved you the pain and spoke up first, “How have you been?”

“Good… you?”

“Great…” he said his gaze fixed on the playground.

“Still married?” you ask. You want to mentally slap yourself for letting such a question slip, before he interrupts your thoughts.

“Yes… you see her?” he says pointing to the playground. Your eyes search for a female, perhaps the same height as Jungkook, but your eyes widen at what he says next, “You see that small girl with pigtails on the swing?”

“Y-Yeah…” you manage to speak.

“Her name is Hana, she’s my daughter.” He says letting out a deep breath.

“O-Oh…” you didn’t know why you were surprised. He was married. It had been 6 years. Of course he had a child. You watched as the small girl giggled, as a woman with straight platinum blonde hair, a smile on her lips, stood behind the swing and pushed the little girl back and forth.

“And that’s my wife… Sana.”

“Wow… you got a whole family… nice…” you cringe at the words that left your mouth. You felt a twinge of envy. How did everyone around you have their life so put together? Were you the only one who would never settle down with a special someone? Were you only made to work and never love?

“Not the family I envisioned, but none the less, a happy family.” He whispered to himself. “So… you seeing someone?” he asks.

“Not at the moment no…” you speak, ashamed of your toxic lust-induced lifestyle.

You share a moment of silence, both of you keeping your eyes fixed on the playground. “Y-You still where that?” Jungkook spoke up.

“Huh?” you looked up to see him pointing at your fingers which were unconsciously playing with the band of your silver ring. “O-Oh yeah… umm… just— yeah I wear it… it looks cool…” you cringe in disgust at your word vomit, knowing he wouldn’t buy it.

But he knew better, and didn’t question it further. You laid motionless as you tried to keep your emotions at bay. You were mad at him. Infuriated even. He left you in the dust. But at the same time, you loved him dearly. He was the only one you could trust in this cruel world. He was the only real thing that happened to your young naïve 16 year old self.

You immediately froze in your spot when you felt a warm touch of skin on the back of your hand. You looked down to see Jungkook’s tattooed right hand laying over your hand, which was on your lap.

“I’m sorry Y/N, I’m sorry for doing what I did and hurting you.”

Your eyes were glossy, tears threatening to overflow, as you fixed your gaze on the woman and the small girl in her arms, as they walked into the neighboring convenience store.

“We weren’t meant to be…” was all you could muster out.

“We were meant to be… I was a coward.” He says, his hand not leaving yours.

“Don’t blame yourself. It was my fault, I pushed it too far, by planning to run away.” You try sounding cold and stern, but it comes out as a whimper.

“The people were right…” he says, his finger absent-mindedly playing with the ring on your finger. “…the timing was wrong.”

You control your rapid heartbeat as you feel a tear slip out from your right eye, staining your cheek, as the drop slid down the length of your face. You hear the loud piercing sound of his ringtone, before he picks up the call and puts the phone up to his ear, his hand never leaving yours. You hear the loud voice on the other end.

“Baby, I got the diapers, I didn’t see you anywhere. Will you come to our car in the parking lot?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there in 2 minutes.”

“Okay bye baby!”

“Bye.”

You here the beep of the phone call hanging up as you feel his figure shift next to you. You gasp as his hand tightens his grip on yours. You swear your heart stops when you feel his other hand turns your shoulder to face him. This is the first time you’ve looked straight into his eyes, in the last 6 years. He looks at you with the same warmth and guilt, as his large hands clasp your tiny ones.

“I missed you.” He huffs out.

“I missed you too. But you have a family to get back to.” You sigh sadly.

“I hope we meet again Y/N.”

“I don’t.” you mutter out too low for him to hear. It was too painful even thinking about seeing him again.

He stands up, his figure looming over yours, before you decide to do the same. He then leans in and wraps his arms around your waist, in an all-too-familiar manner, which breaks the last wall you’ve been holding up. You feel his breath skim the skin on your neck, sending goosebumps down your spine. You feel his warm cheeks brush against your collarbones. You try to hold yourself back from surrendering and dropping yourself in his strong arms right then and there. He slowly backs away from you before you could do so, “Bye Y/N…” he says giving you a sad smile.

You’re unable to form words, as your hands feel cold, needy to feel his warmth again. You watch his retreating figure, until he disappears behind the rows and rows of cars. You slam your journal into your sling and run back home as fast as your feet can carry you. You promised yourself, you would never let another man get to you. You’d never let another man, make you cry for him again. But you never expected the same man from your past, to break you a second time.

The first 10 minutes after you reached home, you just blankly started at the white wall in front of you. The next 20 minutes were spent with you cleaning up the mess after you broke a glass plate in anger. You didn’t know what to do with yourself. You’d never been so devastated in the last 6 years. You’d learnt to control your emotions, and to not take love seriously. But when a certain someone had walked into your life for a mere 20 minutes, all of that had gone down the drain. You felt helpless. You felt powerless. How could a man have such an effect on you?

You were on the ground sweeping a few remnant glass shards, when you heard a soft knock on the door. You opened the door to reveal a smiling Yoongi, a rare sight you would’ve teased him for, if it weren’t for the horrible morning you’d had. His smile immediately dropped on seeing your red eyes, concern washing over his features, “You okay?”

“Yeah” you mutter out uninterested, walking back into your apartment. You watched him drop his phone and keys onto your shoe stand, as he took off his beanie placing it down, ruffling his soft hair.

“I was actually gonna ask you if you wanted to get an early dinner together, some friends from my college are meeting up. What would you like? Maybe ramen, ooo how about gimb—”

“You can go without me, I’m not feeling too well…” you say trying to stop your voice from cracking.

“You sure?” he asks again.

“Yeah…” you say louder than you intended to speak.

“O-Oh… ummm okay…” Yoongi says before you here the jingle of his car keys and the click of your front door. Yoongi wasn’t one to pressure people into doing things. He liked giving people space. As soon as he left, you let your tears flow. They were unstoppable. You were still wailing, as your form dropped to the ground, even though there weren’t enough tears to flow out.

It was 9 PM. Your eyes were puffy and your sinuses hurt from crying for the past 2 hours. Your head was throbbing and your empty bedroom was filled with the sounds of your sniffles. That was before there was a loud knock on your door.

You slipped out of your bed, still dressed in your pajamas, as you made your way to the door. You peeped through the hole and saw Yoongi’s form leaning against the door frame. You opened the door and made sure to turn around immediately in a feeble attempt to hide your mess of a face.

“Hey sorry to disturb I left my beanie here.” He said picking it up. His eyes narrowed as you walked back towards your bedroom. “You can close the door on the way out.” You say, failing to contain a crack in your voice.

Yoongi notices and closes the door, with him still inside. “Y/N, seriously what’s wrong?” he asks.

“Nothing, I just have a cold…” you sigh, your back facing him.

You hear his consequent footsteps getting closer as his hand lands on your shoulder, whipping you around. His eyes widen, as he sees your puffy red eyes, and distraught face stained with dried tears.

“A cold huh?” he says his eyebrows furrowed.

“Yeah…” you say softly, sniffling.

“What’s going on Y/N?” he says, his tone serious.

“Why do you care? You’re my fuck buddy, not my counselor!”

“I’m your friend, before any of that.” He says sternly, before he grabs your petite withering form in his strong arms for a tight hug. Your face collides with his firm chest and before you can overthink it, you wrap your arms around his waist, nuzzling your face closer into his warm neck. His hand threads through your hair as he whispers, “It’s okay I’m here…”

You woke up to the sound of a phone ringing off the hook. You were quick to realize that it wasn’t your ringtone. Your eyes fluttered open as you realized the position you had slept in. Your arm remained draped over Yoongi’s chest, and you were snuggled into the crook of his arm. You were leaning into him, while he had slept partially upright on your couch. Your legs were covered by a blanket, while Yoongi’s feet were propped up on the coffee table.

It all came back to you. How you had cried onto his shoulder for the umpteenth time that night. How he had cuddled your shivering form and insisted to stay with you, afraid of leaving you alone. You carefully let go of his sleeping form, trying very hard not to wake him up. You reached over to see a phone call from an unknown number, and put his phone on silent. You checked to make sure he hadn’t woken up. You got up and pushed your hair into a neat ponytail. You blinked hard to get the remnant sleep out of your pupils, as you tried to decipher everything that happened yesterday. Yoongi had stayed over with you… why? It went against the rule you’d made in your agreement. You weren’t complaining though because you needed someone last night. And you were more than glad that it was Yoongi. You just didn’t take him to be the type to break the ‘cuddling’ rule.

You cleared your mind of all these thoughts, brushed your teeth and took a much-needed shower. By the time you were out of the shower, in your work clothes, you found Yoongi awake, sitting upright on the couch, his head hung low, hands cupping the back of his neck. You slowly walked towards the back of the couch and laid your hands on his shoulders, your thumbs extending to press into the back of his neck. He visibly flinched, not expecting your presence, but soon relaxed under your touch.

“I’m sorry, your neck must be hurting because of the uncomfortable position you slept in last night…” you say, with a guilt-ridden voice.

“No it’s okay…” he hummed out.

You make your way around the couch and sit next to him. Confrontation. It was the solution to every problem. “Seriously, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have forced you to stay last nigh—”

“I stayed… because I wanted to stay.” He says, rubbing his eyes. “What’s the time?”

“O-Oh… it’s 10 am.”

“Don’t you have to leave for work in 10 minutes?”

“We have to leave for work.” You say chuckling.

“O-Oh… I was actually thinking of not coming in today… ya know… my back hurts and stuff…”

You were suspicious of his stuttering but decided that you tortured him enough, and just let it slide. “Well I have to leave, you can take a shower if you want, you already know where it is, and please close the door when you leave, okay?” you say grabbing your purse and your coat.

“Yeah sure… hey Y/N?” he says.

You stop in front of the door.

“Are you okay?” he says sincerely.

“Yeah I am, thank you Yoongi…” you smile and leave for work.

While you were in your own little bubble, occupied at work, Yoongi, having showered and carefully locked up your apartment, was headed to a certain someone’s humble abode, on his day off. He stood before the wooden door, as he knocked, waiting for his doom residing on the other side of the door. The door opened to reveal a familiar female, long pink hair pulled into space buns, her lips chewing on a pencil.

“Yoongi… didn’t expect to see you back here after a month… come in…”

“Actually I’m gonna make it quick” Yoongi says rubbing his palms together. “Where is Maria?”

“Oh she actually had to turn up at work, they were understaffed today…” her pink-haired roommate said.

“Oh okay thanks for your help.” He says leaving the doorstep, headed back to the restaurant. He walked in, and his eyes immediately searched for you. You were nowhere to be seen so he assumed that you were probably back in the kitchen. Then his eyes searched for a female with a short black bob, in uniform and spotted her at a table, close to the washroom. He walked up to her and tapped her shoulder.

“Oh Yoongi, hey…” Maria said, surprised to see him.

“Yeah hey, can we talk?”

She smirked at his question, assuming that wanting to “talk” was code for a hook up. She latched onto his collar and pulled him discretely towards the washroom. Before Yoongi could protest she slammed him against the empty washroom walls.

Yoongi never got to say, what he wanted to, what he had gone all the way to her apartment for. His mouth was clasped shut when Maria’s heavily-glossed lips landed on his own. He struggled to push her off, but before he could pry her off of him, he heard the sound of a toilet flushing, and a washroom stall door creaking open. He finally pushed Maria away and met your eyes, widened in shock.

You stood there, horrified, as you watched Maria smirking at you, an eyebrow raised in a challenging manner. You looked over to see Yoongi panting, against the wall, his lips swollen and smeared with Maria’s red lipstick. You held your whimpers in, and merely walked, no more like rushed out of the humiliating scene.

You walked out the back kitchen door and took in a deep breath. You calmed yourself down and did not allow any tears to flow. He was kissing her. So what? You were no one to decide who he kisses, much less sleeps with! You both had mutually decided upon staying anonymous about your personal affairs. Then why did it hurt? Why did it hurt to watch another woman lunge herself at that man? Why?

Your thoughts were interrupted by Maya’s voice, “Hey ummm… the customers are starting to line up, we need your help.”

“Yeah, I’ll be right there.” You respond facing away from her.

“Okay…”

Back in the washroom Yoongi watched you leave, his mind in utter chaos. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Yoongi asks in frustration, turning to Maria.

“You were the one who wanted to ‘talk’.” She says scoffing.

“Yeah I wanted to ‘talk’, literally talk.”

“Don’t lie to yourself Yoongi. We’re both hot and we both obviously have a lot of sexual tension between us. What would it take for you to let go off her puny ass for once and give us another try?”

“I already told you! When I slept with you a month ago, it was a mistake! We were both shit drunk!”

“What does she have that I don’t?”

“She has some god damn respect and dignity. She doesn’t just throw herself at me, when I say no. No means no. At least she respects my decision.”

“Jeez what happened to you Yoongles? You were never like this… like a lost puppy following around that bitch Y/N.”

“Don’t you dare call me Yoongles.” He says, his tone dead serious. “And look in the mirror when you call Y/N that.”

“You’re just as fucked up as she is.” She says scoffing.

“Just stay away from me. I’m never gonna come back to you and sleep with you. Give up already and find someone else to latch onto.” With that Yoongi leaves the washroom and exits the restaurant, feeling an unhealthy amount of guilt in his heart.

When you got absorbed into work, you couldn’t care less about Yoongi’s absence. But your eyes did drift over to the young gentlemen who was playing in Yoongi’s place today, and everytime you looked over, your eyes would drop down in disappointment of the person that met your eyes. Maria pretended like nothing happened and you went along with it. Confronting her would lead nowhere sensible.

Soon it was night time, well more like early morning time, and you were walking down the dark midnight streets, Jackie and Mark by your side. You had all decided to walk to a bar down the street and have a few drinks before turning in for the night. You needed to drown your misery in shots, and were more than happy to receive an invitation to accompany your friends.

“Y/N?” Jackie spoke up.

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t be mad…”

“Oh no, what did you do?”

“I observed that you sorta looked sad today. And I wanted to cheer you up…”

“Oh no…”

“I’m afraid to say it, but yes… I kinda reached out to a good friend of Mark’s and set you up on a blind date for tomorrow night.” She finishes.

“What?!” you exclaim.

“I’m sorry okay, but I thought you needed to brighten up a bit…”

“First of all what were you thinking, setting me up on a work night? It’s Tuesday tomorrow for Christ’s sake!”

“It’s the only time he was free! He has a busy schedule okay?” Mark defends, looking up from his phone screen.

“Ohh Mr. businessman is busy. I hate boring people, I’ll pass.” You say rolling your eyes.

“He’s a model… wait for it… for Gucci.” Jackie says, eyes shining.

“Keep talking…” you said, suddenly interested.

“His name is Taehyung. Age 24, same as yours. Aspiring to become an actor. Currently a model for Gucci. Also… he’s a god damn work of art.” Jackie says.

“I should be jealous, but I can’t lie, he’s too pretty to be human.” Mark says pitching in.

“Hmm…” you quietly think to yourself.

“Please, just try it out once? Get out there, have some fun!” Jackie pleads.

“Why the fuck not? YOLO right?” you say chuckling, heading to the bar, to drown all your obsessive thoughts.

Unlike waking up to your neighbor’s baby screaming loud enough to summon Satan like always, you wake up to a throbbing in your forehead. Your eyes scan your surroundings and finally focus on the clock on your wall. 11 am! You had to be at work in 15 minutes. You ran around your apartment, your brush in your mouth, one hand through the sleeve of your white button down, the other searching your dresser for your hairbrush.

You were at work. Even though you were 15 minutes late, and looked as though you had just survived a hurricane, you were still present, and that’s what mattered. Luckily, Mark had taken care of inventory for you, so that left you with enough time to polish yourself in the restaurant washroom before the doors opened for business. The washroom brought back unwanted memories from a day ago, but you ignored those, and focused on fixing yourself up, trying to make yourself presentable enough to match the class of the restaurant.

You were in your pajamas, happier than ever, watching a really good kdrama, ‘Its okay not to be okay’, definitely recommend 10 outta 10. Your work shift had ended early. You all had gotten a call from the owner and manager Kim Seokjin, that there was gonna be an extermination. You couldn’t be happier as you relaxed into the comfort of your couch. It hadn’t been 3 minutes into the new episode, when someone knocked on your door. You groaned in irritation.

“Just as it was about to get good.” You huffed out and approached the door.

You opened the door to a rather dim looking Yoongi. “Oh hi… ummm… wassup? Were the only words you could form.

“Can we talk?” Yoongi asks rubbing the back of his neck.

“Sure come in…” you say stepping back and closing the door behind him.

“I’ll get straight to the point…” Yoongi sighs. “What you saw, it wasn’t what you think happened.”

“What’re you talking about?” you asked chuckling nervously.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about Y/N.”

“Oh that… yeah right…”

“Listen, I just want to clarify that yes I did sleep with Maria a month ago, back when we never used to talk, when we used to ignore each other 24/7. But I haven’t slept with her since. What you witnessed today was me telling her to back off, but she kissed me without my consent, and you happened to walk in at a bad time.”

You let out a huge sigh and folded your arms. “And why’re you telling me this?”

Yoongi’s eyebrows scrunched in confusion. To that, you poke again, “I don’t control who you sleep with or who you choose to date Yoongi. We had a deal. We don’t get involved in each other’s personal lives.”

“Well I’m sorry if I seemed to be ‘involved in your personal life’ after we told each other something that I thought was personal to both of us.” He speaks out, in irritation.

You looked down at your ring and remember how you had told him about your past. You remembered how you both had shared a moment, sitting at the piano, which reminded you of the fact that he had also shared his past with you. But you were scared, terrified even. You were scared to let someone close to your heart again, afraid of being left alone again. You were frightened that someone would finally get through the tough walls you’d put up around yourself, and steal your fragile heart, only to break it into a million pieces again. The pain was too much.

“Well maybe we shouldn’t have shared that with each other!” you yell out without thinking twice.

You heard nothing but silence on Yoongi’s end. It took a minute before he spoke up, “So you regret it huh?” his voice alarmingly calm.

“I-I- I don’t know…” you say, unsure guilt settling in your heart.

“Well that just about explains every fucking doubt I’ve been having about this relationship.”

“That’s not wha—” you protest.

“Save it.” He said sternly. “I made a mistake. I tried to get us to be friends. We should go back to our old ways. Just text each other when we’re needy, and ignore each other at all other times. Got it. If that’s what you want, then that’s what you’ll get.” He storms out of the apartment, slamming the door with a loud bang on the way out.

You felt a tremendous guilt envelope your heart. You didn’t want things to go the way they did just now. He was never the issue. It was you. You were the coward who had commitment issues. And you didn’t want him to waste his time trying to get you to open up. This was the only way. You were never suited for love. It was always lust.

«Previous :: Masterlist :: Next»

A/N: Don’t forget to follow @jungshook69 for more content:) You can check out more works of mine here. Have a great day:)

TAGLIST: @kookieebangtan

46 notes · View notes

isis-astarte-diana · 4 years

Text

Tetchy

Summary: “Tetchy tonight, Mandy.” Miranda pushes your buttons. You push back.

Warnings: NSFW. M(iranda)IHOW. (I need a new acronym! Why does everyone’s name have to start with the same letter?) Mildly dub!con, possibly. Knifeplay with bad BDSM etiquette. Violence. Painful sex (at this point, I don’t know if I can not write it). Semi-public sex(?). Name calling. One (1) use of Daddy, but it’s in jest. Very dodgy relationship dynamics, including references to stalking. Also, I make some non-sexual references to peeing, because it’s a stakeout and I think about these things.

Word Count: 3057

NB: It has come to my attention that there is some serious brat erasure in my smut. Can’t have that, can we? Also this is the first time I’ve been able to write a normal human person and I’ve had a lot of fun with the playful dialogue and the swearing. Sorry. And, uh, I’m sticking with darlin’ for Miranda because every single time a Scottish woman has called me darlin’ I have combusted slightly.

“Would you stop showing off?”

Miranda shoots you a sideways glance, her gloved hand never pausing in its relentless manipulation of the butterfly knife. She wrinkles her nose and flashes a contemptuous smirk. “Am I showing off?”

“You know that you are.” Once more, the swish, the click, the endless rhythm to her frustration. “And the noise is doing my head in.”

“Noise?” Swish. Click. Swish. Click. Your fingers twitch into a tense fist. “What noise would that be?”

Huffing, you turn away from her, staring out of the passenger side window into the gloom of the multi-storey car park. The car is shrouded in darkness, the nearest fluorescent light sputtering with a sickly greenish glow a good few yards away. “I had so many better plans for tonight.”

“No you didn’t.” Swish. Click. You wish that she would cut her fucking hand, but the glove would take the brunt of it and she’d probably just carry on out of spite. “I know what you’ve been up to, darlin’, remember? No secrets here.”

You can feel her eyes on the back of your neck now, and the reminder that she watches you shouldn’t have a smile tugging at the corners of your mouth, but it does. There’s something of a thrill to knowing that every part of your day, however tedious - buying a coffee, crossing the road, wandering around a bookshop without choosing anything - is now a performance. Miranda does not like to be out of the loop; and, admittedly, coming home to find a bag of your favourite muffins - the ones you’d eyed in the coffee shop before deciding not to treat yourself - or a copy of the book you’d almost bought waiting for you on the kitchen table is, bizarrely, rather sweet.

Sweeter, now that you’ve given her a spare key to the flat after having to call the landlord for the third time in less than a month to explain that the lock on the front door had been mysteriously damaged yet again.

“They’re obviously not coming,” you mutter, unabashedly petulant. “Can’t we just go?”

“We’ve barely been here half an hour.” Swish. Click. She sighs, sounding far more annoyed with you than anyone who’s being as irritating as she is has any right to. Swish. Click. “Fuckin’ hell, give it a bit longer.”

“Right. Fine.” Your jaw clenches. Desperate for any excuse to get out of the car and away from her, you snap, “I’m going for a piss.”

When your fingers loop into the door handle and wrench it slightly too hard, nothing happens. You try it again. A mechanism inside the door judders and grinds with a tell-tale noise and you whip around to face her. She’s staring straight ahead, through the windshield and into the dark, with a smug look in her eyes.

“Did you put the child locks on?”

Miranda has the audacity not to laugh while she plays with the knife and says sternly, “safety first.”

“Very fucking funny.” You eye the button in her door that controls the lock. You could reach it, quite easily, but doing so would mean sticking your hand into the blur of the swinging blade. “Open it.”

She doesn’t even look at you. “Nah.”

“Open it, or I’ll scream.”

“Go for it.” It’s toneless. “Anyone comes, I’ll kill them.”

You scoff. “No you won’t.”

“Might do.” She says it like you’ve dared her. “Would serve you right. You’ve been getting on my tits all night.”

Your voice is an indignant squeak. “I’ve been-?! Fuck, alright.” Folding your arms, you snort, “maybe you should put one of your tapes on, babe.”

It’s a low blow and you know it. She falters, just for a second, before starting up the infuriating pattern with the knife again, even quicker now. “Don’t.”

It feels dangerously good to see that you’ve had an effect. “Oh, you’re so scary.” Turning back to the window, you point out, “you’re just like one of those dickheads in a meeting who won’t stop clicking a pen, you know. Always fucks me off. Always just makes me want to-”

You can’t finish the thought.

With serpentine speed she’s grabbing a fistful of your hair, yanking your head back until you’re staring up at the soft grey ceiling of the car. Your hands find the locked door handle, the seat cushion, holding onto them with white knuckles to keep from slumping across the handbrake from the force. You’re twisted awkwardly in your seat, your back aching in protest at the angle, but you can’t suppress a laugh.

“Something funny?” Her voice is low as she brings the knife around in front of you so that you can see it. A loose strand of her hair tickles your forehead when the flat of the blade comes to rest over your exposed throat.

It’s cold, and smooth, and you can just barely feel the sharp edges of it. Breathless for more than one reason, you tease, “tetchy tonight, Mandy.”

“Oh, don’t call me that, darlin’.” She presses harder, hard enough that you can feel your pulse where it touches you. This position puts some pressure on your windpipe so that it’s distinctly uncomfortable. Still, you push on.

“Don’t call me darlin’, Mandy.”

“Think I’ll call you what I fuckin’ like, you mental little bitch.” She pulls on your hair again and you mewl at the wash of prickling pain across your scalp. “Take your pants off, then.”

The words inflame you, but you’re not finished playing, not after spending half an hour with her deliberately pushing your buttons. Echoing her, you sneer, “nah.”

“Please yourself.”

Before you can react the knife is gone and she’s pushing you forwards, letting go in time to send your forehead smacking into the passenger side window. It makes light burst behind your eyes. You swear under your breath, rubbing the impact site with one hand.

Behind you, her door opens and closes.

You barely glimpse her through the windshield before she’s wrenching your door open and reaching for you, fisting the front of your dress in one gloved hand, tugging hard enough to make the fabric dig into your skin as she hauls you gracelessly out of the car and to your feet. You almost bang your head on the doorframe, so sudden is this assault.

“I can-” you cover her hand with yours, trying to ease up on her grip. “I can stand up on my own, for fuck’s sake, get off me-”

“Or what, you’ll scream?” She flashes the knife again, teeth glistening in her mirthless grin to match it. “Thought we’d been through that already.”

You offer some perfunctory resistance while she shuts the door and manoeuvres you around to the back of the car, but the heady thrill of finally having her attention dulls your attempts to escape her hands. In a moment of bravery you reach for the butterfly clip that fastens her hair back and yank it loose. It must hurt - it’s supposed to hurt - but she just laughs.

“You’re such a pain in the arse, d’you know that?” Supple leather wraps around your wrist and your left arm is twisted brutally up behind your back. You grit your teeth to withhold a cry. “That big mouth’s gonna get you into trouble one day.”

Even as she turns you around and pushes you down over the boot of the car, the impact knocking the wind out of you as the hairclip falls to the ground with a clatter of plastic on concrete, you manage to bite back, “that’s the idea.”

Outside the semi-security of the car it’s bitterly cold and black as pitch. The smooth surface of it chills you to the bone and makes you shiver; this, though, is nothing compared to the tremor that runs down your spine when she leans down to cover your back with her chest, loose hair brushing your neck, lips close to your ear.

“Are you gonna shut up or do I need to teach you a lesson?” She punctuates the words by slamming her other hand down on the boot of the car where you can see it, the knife still gripped tightly in her leather-clad fingers. The sight of it makes you push back against her, shifting your arse as provocatively as you can with her pinning you down like this.

In the whiniest, most abrasive voice you can put on, you retort, “are you gonna take your belt off, daddy?”

“You’re fucked in the head.” It’s nothing short of a snarl, her hand tightening around your restrained wrist, but there’s no shortage of affection in it. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? If I turned your arse bright red, right here, while you cried and begged me to stop.”

“You think fucking highly of yourself,” you scoff, weakened by the thought that she might actually do it. “Why don’t you suck it and see?”

“Because I’m not in the mood to play your games, darlin’.” She leaves the knife there, within reach of your free hand, while she tugs the hem of your dress up past your hips, and picks it up once more when you’re bared to the waist save for your underwear. “I’d rather play one of mine.”

Your squirming stops when the blade slides under the fabric of your knickers, tight to the outside of your thigh. It doesn’t cut you, but it scratches, and it disturbs you to know that she isn’t even looking while she does it. “Do not cut my pants off,” you warn, aiming for stern and falling short.

“Think I will.”

“This isn’t porn, Miranda, I paid good fucking money for these and I will be so pissed off-”

You cut off with a furious groan when she does it anyway, the material stretching away from your skin and then fluttering loose with the motion of the knife through it.

“You’re such a bitch sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?” Seamlessly she changes hands, one still pinning you down, the other now going for the opposite side of your underwear. “I need to try harder.”

She slices through the other leg, her gloved fingers brushing your thigh when she snatches the fabric up into her hand before it can fall to the ground. Her task complete, she retrieves the knife and finally, finally closes it, slipping it back into her pocket. Her leg slides between yours, the cotton of her trousers pressing insistently up against your vulva in a way that almost makes you forget your displeasure.

“Shame.” She clicks her tongue. “I liked these ones.”

You writhe against the boot of the car. “So did I!”

“Say your goodbyes, then.” Once more, she leans down, proffering the fabric now clutched in her gloved hand. “Open wide.”

You jerk away, but not quickly enough, and she stuffs your ruined underwear into your mouth, pushing it deeper with her fingers until you almost choke on it. It’s not a merciful gag - the material steals the saliva from your mouth, and the taste of your own arousal is thick on your tongue; while the sound of her messing around with the knife is infuriating, the sight of it never fails to affect you.

“Much better.” She covers your full mouth with her hand and gives your face a painful squeeze. You cough weakly around the fabric. “Bet you taste good, don’t you?”

Your face heats under her hand at the words.

Miranda almost tugs your shoulder clear from the boot of the car when she pulls back, straightening up once more, still holding you down by your twisted arm. It’s starting to ache. Her other hand squeezes between her thigh and your own, palming you without care or ceremony, and you grip the edge of the bumper with your free hand for stability. The touch makes your legs quake.

Even with the leather of her glove smeared with your arousal, it still burns when she presses two fingers inside of you.

You cry out into the gag, arching your back, hand slapping down on the car boot with enough force to make your palm hurt. She knows that you hate this, that however slick and supple the leather might be it’s still not fit for this purpose. The thickness of the glove broadens and blunts her fingers, turning the familiar invasion clumsy and rough. With a soft chuckle she pushes them deeper.

Your eyes prickle with tears from the sensation. There’s something unnatural about it, the leather dragging at the delicate membranes of your cunt like this, but being filled and stretched around her fingers still makes your walls throb and tighten.

“Not your favourite game, is it?” Her voice is low. You shake your head emphatically, whining into the makeshift gag. She soothes you without softening. “It’s alright, it’s alright. I’m not gonna hurt you much. Not if I don’t have to.”

You sniffle pitifully and twist under her hand when she slowly withdraws.

“But you do deserve it.”

The upthrust is punishing, lifting your hips with its force, making your abdomen clench as her fingers slam into the patch of nerves at the front of your walls. Your legs twitch, tensing, trying to escape the assault. Your neglected clitoris throbs in time with your pulse.

“D’you want me to stop?”

Without even thinking about it, you shriek a muffled sound of disagreement into the gag, shaking your head again. She laughs.

“Didn’t think so.”

The rhythm she takes up is slow, but no kinder for it. She makes a point of putting her weight behind her wrist every time she fills you, so that even when the dull discomfort of the leather is eased by the slick arousal flooding your cunt the ache never quite goes away. All the while she holds you down, trembling in the cold and the unforgiving dark, dry mouth stuffed with fabric, breathing in the taste of your own desire.

“Touch yourself for me.” Something dark stirs in her tone. Her breaths are heavy, a reassuring indication that she’s enjoying this in her own way. You obey immediately.

This, too, is awkward, wriggling your hand under your hips where she has you bent over the car, and your wrist is trapped between your stomach and the edge of the boot. Your fingers are freezing from the exposure when you finally manage to press them to your clitoris, shock making your walls draw tighter around her fingers as she fucks you.

You overcome it quickly enough.

It doesn’t take long to drag yourself over that edge, your fingertips working frantically against the flesh that feels scalding in its wet heat. She manipulates you from the inside, crooking her fingers skilfully, never easing or faltering in her pace until you howl and stiffen underneath her. Huffing desperate breaths through your nose, biting down on the ruins of your underwear, you come apart with a flood of sensation that has your legs quaking and cramping where they hold you up.

“There you go,” she murmurs, when you finally fall limp against the car. “Good girl.”

She lets go of your arm, letting you stretch out the tightness left in the muscles there, and withdraws her fingers from your cunt with only a pitiful mewl of displeasure from you. You reach up to weakly tug the mess of fabric from your mouth.

“I’m still fucked off at you,” you manage, but it’s hoarse and breathless. “My favourite pants.”

“I’ll buy you more.” She snatches the damp fabric from your hand and uses it to wipe her gloves clean before balling it up in her fist and shoving it into her pocket. “No sense in letting them go to waste. Could be a long night.”

“Take your gloves off next time.” You wince when you straighten up, feeling sore and empty where she’s opened you with her fingers. Hastily you straighten your skirt. “You know I don’t like that.”

“Seemed like you liked it well enough.” Still, she catches the middle finger of each glove in turn between her teeth and drags her pale hands free of the leather. The gloves, too, go into her pocket. “You alright?”

“Fine.” It’s terse, and she frowns, cupping your cheek with her warm hand. When she meets your eyes there’s a carefully measured tenderness in her expression.

“Seriously, darlin’. Was that- was I a bit much?”

If you didn’t know her any better you would say the question was a challenge, but her eyes are crinkled at the corners with genuine concern and you nuzzle into her hand. “No,” you admit, twisting your fingers into the lapels of her jacket to pull her in for a kiss. “Never.”

It’s a good kiss, particularly after the sharpness of the game, her fingers sliding into your hair with affection far removed from the way she’d pulled it earlier. She wraps an arm around you to tug you into her chest, calming your shivering body with her warmth, but the other effects of the cold and the recent orgasm make themselves known with a vengeance and you laugh into her mouth when you pull away.

“I do actually quite need a piss now, though.”

Miranda snickers and lets you go. With a tilt of her head she indicates the dark corner a few feet away from the back of the car. “Go on then.”

You snort with disbelief. “Fuck off.” Raising an eyebrow, she folds her arms and leans back against the car. A smile tugs at her lips. “You’re not serious.”

“I’m not letting you wander off at night with no pants on. Anything could happen.”

"I wouldn’t have no pants on if you hadn’t ruined them!”

“Funny, that.” Her tongue pokes at the inside of her cheek as she rolls her eyes. “Now hurry up, it’s freezing.”

“You have a coat on!” Reluctantly, you glance around yourself, but the place is deserted and you have no doubt that it’s seen far worse. She watches with a smug smile as you wander into the corner. “Right. Fine. Turn around, then.”

Her boots shift on the concrete when she settles against the car, lifting her chin defiantly. “Nah.”

“Of course.” As you start to tug the hem of your dress up once more, you mutter, “god, I hate you.”

Even so, you can’t stop smiling.

#mine #nsfwork #miranda croft x reader #is that a tag yet???#it is now

102 notes · View notes

lluvguts · 3 years

Text

dog-ears, or bookmarks? // reddie

pairing: kid! richie tozier / eddie kaspbrak

warnings/genre: purely fluff! lots of (wholesome) pining!

word count: 1894

summary: A reddie library meet cute

Ten year old Eddie Kaspbrak clutched his mother’s sweaty hand as they ascended the stairs in the Derry Public Library. He could smell her floral perfume as they went, rolling off her in stifling waves to mask the stains of sweat on her sheer dress. Eddie counted the steps, each one closer toward the kid’s section of the library and further from that stinky perfume. It reminded him of the mornings Eddie had to stand by his mother’s bedside, holding his nose as the whole room reeked of grandmothers and mildewy furniture, to take his medicine.

His mother stopped mid-climb to fix her eyes on Eddie’s wrinkled nose and shortened breaths.

“Are you alright dear?” She asked.

Eddie nodded and ducked away from her coddling hands, reaching to feel his pulse and ensure he still had his inhaler.

“I’m fine, Mommy,” Eddie whined, wiping his streaming eyes. “Do you have your library card?”

She straightened up and wiped her damp hands along the front of her chest. “Of course I do, Eddie dear. You know the rules, you get to look for one approved book while I sit and read.”

“Yes Mommy,” Eddie murmured as they reached the second floor and took in the rows and rows of bookshelves and children’s painted tables. Eddie could hardly contain his excitement. The library was one of his favorite places to go―it was quiet, orderly, and smelled clean most of the time. It was the only place Eddie could slip into the old pages of a book as his regular self and close them, a new person. A detective, a brave knight, a dragon, anything but the delicate little boy he really was. Eddie didn’t think being so soft was fair at all―even if his mother believed that a boy did not need a magnifying glass, a suit of armor, or the ability to breathe fire to get through life safely.

His mother patted his shoulder. “Now Eddie, I’ll be over here by the coloring tables. When you find a book, bring it to me so I can check it for you.”

Eddie groaned internally as he padded away from her clammy grip. She hardly let him pick out books he liked, her “book checks'' were always: “That one looks a bit scary, Eddie dear,” Or “Heavens, of course not! Don’t you see that ghost on the front? I don’t want to start giving my Eddie nightmares now.”

But maybe this time it would be different. And maybe, just maybe, he’d find a good book to read―or even better: some company.

Eddie realized with a thudding chest as he walked, it was different. He’d headed straight for the kid’s section typically filled with the horror books when a shoe poking out from the two bookcases stopped him. The sneaker was attached to a leg, attached to a skinny boy sprawled out on his back with a book inches from his pale face. Scattered around him were stacks of paperbacks, and Eddie hovered over his lanky frame with a slight grin. The boy was reading the Goosebumps books.

“I haven’t read that one,” Eddie whispered, crouching down between the shelves so his mother wouldn’t see. He pointed at the book in the boy’s hands, and that was when Eddie could see his face. Clunky glasses framed his deep brown eyes, and a mess of blackish brown hair hung just below his eyebrows. When Eddie met his sly glance, magnified behind his glasses, both boys broke out in childish grins.

“The Werewolf of Fever Swamp? It’s a classic,” The boy stated. He staggered upright, adjusting his frames, then stuck out his arm. Eddie blinked at the boy’s hand, fascinated as some of his fingers were decorated in Spiderman Band-Aids and his wrist was covered in Rainbow Loom bracelets.

The dark-haired boy frowned, as if he were truly hurt by Eddie’s hesitation. “You’re supposed to shake my hand.”

“Oh.” Was all Eddie could muster. He slipped his hand into the other boy’s and they shook like esteemed gentlemen. His palms weren’t sweaty and flushed like Eddie’s mother’s, but thin and soft in all the right places. It made a weird feeling buzz around in Eddie’s stomach, like he was about to throw up a swarm of butterflies.

“My name’s Richie.”

Eddie liked the sound of his name. He liked the way Richie said it, being able to see his teeth when he whispered. Richie, Richie, Richie.

“I’m Eddie,” He murmured back, scooting aside one of the piles of Goosebumps books to make room.

“Eddie.” Richie tried the word, as if it were a new piece of candy on his tongue.

Eddie noticed that Richie’s copy of The Werewolf of Fever Swamp had been closed before he could mark his place. With a little burst of pride Eddie turned to his fanny pack―the very one his mother would not let him out of the house without―for the bookmarks he had made. Himself. It was something Eddie enjoyed doing, when his mother was not nagging him on his vitamins or forcing him to sit through reruns of Wheel of Fortune.

Eddie thumbed through the few bookmarks he’d brought, hoping Richie would like the one he’d drawn a Stormtrooper on.

“Here,” He started, handing over the taped up strip of paper. “You didn’t save your spot.”

Richie stared at Eddie’s bookmark with a pink face then shook his head. “Nah, that’s okay, Eds. I don't use bookmarks.” He whispered quickly.

“Then what do you use?” Eddie asked, growing worried that Richie did use bookmarks, just not ones from delicate little strangers at the library. Eddie thought he was tough, tough enough to use the grown up scissors by himself and not get cut. Maybe Richie would see he wasn’t as weak as the kids at the play yard thought he was.

He whispered it like a delicious secret between them. “Just fold the sides here, y’see?” Richie held up the book, and sure enough, a dog-eared corner showed his last page. “I’m gonna keep reading. Do you want me to, uh, read out loud?”

Read out loud? No one had ever offered Eddie to read with them. Most of the time he read his books alone, with the stuffed animals on the tops of the shelves as his only friends. Those butterflies came fluttering back inside Eddie’s body, but this time they nuzzled hot into his lungs so all he did was nod hurriedly, afraid they’d spill out.

Richie grinned again and shuffled over to Eddie’s side, leaning against a bookshelf. He propped the book on his knobby knees and began where he’d left off.

As he read Eddie became transfixed by the soft, boyish timbre of Richie’s voice, no longer listening to the story but to the short catch of breath as he whispered each eerie sentence.

He craned his neck closer toward Richie’s shoulder to see the pages for himself, and was met with the smell of bubblegum coming from Richie’s lips. Eddie’s eyes glanced briefly at them, more interested in their softness―Richie was lost in the story, hardly paying attention to him―and the sweet taste his words left in the air. Richie read the next passage in a fake, trembling-all-over voice, and for effect, flinched backward as if frightened. Richie’s shoulder met Eddie’s chin and for a second, Eddie didn’t think much about his next choice as he let it rest there. Richie didn’t seem to mind either. He flipped the pages with Eddie’s head on his shoulder and they listened together about the ill-fated Tucker family. Eddie’s heart began to falter.

Arrhythmia. His mother’s ghost word appeared in Eddie’s mind, though he didn’t know what it really meant. He thought it was something that happened when your heart got so excited it wouldn’t beat right for you.

But it wasn’t the story that made Eddie’s heart excited. It was Richie. It was the way his dark eyes glistened behind his glasses. It was his electric blue Hawaiian button up and the white undershirt tucked inside his shorts. It was in his kindness to even be sitting next to Eddie. It was the fact that he was no longer alone at the library.

Richie had stopped reading at the sound of a shrill whisper echoing through the stillness.

“Eddie! It’s time to go back home.”

“That’s my mom,” Eddie said with a sad sigh, shifting away from Richie’s shoulder and looking up at his fixed expression.

“What?”

Richie thrust the book into Eddie’s fingers. “You read it.”

Eddie stared down at the cover as he got off the floor. His heart jumped to its own rhythm again, forgetting to beat a few times when Richie eased back on the stiff carpet and picked up Vampire Breath instead. Eddie didn’t want to leave. He wanted to sit back down with Richie and finish the chapter, the whole book, the piles all around him, all so that stovetop heat would return to his cheeks and he’d melt at Richie’s words all over again. Maybe Eddie didn’t exactly need a knight’s armor for things like this, when he felt like a warm dish of butter. To have a friend.

Eddie decidedly slipped the Stormtrooper bookmark into the front page and bent down to set it on one of the piles. “I don’t think she’ll let me take it. She’ll say it’s too scary or something.”

Richie put Vampire Breath on his chest and thought for a moment.

“Come back next weekend, maybe I can get my mom to meet yours,” Richie murmured back, then winced at Sonia’s panicked call for her son again.

“What for?”

“So you can come to my house...I’ve got all his books in my room.” Richie said with a blush. “Plus comics.”

“But,” Eddie peered over the shelves in worry, thankful he didn’t see his mother’s looming body yet. “Why would you wanna hang out with me?”

Richie didn’t miss a beat, though his cheeks were red. “Cause you’re a cool dude, Eds.”

“Eddie! I said one book, mister.”

Eddie stood over Richie like he had been a while ago, at a loss of what to say. He could still hardly believe that someone would want to spend time with him. The idea that he was cool. Eddie had an inhaler and religiously wore a fanny pack and thought of himself as anything but cool.

“So you’ll come back then?” Richie asked hopefully, his eyes wide behind the lenses.

“S-Sure, Richie. I’ll be back.”

As he walked away he heard the sound of Richie’s book pages flipping, and the angry eyes of his mother bore down on him.

“What were you doing this whole time?” She demanded in a strained voice. “You kept me waiting, I was worried you’d been kidnapped.”

Eddie felt that familiar constricting in his throat again whenever his mother was nearby. All of the words from the books disappeared. He didn’t live in the pages of R. L. Stine anymore; he was nestled inside the chokehold of delicate and weak and asthmatic.

But maybe next time Eddie could enter the Derry Public Library doors a different boy. One that may still be a bit fragile and small, but had someone else to walk through the aisles with. Had someone else to read with. And he wasn’t alone.

#meet cute #reddie fanfic #it movie #it 2017 #god i need therapy #reddie fanfiction #fluff one shot #kid fic #reddie but kids #fluff #fanfic #fluff fic #it fanfiction #soft eddie #because when is he not soft

13 notes · View notes

softbiker · 5 years

Text

Bucky Barnes Oneshot

Warnings: 18+ only - smut (fingering), some cursing

Word count: 3.6k

A/N: I can’t believe I wrote 3.6k words of what basically amounts to Netflix and fingering, but this is what Bucky Barnes does to people (you’re welcome Kris). Anyways, here is my first-ever smut - in which Bucky’s girl has a bad day at work and he does his best to make the night a good one. Bonus points if you can guess which show they’re watching ;) As always, feedback is appreciated! Since I’ve never written smut, please tell me if it’s bad lol. Thanks for reading!

A fuzzy vibration in his pocket alerts him to a text.

Kill me.

Unable to hold back a snort, he bites his lip and swipes at the screen. His thumbs flutter over the keyboard.

No can do, babydoll. Not an assassin anymore, remember?

Merely a few seconds pass, little dots floating in the conversation bubble, before her reply buzzes back.

I’m sure you’ve retained some of your skills…or maybe I should ask Natasha?

Please, I taught Nat everything she knows. And I’d still take her out before I’d let her kill you - your butt is too cute.

So is yours, Handsome ;)

The muscles in his cheeks hurt from the silly grin stretching up the corners of his mouth, but he can’t help himself with her, it’s just too easy. Too fun.

Well, if you’re NOT going to put me out of my misery…then you at least owe me a good night tonight.

Done and done. The whole team knows - and teases him frequently - that he spoils her, worships her, bends over backwards at her every request. It’s not his fault; she wrapped him around her finger the day they met, and it’s such a sweet place to be, he’s never bothered untangling himself. And she always gives as good as she gets, every time.

What did you have in mind, sweetheart?

Pizza and Netflix. Preferably with your hand down my pants.

Oh and there it is - that lovely little tingle down his spine, warmth in his belly, ever-present between them. His funny girl, always teasing. Teeth tug at his bottom lip as he deliberates over his response, thumbs poised over the screen.

It’s a date.

He tacks on that little emoji with the winking kiss face and hits send. Glances at his watch - a little past 3 in the afternoon; she’ll be off work at 5, probably straight out the door if she’s having such a bad day, but if the traffic is bad or she gets stuck at her desk, it’ll probably be closer to 6 when she gets home.

Slipping his phone in his back pocket, he looks around at the apartment, a quick survey of the last 5 days’ damage - a few dishes in the sink and on the stove, dirty socks peeled off in the hallway, a basket of clean clothes waiting to be folded. He nods to himself, prioritizes his task list, and tackles the kitchen first. After loading the dishwasher, he goes back to the bedroom, digging in the side pocket of his backpack for his headphones; he slips them in and turns on the next episode of that conspiracy theory podcast he’s become obsessed with (not that he’ll admit it, but she thinks it’s hysterical) and gets back to work, giving their home as deep a clean as he can in the couple of hours he has. On an afterthought, he lights a couple of scented candles - her favorites, the ones that smell like roasting marshmallows - throughout the place, letting the rooms fill with a warm scent.

A few minutes past 5, he stands in the living room, hands on his hips, and surveys his work, feeling pretty pleased with himself. Their home looks and smells deliciously clean and inviting, a warm embrace for her to fall into when she walks in the door. He glances at his watch and decides he should go ahead and order the pizza, and as he swipes at the app on his phone, he double checks the champagne chilling in the fridge. Check and check.

Perfect. He smiles to himself, the smirk turning a bit wicked as he walks down the hall to light candles in the bedroom.

A perfect night for his perfect girl.

**********

Her feet drag as she climbs the stairs up to their apartment, cursing herself all the way for moving into a building with no elevator. As if she weren’t tired enough from the absolutely hellish day she just had - even thinking about work has her massaging her temples with a groan. And she absolutely, positively, has to get new shoes for work, her feet hurt so fucking bad it’s insane-

Nope. Nope! Completely done, she stops on the second flight of stairs with a huff, removing her heels one at a time and shoving them into her work bag. Files and various loose papers wrinkle in the process, but she doesn’t care at all; so what if the little blue fleck of gum on the bottom of her pumps gets stuck on the official copy of a contract? At this point, she’s practically daring someone to say something about it. Biting someone else’s head off for a change would be just delightful.

She continues up that flight of stairs and the next, barefoot, her bag heavy and awkward on her right shoulder with the addition of her shoes, toes pressing into the worn and dated green carpet covering the steps. In her head, she’s counting them, counting down - 10 steps to Bucky, 9 steps, 8 steps, 7, 6…

When she unlocks the door and pushes it open, he’s waiting there, sweet smile curling up his soft lips. Of course, he must have heard her coming up the stairs - and she sags in relief, practically falling into his arms without even closing the door. He chuckles, tugging her closer while shuffling their positions in the hallway so that he - ever responsible and paranoid - can close and deadbolt their door.

“Hi,” she mumbles into his chest.

“Hi, baby,” he whispers back, lips against her temple. “Rough day?”

She groans, shaking her head with her face still pressed against him.

“You’ve got no idea, Buck, it was just the worst-”

“Shh, shh,” he hushes her, rubbing her back with firm strokes. “You don’t have to talk about it. You can just relax, honey. I’m here.”

A heavy sigh puffs against his shirt, the heat of her breath felt through the fabric, and her shoulders drop a little further, the tension slowly melting as he softly sways her from side to side. They stand like that for a while, just breathing each other in, letting go of the day, coming home to each other. Though she’s never said it aloud, she lives for moments like this, when there’s nothing that matters outside the circle of his arms. Nothing else at all.

The insistent growl of her stomach interrupts them - loud and gurgling, and he chuckles in spite of himself. He pulls back a bit from their embrace, looking down with a fond smirk tilting up his mouth.

“Hungry?”

“Starving, Buck,” she pouts, a little dramatic, a playful whine coloring her tone. “Did you make dinner?”

“Even better.” A light press of his lips to the tip of her nose, his voice continuing in a whisper. “I ordered out.”

A soft gasp.

“Gusano’s?” Her eyes are sparkling and he wonders if she gets as excited for him as she does for pizza.

“Mhm. Got all the toppings you like, too.”

Touched, and sensitive from such a long day, her smile is so big it makes her tired eyes tear up just a bit. Sometimes, it just hits her - how lucky she is, how one-in-a-million her sweet super-soldier boyfriend manages to be every single day. It swells her heart full to bursting every time.

He doesn’t say anything else, just kisses her forehead and turns, keeping an arm wrapped around her shoulders and steering her to the bedroom.

“C’mon, babydoll - you go change,” he urges gently, stroking her arm. “Get in your comfy clothes, take your makeup off, all that jazz - I’ll grab the pizza and then we’ll see what we wanna watch, yeah?”

Her answering sigh is dreamy as she drops her head back to his shoulder.

“Where have you been all my life, Bucky Barnes?”

“Mm. Mostly in cryogenic storage,” he whispers, eyebrows wiggling as he leans in for a kiss. With a roll of her eyes she dodges his lips, letting them land on the side of her head as she smacks his chest and walks off to the bedroom. Chuckling, he lands a playful swat on her ass before skipping to the kitchen.

What a man, she thinks, shaking her head as she digs through her dresser for a pair of soft college sweatpants. One-in-a-million.

**********

Pizza box on the edge of the bed, bottle of champagne on the left nightstand. She’s settled between his legs, feeling full and pleasantly soft from the bubbly drink in her hand.

“We’re gonna keep watching this, right?” she hums as the credits roll on the first episode, button in the bottom corner counting down until the next one plays.

“Sure - as long as you don’t spend the whole night ogling that guy’s ass,” he huffs, pinching her hip.

“Hey! It’s not my fault he’s got a great ass - but I never said it was better than yours,” she offers, sweet and apologetic, reaching up to pat his cheek. Even with her head only half turned, she can see the pouty scowl on his face, her hardened assassin looking more like a frustrated two-year-old. Adorable. What a man.

“Whatever,” he grumbles, shifting a little on the bed and tightening his arms around her, as though that might keep his girl in his lap rather than jumping through the screen and into the arms of the wig-wearing hunk whose strapping biceps currently have her attention.

The second episode plays, she relaxes a little further, finishing her second glass of bubbly. When he murmurs in her ear, she lets him take the glass and set it on the nightstand, out of the way. He shifts forward and grabs the pizza box, too, moving it to the other nightstand - both of them have eaten their fill and all that’s left in the box is a scrap of crust, nibbled all the way up till there’s nothing left but seasoned bread.

There’s a little shifting, a little wiggling, as he settles them both back against the headboard. In true “Princess and the Pea” fashion, Bucky’s got no less than three pillows fluffed behind his back, cushioning him against the hard wooden headboard. When he’s finished shuffling around, he strokes her sides for a moment, pulling her back flush against him and wraps his arms around her waist, sighing in contentment.

“Comfortable?” she giggles. His only reply is a low hum and a squeeze of his arms.

They go back to watching episode two, trying to follow the separate timelines and magical rules that have yet to be explained in the story world. She’s got her eyebrows drawn together, puzzling out where the hunchbacked mage might fit in to all of this; while the women on screen test their magic powers, she feels warm lips travel to her neck.

At first, she tries to ignore him, intent on watching the show; but the warm, wet kisses trailing up and down the side of her neck have her tilting her head, silently asking for more…

“Watch your show, baby,” he whispers, husky voice sending a delicate shiver down her spine. The tip of his tongue traces over the shell of her ear. “Don’t want you to miss your man.”

She intends to make a derisive snort, but it comes out as more of a hiccuped gasp when one of his hands slips just under the hem of her t-shirt, fingers spider-walking up the skin of her stomach. Her mouth is dry when she tries to swallow and bring her hazy eyes back to the TV.

It works for a few moments, maybe minutes, as he softly strokes the warm skin of her belly, his other hand tracing the waistband of her sweats. His mouth never leaves her neck and shoulders, switching from one side to the other, gently letting his teeth scrape over her sweet spot and her earlobe. All tender, unhurried caresses, and she sinks further into him, into the warmth of them both in their room, their world.

She chokes on her gasp when his hand slides up to cup her breast.

“You still watching, honey?” he hums, a smile pressed against her jaw.

“Uh-huh,” she manages when his finger circles her nipple.

“Good.” He nuzzles her cheek a little bit, stubble scratching along her smooth skin as his hand continues to massage her breast - his fingers still soft, barely squeezing, just enough to tease.

His other hand finally wiggles past her waistband - but stops at the seam of her underwear, just a few inches in. She’s watching, she is, she is; her eyes are on the screen, on the very handsome monster hunter with a jaw that could cut glass, her hand gripping Bucky’s thigh. She’s absolutely paying attention to the show, and not at all frustrated with the light strokes of his fingers across her hips and mound, still outside of her panties. Fingers stretch a little further, so he’s massaging her inner thigh in time with the squeezes to her breast. It’s getting a little hot in here - maybe she shouldn’t have worn such thick sweats and fuzzy socks…

This time, she can’t help herself as she digs her nails in his thigh, his index finger lightly tracing her folds over her underwear. It almost tickles. She almost whines. Bites her lip instead to hold it back, her breath hitching in her chest.

“Bucky,” she huffs.

“Hm?” He licks her neck.

“Are you going to do something?” It comes out weaker than she meant it to, more desperate than demanding.

“I thought you wanted to watch your show?” he suggests, feigning innocence. “Don’t you wanna watch Netflix with my hand down your pants? You can have both, honey.”

Her thighs twitch when his fingers press a little firmer, just an ounce more pressure - still barely anything, still not enough. She does whine this time, trying to wiggle her hips closer to his hand.

“Go on, admire his ass some more, sweetheart,” he chuckles. “I know you think it’s cute.”

The hand in her shirt switches to the other breast and tweaks her nipple, just on the pleasant side of painful. She licks her lips, blinking to regain focus on the screen, feeling way too hot. Bucky seems unbothered, though, continuing his ministrations and ignoring the TV altogether.

Her teeth sink into her lower lip when his hand slides around to grab a handful of her ass, gripping tight then playfully popping the seam of her panties with his finger.

“You’ve got a pretty cute ass, too,” he teases, his hand gliding back to its place between her thighs.

She huffs again, unable to stop herself from arching into the hand that’s attentively playing with her breasts. Alright then. Two can play at this game - she releases her death grip from one of his thighs and slides her hand back, just behind her, letting her nails drag over the prominent bulge in his sweats.

He hisses through his teeth, releasing her breast to grab her wrist. His other hand slips out of her pants to snatch her hand that remains clasped to his thigh

“Nuh-uh, sweetheart,” he nips at her shoulder. With a firm grip, he moves her hands up behind his neck, letting her fingers tangle in the sweaty strands at his nape. “You keep those right here and enjoy your show, alright? I ain’t done with you yet.”

Satisfied that she would stay put, he lets his hands glide back down - over the length of her arms and down her sides, before gripping the hem of her shirt and hiking it up above her breasts, both hands immediately giving them a firm squeeze. Lower lip trapped between her teeth, she barely holds back the low moan in her throat and fights to refocus her eyes on the screen again, a herculean task with his fingers plucking at her nipples like that.

The heat between her legs continues to build, despite both his hands occupied with her chest, and she can’t help but lift her hips a little, a blind, desperate search for friction, attention, anything. A particularly hard tweak of her nipples had her whining loud, a jolt of electricity going straight between her thighs. She tries to rub her thighs together to get some relief, but Bucky’s too quick - he hooks his own feet on the inside of her ankles and keeps both their legs spread open wide.

She moans his name, heady and desperate, arching into his hands.

“S’alright, I gotcha,” he hushes her, his lips still fastened to her neck. Always wants to take care of his girl. He’ll always give her what she wants…eventually.

Achingly slow, he drags a hand down from her breasts, tracing over her stomach and into her sweats again. He snaps the waistband of her underwear again - once, twice, what an asshole - before sliding down further to rub her core through her panties. Her breath hitches at the feel, the friction, her thigh muscles tightening as he uses his knuckles to firmly stroke her up and down. Wetness pools in her underwear, more and more as he rubs little circles around her clit with his thumb.

“Can feel you gettin’ so wet, honey,” he rasps, breath hot on her ear. “This all for me? Huh?”

All she can give is a nod and an “uh huh” as his fingers press her clit and pinch her nipple at the same time. A tiny whine escapes her lips, sweat breaking out along her back where they’re pressed together, his erection impossible to ignore as she wiggles against him.

Panties soaked now, ruined, when he finally, finally slips inside, cupping her pussy with his warm hand. With his thumb and pinky, he parts her swollen folds and traces his index and middle fingers up her slit.

“Fuck, you’re fucking soaked, sweetheart,” he moans, his fingers running through her folds, circling her entrance before bringing the wetness back up to rub her clit. His fingers spread her a little further, tugging back the hood, and he draws firm circles around her bud, just the way he knows she likes.

“Oh, oh fuck, Bucky-” she pants and whines, hips rolling into his hand, his other fingers still working over her breasts. Her head feels light, almost dizzy, and a tight feeling grips her low in her belly, her toes starting to curl and twitch. Fingers yank hard at his silky soft hair, the strands wrapped in her fists. “Bucky, please.”

“Don’t gotta beg me, honey - don’t gotta beg for anything,” he coos against her sweaty cheek. With his hand now soaked, he slips two fingers inside, curling them against her upper wall into that spot that makes her-

“Oh my god, oh god, right there-”

“I know, baby, I know.”

His hands working her over like an instrument, there’s no more pretense of even glancing at the TV screen - her eyes flutter as he rhythmically strokes her higher, gushing wet sounds as he drives his fingers in and out, dragging the heel of his palm against her clit. All the while, his other hand plucks and circles her nipples, palms her breasts, his tongue and teeth attached to the sensitive little place on her neck. Her mouth hangs open, gasps and moans that sound vaguely like his name, fingernails raking down his scalp and the back of his neck.

“Come on, honey, come for me - come for me.” He pulls his fingers from her and goes back to circling her clit at a frenetic pace.

It’s enough - the coil in her belly snaps and she arches back with a cry, her legs shaking and hips rocking up against his fingers, head falling back against his shoulder. His fingers don’t stop as he works her through it, holding on to her high, his lips pressed against her temple as he murmurs sweet words into her skin.

“Good girl, oh good girl - there’s my sweet girl, huh?” He presses little kisses down her temple to her cheekbone, following the path of the sweet-tasting sweat beading on her forehead.

He lets his fingers slow against her, and finally removes them when she starts to twitch away from him, sensitive and sated. Letting his hand fall from her breasts to her stomach, he rubs softly over her skin, feeling her ribs expand under his palm as she catches her breath. His other fingers go straight to his mouth, sucking obscenely, not letting a drop of her wetness go to waste. She peels an eye open at his appreciative groan, the corner of her mouth tilting up in a tired smile.

“You perv,” she laughs, her voice low, content. She pats his cheek with one hand at the indignant look on his face, but he merely shrugs and dips his finger back down for a second helping, licking off his fingers with a loud smack.

“Can’t help it. You’re too damn sweet,” he grins, smug and lusty, loving the way she’s still a bit breathless and soft in his arms.

She rolls her eyes and catches a glimpse of the TV screen, where the credits are rolling on their show.

“Whoops…I think I barely caught any of that,” she giggles, slapping his leg. “Which would be your fault, by the way.”

“Eh, we can just rewatch it if you want to-”

“Later,” she interrupts, sitting forward and turning around on the bed. Her limbs still feel shaky from her orgasm, but she plants her palms on his chest and straddles his lap, landing firmly on his still straining erection. Bucky moans low and grips her hips, his eyes blown dark with need. She leans in close, her lips brushing lightly over his.

“I think it’s your turn,” she whispers, tongue tracing his lower lip. He dives in with a growl, devouring her mouth.

Netflix entirely forgotten.

#bucky x reader #bucky x reader fic #bucky x reader smut #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes imagine #bucky x reader imagine #bucky x y/n #bucky x you

939 notes · View notes

molluskwritesfic · 4 years

Text

Where the Roses Grow: Chapter One

The compound on Arvala-7 didn’t house one bounty, but two. Elsi Nokk is an enslaved nanny with more than a few tricks up her sleeve. She’ll do anything to protect her charge, even if it means standing against - and then with - a certain Mandalorian. Rated M.

This story can be found on Ao3 and fanfiction.net.

CHAPTER WARNINGS: Mild violence, electrocution, reference to sexual assault, mild language, slavery and associated themes.

This Chapter - Next Chapter

Chapter One

“Subparagraph 16 of the Bondsman Guild Protocol Waiver compels you to immediately produce said asset.”

The thin metallic voice echoed faintly through the stone halls, but after a lifetime of eavesdropping she heard it loud and clear. Without missing a beat, she scooped up the tiny green creature that had been playing by her feet. To the baby, with his massive bat-like ears, the not-so-distant blaster fire must’ve been frighteningly loud. His dark eyes blinked up at her worriedly, ears held flat to his shoulders.

She pressed a kiss to his wrinkled forehead. With the child cradled protectively to her chest, she hurried across the room, neatly side-stepping piles of supplies and junk. The baby’s bassinet sat among the wall, small and unassuming among the scattered bits of droid and speeder parts the Nikto mercenaries had scavenged from raiding bounty hunters.

With practiced ease, she balanced the baby in one arm while opening the bassinet with the other. The quick press of a few buttons revealed the baby’s sleeping space. Small and dark, but made homey by several small blankets and a patchwork cloth frog, all lovingly made in the bright colors. Her fingers ached with the memory of each tiny stitch. She deposited the baby in its bassinet, tucking in the blanket corners gently.

He curled his little claws into the top blanket - the red one. His favorite. She smiled down at him sadly, wishing there was something she could do to stop the never-ending noise and violence; to stop him from being afraid. He was unlike any other child that had fallen into her care over the years. If he were, perhaps she could offer more comfort. But he always seemed shockingly aware of the galaxy around him.

He knew there were people dying outside. He knew they were coming for him.

She pressed a finger over her lips. It was something they’d practiced extensively. He copied the gesture, pressing one of his three fingers over his mouth with a self-pleased grin.

She could distract him, at least.

Despite the severity of the situation, she couldn’t help but return the smile. She leaned down to press a last quick kiss to the baby’s brow before pulling away and closing the bassinet’s shutters.

“Subparagraph 16 of the Bondsman Guild Protocol Waiver compels you to immediately produce said asset.”

A few armed Niktos swarmed through the narrow space, causing her to flatten herself against the wall to let them pass. She was of little interest or value to them. An extra piece of furniture that they had to feed. They sidestepped her with the same regard they gave to the half-forgotten piles of junk they housed her and her charge among. Her safety was the absolute last thing on their minds.

She was far too used to it to be offended. The heavy metal collar around her neck caused others to set her apart and then aside. It had once bit into her skin and drawn blood, but over the years the skin underneath had scarred and calloused.

Now it only itched.

Knowing that it was up to her to keep herself alive, she tossed a ragged tarp over the bassinet and piled a couple of other odds and ends on top in hopes that if anyone did make it through, they wouldn’t realize it contained what they sought. At least not immediately. Just long enough for her to get a bearing on the newcomers’ intentions. Specifically, whether or not they intended to harm the baby.

She had no love for the Nikto gang. They were just the most recent in the rather long line of hands the child had fallen into over the past two years - and those were just the ones she knew about. But as brutish as the group of mercenaries could be, they generally left her and the child to their own devices - so long as they weren’t in the way.

She’d had far worse masters.

But, should the newcomers be successful, She didn’t want to be seen as one of the mercenaries. That was a very easy way to get a bolt through the head. Nor did she want to show any support for the attackers. Should they lose, the Nikto would be sure to express their displeasure.

She slipped behind a few crates to wait, well out of sight but with a clear view of where the baby hid. Passive defense had served her well in the past, and she saw no reason to alter tactics now.

The battle outside was louder than ever, the usual blaster fire underscoring heavy artillery that made the air vibrate. She waited with bated breath, listening intently despite wanting to clamp her hands over her ears to defend against the volume.

Silence fell.

She waited.

There was movement outside. Footsteps. Two, at a guess, but there was no way to tell which side they were on. She stayed hidden.

She was startled by the sound of someone running. Someone close, too close. Before she had a chance to work out who they were and why they’d been able to get so close without her noticing, they were crashing into the barrels she had hidden herself behind and locking a hand around her throat just above the collar.

She wheezed as the grip tightened. They slung her around violently so that she faced them. It was Grod, the leader of the mercenary band. There was nothing particularly special about him - besides him being a little bigger than the rest... and the fact that he currently had the control fob to her collar.

Grod hissed something at her in Nikto, squeezing her throat tighter for emphasis.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered, eyes wide and pleading. “I don’t know Nikto.”

It was a lie, of course. But the tide had turned against Grod and she had no intention of assisting him in whatever he had planned - which probably included running. A bad idea in the middle of the desert. Especially while being hunted.

Grod snarled, perhaps having caught the lie. He fished in the rugged leather of his jacket and revealed the fob. It was small - just the right size to fit in the palm of the hand - metallic and black. A dial sat in the center of the object, along with a few buttons.

She was painfully aware of its function. Cold fear washed over her, but she didn’t back down.

Grod turned the dial and pressed the button. The collar around her neck seared into her skin. Her vision went white. She crumpled to the ground, mouth open in a silent cry as her limbs jerked and twitched with electricity.

She wasn’t entirely aware of what happened next, but through the pain she saw Grod turn with his blaster only to fall at her side an instant later.

Someone loomed over her, no more than a pale shadow in her pain-washed vision. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps, unable to get enough air to cry out. Her teeth gnashed and rattled in their sockets. She heard voices, but couldn’t make out the words through the ringing in her ears.

The electricity stopped, but the pain didn’t. She gasped like a fish, trying to force her lungs to draw in enough air to breathe through the pain. Her muscles twitched by their own volition, trying to work out which electrical signals they were supposed to obey now that the horrible surge had come and gone.

Darkness ate at the corners of her vision. She sank away into dizzying blackness.

. ~0~0~0~

“Nan!” Hetta’s shrill voice sliced through the air, shattering what had been an otherwise peaceful evening.

Elsi Nokk heaved a great sigh, trying to convince herself to be content with listening to her charge’s whiny shouts, so long as it bought her a few more minutes of solitude. She bent over her needlework with redoubled effort, so that when the child finally found her, it would seem that she’d been too preoccupied to notice.

“Nan Elsi!”

Nan, of course, was short for Nanny, as a slave could never hope to be awarded the title of Governess. It was a comparatively small insult, and one she was all too used to.

She didn’t like being called Nan. It made her feel old, which she wasn’t. Her wavy blond hair had yet to start greying, even if it did look a little mousy tucked away in the low braided bun she always wore. The weathered places lining the corners of her soft grey eyes placed her in her late thirties, though her true age was anyone’s guess. A stressful life had the tendency to age a creature beyond their years, and she was no exception.

Elsi had no guilt at leaving Hetta to search for her. At twelve years of age, the child was spoiled, bratty, and had the wit of a bantha. Each day, Elsi would take her sewing to the riverbank while Hetta took her mid-afternoon nap. She always sat in the same spot, underneath the same tree that acted as a protective screen sheltering her from both weather and prying eyes.

Despite having found her nanny in the same spot a fair number of times, Hetta couldn’t seem to come to the logical conclusion as to where Elsi could have possibly disappeared to.

It only took another thirty odd seconds for Elsi to give up the charade. Hetta was loud and shrill, which wasn’t good for the headache that had already been building behind Elsi’s eyes. She heaved a great sigh and tucked her sewing back into her bag, folding everything neatly and ensuring that the needle wasn’t going anywhere.

She stood and brushed away the low hanging leaves, parting them and striding out into the sunlight. “Here, Hetta.”

Hetta bounded across the short lawn and stopped in front of her nanny, where she stood bouncing on her toes. She was a blonde-haired bundle of sickeningly sweet pink and lace, a dress that Elsi had slaved over for weeks. Elsi’s keen eyes picked out the dirt smudged across the fabric covering her left knee and the slight tattering on the hem; two flaws that hadn’t been present when she dressed her that morning.

Elsi tried not to be harsh about it. Hetta was only a child, and she was constantly reminding herself that children were SUPPOSED to play and get dirty. Had the universe been different, Elsi herself might’ve been exactly like Hetta as a child . But she’d learned early on to keep her smocks clean and pressed, as those that taught her weren’t quick to make allowances.

She subconsciously tugged at the side of her simple blue dress to straighten the imaginary wrinkles. Lessons learned at the end of a whip didn’t fade with time.

Hetta didn’t seem to care that she behaved more like a common street urchin than the daughter of a nobleman. She had the same smug look on her face that she always wore when she knew something Elsi didn’t, which usually ended up being bad for the nanny.

Elsi was usually quite good at predicting potential outcomes and preparing for them. But an unanticipated scenario meant she had no contingency plan for it, which exponentially increased her chances of being punished for negligence of duty.

Elsi crossed her arms over her chest, jutting out her hip and tapping her foot impatiently. Hetta’s father, Lord Burkisn, might be Elsi’s master, but Hetta certainly wasn’t.

Hetta’s expression faltered under Elsi’s piercing stare. Her internal debate flickered clearly across her face: to bask in powerful sensation of teasing, or to risk some kind of punishment later on. Lord Burkisn cared for his daughter, but since the death of her mother and despite his severity towards his slaves, Elsi had almost absolute power over Hetta’s upbringing.

Elsi was not afraid to use what little power she had been allotted, and that’s what made her the best nanny an aloof widower Nobleman could possibly ask for.

“Father wants you,” Hetta explained, glancing sheepishly down at her nanny’s shoes.

Elsi quirked an eyebrow, hiding her unease with a lifetime’s worth of practice. “What for?”

“Dunno,” she said, then quickly adding, “But he wants you to hurry.”

Elsi doubted the child’s ignorance. Despite the threat of being reprimanded for a lack of punctuality, she fixed her charge with her best ‘no nonsense’ look that could cause plants to wilt and waited for her to offer a more acceptable explanation. It was better to be prepared than to walk into any situation blind.

Hetta loathed that look. While she loved to cause trouble, she couldn’t stand being IN trouble. The death-glare was one of the most effective weapons in Elsi’s child-rearing arsenal, and she saved it for special occasions. Although being called to her master seemed arbitrary, having been sent for by Hetta sounded alarm bells for Elsi; it meant everyone else was otherwise preoccupied, and Elsi hadn’t been aware of anything out of the ordinary.

“We have visitors. Daddy’s special guests,” Hetta started sheepishly. “And there’s a sick baby.”

~0~0~0~ .

Elsi found her way back to consciousness slowly; she had to coax it - her mind and body - away from the relief of dreamless sleep and into the light. It burned her inside and out.

She groaned softly and forced her eyes open. The dull sandstone ceiling twisted dizzyingly overhead. Nausea coiled in her gut like a serpent. She rolled over on her stomach and retched, but there was very little to vomit up.

The collar had been on a high setting, higher than the usual level used to punish a slave. Anything above 75% for more than a minute or two, and you ran the risk of causing permanent injury to the slave - brain damage, heart conditions. In other words, property damage - something no slave trader or master wanted.

If she had to guess, she would say that the collar had been set to somewhere around 90%.

Grod had probably only intended to give her a brief shock, a few seconds of electricity strong enough to break her into compliance. She imagined that he hadn’t expected to be distracted by the blaster bolts cutting down the thick Quadanium door. The Nikto had drawn his blaster, no longer caring about the woman writhing in uncontrollable agony at his feet.

Movement flashed in the corner of her eye. Elsi wiped her mouth and gathered what little strength she still had in order to lift her head. She found herself looking into the smoking cranium of the IG unit, presumably the same one that she’d heard earlier.

Panic filtered through her foggy mind. The hunter was dead. Had one of the Nikto killed it? Did she still belong to them?

Oh, how she hated not knowing what to expect. She’d survived this long by knowing how to play her cards; and though they were often shitty, she won by playing the other person.

Not knowing the other players could be fatal.

Instinctively, her head snapped to where she’d stashed the crib. To her dismay, the debris she’d hidden it behind had been tossed carelessly to the side. From her place on the floor, she could see that the shutters were open and the baby peeking out curiously at the man that stood between him and Elsi.

A Mandalorian.

She hadn’t met one before, but the trademark T visor was hard to miss. She’d heard the stories, and she wasn’t sure whether or not she wanted them to be true. They were supposed to be warriors, noble soldiers in shining armor that were indomitable on the battlefield. The best warriors in the galaxy.

Elsi couldn’t speak as to the rest, but this particular Mandalorian seemed to have seen better days. The only parts of his armor that could even begin to be described as shining were his helmet and right pauldron, and those were coated with a fine layer of dust and sand. The rest of it was mismatched, a hodgepodge of dented metal that he wore like scales, painted with rust red or a shade of tan paint that was faded and scratched.

If he gave a shit about his appearance, he certainly didn't show it. He stood nonchalantly with one finger extended to the baby, who was reaching for it with interested little coos. Although the baby seemed to be at the center of his attention, she could infer from the tilt of his helmet that he was keeping her in his periphery. He didn’t seem to feel at all threatened by her, though. But why should he? From what she could see, he had at least one blaster at his hip and a fearsome rifle strapped over his shoulder.

More than that, Elsi spied her slave-fob clipped to his belt.

Feigning another bout of nausea, Elsi grit her teeth. She hadn’t met a Mandalorian before, but from what she’d heard, they could be brutal… and tricky. Some lived by what most species would call honor, others lived by how their own personal code defined it.

He hadn’t killed her yet, so that was something. But there were much worse things that could be done to a female slave, a bitter lesson that she’d learned very young.

Slowly, Elsi worked her way up to stand on shaking legs. Once up, she kept her hands folded in front of her and her head bowed submissively. The T of the Mandalorian’s visor turned to fix her with an empty stare.

“What is it?”

Despite knowing exactly what he was asking, she played ignorant. “He is a child.”

“Yes.” The indignation only just caught on his vocoder. “I was told the target was 50.”

“I can’t speak to his age,” Elsi offered, “but he has been in my care for two years, and he looks the same as he first did.”

The Mandalorian grunted and dropped his hand, which went to his hip. Elsi stiffened, bracing for pain, but instead of her fob, he came away with a canteen. He held it out to her.

Wary, Elsi accepted it. She uncorked it and subtly sniffed the contents. Water. She took a few meager sips to help wash away the taste of sick, but didn’t dare drink outright. Water was precious in the desert. She wasn’t.

The last thing she needed now was to outspend her own worth.

She returned the canteen. While he clipped it back to his belt, he asked, “You good to walk?”

Elsi wasn’t optimistic about how far her legs would carry her. She was already exhausted, drained by her collar and subsequent illness. And if that weren’t enough, months of being confined in a compound hadn’t done her any favors by the way of exercise. But, the way she saw it, there were only a handful of responses she could expect from telling a new master that she was too weak to walk and thus work. The Mandalorian had yet to be cruel, and might be willing to allow her to rest a little longer before setting out.

But she couldn’t rule out the other options just yet. The baby was the valuable one. Elsi severely doubted any bounty he intended to collect would be for her own delivery. He could just simply kill her to save himself both time and trouble. Or he could leave her behind.

For the baby’s sake, Elsi couldn’t afford to risk either.

“I can walk,” she said. “But first, may I collect his things?”

The Mandalorian’s helmet adopted a thoughtful tilt, as if he hadn’t considered that the child should need things other than a bassinet.

He nodded curtly. “Be quick.”

Elsi dipped her head obediently and shuffled off to the abandoned corner she and the child usually occupied.

Her limbs were still wobbly and ached dully from the collar, but she ignored them and quickly packed the few meager possessions they had between them into a worn russack sack; several of the child’s robes, an extra dress for Elsi, a few days worth of rations and a large canteen of water, as well as a few other odds and ends.

Last but not least, Elsi’s special needle in its ornate casing was tucked away into one of the hidden pockets she’d sewn into her dress. The casing was made of rosy bronze metal, embossed with finger-worn roses and an image of a needle and thread. It was the only thing of worth she possessed, having inherited it from another slave. Although its contents had long since dried beyond use, she kept it close, waiting for the opportunity to fill it again.

She finished quickly and padded back to where the Mandalorian stood waiting. Her heart clenched when she saw him holding the little cloth frog she’d made for the baby. He held it up to his visor, turning it back and forth. Elsi held her breath, half expecting him to toss it to the side.

He didn’t. When he saw Elsi approaching, he returned the doll back to the child’s outstretched hands. The baby squeaked happily.

The Mandalorian held his hand out for the bag. Elsi gave it to him without question and watched with subdued frustration as he rooted through it and upset all of her carefully folded and packed items.

She picked idly at the bracelet snaked around her wrist. It was the only ornamentation she’d been allowed to keep over the last ten years or so. It was nothing special, just a long braid of twisted leather with little burgundy beads that wrapped around her wrist seven or eight times. It was cheap and looked it. But wearing it made her feel safe, and so wear it she did.

Satisfied that she wasn’t hiding any weapons from him, the Mandalorian stuffed everything half-hazardly into the bag before thrusting it back in her direction. She shouldered it without comment, hiding her displeasure at how lumpy and awkward it now was.

Unbothered, the Mandalorian tapped idly at one of his vambraces. The bassinet beeped in confirmation.

When he led the way out into the compound, the bassinet trailed after him obediently, its passenger giggling excitedly to his nanny, who forced a smile and nodded along to his babbling. Elsi, already dreading the journey, brought up the rear.

~0~0~0~ .

78 notes · View notes

vanchlo · 4 years

Text

Birdy (Green Eyes / 2)

Read the first part, Green Eyes, here! :-)

Blurb Synopsis: After finally meeting the mysterious Mr. Styles you subbed for, you take a job at the same school, right across the hall from him. You’re unsure how much longer you can hide your feelings for him as you’ve grown to become best friends.

Genre: Teacher Harry, fluff, romance, angst, and a little sad.

Warnings: None

Word Count: Nearly 8k words

Pairing: Harry x Reader

Music Inspo: Blackbird by The Beatles (click to listen)

Your desk was covered in Twix wrappers, multicolored gel pens, and empty cans of Coke. The new school year hadn’t even begun, and your desk already looked like a tornado had come by. Not to mention the fact that school started in almost three weeks and you hardly had any classroom books. You kept telling yourself it’s a high school English classroom, not a third-grade classroom. There’s a library down the hall for a reason, but the classroom barren of books drove you nuts. Your desk wasn’t shy to books though, as favorites of Harry had found a home on the dark wood.

Leaves of Grass.

Catcher in the Rye.

The Sun Also Rises.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Walking into your classroom on this sunny morning, the thought makes the smile on your face grow wider. Finally, you can say that you have your own classroom. The sight of the week-old books leaves the smile there on your lips. A laugh dances off of them at the sight of the Roald Dahl book, bringing you back to the memory when you found it there one morning.

You had asked Harry why he included it in the occasional stack of books he loaned to you. He said it’s required reading, because so few people know the movies are based on a book. You’re just wondering when he’s going to slip The Outsiders or Stuart Little under your door next.

The rows of ancient cream desks stare back at you, and you wonder just how you’re going to command a classroom in a few days. Well, seven of them to be exact. Then you try to remind yourself, for the twentieth time, that you’ve done this before. It won’t be so hard, then. Perhaps you’ll even have some past students, and that should help. Right?

You’ve barely gotten a few steps into your classroom, because of the thoughts muddling your mind. Sighing, you slip off your bag to leave on your chair. One that some days you don’t even sit in, because your legs are walking miles around your classroom, setting up. Thumbtacks are scattered across the expanse of your desk, reminding you of the unfinished walls. Before you can think about the posters sitting in the corner, a flash of pink catches your eye. Furrowing your brow, your eyes flit back to the flash of color.

It’s a hot pink Post-It note with messy handwriting in black ink.

Should I get us burgers or subs for the meeting we have today?

PS: You’re officially a teacher now with your own pad of Post-Its ;)

You’re sure that the insane happiness painting your face would look more at home on that of a teenager. Nonetheless, you can’t get rid of it, and you wouldn’t want to. This rings even more true when you see the note is stuck to a copy of Matilda. A warmth blossoms in your chest as you pick it up, running your thumb along the weathered edges. Ones you haven’t touched in ages, it seems. Within seconds you’re stepping into the hallway, thoughts knitting together in your mind. They’re from the love you have deep down for this story, a favorite book, and movie of yours as a child. The elation budding in your mind stops when you find his door closed, just as you had minutes ago. Unable to hide your disappointment, a pout tugs at your lips as you turn around.

“Ya gotta verdict already? Dat was quick,” a voice drawls from behind you. Your pout is a thing of the past, and a grin is making its way to replace it. Spinning around, your summery dress follows your twirling body.

A couple paces away, Harry stands at the top step of the staircase. His trademark brown leather backpack is slung over one shoulder. A black Fleetwood Mac t-shirt hugs his upper half, a black and blue flannel covering his arms. His old skool Vans echo down the hallway as he walks towards you.

“Well, I’ve already read it,” you inform him, observing his content smile turn into a confused one. “A couple of times actually. Once when I was 8, then some other times through the years.”

“Ah, so I got lucky and happened upon a lifetime favourite, have I?” he smirks, only a few steps away now.

“Mmmhmm,” you nod, your growing hair tickling your chin before you move it away. “When are you going to tell me what your favorite book is?”

“When ya finally guess it right,” he quips, stopping in front of you. A dimple falls into his left cheek as he shows off his sparkling teeth. Okay, sir, it is too early in the morning to be looking this attractive.

“I’m going to have to ask you to stop being so chipper when it’s only nine in the morning,” you tell him firmly, but it’s all for show. Poking his chest, your finger just hits pure muscle. Swoon.

“Then maybe wake up, already, birdy,” he chirps, the Raybans in his hair moving when his head goes from side to side. Chuckling, he grabs hold of your finger and tries to bite it, but you pull away in time. The mention of the recent pet name slows you down, but you haven’t gotten bitten yet. “Ya betta not fall asleep in today’s meetin’ like ya did last week.”

“I didn’t fall asleep, I was just resting my eyes!” you exclaim, throwing your hands into the air. His amused giggle greets your ears as he unclips his ring of keys from his blue jeans.

“Yes ya did, ya don’t getta lie t’ me, love,” he responds in between laughs, seemingly finding this more amusing than it really is.

“Oh, so John can fall asleep at meetings, but I can’t?” you ask, your voice raising with laughter and faux annoyance.

You watch Harry pluck his sunglasses from his head as you walk into his dark classroom. The streams of sunlight speckle desks and pictures donning his walls. As you flick on the light, the smell of oranges wafts over you again. The red bowl sat upon his desk filled with the citrus makes you feel at home, albeit his mere presence does that without fail.

“No, ya can’t. Sorry, love. I don’t make tha rules ‘round here.”

“Lame,” you sigh, paging through the book mindlessly as you fall into his new chair. He finally splurged and bought a comfy leather one that you steal every chance you can get.

“Want a Bit-O-Honey, honey?” Harry offers, pulling your eyes away from the familiar pictures. Grinning, you take the wrapped candy from his outstretched hand, trying to ignore the pet name. You find it hard to forget as you half look through the book and half watch him peel off his flannel. A sight, indeed.

“Wait, how’d you put this in my room if the door was locked? The other books you sneaked in when I stepped out,” you ask suddenly, working on the piece of hard candy in your mouth.

“I tol’ Marty tha janitor I forgot sumthin’ in yer room.”

You can hear the smirk in his voice even though his back is to you. A broad one at that. When he turns just the slightest to peek at you, you find crinkles around his glimmering eyes.

“Harry!” you scoff, your jaw falling to your chest, although not quite.

“Oh stop it, ya know ya like it.”

Groaning, you cross your arms over your chest in annoyance, but it doesn’t last very long.

“I don’t like all of these meetings,” you complain, throwing your head back onto the headrest. You flip to a page that makes you smile at the sight of cartoon Matilda.

“Get used t’ it, ‘s one o’ tha big differences between bein’ a sub an’ a salaried teacher. Shoulda just stayed a sub then,” he jokes, driving you to pick up a Bit-O-Honey and throw it at his head. Turning away from the things he’s unloading from his backpack, he whines. “Heeey! Watch dat arm o’ yers, ‘s a scary one. Maybe ya should be teachin’ gym class instead.”

“Sports are ew,” you reply, ducking when he throws it back at you. “Harry Styles, you stop it!” you manage in between giggles, finally closing the book.

“Oh ya, and what’re ya gonna do ‘bout it in t’ose heels, huh?” he teases, his hands leaving the pockets of his oversized backpack. “Ya gonna fly over t’ me, li’l birdy?”

Huffing, you set down the book on his neat desk. Placing his hands on his hips, he turns to you and sticks out his tongue.

“Oh, that’s it! You’re going to get it!” you threaten, standing from the chair as his laughter fills the room.

“‘m soooo scared, boohoo,” he teases with a fake sob, his fists mimicking wiping tears from his cheeks. Snickering, he returns to his backpack. “Go hang up yer posters in yer room and leave me be fer once.”

“You’re no fun,” you proclaim with a final whimper. Grabbing the book, you come up from behind him, softly hitting him with it on the shoulder.

“I warned you,” he retorts. Before you know it, he gently grabs your wrist and pulls you over to stand in front of him.

“Warned me about what?” you jest, a giggle wedging its way into your sentence as you drop the book onto a desk. You know that you’re getting on his nerves now. It’s the only time you’ve heard his teacher voice come out, but hey, you’re not complaining.

His thick eyebrows above those eyes raise, wrinkling his forehead tan from your days at the beach the last few months. Harry pushing you off a rope swing into the water, him bitching about doing all of the paddling during your canoe trip, not so accidentally drenching your back with water from his paddle, and head dunking competitions while swimming. The tan looks far better on him, you think, as you admire the sun-kissed freckles peppering his face.

“I told ya one time dat yer good at pushin’ me buttons, and here ya are doin’ it. I know I shoulda neva told ya dat,” he mutters, the curls atop his head dancing as his head rocks back and forth. The nervous laughter bubbling inside of you finds its escape, and you know that you’ve done it now. “But I guess ya jus’ don’t listen, do ya, bird?”

You can’t stop yourself, and there you are poking his dimple with your finger. This time, you squeal when it finds its way between his nibbling teeth. His name leaves your lips in a near shout which only grows worse as his fingers dance along your ribs.

“Stop, stop!” you cry out, but with no avail. His other arm comes around your middle to trap you with your back against a desk, despite your squirming. His other fingers dig into your sides before finding the soft flesh of your tummy.

“Stop bloody screamin’, yer gonna make e’rybody think ‘m murderin’ ya or sumthin’,” he titters. You almost give in at the sight of his crinkly eyes and the smile stretching across his face.

“And what if I don’t?”

“Then I might jus’ hafta find a way t’ shut ya up, my li’l bird,” he coos from above you, a brunette brow raising.

“Oh really?”

“Yes, really,” he hums, the tips of his fingers ghosting over your side now.

His bubblegum lips relax, falling into a knowing smirk. The laughs disappear from the both of you as his fingers still, resting on your side. The seconds tick by as your heart hammers in your chest, because his face is closer than it was a second ago. You gulp, suddenly finding the gold flecks in his eyes you didn’t know were there. Or the smattering of tiny freckles along his nose. That all becomes a thought of the past when his lips become the only thing you can think about as they near you. “Shall I?” Harry says in a breathy whisper, and you’re nodding even before his last syllable hits the air.

Your skin feels hot and prickly all over as your eyes fall closed, waiting for what happens next. The very thing you’ve dreamed of since that day you dropped the books in front of him. When he took off his shirt at the beach, revealing his toned chest covered in black tattoos. The charisma and kindness he carried at your very first meeting after you were hired, the beginning of you two being joined at the hip.

His lips are soft when he presses them against yours, and warm. He surrounds your lips with his slowly, as excitement rushes through you. A woodsy smell engulfs you when your nose brushes against his prickly cheek. His lips feel like velvet against yours with the slightest taste of Carmex chapstick. You’re sure he can feel the smile hiding on yours as his top lip fits between yours like a puzzle piece. His thin beard you’ve never seen him without tickles at your skin as your lips mold together. You can still feel the tingle on your lips after he’s pulled away. As well as the one that spreads across your body when those green eyes look into yours.

“See, I was right. It did get you t’ shuddup,” he mumbles, the blissed-out smirk on his face covering every inch of his skin. You’ve seen his nervous smiles and everything in between, but you’re certain you’ve never seen that smile before. Not that your face is any better, because right now it’s a competition between whose smile is bigger. It might just be a tie, and you wish there could be a tie-breaker.

“You should do that more often,” you smile, an uneasy laugh bringing an end to your risky words.

“I think ‘d be happy with dat.”

You try to tell yourself you’re glad his hands didn’t stray to your face, because he would’ve felt the heat of your tomato likened cheeks. There’s no use, because you want them there, but on your sides, as they are is better than nothing. It fills your stomach with multitudes of butterflies just to have your hands on each other.

His hands draw shapes into your back when you wrap him in a hug. The fresh smell of his citrus body wash fills your nose, your skin touching the fabric of his shirt.

“Ya gonna get all soft on me now, are ya?” he whispers above you, his cheek against the side of your head.

“Mmmhmm,” is all you can muster as you find yourself dragging the tips of your fingers along his side.

Raising your head to peek up at him, his eyes drop to you. “Good, I like ya dat way,” he murmurs, running his thumb along the roundness of your cheek. His tongue peeks out of his lips, held between his teeth. “Verdict?” he almost laughs, causing the butterflies inside of you to stir.

“I don’t know. I think I might need um, another sample,” you smirk, watching a corner of his mouth meet his cheek.

“Tha’s fair,” he agrees before dipping to plant another kiss to your lips. His lips are even more decadent a second time, and you quickly realize how addicting this could become. You realize it’s the only addiction you’d be okay with having as the tip of his nose caresses your cheek.

Your lips part with a soft smack, much too soon for your liking. “We should prolly get back t’ work,” Harry snickers, his breath against your face sweet from the caramel candy.

“Yeah,” you agree aloud, much to your dismay. “I’d give it an A, by the way.”

“Hmmm,” he thinks aloud, quirking his eyebrows in response.

“A long overdue one.”

“‘d say yer right there,” he echos, pinching your cheek between his fingers. Giggling, you pull away as your laughs mix with each other’s.

“Hey, Harry!” a voice calls, sounding far away.

You separate quickly, like two magnets repelling each other. It saddens you, but when a colleague steps into Harry’s classroom a moment later, you’re met with relief as you grab the book off the desk.

“Hi, Trent. Ya ready t’ see who falls asleep first in t’day’s meetin’?” he quips, stuffing his hands in his pockets, nonchalantly leaning against a desk.

“My money’s on John, for sure,” Trent jokes, pressing his red glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Oh hi, Y/N,” he says, greeting you. You wave with a small ‘hi’ as you stand at the edge of the classroom near the windows uneasily.

“I dunno, my money feels pretty good on her,” Harry teases, pointing a finger at you before winking.

“Whatever. I better go take my nap now that you reminded me,” you return, sauntering out of the room and into the hall.

Out of his presence, the butterflies take flight inside of you. A warmth fills your body all over when you reach the safety of your classroom. Closing the door, you fall against it with happiness jumping from the smile on your lips. Squealing with your hands held to your chest, you soon sigh at the thought of his lips. His lips soon being on yours again, and again, and again.

Exhaling, you step down from the chair and stare at your hard work. Nodding in approval, you straighten the skirt of your patterned mustard dress. The happy face of Anne Frank looks back at you from the enlarged poster of her autobiography. Dragging your feet over to your desk, you plop onto your brown spinny chair, ignoring your heels forgotten on the floor. You bask in the new ambiance of your classroom, feeling the pleasure from the new posters donning your walls.

The Diary of Anne Frank.

Ross from F.R.I.E.N.D.S saying ‘you’re means y-o-u a-r-e.’

The quote, ‘Never forget what you are, the rest of the world will not’ - Tyrion Lannister.

A funny grammar poster that makes you feel like an even bigger English nerd.

Frowning, the last poster in the corner sits there begging to be shown off, but you need help with it. After the events of earlier, you’re nervous to approach Harry. A sweet kind of nervousness, but nonetheless it’s there. Huffing, you grab the edge of the desk to pull you closer. Pressing play, the Queen song crawls from your laptop’s speakers, slowly filling the room. Clicking through your open windows, you finally find the unit plan you’ve been working on.

Voices carry down the hallway outside your door, but you can’t make out what they’re saying. Squinting, as if it will help your hearing, you then tilt your head to look out your half-opened door. Jackson from the nearby history wing walks by, laughing at something somebody said.

“Dis betta not be a bloody heavy desk, Jack,” somebody responds, amusement laced in their voice.

“Hey, I know that voice,” you softly whisper to yourself, your lips curling at its sound.

“You’re the one who agreed to help me! You can’t get out of helping me bring it in now, Harry!”

You hear the melodic sound of his laugh, perhaps one of your favorite sounds. The butterflies return when you let yourself think about getting to hear it as much as you’d like in these walls. 5 days a week for 9 months out of the year- well, something like that.

A couple seconds later, Harry zooms past your door saying, “Get t’ work!” in a mocking deep voice, winking.

“You!” you shout back, giggling to yourself with hot cheeks. You attempt to return your attention to the document open on your screen. It’s difficult, you find, because the thing consuming your mind is how nice Harry’s bum looked in those jeans.

Chatter pecks at your ears as you swivel in your chair, watching your new colleagues converse around the table. Your new boss laughs with somebody standing at the room’s front by the projector screen. Reaching forward, you pluck another carrot from your plate to nibble on nervously. Once again, you pull out your phone to busy yourself, only making you feel guiltier for not mingling. You’ve already said at least a ‘hi’ to everyone in this room already, and you have the rest of your career to get to know them, you tell yourself. Bouncing your leg, your eyes drift to the clock on the wall. Impatience spreads like a hot wave throughout your limbs, bringing your eyes yet again to the back door to the conference room. When is he going to get here, you guess fervently, counting down the minutes until the meeting starts.

A thud! surprises you when a white paper bag lands on the table in front of you.

“Hmm, I didn’t know ya were a jumpa,” a voice snickers, its owner soon coming into view in front of you. Harry. “Why ya lookin’ like a lost puppy, bird?” he coos, pushing out his bottom lip as he pulls out the chair to your right.

“I’m not,” you retort, continuing to scroll through Instagram, stopping when you see a picture of a Goldendoodle puppy.

“Yes, ya do. What, were ya wonderin’ what’d ya do if I didn’t show? Can’t have ya missin’ yer security blanket now,” he teases, poking you in the ribs with a glint in his eye.

“Stop,” you giggle, placing your phone face down on the table. Sitting up and eyeing the food, you pinch his thigh for good measure.

“Hey, watch those fingas, missy. They keep gettin’ ya into trouble lately,” he warns, tsking as his head goes from side to side. Opening the bag, he pulls out a familiar wrapped burger to hand to you.

“Thank you, I’ll pay you back.”

“Shhhh, ya can pay next time. Sound good?” Harry hums, flitting his eyes to you with an eyebrow raise.

You give him his answer with a nod before taking a bite of the cheeseburger. Your boss starts to tell everybody to find a seat so they can begin the meeting. Out of the corner of your eye, Harry sets a packet of fries in front of you. Shooting him a smile, he returns it as he feeds one between his happy lips. Chairs squeak and whine as they’re moved and sat in around the long table. Somebody nudges your foot, and to no surprise, you find it’s Harry. He holds out a covered paper cup, a red straw poking from the top. A ‘thank you’ is held in your smile and he just nods, slipping off his sunglasses to set down. Your attention is stolen by his fingers raking through his curls to put them back in place.

A thought pops into your head unwarranted, and consumes your attention as the principal speaks. I wonder if this means now I get to run my fingers through those curls, you ponder as you grab a fry. At the most inconvenient time possible, your mind starts to dig around. Doubts soon fill your thoughts, along with questions about what this will be with him. You try to push them away and lock them in a box, but they’ve done their job. Any smile left on your lips is gone now, and you continue to eat your burger quietly.

“Ya eat jus’ like a bird with t’ose li’l bites,” Harry whispers, scooting closer to the table to retrieve the packets of ketchup from the bag.

Turning to look at him, he holds a glowing smile in his eyes for you. His shoe knocks into yours and he leaves it sitting on top of yours. Take that, stupid brain, you announce to your thoughts as you affectionately bump your knee against Harry’s.

Reverting your thoughts to the towering figure speaking at the front of the room, a smile buds on your lips at the feeling of Harry rubbing his knee against yours.

Rubbing your hands across your eyes, you feel the breath leave you in a whoosh. Tapping the board with your electronic marker that’s a pen, highlighter, and an eraser in one, you drag it in zig zags. The scribbles on the board disappear in a flash. Suddenly, it falls from your hands when you feel a pair of arms surround your waist.

“Hiya, bird,” a voice says, pressing a kiss to your cheek. Their warm breath tickles the nape of your neck, and so does the collar of their shirt. Spinning around, you find Harry standing there, a pout forming on his face. The adorable Starry Night tie you bought for him hangs loosely over his cornflower blue button-down. “What, why won’t ya lemme hug you?”

“Harry, anybody could walk in,” you insist, prying his arms from your waist. Bending down, you pick up the pen and place it back in its holder with a click.

“All tha students are gone by now, babe. ‘s half past 3, and any dat are around are at practice. Tha last place they’d wanna be ‘s back t’ a classroom afta their first day o’ school,” he murmurs, wedging his way back into your good graces as he pulls you back into his arms. “I wanted t’ see how me birdy’s first day went. Sooooo, wha’s tha verdict?”

“It was good. A little overwhelming, though,” you hum in return, letting your head fall backward to fit against his cheek.

“It ‘s fer e’rybody, love, so don’t worry. It’ll get betta, jus’ hang in there. Tha first month ‘s nothin’, that’s tha honeymoon period befo’ e’rythin’ goes wild.” His lips brush against your cheek with every word, the feeling of his ticklish stubble something you’re not yet used to.

“Harry!” you scoff, turning your head to find his hairy cheeks creased with a devilish smile behind you.

“‘m kiddin’, well not really, but hey, ya got me t’ help ya through it all. Don’t fret, love,” he tries to assure you, brushing the back of his fingers along your side. “What was yer favourite part o’ yer day, hmm?”

“Seeing some familiar students from when I used to sub. It was nice to catch up with them and hear stories,” you reveal, looking down as you cover his hands settled on your tummy with your own.

“Mmm, that’s good. Familiar faces are always nice,” Harry mumbles, the point of his nose dragging along the expanse of your cheek. “Did I tell ya yet ya look really pretty in yer new dress?”

“Yes, you did. About three times, but thank you again.”

“Welcome, bird. I hope no teenage boys are crushin’ on ya now,” he jests, planting a loud kiss on your temple. The remnants of his minty piece of gum cover your face in a silent cloud as he laughs at his own joke.

“Yuck! Oh and like there aren’t dozens of girls fawning over you in your classes?” you chuckle, bringing a whine to his lips when you squirm in his arms. “Put that lip away.”

“Or what? Hmm, what’re ya gonna do ‘bout it? Ya can kiss it away like all tha girls in me classes wanna do, if ya want,” Harry smirks, wiggling his eyebrows at you once you turn around. Lifting a hand from his arm, it lifts to brush back the brown ringlets falling onto his forehead.

“You’re gross sometimes. It makes me wonder how I can kiss that potty mouth.”

“Well ya do, and ya sure seem t’ like it,” he winks, dramatically licking his lips with a loud slurp.

“Stop!” you exclaim, collapsing into laughter, your head returning to his chest. His hands clasp over your back, his thumb brushing your skin through the jade dress you wear. You’re grateful for your face hidden away in his chest for when you feel his lips pepper kisses from your temple to your neck. He leaves your skin tingling from his magical touch, and his growing curls leave a trail down your neck.

“I think dis year’s gonna be a good one,” he coos against your ear, letting his smooth nose brush against its lobe. “I got tha reason right here.”

“Can we do this though?” The words jump from your lips without a chance to catch them and shove them back in their safety.

“Do what, love? Kiss? ‘Course, ya jus’ take yer lips and my lips, and put ‘em togetha’ like dis,” he wisecracks, lifting your head to show you the humor painting his face. Puckering his flushed lips, he closes the space between you to press a peck to your waiting lips. Pulling away, he quirks an eyebrow at you in silent questioning.

“That’s not what I meant, Harry,” you continue, your words falling short of the thoughts buzzing around in your skull.

“Then what’d ya mean?”

“Can we, I don’t know . . ,” you begin, but you lose your footing. Leaving his arms regrettably, you almost lose your footing quite literally when he tries to hold on. A sound leaves his lips at your departure, but you try to ignore it. That’s easier said than done, you realize as you fight with yourself, wondering if you should say that word or not. “Date . . as colleagues?”

They they are, free to the wind. It feels like coming home and your heavy book bag leaving your shoulders, although this time it’s far less trivial. The similarity doesn’t ease your anxious mind as you stop in front of your desk, fingering at the note that greeted you this morning. A pink Post-It note smattered with his sometimes unreadable handwriting, resting on top of a box of novels he gifted to you for your classroom.

To my favorite teacher - I know you’ve been dreading this day for months, and looking forward to it, too. You’re going to do great. They’re going to love you. You’re not going to mess anything up. You got this, bird. Remember that. Take it easy on yourself. Remember, you have to take care of yourself, so then you can take care of them. You’ll learn from each other too. Just keep remembering pizza at the beach with me tonight to celebrate your first day.

Harry xoxooxoxoxo

“‘Course we can, as long as it doesn’t bleed into our work life. What d’ya mean?” Harry says, trying to inject lightheartedness into his words. You both can hear the failed effect they have, and they only make his words sound sadder.

“I don’t know, I don’t want to like, get in trouble, or something. I just started this job.”

“Oh,” is all he mumbles. Mumbled or not, you hear the finality in his one word. As well as all that it says with that single syllable.

Looking over your shoulder at him, you find the confirmation you needed knitting together his features. “Harry,” you say, turning the rest of your body to face him. He takes a step back, and now you know you’ve done it. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Then how’d ya mean it?” he retorts, coolness playing in his voice. He knows he’s done it, too. “Hmmm, bird? Ya only care ‘bout dat part o’ it - if we get caught and what people would think? Only wanna keep me a secret?” His words bite as he spits them into the air. They hit your face with a sting, but nothing compares to how he threw your nickname into the mud. The nickname you love, that happened all because of the first meal you shared together.

“Harry, don’t. You know that’s not what I meant- Y-you’re being ridiculous,” you press, stepping forward. It’s like one step forward and two steps back, because he continues to walk away from you. Quickly, your hands grow shaky as the feeling consumes the rest of your body.

“No, I know what ya meant. Or ‘s there mo’ ya want t’ say? Want t’ say dat ‘Oh, ‘s too risky, so maybe we shouldn’t do dis anymo’, even tho’ it makes us happy,’” Harry persists, his right hand lifting in question, before it falls with a slap to his thigh.

“We never even said what this was,” you try to say, but before you get any further, you know you’re just making it worse. You know that he’ll read into your words incorrectly and assume the worst, despite your true meaning. At the realization, your heart pounds harder in your chest. The look on his face like you just slapped him tells you all you need to know. “Harry, wait.”

“No, yer right. We neva said what dis was, but apparently ‘s nuthin’ worth labelin’ or takin’ risks fer,” he grumbles. His head falls with a spiteful smile, but when it lifts again something shatters in your chest. With wet eyes, he continues in a croaky voice, “Then why’d ya take tha job knowin’ I was mad ‘bout ya?”

Your lips wobble with his name dangling from them. When you try to walk over to him, you’re only two steps in when he holds a hand up. “No, don’t. ‘m glad ya told me early on. ‘m happy I didn’t already start fallin’ fer ya or anythin’. That’d be real shitty, wouldn’t it?” he wheezes, a strange smile tugging at his lips dealing failed sarcasm. Sniffling, a tear falls down his tanned skin and he brushes it away. With a shake of his head, he turns to walk out of the door. You know that you shouldn’t, but you let him, because you know you have to.

Collapsing at your desk, your head falls into your hands. Tears splash into your palms as your chest shakes, wondering just how you turned the best first day into the worst first day.

You know that a note won’t be there, but you continue to wish as your heels clack down the halls of lockers. You know that you’ll see his face no matter how hard you try to avoid him, and that it’ll hurt more than you thought it would. Although you prepared yourself, unlocking the door to your classroom and finding no notes from him hurts more than you suspected. The hurt only stings worse when you pass each other in the halls with your students trailing behind, eyes falling away instantly. The spark in the air is lost when he huffs, passing you on the way to the vending machine in the lounge, leaving as soon as he came. Although the hurt grew as the attacks came and went, nothing could prepare you for the absence of his notes that week. That was an eventuality you had dreaded thinking of since the day you found the first one, back in his classroom.

You tried at the very least, albeit an understatement. Notes dropped into his mailbox went unanswered, as well as texts and phone calls. Even the bag of Bit O Honeys failed at their messages of apology. A few times you thought about trudging into his classroom after the bell rang, and hashing it out. Each time you mustered just enough courage to do so, a staff meeting got in the way. Or, within 5 minutes of the bell, his door was locked and he was gone. Speaking of staff meetings, you suffered even worse at those. No longer was he your security blanket at your side, because he no longer saved you a seat. Slowly, the young and pretty visual arts teacher grew to get on your nerves as you watched her be a little too nice to him. He didn’t entertain her taunts and turn to you with a smirk to rub it in your face. No, he was a good guy, and you had to go and ruin it, or what was becoming of it.

He ignored you - at staff meetings, in the copy room, in the staff lounge, in the halls, when both of your classes were in the library - basically everywhere and anywhere. It was an understatement to say you suffered because of it. You had to buddy up with Jen, the poetry teacher. She took the brunt of your questions, whether technology-related or English related. You became fast friends, but unlike the easiness with Harry, you quickly felt you were a nuisance. That was something he never made you feel like, well, until now that is.

You made the mistake of getting your hopes up when you found a bag of Bit O Honeys in your mailbox one morning. That is until the white note on it told you in his writing to stop plugging his box with them. Instead, you tossed them on the counter in the staff lounge to share, never wanting to see those yellow and red wrappers again. Quickly, what you thought had become your dream job morphed into a nightmare. His face filled your thoughts day after day, and it especially distracted you when your mind chose the tear-stricken memory. It bled into your lectures and although it stung less when you saw him, without fail every day, it was messing with your mind. It didn’t help when you were beginning a unit on Romeo and Juliet and a student joked you could play Juliet and Mr. Styles could play Romeo, quite literally.

You had been staying after school every day to finish lesson plans, grade tests, reflect on teaching, and plan for the next day. The October chill that arrived this week only made you want to stay in your cozy classroom with the Autumn decorations you hung up. Soon, it would be Halloween and costumes would fill the halls. The thought pours memories into your mind, but a particular one sours the enjoyment for you. The memory of planning a matching costume with Harry. Jay and Daisy from The Great Gatbsy, like the English teacher nerds you are. Were.

Swallowing past the lump in your throat, you reach for your water bottle. A groan finds its way past your lips when you pick it up, only to find it's empty. Standing with it in your hands, you cross the room to your door. After a few steps into the hallway, your movements freeze at the sight of his open door. Biting back any hesitations, your hand shakes when it presses against the wood.

Something thrilling washes over you when you find his head bent over his desk. His left hand covered with varying rings props his head up as he marks the page with his favorite red pen. A Micron pen, but only you would know that. Pausing, he fiddles with the tan braces strapping his shoulders clad in a handsome white and gray checkered button-down. Words stick together inside of your mouth, and when you hear the click of your shoe, regret surges inside of you.

“I made a mistake,” you say, testing the waters, although you know they’re stormy. Clearing your throat, you hope the subsequent ones will come out louder and stronger, before he can stop you. Your galloping heart jumps when he lifts his head to look at you, a question painting his face. “I fucked up, and I could never say how sorry I am. I said the wrong things, and I didn’t mean them that way- that’s not the point . . . I miss you, Harry. You’re all I think about, even when I’m thinking of other things, or when I’m teaching. That’s how I know it’s bad, because even though it’s only been a month, it still hurts like it was yesterday,” your voice screeches to a halt. You take one step at a time as he watches you.

A curl tickles his bearded cheek, making you want to tuck it back into place, but you can’t. A crumb from a chip sits on his chin, making you want to brush it away, but you know you can’t. And neither can you whisk away the worry lines forming around his eyes.

“I need you, not just to help me figure out how to use a projector or what a conjunction is again. But I need to tell you about the good parts of my day, and even the bad parts. Because even though we haven’t talked for like a month, my mind still goes to you when something good happens, or even bad. Even my students tease that we should be together, so that says something,” you try your hand at joking, but he turns his attention back to his desk. “Harry, please. I’m sorry,” you plead with him, tears catching the last of your words.

“Sorry doesn’t jus’ make it all go away, bird,” he returns cooly. His head lifts ever so slightly, only to fall. As if he changed his mind a few seconds into a decision.

“I know, but I’ll make it up to you, I promise. I’ll buy you Bit-O-Honeys for the rest of your life, grade your papers, check your mailbox, or buy the next meals for a month. Anything.” The apologies run off of your lips, but he doesn’t say anything, nor do his actions. An exhale whooshes over your pursed lips as your nails dig into your clenched palms. Defeat covers your body as you turn to leave.

“None o’ dat takes away what ya said,” he announces painfully, the new fabric of his chair squeaking with his movements.

“I know,” you say automatically, a battle waging its way inside of you of whether to look at him. As if his words laced with hurt didn’t already leave you breathless. “So tell me what I have to do.”

“I can’t do dat, bird. Ya should know,” he sighs, clucking his tongue in disbelief.

Your eyes fall shut and your jaw clenches in anger, but the sweet smell of oranges brings you back to the moment. “I’m sorry that I made it seem like it wasn’t worth being with you, because it was, and I realized that even more after . . what happened. I’m sorry that it didn’t seem like I was dedicated enough, but I want to be a- I want to show you that I can be, and I want to be that to you. I’m sorry that I care too much about what other people think, because I only care what you think. It’s ripped me apart lately knowing that you hate me, and how you can’t even be around me, and . . ,” your string of words breaks off, stolen away by your onset of tears. They rumble through your chest with tremors, and the embarrassment brings your hands to your face streaked with them.

The howling of the wind hugs the windows, masking any other sounds. If there were, you can’t hear them, but you do feel something. His fingers wrapping around yours, pulling your hands away from your face.

“Ya gonna stop now befo’ ya make me cry too?” he hums, one corner of his lips turned up ever so slightly. With raised eyebrows, they pose the question to you. Nodding fast with hiccups stealing your words, he kneads your hands between his own. “Are ya gonna shuddup or am I gonna hafta make you?” Harry softly laughs.

“You’re going to have to make me,” you return, stumbling over your sobbed words.

“Good, was hopin’ ya’d say dat.”

Smirking playfully, he steps forward to cup your face in his hands. The callused tips of his fingers make quick work of the tears staining your face, as well as his lips. “Don’t cry, and don’t ever say dat I hate you,” he coos in between pecks to your wet skin singing with his kisses. “Don’t want me pretty birdy t’ cry no mo’.”

“Your bird doesn’t want to cry and be sad, and miss you anymore,” you whimper, trying to hold it all in, but it comes pouring out.

“Baby bird,” he pouts sadly, his rose lips round and extended. His brow presses into a sad line as the same emotion carries his words. “Lemme make it all betta.”

Nodding, you hiccup again as you cover his hands with yours. His subsequent smile warms your insides cold and aching from the long days without him. His lips bring a respite when they touch yours, ending the harsh drought. Kissing him back, you revel in the feeling of his unkempt scratchy beard against your face. Just one more thing you missed. Severing the kiss, you mumble an ‘I’m sorry’ against his chapped lips.

“Shhh, ‘s okay, love. I know ya are,” he tells you before bringing his lips back against yours. They move together slowly, welcoming the return of the other.

Your mouth falls to envelope his bottom lip in between yours, his facial hair feathery against your mouth. Hungrily, you kiss him and savor his familiar taste and smell. Fingers drifting to his hair, they return home to his buttery curls. His lips pull away only to plant another kiss against your mouth. Too soon, he breaks the kiss with a breathy laugh against your lips.

“My goodness, lemme breathe, love.”

“Sorry . . I missed you.”

“Ya sure did, bird. Think I missed ya a li’l more, though,” Harry chuckles as your hands fall from his locks. His thumb steals the last hint of a tear from under your eye. The amusement creasing his features disappears swiftly. “‘m sorry too, y’know. I overreacted, and I shouldn’t have put meself over yer job. It wasn’t fair o’ me t’ do dat. D’ya think I can have those Bit-O-Honeys back, or were ya serious ‘bout buyin’ me a lifetime supply?”

Groaning, you playfully shove at his chest, only to have him wrap you up in his arms. “I guess I was serious.”

“Hmm, ya don’t sound too serious ‘bout it, bird. But that’s okay, I got all tha honey I need right here,” he replies, planting a kiss atop your head nuzzled into his neck, swaying you back and forth. Nodding, you finally let yourself relax for the first time in weeks at the greeting of his sweet smell. One that feels like home to you. “Wait, yer students said we should be togetha? That’s funny, cuz so did mine.”

167 notes · View notes

path-of-my-childhood · 5 years

Text

The Rolling Stone Interview: Taylor Swift

By: Brian Hiatt for The Rolling Stone Magazine Date: September 18th 2019

In her most in-depth and introspective interview in years, Swift tells all about the rocky road to 'Lover' and much, much more.

Taylor Swift bursts into her mom’s Nashville kitchen, smiling, looking remarkably like Taylor Swift. (That red-lip, classic thing? Check.) “I need someone to help dye my hair pink,” she says, and moments later, her ends match her sparkly nail polish, sneakers, and the stripes on her button-down. It’s all in keeping with the pastel aesthetic of her new album, Lover; black-leather combat-Taylor from her previous album cycle has handed back the phone. Around the black-granite kitchen island, all is calm and normal, as Swift’s mom, dad, and younger brother pass through. Her mom’s two dogs, one very small, one very large, pounce upon visitors with slurping glee. It could be any 29-year-old’s weekend visit with her parents, if not for the madness looming a few feet down the hall.

In an airy terrace, 113 giddy, weepy, shaky, still-in-disbelief fans are waiting for the start of one of Swift’s secret sessions, sacred rituals in Swift-dom. She’s about to play them her seventh album, as-yet unreleased on this Sunday afternoon in early August, and offer copious commentary. Also, she made cookies. Just before the session, Swift sits down in her mom’s study (where she “operates the Google,” per her daughter) to chat for a few minutes. The black-walled room is decorated with black-and-white classic-rock photos, including shots of Bruce Springsteen and, unsurprisingly, James Taylor; there are also more recent shots of Swift posing with Kris Kristofferson and playing with Def Leppard, her mom’s favorite band.

In a corner is an acoustic guitar Swift played as a teenager. She almost certainly wrote some well-known songs on it, but can’t recall which ones. “It would be kind of weird to finish a song and be like, ‘And this moment, I shall remember,’'” she says, laughing. “‘This guitar hath been anointed with my sacred tuneage!'”

The secret session itself is, as the name suggests, deeply off-the-record; it can be confirmed that she drank some white wine, since her glass pops up in some Instagram pictures. She stays until 5 a.m., chatting and taking photos with every one of the fans. Five hours later, we continue our talk at length in Swift’s Nashville condo, in almost exactly the same spot where we did one of our interviews for her 2012 Rolling Stone cover story. She’s hardly changed its whimsical decor in the past seven years (one of the few additions is a pool table replacing the couch where we sat last time), so it’s an old-Taylor time capsule. There’s still a huge bunny made of moss in one corner, and a human-size birdcage in the living room, though the view from the latter is now of generic new condo buildings instead of just distant green hills. Swift is barefoot now, in pale-blue jeans and a blue button-down tied at the waist; her hair is pulled back, her makeup minimal.

How to sum up the past three years of Taylor Swift? In July 2016, after Swift expressed discontent with Kanye West’s “Famous,” Kim Kardashian did her best to destroy her, unleashing clandestine recordings of a phone conversation between Swift and West. In the piecemeal audio, Swift can be heard agreeing to the line “…me and Taylor might still have sex.” We don’t hear her learning about the next lyric, the one she says bothered her — “I made that bitch famous” — and as she’ll explain, there’s more to her side of the story. The backlash was, well, swift, and overwhelming. It still hasn’t altogether subsided. Later that year, Swift chose not to make an endorsement in the 2016 election, which definitely didn’t help. In the face of it all, she made Reputation — fierce, witty, almost-industrial pop offset by love songs of crystalline beauty — and had a wildly successful stadium tour. Somewhere in there, she met her current boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, and judging by certain songs on Lover, the relationship is serious indeed.

Lover is Swift’s most adult album, a rebalancing of sound and persona that opens doors to the next decade of her career; it’s also a welcome return to the sonic diversity of 2012’s Red, with tracks ranging from the St. Vincent-assisted über-bop “Cruel Summer” to the unbearably poignant country-fied “Soon You’ll Get Better” (with the Dixie Chicks) and the “Shake It Off”-worthy pep of “Paper Rings.”

She wants to talk about the music, of course, but she is also ready to explain the past three years of her life, in depth, for the first time. The conversation is often not a light one. She’s built up more armor in the past few years, but still has the opposite of a poker face — you can see every micro-emotion wash over her as she ponders a question, her nose wrinkling in semi-ironic offense at the term “old-school pop stars,” her preposterously blue eyes glistening as she turns to darker subjects. In her worst moments, she says, “You feel like you’re being completely pulled into a riptide. So what are you going to do? Splash a lot? Or hold your breath and hope you somehow resurface? And that’s what I did. And it took three years. Sitting here doing an interview — the fact that we’ve done an interview before is the only reason I’m not in a full body sweat.”

When we talked seven years ago, everything was going so well for you, and you were very worried that something would go wrong. Yeah, I kind of knew it would. I felt like I was walking along the sidewalk, knowing eventually the pavement was going to crumble and I was gonna fall through. You can’t keep winning and have people like it. People love “new” so much — they raise you up the flagpole, and you’re waving at the top of the flagpole for a while. And then they’re like, “Wait, this new flag is what we actually love.” They decide something you’re doing is incorrect, that you’re not standing for what you should stand for. You’re a bad example. Then if you keep making music and you survive, and you keep connecting with people, eventually they raise you a little bit up the flagpole again, and then they take you back down, and back up again. And it happens to women more than it happens to men in music.

It also happened to you a few times on a smaller scale, didn’t it? I’ve had several upheavals in my career. When I was 18, they were like, “She doesn’t really write those songs.” So my third album I wrote by myself as a reaction to that. Then they decided I was a serial dater — a boy-crazy man-eater — when I was 22. And so I didn’t date anyone for, like, two years. And then they decided in 2016 that absolutely everything about me was wrong. If I did something good, it was for the wrong reasons. If I did something brave, I didn’t do it correctly. If I stood up for myself, I was throwing a tantrum. And so I found myself in this endless mockery echo chamber. It’s just like — I have a brother who’s two and a half years younger, and we spent the first half of our lives trying to kill each other and the second half as best friends. You know that game kids play? I’d be like, “Mom, can I have some water?” And Austin would be like, “Mom, can I have some water?” And I’m like, “He’s copying me.” And he’d be like, “He’s copying me.” Always in a really obnoxious voice that sounds all twisted. That’s what it felt like in 2016. So I decided to just say nothing. It wasn’t really a decision. It was completely involuntary.

But you also had good things happen in your life at the same time — that’s part of Reputation. The moments of my true story on that album are songs like “Delicate,” “New Year’s Day,” “Call It What You Want,” “Dress.” The one-two punch, bait-and-switch of Reputation is that it was actually a love story. It was a love story in amongst chaos. All the weaponized sort of metallic battle anthems were what was going on outside. That was the battle raging on that I could see from the windows, and then there was what was happening inside my world — my newly quiet, cozy world that was happening on my own terms for the first time. . . . It’s weird, because in some of the worst times of my career, and reputation, dare I say, I had some of the most beautiful times — in my quiet life that I chose to have. And I had some of the most incredible memories with the friends I now knew cared about me, even if everyone hated me. The bad stuff was really significant and damaging. But the good stuff will endure. The good lessons — you realize that you can’t just show your life to people.

Meaning? I used to be like a golden retriever, just walking up to everybody, like, wagging my tail. “Sure, yeah, of course! What do you want to know? What do you need?” Now, I guess, I have to be a little bit more like a fox.

Do your regrets on that extend to the way the “girl squad” thing was perceived? Yeah, I never would have imagined that people would have thought, “This is a clique that wouldn’t have accepted me if I wanted to be in it.” Holy shit, that hit me like a ton of bricks. I was like, “Oh, this did not go the way that I thought it was going to go.” I thought it was going to be we can still stick together, just like men are allowed to do. The patriarchy allows men to have bro packs. If you’re a male artist, there’s an understanding that you have respect for your counterparts.

Whereas women are expected to be feuding with each other? It’s assumed that we hate each other. Even if we’re smiling and photographed together with our arms around each other, it’s assumed there’s a knife in our pocket.

How much of a danger was there of falling into that thought pattern yourself? The messaging is dangerous, yes. Nobody is immune, because we’re a product of what society and peer groups and now the internet tells us, unless we learn differently from experience.

You once sang about a star who “took the money and your dignity, and got the hell out.” In 2016, you wrote in your journal, “This summer is the apocalypse.” How close did you come to quitting altogether? I definitely thought about that a lot. I thought about how words are my only way of making sense of the world and expressing myself — and now any words I say or write are being twisted against me. People love a hate frenzy. It’s like piranhas. People had so much fun hating me, and they didn’t really need very many reasons to do it. I felt like the situation was pretty hopeless. I wrote a lot of really aggressively bitter poems constantly. I wrote a lot of think pieces that I knew I’d never publish, about what it’s like to feel like you’re in a shame spiral. And I couldn’t figure out how to learn from it. Because I wasn’t sure exactly what I did that was so wrong. That was really hard for me, because I cannot stand it when people can’t take criticism. So I try to self-examine, and even though that’s really hard and hurts a lot sometimes, I really try to understand where people are coming from when they don’t like me. And I completely get why people wouldn’t like me. Because, you know, I’ve had my insecurities say those things — and things 1,000 times worse.

But some of your former critics have become your friends, right? Some of my best friendships came from people publicly criticizing me and then it opening up a conversation. Hayley Kiyoko was doing an interview and she made an example about how I get away with singing about straight relationships and people don’t give me shit the way they give her shit for singing about girls — and it’s totally valid. Like, Ella — Lorde — the first thing she ever said about me publicly was a criticism of my image or whatever. But I can’t really respond to someone saying, “You, as a human being, are fake.” And if they say you’re playing the victim, that completely undermines your ability to ever verbalize how you feel unless it’s positive. So, OK, should I just smile all the time and never say anything hurts me? Because that’s really fake. Or should I be real about how I’m feeling and have valid, legitimate responses to things that happened to me in my life? But wait, would that be playing the victim?

How do you escape that mental trap? Since I was 15 years old, if people criticized me for something, I changed it. So you realize you might be this amalgamation of criticisms that were hurled at you, and not an actual person who’s made any of these choices themselves. And so I decided I needed to live a quiet life, because a quiet personal life invites no discussion, dissection, and debate. I didn’t realize I was inviting people to feel they had the right to sort of play my life like a video game.

“The old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Because she’s dead!” was funny — but how seriously should we take it? There’s a part of me that definitely is always going to be different. I needed to grow up in many ways. I needed to make boundaries, to figure out what was mine and what was the public’s. That old version of me that shares unfailingly and unblinkingly with a world that is probably not fit to be shared with? I think that’s gone. But it was definitely just, like, a fun moment in the studio with me and Jack [Antonoff] where I wanted to play on the idea of a phone call — because that’s how all of this started, a stupid phone call I shouldn’t have picked up.

It would have been much easier if that’s what you’d just said. It would have been so, so great if I would have just said that [laughs].

Some of the Lover iconography does suggest old Taylor’s return, though. I don’t think I’ve ever leaned into the old version of myself more creatively than I have on this album, where it’s very, very autobiographical. But also moments of extreme catchiness and moments of extreme personal confession.

Did you do anything wrong from your perspective in dealing with that phone call? Is there anything you regret? The world didn’t understand the context and the events that led up to it. Because nothing ever just happens like that without some lead-up. Some events took place to cause me to be pissed off when he called me a bitch. That was not just a singular event. Basically, I got really sick of the dynamic between he and I. And that wasn’t just based on what happened on that phone call and with that song — it was kind of a chain reaction of things.

I started to feel like we reconnected, which felt great for me — because all I ever wanted my whole career after that thing happened in 2009 was for him to respect me. When someone doesn’t respect you so loudly and says you literally don’t deserve to be here — I just so badly wanted that respect from him, and I hate that about myself, that I was like, “This guy who’s antagonizing me, I just want his approval.” But that’s where I was. And so we’d go to dinner and stuff. And I was so happy, because he would say really nice things about my music. It just felt like I was healing some childhood rejection or something from when I was 19. But the 2015 VMAs come around. He’s getting the Vanguard Award. He called me up beforehand — I didn’t illegally record it, so I can’t play it for you. But he called me up, maybe a week or so before the event, and we had maybe over an hourlong conversation, and he’s like, “I really, really would like for you to present this Vanguard Award to me, this would mean so much to me,” and went into all the reasons why it means so much, because he can be so sweet. He can be the sweetest. And I was so stoked that he asked me that. And so I wrote this speech up, and then we get to the VMAs and I make this speech and he screams, “MTV got Taylor Swift up here to present me this award for ratings!” [His exact words: “You know how many times they announced Taylor was going to give me the award ’cause it got them more ratings?”] And I’m standing in the audience with my arm around his wife, and this chill ran through my body. I realized he is so two-faced. That he wants to be nice to me behind the scenes, but then he wants to look cool, get up in front of everyone and talk shit. And I was so upset. He wanted me to come talk to him after the event in his dressing room. I wouldn’t go. So then he sent this big, big thing of flowers the next day to apologize. And I was like, “You know what? I really don’t want us to be on bad terms again. So whatever, I’m just going to move past this.” So when he gets on the phone with me, and I was so touched that he would be respectful and, like, tell me about this one line in the song.

The line being “. . . me and Taylor might still have sex”? [Nods] And I was like, “OK, good. We’re back on good terms.” And then when I heard the song, I was like, “I’m done with this. If you want to be on bad terms, let’s be on bad terms, but just be real about it.” And then he literally did the same thing to Drake. He gravely affected the trajectory of Drake’s family and their lives. It’s the same thing. Getting close to you, earning your trust, detonating you. I really don’t want to talk about it anymore because I get worked up, and I don’t want to just talk about negative shit all day, but it’s the same thing. Go watch Drake talk about what happened. [West denied any involvement in Pusha-T’s revelation of Drake’s child and apologized for sending “negative energy” toward Drake.]

When did you get to the place that’s described on the opening track of Lover, “I Forgot That You Existed”? It was sometime on the Reputation tour, which was the most transformative emotional experience of my career. That tour put me in the healthiest, most balanced place I’ve ever been. After that tour, bad stuff can happen to me, but it doesn’t level me anymore. The stuff that happened a couple of months ago with Scott [Borchetta] would have leveled me three years ago and silenced me. I would have been too afraid to speak up. Something about that tour made me disengage from some part of public perception I used to hang my entire identity on, which I now know is incredibly unhealthy.

What was the actual revelation? It’s almost like I feel more clear about the fact that my job is to be an entertainer. It’s not like this massive thing that sometimes my brain makes it into, and sometimes the media makes it into, where we’re all on this battlefield and everyone’s gonna die except one person, who wins. It’s like, “No, do you know what? Katy is going to be legendary. Gaga is going to be legendary. Beyoncé is going to be legendary. Rihanna is going to be legendary. Because the work that they made completely overshadows the myopia of this 24-hour news cycle of clickbait.” And somehow I realized that on tour, as I was looking at people’s faces. We’re just entertaining people, and it’s supposed to be fun.

It’s interesting to look at these albums as a trilogy. 1989 was really a reset button. Oh, in every way. I’ve been very vocal about the fact that that decision was mine and mine alone, and it was definitely met with a lot of resistance. Internally.

After realizing that things were not all smiles with your former label boss, Scott Borchetta, it’s hard not to wonder how much additional conflict there was over things like that. A lot of the best things I ever did creatively were things that I had to really fight — and I mean aggressively fight — to have happen. But, you know, I’m not like him, making crazy, petty accusations about the past. . . . When you have a business relationship with someone for 15 years, there are going to be a lot of ups and a lot of downs. But I truly, legitimately thought he looked at me as the daughter he never had. And so even though we had a lot of really bad times and creative differences, I was going to hang my hat on the good stuff. I wanted to be friends with him. I thought I knew what betrayal felt like, but this stuff that happened with him was a redefinition of betrayal for me, just because it felt like it was family. To go from feeling like you’re being looked at as a daughter to this grotesque feeling of “Oh, I was actually his prized calf that he was fattening up to sell to the slaughterhouse that would pay the most.”

He accused you of declining the Parkland march and Manchester benefit show. Unbelievable. Here’s the thing: Everyone in my team knew if Scooter Braun brings us something, do not bring it to me. The fact that those two are in business together after the things he said about Scooter Braun — it’s really hard to shock me. And this was utterly shocking. These are two very rich, very powerful men, using $300 million of other people’s money to purchase, like, the most feminine body of work. And then they’re standing in a wood-panel bar doing a tacky photo shoot, raising a glass of scotch to themselves. Because they pulled one over on me and got this done so sneakily that I didn’t even see it coming. And I couldn’t say anything about it.

In some ways, on a musical level, Lover feels like the most indie-ish of your albums. That’s amazing, thank you. It’s definitely a quirky record. With this album, I felt like I sort of gave myself permission to revisit older themes that I used to write about, maybe look at them with fresh eyes. And to revisit older instruments — older in terms of when I used to use them. Because when I was making 1989, I was so obsessed with it being this concept of Eighties big pop, whether it was Eighties in its production or Eighties in its nature, just having these big choruses — being unapologetically big. And then Reputation, there was a reason why I had it all in lowercase. I felt like it wasn’t unapologetically commercial. It’s weird, because that is the album that took the most amount of explanation, and yet it’s the one I didn’t talk about. In the Reputation secret sessions I kind of had to explain to my fans, “I know we’re doing a new thing here that I’d never done before.” I’d never played with characters before. For a lot of pop stars, that’s a really fun trick, where they’re like, “This is my alter ego.” I had never played with that before. It’s really fun. And it was just so fun to play with on tour — the darkness and the bombast and the bitterness and the love and the ups and the downs of an emotional-turmoil record.

“Daylight” is a beautiful song. It feels like it could have been the title track. It almost was. I thought it might be a little bit too sentimental.

And I guess maybe too on-the-nose. Right, yeah, way too on-the-nose. That’s what I thought, because I was kind of in my head referring to the album as Daylight for a while. But Lover, to me, was a more interesting title, more of an accurate theme in my head, and more elastic as a concept. That’s why “You Need to Calm Down” can make sense within the theme of the album — one of the things it addresses is how certain people are not allowed to live their lives without discrimination just based on who they love.

For the more organic songs on this album, like “Lover” and “Paper Rings,” you said you were imagining a wedding band playing them. How often does that kind of visualization shape a song’s production style? Sometimes I’ll have a strange sort of fantasy of where the songs would be played. And so for songs like “Paper Rings” or “Lover” I was imagining a wedding-reception band, but in the Seventies, so they couldn’t play instruments that wouldn’t have been invented yet. I have all these visuals. For Reputation, it was nighttime cityscape. I didn’t really want any — or very minimal — traditional acoustic instruments. I imagined old warehouse buildings that had been deserted and factory spaces and all this industrial kind of imagery. So I wanted the production to have nothing wooden. There’s no wood floors on that album. Lover is, like, completely just a barn wood floor and some ripped curtains flowing in the breeze, and fields of flowers and, you know, velvet.

How did you come to use high school metaphors to touch on politics with “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince”? There are so many influences that go into that particular song. I wrote it a couple of months after midterm elections, and I wanted to take the idea of politics and pick a metaphorical place for that to exist. And so I was thinking about a traditional American high school, where there’s all these kinds of social events that could make someone feel completely alienated. And I think a lot of people in our political landscape are just feeling like we need to huddle up under the bleachers and figure out a plan to make things better.

I feel like your Fall Out Boy fandom might’ve slipped out in that title. I love Fall Out Boy so much. Their songwriting really influenced me, lyrically, maybe more than anyone else. They take a phrase and they twist it. “Loaded God complex/Cock it and pull it”? When I heard that, I was like, “I’m dreaming.”

You sing about “American stories burning before me.” Do you mean the illusions of what America is? It’s about the illusions of what I thought America was before our political landscape took this turn, and that naivete that we used to have about it. And it’s also the idea of people who live in America, who just want to live their lives, make a living, have a family, love who they love, and watching those people lose their rights, or watching those people feel not at home in their home. I have that line “I see the high-fives between the bad guys” because not only are some really racist, horrific undertones now becoming overtones in our political climate, but the people who are representing those concepts and that way of looking at the world are celebrating loudly, and it’s horrific.

You’re in this weird place of being a blond, blue-eyed pop star in this era — to the point where until you endorsed some Democratic candidates, right-wingers, and worse, assumed you were on their side. I don’t think they do anymore. Yeah, that was jarring, and I didn’t hear about that until after it had happened. Because at this point, I, for a very long time, I didn’t have the internet on my phone, and my team and my family were really worried about me because I was not in a good place. And there was a lot of stuff that they just dealt with without telling me about it. Which is the only time that’s ever happened in my career. I’m always in the pilot seat, trying to fly the plane that is my career in exactly the direction I want to take it. But there was a time when I just had to throw my hands up and say, “Guys, I can’t. I can’t do this. I need you to just take over for me and I’m just going to disappear.”

Are you referring to when a white-supremacist site suggested you were on their team? I didn’t even see that, but, like, if that happened, that’s just disgusting. There’s literally nothing worse than white supremacy. It’s repulsive. There should be no place for it. Really, I keep trying to learn as much as I can about politics, and it’s become something I’m now obsessed with, whereas before, I was living in this sort of political ambivalence, because the person I voted for had always won. We were in such an amazing time when Obama was president because foreign nations respected us. We were so excited to have this dignified person in the White House. My first election was voting for him when he made it into office, and then voting to re-elect him. I think a lot of people are like me, where they just didn’t really know that this could happen. But I’m just focused on the 2020 election. I’m really focused on it. I’m really focused on how I can help and not hinder. Because I also don’t want it to backfire again, because I do feel that the celebrity involvement with Hillary’s campaign was used against her in a lot of ways.

You took a lot of heat for not getting involved. Does any part of you regret that you just didn’t say “fuck it” and gotten more specific when you said to vote that November? Totally. Yeah, I regret a lot of things all the time. It’s like a daily ritual.

Were you just convinced that it would backfire? That’s literally what it was. Yeah. It’s a very powerful thing when you legitimately feel like numbers have proven that pretty much everyone hates you. Like, quantifiably. That’s not me being dramatic. And you know that.

There were a lot of people in those stadiums. It’s true. But that was two years later. . . . I do think, as a party, we need to be more of a team. With Republicans, if you’re wearing that red hat, you’re one of them. And if we’re going to do anything to change what’s happening, we need to stick together. We need to stop dissecting why someone’s on our side or if they’re on our side in the right way or if they phrased it correctly. We need to not have the right kind of Democrat and the wrong kind of Democrat. We need to just be like, “You’re a Democrat? Sick. Get in the car. We’re going to the mall.”

Here’s a hard question for you: As a superfan, what did you think of the Game of Thrones finale? Oh, my God. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. So, clinically our brain responds to our favorite show ending the same way we feel when a breakup occurs. I read that. There’s no good way for it to end. No matter what would have happened in that finale, people still would have been really upset because of the fact that it’s over.

I was glad to see you confirm that your line about a “list of names” was a reference to Arya. I like to be influenced by movies and shows and books and stuff. I love to write about a character dynamic. And not all of my life is going to be as kind of complex as these intricate webs of characters on TV shows and movies.

There was a time when it was. That’s amazing.

But is the idea that as your own life becomes less dramatic, you’ll need to pull ideas from other places? I don’t feel like that yet. I think I might feel like that possibly when I have a family. If I have a family. [Pauses] I don’t know why I said that! But that’s what I’ve heard from other artists, that they were very protective of their personal life, so they had to draw inspiration from other things. But again, I don’t know why I said that. Because I don’t know how my life is going to go or what I’m going to do. But right now, I feel like it’s easier for me to write than it ever was.

You don’t talk about your relationship, but you’ll sing about it in wildly revealing detail. What’s the difference for you? Singing about something helps you to express it in a way that feels more accurate. You cannot, no matter what, put words in a quote and have it move someone the same way as if you heard those words with the perfect sonic representation of that feeling... There is that weird conflict in being a confessional songwriter and then also having my life, you know, 10 years ago, be catapulted into this strange pop-culture thing.

I’ve heard you say that people got too interested in which song was about who, which I can understand — at the same time, to be fair, it was a game you played into, wasn’t it? I realized very early on that no matter what, that was going to happen to me regardless. So when you realize the rules of the game you’re playing and how it will affect you, you got to look at the board and make your strategy. But at the same time, writing songs has never been a strategic element of my career. But I’m not scared anymore to say that other things in my career, like how to market an album, are strictly strategic. And I’m sick of women not being able to say that they have strategic business minds — because male artists are allowed to. And so I’m sick and tired of having to pretend like I don’t mastermind my own business. But, it’s a different part of my brain than I use to write.

You’ve been masterminding your business since you were a teenager. Yeah, but I’ve also tried very hard — and this is one thing I regret — to convince people that I wasn’t the one holding the puppet strings of my marketing existence, or the fact that I sit in a conference room several times a week and come up with these ideas. I felt for a very long time that people don’t want to think of a woman in music who isn’t just a happy, talented accident. We’re all forced to kind of be like, “Aw, shucks, this happened again! We’re still doing well! Aw, that’s so great.” Alex Morgan celebrating scoring a goal at the World Cup and getting shit for it is a perfect example of why we’re not allowed to flaunt or celebrate, or reveal that, like, “Oh, yeah, it was me. I came up with this stuff.” I think it’s really unfair. People love new female artists so much because they’re able to explain that woman’s success. There’s an easy trajectory. Look at the Game of Thrones finale. I specifically really related to Daenerys’ storyline because for me it portrayed that it is a lot easier for a woman to attain power than to maintain it.

I mean, she did murder... It’s a total metaphor! Like, obviously I didn’t want Daenerys to become that kind of character, but in taking away what I chose to take away from it, I thought maybe they’re trying to portray her climbing the ladder to the top was a lot easier than maintaining it, because for me, the times when I felt like I was going insane was when I was trying to maintain my career in the same way that I ascended. It’s easier to get power than to keep it. It’s easier to get acclaim than to keep it. It’s easier to get attention than to keep it.

Well, I guess we should be glad you didn’t have a dragon in 2016... [Fiercely] I told you I don’t like that she did that! But, I mean, watching the show, though, maybe this is a reflection on how we treat women in power, how we are totally going to conspire against them and tear at them until they feel this — this insane shift, where you wonder, like, “What changed?” And I’ve had that happen, like, 60 times in my career where I’m like, “OK, you liked me last year, what changed? I guess I’ll change so I can keep entertaining you guys.”

You once said that your mom could never punish you when you were little because you’d punish yourself. This idea of changing in the face of criticism and needing approval — that’s all part of wanting to be good, right? Whatever that means. But that seems to be a real driving force in your life. Yeah, that’s definitely very perceptive of you. And the question posed to me is, if you kept trying to do good things, but everyone saw those things in a cynical way and assumed them to be done with bad motivation and bad intent, would you still do good things, even though nothing that you did was looked at as good? And the answer is, yes. Criticism that’s constructive is helpful to my character growth. Baseless criticism is stuff I’ve got to toss out now.

That sounds healthy. Is this therapy talking or is this just experience? No, I’ve never been to therapy. I talk to my mom a lot, because my mom is the one who’s seen everything. God, it takes so long to download somebody on the last 29 years of my life, and my mom has seen it all. She knows exactly where I’m coming from. And we talk endlessly. There were times when I used to have really, really, really bad days where we would just be on the phone for hours and hours and hours. I’d write something that I wanted to say, and instead of posting it, I’d just read it to her.

I somehow connect all this to the lyric in “Daylight,” the idea of “so many lines that I’ve crossed unforgiven” — it’s a different kind of confession. I am really glad you liked that line, because that’s something that does bother me, looking back at life and realizing that no matter what, you screw things up. Sometimes there are people that were in your life and they’re not anymore — and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t fix it, you can’t change it. I told the fans last night that sometimes on my bad days, I feel like my life is a pile of crap accumulated of only the bad headlines or the bad things that have happened, or the mistakes I’ve made or clichés or rumors or things that people think about me or have thought for the last 15 years. And that was part of the “Look What You Made Me Do” music video, where I had a pile of literal old selves fighting each other.

But, yeah, that line is indicative of my anxiety about how in life you can’t get everything right. A lot of times you make the wrong call, make the wrong decision. Say the wrong thing. Hurt people, even if you didn’t mean to. You don’t really know how to fix all of that. When it’s, like, 29 years’ worth.

To be Mr. “Rolling Stone” for a second, there’s a Springsteen lyric, “Ain’t no one leaving this world, buddy/Without their shirttail dirty or hands a little bloody.” That’s really good! No one gets through it unscathed. No one gets through in one piece. I think that’s a hard thing for a lot of people to grasp. I know it was hard for me, because I kind of grew up thinking, “If I’m nice, and if I try to do the right thing, you know, maybe I can just, like, ace this whole thing.” And it turns out I can’t.

It’s interesting to look at “I Did Something Bad” in this context. You pointing that out is really interesting because it’s something I’ve had to reconcile within myself in the last couple of years — that sort of “good” complex. Because from the time I was a kid I’d try to be kind, be a good person. Try really hard. But you get walked all over sometimes. And how do you respond to being walked all over? You can’t just sit there and eat your salad and let it happen. “I Did Something Bad” was about doing something that was so against what I would usually do. Katy [Perry] and I were talking about our signs. . . . [Laughs] Of course we were.

That’s the greatest sentence ever. [Laughs] I hate you. We were talking about our signs because we had this really, really long talk when we were reconnecting and stuff. And I remember in the long talk, she was like, “If we had one glass of white wine right now, we’d both be crying.” Because we were drinking tea. We’ve had some really good conversations.

We were talking about how we’ve had miscommunications with people in the past, not even specifically with each other. She’s like, “I’m a Scorpio. Scorpios just strike when they feel threatened.” And I was like, “Well, I’m an archer. We literally stand back, assess the situation, process how we feel about it, raise a bow, pull it back, and fire.” So it’s completely different ways of processing pain, confusion, misconception. And oftentimes I’ve had this delay in feeling something that hurts me and then saying that it hurts me. Do you know what I mean? And so I can understand how people in my life would have been like, “Whoa, I didn’t know that was how you felt.” Because it takes me a second.

If you watch the video of the 2009 VMAs, I literally freeze. I literally stand there. And that is how I handle any discomfort, any pain. I stand there, I freeze. And then five minutes later, I know how I feel. But in the moment, I’m probably overreacting and I should be nice. Then I process it, and in five minutes, if it’s gone, it’s past, and I’m like, “I was overreacting, everything’s fine. I can get through this. I’m glad I didn’t say anything harsh in the moment.” But when it’s actually something bad that happened, and I feel really, really hurt or upset about it, I only know after the fact. Because I’ve tried so hard to squash it: “This probably isn’t what you think.” That’s something I had to work on.

You could end up gaslighting yourself. Yeah, for sure. ’Cause so many situations where if I would have said the first thing that came to my mind, people would have been like, “Whoa!” And maybe I would have been wrong or combative. So a couple of years ago I started working on actually just responding to my emotions in a quicker fashion. And it’s really helped with stuff. It’s helped so much because sometimes you get in arguments. But conflict in the moment is so much better than combat after the fact.

Well, thanks. I do feel like I just did a therapy session. As someone who’s never been to therapy, I can safely say that was the best therapy session.

#uhhhh #just by copying and editing text I see it's gonna be good =)#can't wait...#taylor swift #interview #by taylor #lover era #Rolling Stone magazine #Brian Hiatt

1K notes · View notes

monstaxdesires · 4 years

Text

The Arrangement (Chapter Seven)

A/N: Huge thank you to @mxflo for being an amazing best friend and wonderful Beta reader. This series means so much to me and she’s been the friend that has allowed me to bounce theories and snippets off of her and given such positive encouragement.

(Chapter One) (Chapter Two) (Chapter Three) (Chapter Four) (Chapter Five) (Chapter Six)

Shownu’s contract rested on your kitchen counter. Red pen marks littering various pages. You bit your lip, trying to decide if this was something you could really do. The contract had been true to his statements of what he expected and you were okay with must it.

His number was saved in your phone and you knew he would be expecting your call any day now, but you were hesitant. You had been for almost three days now. It was Monday evening which meant it had been three full days of that contract in your possession and no word to him on your position with it.

That same night of having it handed to you by his driver you had poured yourself a nice glass of Pinot Noir and read through it. You were tempted to mark it up straight away but knew reading through it once before taking a red pen to it would be more helpful.

Saturday morning you read it again after an unrestful night of sleep and that was when you had chosen to mark it up. You had been blunt and honest with your questions and what you weren’t comfortable with and what you wanted to add. You knew he would be a little puzzled by it but it was how you felt and he had asked for your honesty.

You pressed his name in your phone before switching it to speaker. He answered on the first ring.

“You actually called.” You bite your lip. “I did.”

“Everything okay?”

You stand and begin slowly pacing across the width of your living room, not able to sit still and do this. “Yes. I, umm, read the contract.”

“Okay.”

You exhale running your free hand through your hair before looking at it. “I marked it up, a lot.” You murmur before quickly continuing, “Are you sure you want to do this with me?”

He chuckles and you can see the little smile on his face already. You close your eyes and try to steady yourself.

“Please don’t laugh at me,” you whisper and he immediately stops. “Shownu… I-I’m lost here.”

“I know,” he says, his tone shifting to one of comfort. “This is why I had planned to have you spend an evening with me to discuss it over dinner before we agreed on a final contract.”

“Okay.”

You hear rustling in the background. “Are you still at work?”

“Yes. I work late most days. Are you home?”

“I am.”

“Good.” He replies and you can imagine him sitting at his desk, stacked high with important business documents, coat jacket hanging off a hook somewhere, the sleeves of his button up rolled up displaying his forearms while he busies working away, the only one remaining in his office building. “I will be out of town for a few days this week. I come back in Friday, what if we have dinner Friday night?”

“Will that be our first dinner in agreement to the rules of the contract?”

He chuckles. “Yeah, sure.”

“Okay, what time and where?”

“6pm and you can pick,” he says. “Listen, I have to go back to work if I plan to leave at a decent hour tonight, but you can call me if you need to reschedule or if you change your mind before Friday, okay?”

“Will do.” You say before hanging up and dropping your phone on the cushion of your couch before going to procure a wine glass and a new bottle of wine.

————-

Your hands were clammy, but you grasped the manila envelope tightly. You knew it would create wrinkles in the papers but you couldn’t help yourself. You were nervous, so nervous.

“Right this way,” the hostess speaks quietly before gesturing for you to walk ahead. “The other member in your party is already waiting for you.”

“Thank you,” you say with a smile towards her.

She takes you down a dimly lit hall before gesturing to a door and then bowing and walking away. You slip in and close the door quickly. Shownu stands as you turn to see him. Your eyes widen at the amount of food already laid out on the table already.

“How long have you been here?”

“Half an hour,” he says taking your hand and guiding you to your seat.

You sit and he pushes your chair in for you before taking his own. You hold the envelope on your lap not sure if you should hand it over.

“Do you mind if we eat first?” He asks. “I missed lunch.”

“No, please,” you gesture to the dishes and he smiles before giving you food first and then himself. “Why did you miss lunch?”

“Meeting.”

“Do you by chance have a pen?” You ask casually.

He pats his jacket pocket before reaching in and pulling out a pen. You take it and duck your head down as you pull out the contract and add a little note. He watches you before you lift your head and push your hair back behind your shoulder. You meet his gaze and he lifts an eyebrow.

“We will discuss it. Please eat.”

“You too.” He says around a mouthful after taking a bite. He points at your plate. You laugh a little before putting his pen down and starting to eat with him.

“This is so good,” you beam and he smiles placing another piece of meat on your plate.

“Eat up.”

“You too.”

He ducks his head, blushing a little before taking another bite.

After you have both had your fill you place the envelope on the table and slide it to him. “My questions are written along with my comments on what I do not agree with and what I would like to add.”

He takes it. His curiosity peeking. You fold your hands in your lap while he takes out the contract. His expression masked from giving you any idea on what he is thinking as he reads it. His eyebrow knit together in concentration and his lips pucker, but no indication to his thoughts. He finishes and puts it down on the table top.

“Where do you want to start?” He asks.

You clear your throat. “The rules?”

He nods. “Which one? You marked a few.”

“Birth control?” You ask, getting right to it. “If you are not expecting anything sexual why is one of your rules for us both to get an STI test and for me to start birth control?”

He clears his throat. “You are correct, I do not expect it, but as a precaution to what could happen.”

Your jaw drops and you freeze. “I’m sorry?”

“No,” he immediately backtracks. “I meant with someone else you may have in your life. I should have said that better,” he rubs the back of his neck before closing this eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean Shownu?”

He opens his eyes and looks at you. “I am sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t.”

“Good,” he exhales. “I think it is a good measure to have if you do seek someone else out for comfort. It will prevent our contract from being terminated due to an unexpected… p-pregnancy. To the public you will be my girlfriend and getting pregnant with someone else’s child isn’t ideal.”

You could tell it made him uncomfortable but you needed to know where you both stood and his reasoning made sense now that you knew.

“Fine to the birth control though I don’t think it’ll be needed. But what about the tests?”

“Precautionary, all of my past companions have had the test taken.”

“Okay.” You pull at your sleeves. “The minimum number of hours, how will that work if you are working late often?”

He bites his lip, you and a point. In the past he had never established a minimum but he felt it necessary to ensure you at least a minimum payment you could count on.

“Weekends, company events, and our weekly dinners or coffee dates. I will also give you 24 hour notice before requesting you to join me at something outside of what we already have scheduled as I am sure you read.”

“I did, I think 24 hours is sufficient.”

A smile tugs at the corner of his lips. “Anything else?”

“I want you to eat. I want you to make sure you eat lunch every day.”

He chuckles. “I see you added that in.”

“I did.”

He flips to the next page. “I can do that.”

“Will I be expected to go on any of your overnight trips with you?” You ask, fidgeting with your napkin.

“On special occasion you will and only weekends, so your work schedule is not disturbed. Costs will be covered as well. You have a passport correct?”

“I do.”

“Great,” he puts the contract away. “I agree to the other notes and we will amend the probationary period to be ninety days instead of thirty before agreeing to a 12 month contract. Anything else?”

“No. The rate seems fair. I tried to do a little research about that and have no issue with the selected amount.”

“Good,” he smiles before reaching over and squeezing your hand.

You turn your hand so that your palm presses to his, his touch warm and reassuring. You watch his long fingers brush the inside of your wrist, a little shiver running through you.

“I will make the adjustments before getting you to sign an official copy for yourself and a copy for me.”

“Okay. Thank you for meeting with me and being so open minded.”

He withdraws his touch. “I’m glad we could reach an arrangement that suits both of our needs. I was a little worried you would deny my offer.”

You smile at him weakly, you had seriously considered it, but decided you needed to do what you could to help your family and his offer was the only way you could see working out at the moment. You nervously pull your hair over your shoulder.

“I should order a car if we are done for tonight. I’m exhausted. I am sure you are as well.”

“Let me drop you off,” he replies before standing and helping you to your feet. He picks up the envelope, his free hand on the small of your back before guiding you out.

“Are you sure?”

He nods once. “You are my companion now. You can expect this type of situation moving forward.”

You blush and he smiles at you before thanking the staff of the restaurant as you leave together.

(Chapter Eight)

#Monsta X #monsta x au #monsta x shownu #shownu #wonho #minhyuk #kihyun #hyungwon #jooheon #changkyun

70 notes · View notes

brightbeautifulthings · 4 years

Photo

MAYHEM BY ESTELLE LAURE BLOG TOUR & CHAPTER EXCERPT

The Lost Boys meets Wilder Girls in this supernatural feminist YA novel.

Available July 14th, 2020

It's 1987 and unfortunately it's not all Madonna and cherry lip balm. Mayhem Brayburn has always known there was something off about her and her mother, Roxy. Maybe it has to do with Roxy's constant physical pain, or maybe with Mayhem's own irresistible pull to water. Either way, she knows they aren't like everyone else.

But when May's stepfather finally goes too far, Roxy and Mayhem flee to Santa Maria, California, the coastal beach town that holds the answers to all of Mayhem's questions about who her mother is, her estranged family, and the mysteries of her own self. There she meets the kids who live with her aunt, and it opens the door to the magic that runs through the female lineage in her family, the very magic Mayhem is next in line to inherit and which will change her life for good.

But when she gets wrapped up in the search for the man who has been kidnapping girls from the beach, her life takes another dangerous turn and she is forced to face the price of vigilante justice and to ask herself whether revenge is worth the cost.

From the acclaimed author of This Raging Light and But Then I Came Back, Estelle Laure offers a riveting and complex story with magical elements about a family of women contending with what appears to be an irreversible destiny, taking control and saying when enough is enough.

About the Author:

Estelle Laure, the author of This Raging Light and But Then I Came Back believes in love, magic, and the power of facing hard truths. She has a BA in Theatre Arts and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults, and she lives in Taos, New Mexico, with her family. Her work is translated widely around the world.

Twitter | Instagram | Get Your Copy

Read on for a special chapter excerpt of Mayhem!

three Santa Maria

“Trouble,” Roxy says. She arches a brow at the kids by the van through the bug-spattered windshield, the ghost of a half-smile rippling across her face.

“You would know,” I shoot.

“So would you,” she snaps.

Maybe we’re a little on edge. We’ve been in the car so long the pattern on the vinyl seats is tattooed on the back of my thighs.

The kids my mother is talking about, the ones sitting on the white picket fence, look like they slithered up the hill out of the ocean, covered in seaweed, like the carnival music we heard coming from the boardwalk as we were driving into town plays in the air around them at all times. Two crows are on the posts beside them like they’re standing guard, and they caw at each other loudly as we come to a stop. I love every- thing about this place immediately and I think, ridiculously, that I am no longer alone.

The older girl, white but tan, curvaceous, and lean, has her arms around the boy and is lovely with her smudged eye makeup and her ripped clothes. The younger one pops some- thing made of bright colors into her mouth and watches us come up the drive. She is in a military-style jacket with a ton of buttons, her frizzy blond hair reaching in all directions, freckles slapped across her cheeks. And the boy? Thin, brown, hungry-looking. Not hungry in his stomach. Hungry with his eyes. He has a green bandana tied across his forehead and holes in the knees of his jeans. There’s an A in a circle drawn in marker across the front of his T-shirt.

Anarchy.

“Look!” Roxy points to the gas gauge. It’s just above the E. “You owe me five bucks, Cookie. I told you to trust we would make it, and see what happened? You should listen to your mama every once in a while.”

“Yeah, well, can I borrow the five bucks to pay you for the bet? I’m fresh out of cash at the moment.”

“Very funny.”

Roxy cranes out the window and wipes the sweat off her upper lip, careful not to smudge her red lipstick. She’s been having real bad aches the last two days, even aside from her bruises, and her appetite’s been worse than ever. The only thing she ever wants is sugar. After having been in the car for so long, you’d think we’d be falling all over each other to get out, but we’re still sitting in the car. In here we’re still us.

She sighs for the thousandth time and clutches at her belly. “I don’t know about this, May.”

California can’t be that different from West Texas.

I watch TV. I know how to say gag me with a spoon and grody to the max.

I fling open the door.

Roxy gathers her cigarettes and lighter, and drops them in- side her purse with a snap.

“Goddammit, Elle,” she mutters to herself, eyes flickering toward the kids again. Roxy looks at me over the rims of her sunglasses before shoving them back on her nose. “Mayhem, I’m counting on you to keep your head together here. Those kids are not the usual—”

“I know! You told me they’re foster kids.”

“No, not that,” she says, but doesn’t clarify. “Okay, I guess.”

“I mean it. No more of that wild-child business.”

“I will keep my head together!” I’m so tired of her saying this. I never had any friends, never a boyfriend—all I have is what Grandmother calls my nasty mouth and the hair Lyle always said was ugly and whorish. And once or twice I might’ve got drunk on the roof, but it’s not like I ever did anything. Besides, no kid my age has ever liked me even once. I’m not the wild child in the family.

“Well, all right then.” Roxy messes with her hair in the rear- view mirror, then sprays herself with a cloud of Chanel No. 5 and runs her fingers over her gold necklace. It’s of a bird, not unlike the ones making a fuss by the house. She’s had it as long as I can remember, and over time it’s been worn smooth by her worrying fingers. It’s like she uses it to calm herself when she’s upset about something, and she’s been upset the whole way here, practically. Usually, she’d be good and buzzed by this time of day, but since she’s had to drive some, she’s only nipped from the tiny bottle of wine in her purse a few times and only taken a couple pills since we left Taylor. The with- drawal has turned her into a bit of a she-demon.

I try to look through her eyes, to see what she sees. Roxy hasn’t been back here since I was three years old, and in that time, her mother has died, her father has died, and like she said when she got the card with the picture enclosed that her twin sister, Elle, sent last Christmas, Everybody got old. After that, she spent a lot of time staring in the mirror, pinching at her neck skin. When I was younger, she passed long nights telling me about Santa Maria and the Brayburn Farm, about how it was good and evil in equal measure, about how it had desires that had to be satisfied.

Brayburns, she would say. In my town, we were the legends.

These were the mumbled stories of my childhood, and they made everything about this place loom large. Now that we’re here, I realize I expected the house to have a gaping maw filled with spitty, frothy teeth, as much as I figured there would be fairies flitting around with wands granting wishes. I don’t want to take her vision away from her, but this place looks pretty normal to me, if run-down compared to our new house in Taylor, where there’s no dust anywhere, ever, and Lyle prac- tically keeps the cans of soup in alphabetical order. Maybe what’s not so normal is that this place was built by Brayburns, and here Brayburns matter. I know because the whole road is named after us and because flowers and ribbons and baskets of fruit sat at the entrance, gifts from the people in town, Roxy said. They leave offerings. She said it like it’s normal to be treated like some kind of low-rent goddess.

Other than the van and the kids, there are trees here, rose- bushes, an old black Mercedes, and some bikes leaning against the porch that’s attached to the house. It’s splashed with fresh white paint that doesn’t quite cover up its wrinkles and scars. It’s three stories, so it cuts the sunset when I look up, and plants drape down to touch the dirt.

The front door swings open and a woman in bare feet races past the rosebushes toward us. It is those feet and the reckless way they pound against the earth that tells me this is my aunt Elle before her face does. My stomach gallops and there are bumps all over my arms, and I am more awake than I’ve been since.

I thought Roxy might do a lot of things when she saw her twin sister. Like she might get super quiet or chain-smoke, or maybe even get biting like she can when she’s feeling wrong about something. The last thing I would have ever imagined was them running toward each other and colliding in the driveway, Roxy wrapping her legs around Elle’s waist, and them twirling like that.

This seems like something I shouldn’t be seeing, some- thing wounded and private that fills up my throat. I flip my- self around in my seat and start picking through the things we brought and chide myself yet again for the miserable packing job I did. Since I was basically out of my mind trying to get out of the house, I took a whole package of toothbrushes, an armful of books, my River Phoenix poster, plus I emptied out my underwear drawer, but totally forgot to pack any shoes, so all I have are some flip-flops I bought at the truck stop outside of Las Cruces after that man came to the window, slurring, You got nice legs. Tap, tap tap. You got such nice legs.

My flip-flops are covered in Cheeto dust from a bag that got upended. I slip them on anyway, watching Roxy take her sunglasses off and prop them on her head.

“Son of a bitch!” my aunt says, her voice tinny as she catches sight of Roxy’s eye. “Oh my God, that’s really bad, Rox. You made it sound like nothing. That’s not nothing.”

“Ellie,” Roxy says, trying to put laughter in her voice. “I’m here now. We’re here now.”

There’s a pause.

“You look the same,” Elle says. “Except the hair. You went full Marilyn Monroe.”

“What about you?” Roxy says, fussing at her platinum waves with her palm. “You go full granola warrior? When’s the last time you ate a burger?”

“You know I don’t do that. It’s no good for us. Definitely no good for the poor cows.”

“It’s fine for me.” Roxy lifts Elle’s arm and puckers her nose. “What’s going on with your armpits? May not eat meat but you got animals under there, looks like.”

“Shaving is subjugation.”

“Shaving is a mercy for all mankind.”

They erupt into laughter and hug each other again.

“Well, where is she, my little baby niece?” Elle swings the car door open. “Oh, Mayhem.” She scoops me out with two strong arms. Right then I realize just how truly tired I am. She seems to know, squeezes extra hard for a second before letting me go. She smells like the sandalwood soap Roxy buys sometimes. “My baby girl,” Elle says, “you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to see you. How much I’ve missed you.”

Roxy circles her ear with a finger where Elle can’t see her.

Crazy, she mouths. I almost giggle.

#mayhem #estelle laure #blog tour #chapter excerpt #free chapter #book excerpt #book promotion #booklr #supernatural ya #paranormal ya #st. martin's press #netgalley

9 notes · View notes

freddiesaysalright · 5 years

Text

Beautiful Mess Part 11

A Brian May x Reader Fic

Summary: Reader works in a bookshop. She meets Brian May and they have an instant connection. It seems to be a fairy tale romance. But, things are seldom what they seem.

Word Count: 3.5K

Tag List: @psychosupernatural, @someone-get-a-medic, @bensrhapsody, @deakyclicks, @crazylittlethingcalledobsession, @minigranger, @crazyweirdocalledfriday, @mrs-jack-murphy, @not-john-watsons-blog, @simmisblog, @mirkwoodshewolf, @assembledherethevolunteers, @thosequeenboys, @lv7867, @maymacca, @rethought, @brianslittlepet, @jinxy93, @stephydearestxo, @mrcleanisthicc, @7-seas-of-fat-bottomed-girls, @readinghorn, @lookuptotheskiesandsee, @reedusteinrambles, @borhapqueen92, @1204-moonchild, @bohemiansweede Let me know if you’d like to be tagged for the epilogue!

A/N: The last chapter! There will be an epilogue though, so it’s not quite over yet! I love epilogues...I’m just trash like that

Warning(s): Some steamy stuff in there, but nothing explicit.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

Part 11 here we go!!!

The only thing keeping your spirits up was the prospect of reuniting with Brian. The months apart had been difficult. Watching Richard deteriorate was nearly unbearable. You were almost relieved when he actually passed because his quality of life at the end was nonexistent.

“Ma’am, what can I get you to drink?” asked the stewardess as she leaned over your seat, pulling you out of your thoughts before that memory could pain you.

“Red wine, please,” you told her.

She nodded before moving on to the person behind you.

You looked out the little round window of the plane. Rain pattered against the surface, soft and light. No real trouble for your journey.

You were flying out of London to New York. Then from New York to Boston. That’s where you would meet Brian and the band on their tour. You decided to head out the day after Richard’s funeral. You needed to get away from everything for a while. The shop, the Kimballs, everything that reminded you of what you’d lost.

As a raindrop slid down the window, you thought of the irony that the day of Richard’s funeral was a rare, sunny day in London. It also made a comment from Charlie hit extra hard.

You watched Richard’s parents as they buried their son. The sunlight gleamed off his casket as the clergyman spoke. You couldn’t hear the words. You had all your love for Richard stored in your heart, and you didn’t need a spiritual meaning to it. Your eyes were fixed on Charlie and Susan.

Susan wept quietly into her handkerchief, dabbing at her eyes every few minutes. Charlie, however, seemed absolutely stoic. His face was expressionless, his eyes trained on the priest. His grief was apparently beyond tears.

You cried on and off throughout. You had cried with Richard and for Richard as his days dwindled, and you did it mostly alone. He asked his parents not to come to Switzerland, so they wouldn’t see him so weak.

As the service wore on, you sniffled. In his first moment of action, Charlie took your hand. But he still looked firmly forward, even when he gently squeezed your fingers. You blinked and a tear rolled down your cheek.

When they were lowering Richard into the ground, Susan began to sob quietly. As they covered him, she clung to you and her husband, and you supported her, fearing she might collapse. You tried to whisper some comforting words to her, but you were certain she never heard them. Finally, Charlie just wrapped her up in his arms and held her to his chest.

With one final blessing, it was all over. Susan couldn’t stand to be there, so she laid a gentle hand on Richard’s headstone before following the crowd out of the cemetery. You remained behind, looking at Charlie, who still had a stony look on his face.

“Papa?” you said. “Are you ready to go?”

He turned his back to you, facing the headstone. With a trembling hand, he touched it, running his fingers over the engraved words, particularly the years of Richard’s life.

“Papa?”

“It’s going to rain,” he said, looking resolutely up at the cloudless sky. “It’s going to rain.”

His voice rang in your ears as you sat on the plane now. Was Charlie at last letting his grief out? So much so that even the sky wept with him? You hoped so. Only the sky could convey the actual depth of that kind of loss. And he needed to let himself feel it.

You took a deep drink of you wine to swallow the lump in your throat.

The plane began to roll down the runway. It picked up speed right along with your heart. At last, you were escaping this sadness and flying to the person who made your heart happiest. Brian.

It was in the wee small hours of the morning when you finally arrived in Boston. The band had sent a car for you, and you thanked the driver as he put your luggage in the trunk and helped you into your seat.

You had never been to Boston before. You had visited the US years ago, but only New York City and Washington, DC. Those were extremely fun trips you and Richard had taken shortly after the announcement of your engagement. You were thankful the band had already been to those cities, and you would not have to face those memories.

Boston was beautiful. It was historical and unique. And much cleaner than you remembered New York being. The hotel was an upscale one in the heart of the city. You pulled up, and outside, you spotted Roger. He was smoking a cigarette and leaning over a girl who was pressed up against the wall. You heard her giggling as you emerged from the back of the car. When the door closed, he turned around and looked at you.

“Oh, evening, Y/N,” he said sloppily.

“More like good morning,” you returned with an amused smirk.

“What time is it?” he wondered.

“It’s four,” you said.

He faced the woman again. “Well, then. Time to get to bed, eh, love?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” she replied with a wide smile.

He flicked his cigarette away and started to lead her in.

“Wait, Roger!” you cried. “Could you tell me which room Brian’s in?”

“Six fifteen, I believe,” he said, wrinkling his brow as the thought. “Yeah, that’s it, ‘cause I’m next door and I’m in six seventeen.”

“Thanks, Rog,” you said.

He offered a mock salute.

“Good to see you, Y/N.”

With that, he disappeared inside. The driver finished unloading your bags and closed the trunk of the car.

“Anything else, ma’am?” he asked.

“No, thank you,” you replied, and handed him a tip.

A bellhop from the hotel came out and took your trolley of bags, following you into the elevator, and then down the hall to Brian’s room. You felt a bit nervous as you approached. You wondered if he’d been missing you or if he was having too much fun to think much of you. You realized it was absurd to think that way because of course Brian missed you. You shook your head.

The door was just barely cracked open and you smiled. He was waiting for you. You lifted your bags off the trolley, tipped the bellhop, and then pushed the door open.

The room was incredibly quiet, and you wondered if Brian was even there. Then, as you came further inside, you saw him. He was lying on the bed, fast asleep. The copy of Emma you’d loaned him was on his chest, his fingers just brushing the spine. You almost laughed. He must have fallen asleep reading.

You set your bags down and took a moment to just look at Brian. You had missed him so much these last few months that it seemed unreal to be in the same room as him now. You wanted to wake him and greet him properly, but he looked so at peace in his sleep. His mind was usually so active, you felt the only time he really got rest was when he slept. But you also knew that if you were in his position, you would want him to wake you.

So, you approached the bed. Kicking your shoes off, you crawled carefully over to him. He stirred, his head turning toward you and you smiled. You slowly put one leg over both of his so you could hover above him. Then you inched the book away from his hand and put it on the nightstand. In classic Brian fashion, the shirt underneath the book was mostly unbuttoned, leaving his chest exposed.

You pressed your lips to his warm skin, trailing from his collarbone all the way down to where the buttons were done, which was nearly to his belly button. He moaned softly beneath you and shifted.

“Y/N…”

You kissed his chest again.

“Yeah, baby?” you questioned.

Suddenly, he sucked in a sharp breath and his eyes snapped open. He stared, wide-eyed, at you for what felt like several long minutes. You just smiled at him.

Without warning, he grinned, grabbed you by the shoulders, and flipped you onto your back as he rolled on top of you. He showered you with kisses as you shrieked with laughter. It hit you how foreign it sounded. You couldn’t even remember the last time you laughed. But it felt natural with Brian, especially since he was kissing you everywhere his lips could reach.

“Brian!” you cried with a giggle. “My goodness, baby!”

“I - missed - you - so - fucking - much!” he said between kisses.

“I missed you too!” you returned happily.

He slowed down, placing a tender kiss to your lips. You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him closer. He relaxed against you, his hips settling between your legs as your lips moved together in harmony. You moaned into his mouth before he pulled away.

“Fuck, I missed you so much,” he panted.

“I missed you too,” you assured him again.

You put your hands on either side of his face, stroking his cheeks with your thumbs. He was so warm and comfortable. So beautiful to look at. He turned his face to press his lips into your palm before looking down at you again.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Perfect now that I’m with you,” you breathed back.

He half smiled, but looked hard at you.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for the funeral,” he said.

“Don’t be,” you returned. “It was fine.”

He moved your hair off your forehead and your eyes fluttered closed to his touch. It was like coming home to be in his arms and touching him again. Just to feel him. Really there. His scent and the sound of his voice was like an old familiar tune. A song you knew by heart. You opened your eyes to see him again.

“What do you need from me, dove?” he asked.

You smiled. It was a question you appreciated.

“D’you want to talk about everything?” he continued. “Or do you want to be distracted?”

“Distracted, please,” you said. “I don’t want to think about anything but you.”

He chuckled as he pecked your lips. “I can think of a few ways to make that happen.”

His tone sent a thrilling shiver down your spine.

“Well, by all means, get started,” you teased.

You hurriedly stripped each other of your clothing. Rushed, desperate kisses were placed across each other’s skin as the need to feel as close as possible took over. Your lovemaking was hasty and quick, chasing that release together after so much time apart. Brian was even a little rough with his thrusts, so you were seeing stars by the end of it. The absolute passion of being together again was overwhelming. You did forget everything except for Brian as he took you.

As you both came down from your highs, sweating and breathing heavily, he rolled off of you, but still pulled you under his arm. You rested your head on his chest. His heartbeat was quick and loud.

“I love you,” you sighed.

You felt him kiss the top of your head.

“I love you too,” he replied.

As you lay in the afterglow, weariness began to creep up on you. Your eyelids felt heavy and drooped closed.

“Brian,” you said.

“Yes, dove?”

“Hold me.”

“I am holding you,” he chuckled.

“Tighter,” you insisted.

He squeezed his arm around you gently. You snuggled as close to him as possible. There, in your spot over his heart, you slept more soundly than you had in months.

Brian remained awake. He watched you as you slept, and he saw the effects of the past weeks etched onto your face. It was like you hadn’t slept at all since he left you in the airport that day, and were finally catching up on it now. While you were still incredibly beautiful to him, the bags under your eyes and lines on your face told him what you didn’t say.

What you had been through was unimaginable to him. How long you were a nurse for Richard. What he must have looked like at the end. What his last words must have sounded like.

You told Brian over the phone that Richard passed away while you sat with him. You’d been holding his hand and felt it go limp. You heard his last breath leave his body. Brian shuddered at the thought. The pain it must have caused you. Brian would never forget the way you sounded when you called him. It was worse than a wounded animal.

He was relieved when you said you wanted distraction. As much as he loved being there for you, he wasn’t sure how much more tears he could take. It broke his heart to see you cry, so to see you now at peace was something he would hold onto. He was sure more tears would come. But for now, you could be happy. If not happy, at least content.

He dragged his fingers up and down your arm. He felt your body further relax into him as he did. That made him smile.

“Rest, dove,” he whispered into your hair. “Just rest now.”

Before too much longer, he drifted off behind you.

You and Brian stirred awake at the same time a few hours later. You smiled lazily up at him. Being with him made it feel like more than your body was rested. Your soul was rested too.

“How’d you sleep?” he asked.

“Amazing,” you replied, leaning up to peck him on the lips.

“Good,” he said. “I’ll have breakfast ordered to the room. Is that alright?”

“That’s perfect,” you said.

He started to roll over and reach for the phone, but you stopped him.

“Wait!”

“What is it?” he wondered, shooting you a puzzled look.

“Kiss me again,” you requested.

He happily obliged. You felt like you were being a bit annoying, asking to be held extra tight and then for another kiss, but you needed him. He grinned so widely, you were assured that he didn’t mind.

As he ordered the food, you leaned back against the pillows. You looked out the window and saw the bright blue sky and suddenly felt a bit of a lump in your throat.

“Alright,” Brian said. “Should be up in about ten minutes.”

You continued to look out the window.

“It’s going to rain, I think,” you said.

Brian followed your gaze. He didn’t argue that the sun was shining. It was like he read your mind. No. More like he read your heart.

“Well, it’ll help the flowers grow,” he replied.

You smiled at that.

Breakfast came and you enjoyed it together. You had real time to catch up now, and it was nice to feel sort of normal again. He told you he’d gotten you a backstage pass for the remainder of the shows, which excited you. Seeing Queen live was such an experience and you wanted to live it over and over again.

“So, how’d Cat take the parting?” Brian asked as he sipped his coffee.

“Honestly, he was more cross with me for leaving Switzerland,” you said. “He loved it there. But, I think he’ll be happy with grandma and grandpa for a while.”

He chuckled. “I’m assuming that’s Charlie and Susan?”

You nodded.

“Is that what our children will call them too?” he wondered.

You stopped, mid-bite into your bacon, and looked at him.

“Our children?” you repeated.

“Yeah, when we have them,” he said with a shrug.

You smirked. “When were you thinking of having children?”

“What, you don’t want them?” he asked.

“No, I do - especially your children - I just didn’t realize you thought about things like that,” you admitted.

“Of course I do,” he replied as if it were obvious. “I think about our future together a lot.”

Your smile widened.

“To answer your question,” you said. “Yes. Mama and Papa will be grandma and grandpa to our children.”

He kissed your cheek.

“I think that’s wonderful.”

After breakfast, you made love again, and then showered together before joining the band for the day. You went with them to the venue, which was massive, and Brian explained how the whole lighting rig worked and the behind the scenes aspect of the show. You were thoroughly impressed.

The whole tour was impressive. Travelling with the band was thrilling. The best part was spending every night with Brian and growing in your relationship even more. He was attentive to you throughout. Your grief for Richard came up at odd times. It was like a window you tried to keep closed, but every once in a while, it sprung open, letting in the wind and the rain. In those moments, Brian just held you close and let you feel it. As time wore on, the window was easier to close.

Brian had unknowingly restored your hope. When Richard died, you felt like everything was pointless. But when Brian talked about your children, or getting married, or mentioned anything about how your lives might look going forward, you felt purposeful again. Life was still to be lived, and you had an excellent one in store with Brian at your side.

When you returned to England after the tour, you and Brian decided to live together. He moved into your flat with you, and you found that having him there made it feel more like a home than just a place to live. You had Cat there as well, and you both agreed he truly ran the household. You marveled at how much this little cat affected your life. You owed him a lot.

Your sorrow for Richard began to ease, especially once you started helping Charlie out more. Your primary job was still at the bookshop, but you filled up a lot of the space that Richard left. It oddly made you feel closer to him. Once your life found its rhythm again, the pain subsided, and you let yourself feel the joys you experienced.

A year and a half after Richard died, you and Brian were lying together in bed. He was preparing to go on tour yet again. This time, you would not be joining him. You had nothing you wanted to be away from now. As fun as your last trip was, it was too long to leave the shop again.

“I’m going to miss you,” you told him, running a hand through his curls.

“I’m gonna miss you too,” he returned.

“You’ll be the one having all the fun,” you teased. “Seeing all the cities and going to all the parties…”

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” he protested. “Parties are sort of awkward without you.”

“Because women come on to you?”

His face flushed and he looked away.

You laughed. “Brian, I trust you,” you said. “Although, I can hardly blame them.”

The red on his cheeks deepened and you giggled. You traced his nose with your finger, trailing over his cheekbones as well.

“You are good looking,” you said. You regularly felt the need to remind him of this.

“Thank you,” he replied.

“If only there was a way to tell those women I’ve snatched you up already,” you sighed, a light tone in your voice.

“We could get married,” he blurted out.

Your heart skipped a beat and your hand went to his chest. You stared at him and he met your gaze, looking hopeful.

“Before I go,” he continued. “We could get married.”

“Brian, are you...are you proposing?” you asked breathlessly.

“I - yes, I am,” he said.

He sat up. You followed suit, a smile spreading across your lips.

“Think about it,” he said. “We already live together and that’s great. We’ve been together for nearly two years. We’ve been through so much and we know we can -”

You cut him off by grabbing his face and pulling him in for a deep kiss. He wrapped his arms around you and held you against him.

“You don’t have to pitch me,” you assured him. “Nothing would make me happier than being your wife.”

He grinned and kissed you again. You smiled into his lips. It was freeing to have this choice. He wasn’t forced on you. You wanted to marry him. You had found absolute love and you wanted to declare it to the world. Brian once told you that he was yours. Well, you were his too. By your own free will, with your whole heart, you were his.

“I don’t have a ring or anything,” he sputtered when you broke apart.

“It doesn’t matter,” you said, shaking your head. “We’ll pick out wedding bands and go to the courthouse this week. I just want you, baby.”

His eyes searched yours for any doubt. Any hesitation that might linger. He found none.

“I love you,” he said.

Tears stung your eyes. This time, happy ones.

“I love you too, Brian,” you replied. “I’ll love you forever.”

“Yes,” he laughed. “Forever.”

And you did.

#Brian May #brian may x reader #brian may imagine #brian may x you #Queen #queen imagine #queen fanfic #queen x reader #queen x you #bohemian rhapsody #BoRhap #borhap imagine #bohemian rhapsody imagine #gwilym lee #gwilym lee x reader #gwilym lee imagine #gwilym lee x you #beautiful mess series

113 notes · View notes