#chapter five huh? we actually did it.

[nereidprinc3ss]

do you believe me now? | 4

in which spencer reid and inexperienced fem!reader are interrupted at the most inopportune of times. he calls you on the first night of his case. dirty talk turns into a hard conversation. we get a glimpse into spencer's past, and we finally learn why he's so hesitant to sleep with you.

part one | part two | bonus chapter | part three

part five

18+ (smut) warnings/tags: dirty talk, phone sex/mutual masturbation, softdom!spence, obligatory he talks u through it, lots of graphic discussions of sex, established relationship, angst (sorrryyy!) a/n: so remember how i said you'd need the bonus chapter to fully appreciate/understand this part? i was wrong!! it will come in handy probably in the next part tho:) also idk how these parts keep getting so long im sorry! anyway, i love you all so bad. thank you for bearing w/ my craziness. PLEASE let me know your thoughts on this part!! i adore hearing from you!! kisses

(also special thank you to @fliesforeyes who convinced me phone sex w/ spence could be done!! i will link his phone sex blurb here :)) thank u binx!!

“Three million six hundred eighty four thousand three hundred thirty two times fourteen million seven hundred sixty one thousand nine hundred seventy one.”

You’ve lost count of how many stupid math questions you’ve asked your human calculator boyfriend, just to see if he can actually do them. Spencer is silent for a second, and you think you’ve finally stumped him. 

“That one is complicated.”

You sit bolt upright in his bed, looking down at him and pointing an accusatory finger. His brows raise at the manic look in your eye. 

“You don’t know.”

“I do know. I meant it would be hard to explain if you aren’t a math person.”

“Bullshit!” You scoff, “you don’t know!”

“It would display on a calculator as five-point-three-eight-eight-E-thirteen. It’s a really big number.”

“Oh, really big, huh?” you mumble, searching for your phone blindly in the sheets and scrambling to open the calculator app. “Um… what numbers did I say?”

Spencer repeats them back to you and you press the equals sign. 

You look at it. 

And then you set your phone down. 

“I was right, huh?” he smiles up at you, probably reveling in your pouty wrongness. 

Too proud to admit it, you collapse on top of him, burying your face in his shoulder. 

“I don’t like this game anymore. What the fuck even is an e? Why are we doing algebra?”

Spencer laughs, brushing your hair aside. 

“The e stands for exponent. It’s to the power of ten.”

“Ever heard of a rhetorical question?”

“Yes, I have.”

It’s hard not to snort even at his dumbest jokes. 

“You’re annoying. Let’s do something else.”

You roll over onto your back again, letting your head flop over to look at Spencer, whose hair is exactly the right amount of messy after a long day, falling in impossibly soft waves over the perfect lines and contours of his face. Despite lounging, he’s still in his suit from work—he’d left Quantico and immediately picked you up. There were no solid plans for the evening, so after both of you pretended that you wanted to go out for a while, you ended up back at his apartment. 

He looks good. Almost too good. 

“Something like what?” he smiles lazily, reaching over and tracing his fingers over your cheek. 

“Something… naked?”

His grin widens and he shakes his head. 

“Me naked or you naked?”

Pretending to think about it, you roll your bottom lip between your teeth. 

“Mm… why not both?”

“Hm. Why do I feel like I know where this is going?”

The mattress sinks underneath your elbow as you prop yourself up, dropping your head over Spencer’s to kiss him. 

“Because you’re so smart, and you think it’s a great idea.”

He entertains your kiss for a moment. Just a moment.

“You sound sure of yourself.”

“Because I am!” You finally give in to your impulses, tangling your fingers in his hair and looking at him meaningfully. “It doesn’t make any sense for us to have not had sex. I don’t care about any of your weird, cryptic moral reasoning.”

He grabs your wrist carefully. 

“It is not moral,” he scoffs. “We haven’t even talked about it yet.”

“Really? Because I feel like we’ve talked about it a lot.” 

He begins to reply, but you realize you don’t want to get into a debate over whether you’ve technically talked about it yet. “I don’t even care! If that’s all that’s standing in your way, then let’s talk about it. Right now.”

Spencer sighs, his eyes darting between yours as he reaches up to cradle your cheek. 

“Fine. But I have things to say you’re not going to like.”

“So business as usual?”

He rolls his eyes. You allow yourself a tiny self-satisfied smirk, forever relishing in his poorly-hidden soft spot for your constant teasing. Spencer ignores this. Which is probably for the best. 

“I know you probably won’t see it this way, but—sex is different than everything else we’ve done so far. It can be really fun, obviously it feels good, it facilitates deeper feelings of connection—that’s all true. Which is why, in my opinion, it’s incredibly important that you be selective with who you sleep with. Because it’s so easy to do something you regret, and sex is vulnerable. It should always be with someone you trust and—and… care about.”

A pink flush stains his cheeks like watercolor as he stumbles over the last few words. It makes your heart flutter against the confines of your chest.

Maybe best not to think about the absence versus presence of certain four-letter words and what they may or may not mean. You’ll move on to more pressing matters and pretend like it doesn’t ache just a little in your whole body. 

You cover his hand with your own. 

“Are you going to break up with me anytime soon?”

Spencer’s eyes widen, filling with genuine horror and confusion. 

“What? No!”

“Are you going to cheat on me?”

“Absolutely not, I—”

“Then I’m not going to regret it. Issue resolved. Moving on.”

“Honey, I just want you to be 100% sure that I’m what you want.”

“Oh my god,” you groan, flopping onto your back once more. “I have begged you to sleep with me on multiple occasions. We have been dating for months and I liked you even longer before that. I think about it literally every time I see you. I don’t know how to be any surer.”

It’s quiet for a moment as you study the imaginary pattern on the ceiling. The rebuttal you’d been anticipating doesn’t come—instead, the mattress shifts next to you. Spencer enters your field of vision, now leaning over you with a little smile on his face that gives you butterflies. 

“Every time?”

“…yes, every time,” you agree, voice considerably thinner than it had been a moment ago. Spencer glances at your lips as he speaks. 

“Interesting. And what is it that you think about exactly?”

You groan again, attempting to roll facedown, but he pins your shoulder to the bed. The way he’s sweetly kissing down your cheek and jaw is infuriating because you know it’s a false pretense. 

“Ugh, I don’t know! Don’t make me answer that!”

“You said if talking about it was all that was standing in my way, we would talk about it. Now I want to talk about it. Come on,” he says, voice low and cloying against your throat as he attempts to tease the answer out of you. “Tell me what you think about when you think about us having sex.”

You let out a shaky breath at the feeling of his lips skimming your neck, hating how easily he can reduce you to this. 

“I… I always wonder what it will feel like. Sometimes I wonder if it will hurt.”

Spencer sighs, interrogation by way of seduction momentarily forgotten. You silently curse yourself for saying something so un-sexy. 

“It might, sweetheart. That’s one of the reasons we’ve held back. I… really don’t want to hurt you. I don’t even know if I can.”

You grab his face in both hands, forcing him to look at you with more confidence than you feel. 

“Sometimes I worry about it, too. But I like you a lot more than it scares me. I still want to.”

He kisses your palm. 

“You’ll be okay. It doesn’t hurt for everyone, and even if it does, you’re resilient.”

“Exactly. So you have to get over yourself.”

Spencer laughs like he wasn’t expecting to, eyes sparkling as he regards you.  

“Yeah. Yeah, maybe I do.”

He’s smiling again as he leans down and kisses you—a slow, lingering thing which tastes like spearmint as you part your lips for him. 

“Please?” you whisper against him after a long moment. He hums, keeps kissing you. 

“What is it that you think you want? You don’t even know what you’re asking for.”

“Tell me,” you beg, chasing his lips. “Tell me what you’re going to do with me. We can talk about it. This is talking about it.”

Spencer exhales deeply, wedging a thigh between yours. Immediately you clamp around it, trying not to grind against him too overtly. 

“You want to know what I’d do to you?”

“Yes—” you paw at his jacket. Surprisingly, he doesn’t stop you from pushing it off. Your heart pounds. 

“Well… we both know how anxious you get,” he muses, pressing his lips so delicately to your fluttering pulse-point in emphasis, and then back to your mouth. His thigh pushes harder against you to supplant the absence of his lips as he speaks, though he kisses you sporadically and between sentences. “You’re hard to get out of your head when you’re nervous, you know that? I watch it happen. One minute you’re with me, and then you start overthinking, and getting self-conscious. The only thing that seems to relax you is letting me touch you—so first I would touch you like I’ve touched you before. I’d make sure you know how pretty you are and how good you deserve to feel.” You whimper inadvertently at his words, arching into him and grinding against his leg as he pauses to kiss the sensitive soft spot below your jaw. “You’re going to need to be really ready to let me in. Do you know what I mean by that?”

As he asks, he pushes his thigh against you harder. Your body responds immediately, arching into him and seeking more friction. When you squeak, he takes it as a no. 

“I mean I need you relaxed and wet. You’ll excuse my crude language.”

You pull at his tie, breathing heavier now and so turned on it’s almost painful. 

“What are you gonna do after that?”

“What else is there to do but fuck you after that?” he breathes. “You want me to tell you how I’d fuck you?”

Something about it makes you whine salaciously. You’ve heard him curse—you’ve even heard him talk about fucking you. But it feels more real now; when it’s low in your ear and you’re covertly undressing him and he’s pushing your shirt over your stomach promisingly. 

“Yes, please.” 

He hums against your jaw, nipping and brushing his lips over the skin as he considers. Leaves you waiting. 

“I would have to take my time with you. You’ll be overwhelmed. I know you think you won’t, but you will. I’m going to have to be so, so careful with you, angel. It’s going to drive me insane. But it will feel good for you.”

“Why careful? I don’t want that.”

He chuckles. A chill runs down your spine. 

“Yeah, you do. You’re going to want me to be careful when I’m—” he pauses, pressing his thumb to your bare lower tummy and dragging up to a spot below your belly button. He presses down lightly again. “Right here. Approximately.”

The surface of the sun has nothing on the temperature of your skin in this moment, as you writhe underneath him in both arousal and embarrassment. Mostly, burning need. You feel almost sick with it. 

“Please don’t make me wait anymore. Just do it, please, Spencer. I need it to be you, I don’t want it to be anyone else. I promise I’m ready.”

It’s silent for a moment. Your heart quickens. You sense his walls wearing away, his instinct to keep you intact for god knows what reason crumbling. He’s finally going to give you what you’ve been begging for. 

Spencer opens his mouth, eyes glimmering—

And then his phone rings. 

You both freeze—he melts dejectedly before you do, more accustomed to an ill-timed phone call and realizing the finality it can present. 

He’s breathing heavily against your neck, as if maybe whoever it is will just hang up. But the phone keeps ringing. 

“I’m sorry.”

Your stomach sinks as he sits up, grabbing his phone from the side table and rubbing circles on your inner thigh as he answers.

“This is Reid,” he says, lackluster. 

If you wanted, you could hear what Penelope is saying—but you don’t bother listening. It’s going to be a case. Spencer is about to leave. The details are his problem. 

“Okay. I’ll be there in an hour.”

He hangs up, tossing the phone onto the mattress and not speaking for a moment, just continuing to rub your leg apologetically. Watching you almost mournfully—taking in your disheveled hair, your likely blown-out pupils, the shirt pushed almost over your chest. 

“I have to go right now,” he finally manages with a heavy sigh, gently pulling your shirt back into place. 

You sit up, shedding all the hopes that had been building for the evening, and try to sound chipper—though all you feel is bitter disappointment that goes deeper than you understand. 

“I know. Go ahead, I can get a cab home.”

He frowns, running his hand over the back of your hair. 

“I don’t love the idea of you standing on the sidewalk waiting for a car in this part of town so late. Do you just want to stay here for the night and go home tomorrow?”

You force a smile. Great. So you’ll be spending the night in his bed after all—just without him. 

“Sure. Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

Neither of you are feeling particularly grateful. 

Soon you’re walking him to his own door. Both of you come to a stop in front. 

“I’m sorry,” he sighs again. 

“Spencer, it’s fine. It’s your job. You don’t need to apologize. You were very clear about this part when we started dating.”

“I know, but… it’s easier in theory than in practice.”

You smile. If Spencer is a reflection of you, it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. His hair is still messy from your fingers running through it and he’s missing his tie. You hope all his coworkers see and feel bad about taking him away from you. 

But it’s not their fault. You just want someone to blame. 

Instead you mould yourself to his body, wrapping around him like you belong there. He returns your embrace, pressing his lips into the crook of your shoulder and rubbing your back in that way he always does with you. 

In that moment, your affection for him becomes so profound it’s like a chemical reaction—everywhere he touches burns and you love him so fucking much it aches in every inch of your body the way your muscles do when you have a bad fever. Love is the most terrible of afflictions, you realize. It is a fever dream. It’s every fiber of your being screaming to tell him how you feel, to beg him on your knees not to go because you love him like a child loves a parent or a bee loves honeysuckle or the ocean loves the horizon. Pared down to your most basic components, the barest version of yourself, you require him. Your soul needs his soul. 

“Spencer?”

“Hm?” 

It’s nothing more than an absentminded hum against your skin. 

“I…”

Should you be looking him in the eye when you say this? Should you say it right before he has to leave? Just because you say it doesn’t change the fact that he’s about to be gone for several long days. Maybe this is a terrible time to admit something that suddenly feels so true and so consequential. 

He senses your internal conflict, pulling back despite your resistance and holding your face between his hands. 

“You what?” He murmurs, soft eyes bouncing back and forth between your own. Fuck—you feel so observed, now. Like he can read your mind. 

“I forget.”

FUUUUUUCK. 

Spencer blinks. Processes. You watch the disbelief crystallizing over his eyes like ice freezing over a lake. 

He knows. 

He knows you didn’t forget, and he probably knows what you were going to say, and he’s going to tell himself he was wrong to spare your dignity. 

Everything hurts when he kisses you. You wonder what regret tastes like. 

“Well, let me know if you remember.”

It’s too gentle and at the same time he can’t hide the edge with all the tenderness in the world. You nod as if in a trance, already looking forward to dissociating as you lie in bed and stare at the dark ceiling.

Two small goodbyes are exchanged, slightly stifled now, as if shared between drunk strangers who have sobered up and are mutually embarrassed about how candidly they’d interacted before. 

You close the door behind him, doing up all the locks, and meticulously flick every light switch in the apartment off before climbing into his bed—though you don’t really feel like you deserve to be there anymore.

But perhaps this is all an overreaction. It’s not like you owe it to him to say I love you, or anything—it was bad timing, anyway. And why can’t he say it? In fact, why hasn’t he said it? 

Maybe you have it all wrong. 

Maybe he doesn’t feel that way about you. 

You fall asleep before you allow these questions to make you sick. 

24 hours go by. 

24 hours go by and you really had meant to leave his apartment—it was just that you woke up late, and your phone was dead so you couldn’t call a car, so you charged it while you made breakfast, and then you ate, and then you decided to take a shower and wash your clothes, and then it was two in the afternoon and you hadn’t left yet and you decided to walk to the store and replenish the groceries you’d used up. 

Maybe you got a bit distracted looking at flowers and other beautiful things at the market and by the time you got home it was 5:00, so you decided to wait until seven to skip rush hour. And then eight, just to be sure. 

Before you know it, it’s midnight, and you’re dozing off in his bed again (teeth cleaned with the brush you’d bought at the store—maybe this whole situation hadn’t been entirely unwitting on your part.)

Throughout the day, you tried to let all your anxiety about the previous night melt away. If it’s something that needs to be addressed, Spencer will address it. Everything will work out in the end. That thought is how you’re able to doze off. 

You’re almost asleep when your phone lights up and begins buzzing on the side table. You wince as your eyes open, not adjusting well to the harsh bright display and unable to discern who’s even calling you at this hour. Stupidly, probably because you’re half asleep, you answer without checking. 

“Hello?”

Your voice is groggy, quiet with sleep. 

“Shit, did I wake you?”

“Spence?” you whisper, stomach flipping at the sound of his voice on the other line. You feel caught, still sleeping in his bed. 

“… yeah,” he chuckles. “Did you not check who was calling before you picked up?”

“I was asleep,” you pout. “Kinda.”

“Okay. Go back to sleep, honey. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

You sit bolt upright, phone balanced between tense fingers and speaking directly into the microphone. 

“No! No, I’m awake. What’s up? Why did you call?”

A longer stretch of silence—you’re too sleepy to comprehend what it might mean, though never too sleepy to worry about it. With a pang of pain, you recall your strange goodbye, the words you hadn’t said. 

“I just needed to hear your voice,” he sighs. You frown, staring at nothing in particular in the pitch black room. 

“Oh. Is everything okay?”

“As much as it can be.”

“Right.”

More quiet. You chew on the inside of your cheek, stricken with a sudden feeling of awkwardness that you haven’t had with Spencer in a while. 

“I’m sorry… I don’t really know what to say.”

“That’s okay,” he says, and you can hear the smile in his voice which makes you feel a bit better, “why don’t you tell me about your day? Or you can absolutely go back to sleep, if you’re too tired.”

“Don’t ask me about my day,” you whisper, flopping down on the bed once more. Shame seeps into your voice. He laughs. 

“What? Why?”

“Because if I tell you you’re going to think I’m super weird and you’re going to break up with me.”

Laughter tapers off into gentler tones. 

“I already think you’re super weird. It’s actually one of your most attractive qualities.”

Blood rushes to your cheeks. 

“But it’s like… borderline crazy.”

Immediately, he replies, “for better or worse, I also frequently find myself attracted to crazy.”

“Thank you for calling me crazy and super weird,” you grumble. 

“I also called you attractive twice. Tell me.”

When his tone takes on that easy, assertive quality, and it’s sort of raspy and low because it’s late and he’s been talking all day, and you can hear the lazy smile on his face—you imagine him laying on his hotel bed, arm slung over his eyes in the dark as he grins into the microphone—you have a very difficult time saying no. 

“Fine. Guess where I am right now.”

“Um, I would hope you’re in bed?”

You smile to yourself, basking in the victory of successfully throwing him off his game even slightly. 

“Guess whose bed.”

Silence. 

“What an interesting question.” That cocky smile, the low drawling is back, and you chew on your lip, ignoring the shiver that runs down your spine. “If it’s not mine or yours, we’re going to have issues.”

“But if it is yours? You’re not going to call the police on me?”

“Why would I call the police? To tell them there’s a pretty girl in my bed and I don’t want her there?”

“To tell them your psychopathic girlfriend broke into your apartment and might be holding hostages there.”

Spencer laughs; a brittle, drawn out thing, flat and quiet as the desert.

“If you were a psychopath, calling the cops would be a waste of time. I would handle you myself.” The idea of being handled has your thighs clenching. “But—yeah, don’t invite anyone else in.” More humor finds its way into his voice, momentarily relieving some tension that had sneakily begun to build. “Having people in my space makes me anxious.”

“But not me?” Your whisper is half flirtatious, half insecure. Spencer’s reply is soft, as if he’s picking up on this from hundreds of miles away.

“No, not you. You are always the exception.”

“Good,” you say, cheeks aching as you half-bury your warm face into his pillow. “Because I made myself really comfortable. You have a nice shower, by the way.”

Spencer groans. 

“You’re killing me.”

“What? What did I do!”

“Don’t talk to me about my bed and my shower. I might start to think you’re intentionally being a brat.”

“You asked me about my day! I’m just telling you what I did!”

But you’re also intentional teasing him for sure.  After a pause, he sighs in defeat. 

“You’re right. I did do that. Tell me what else happened.”

“Well,” you begin, all too eager, “I had to put my clothes in the dryer after I got out, so I borrowed some of yours. But then they were way comfier than mine, so after I went to the store I put them back on, and—”

“Okay.”

“Okay what?” you frown. 

“Tell me what this is.”

“I—I don’t know what you mean.”

Lying to a profiler is usually pointless. 

“I’m not stupid, sweetheart. Tell me why you keep talking about my shower and my bed and my clothes.”

Caught red-handed. Your skin heats up. 

“I don’t know. I miss you.”

He hums in a way that blurs the line between sympathetic and patronizing. Even through the phone you can feel the bass of it in your bones.  It changes the frequency you’re vibrating at. It’s hypnotic. 

“But that’s not really why you’re being intentionally provocative, is it?”

“No,” you admit quietly. “I’m still upset you had to go last night.”

“So you’re frustrated and you’re taking it out on me?”

Your brow furrows. Well, when he puts it like that…

“I’m not taking anything out on you.”

“I think you are. And I don’t appreciate that, because I’m on your side, honey. Do you think I prefer being in a hotel bed by myself or being in my bed with you?”

Somehow, he makes you feel like a scolded child. But he makes it appealing in ways you don’t understand. 

“Your bed with me,” you murmur, skin prickling with the coldness of his absence even as you curl under the blanket. 

“Right. So why don’t you tell me what I can do for you right now, instead of punishing me for things that are beyond my control?”

“I wasn’t punishing you,” you mutter. 

“No? You weren’t intentionally talking about using my shower and sleeping in my bed and putting on my clothes so that I’d have to think about what I can’t have right now?”

“I—”

“Believe me when I tell you I have been thinking about what I can’t have, all day. Your efforts are entirely redundant and you can’t say anything about yourself that is even close to as dirty as the frankly disrespectful thoughts I’ve been having about you for seventeen hours.”

The lack of air is making you so dizzy your vision goes gray at the edges. 

“What… what thoughts?”

“None that you need to concern yourself with.”

“You can’t just say something like that and then not tell me!” you insist. He’s obviously giving you a taste of your own medicine and it’s fair but it doesn’t mean you have to like it. 

“I can do whatever I want,” Spencer corrects cooly in a way that pisses you off beyond belief because he’s right. It triggers some adolescent immaturity within you—a desire to get back at him, so to speak. He wants intentionally provocative? He can have it. 

“Fine. Then so can I. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it even if I could.”

“Spencer,” you warn. “If you don’t tell me what you were thinking I’m gonna—” you look around the room for ammo. “I’m gonna look through your nightstand!”

“Go ahead. I’ll warn you, it’s not very interesting.”

“Sounds like what someone who has something hide would say,” you mumble, crawling across the mattress through tangled sheets and using your phone flashlight to open the drawer. 

Spencer is patient and silent as you take in its contents—a small blue leather-bound notebook (full of what looks like Russian), a fountain pen, a glasses case, various kinds of vitamins, and—

“Spencer Reid,” you say, dragging out his name and pretending nothing is fluttering in your stomach, “what are these?”

“I don’t know. I can’t see what you’re referring to.”

“Take a wild guess.”

“Oh, I have one. But I’d like to hear you say it.”

You realize you may have gotten yourself in deeper than you meant to by going through his stuff. Well—they don’t say karma is a bitch for nothing. 

“What are you doing with a box of condoms?” 

He chuckles and you feel it in your whole body, warm as you stretch across his mattress and eye the box like it might jump out at you. 

“Those are years old. I’ve used three since I bought them.”

“Don’t tell me that,” you whine. “I don’t wanna think about all the other women you’ve seduced.”

“You wanted them to be for you, huh?” 

You flush. Honestly you hadn’t even thought about that. 

“I… I don’t know. I kind of just assumed…”

It’s silent for a second and you frown, realizing you hadn’t even considered protection when you’d imagined sleeping with him before. 

“You assumed what, honey?” he asks, voice soft. 

“It’s dumb. I can’t tell you.”

“You can tell me anything. I’m not going to think it’s dumb, I promise.”

You chew on your lip, letting your eyes unfocus on the box as you muster the courage to be honest. 

“Whenever I imagined it… we didn’t… use anything.”

The words make you cringe even as you’re saying them. So does the quiet that follows. 

“When you imagine us sleeping together, we don’t use a condom?”

“Ah!” The phone drops to the mattress as you cover your ears and roll onto your side, curling into yourself once more. “You didn’t have to say it! You make me sound so weird!”

“It’s not weird,” he laughs, because he can probably imagine exactly what you just did, “I just wanted to make sure I was understanding you. That said… we would definitely use protection.”

“Do we have to?”

The quiet words take even you by surprise—and they seem to stun Spencer as well. Several false starts are punctuated by a sigh as he gathers his thoughts. 

“We really should, baby. That’s the kind of thing we need to take seriously.”

“But you’re… you’re good, right?”

Thankfully he picks up on your meaning. 

“I am. I wouldn’t touch you if I weren’t.”

“And I’m good. So...”

“Hm. And has anyone ever explained to you where babies come from?”

You groan in frustration. 

“Spencer, I’m being serious! There are ways to negate that.”

“Honey,” he murmurs, “I understand that. But it would be irresponsible of me to say yes. We can talk about it in the future, but—”

“I’m telling you it’s already dealt with. The chances of an accidental pregnancy are slim to none.”

The new information hangs in the air for a moment until Spencer speaks—to your surprise, his voice is low and humorous. 

“That is… good to know. But even so—I’m setting a dangerous precedent if I always let you get exactly what you want.”

“Is it such a bad thing that I just wanna—I wanna know what it feels like? You don’t want that?”

“That’s not what I said. I want to know exactly what you feel like. I’m just hesitant to give in so quickly because it makes me look weak.”

You laugh breathlessly, caught between being turned on by the first part of his sentence and amused by the sarcastic second half. Your thighs clench and your hand absentmindedly wanders between them. 

“You know what I was thinking about?” you ask. Spencer hums curiously. “I was thinking about when you let me, um… when you let me touch you how you touch me.” He hums again, but you can hear the amused curve of a smile in it now.

“When you had your mouth all full of me and you looked so pretty?”

“When I—yeah,” you agree, too caught up to deny his compliment as your fingers brush your most sensitive spot through clothing. “And  how you got me all messy after. And I was wondering what it would feel like… inside me.”

He sucks in a breath. Your legs brush against each other and you twist slightly as you pretend like you’re not touching yourself just a little bit. 

“You want me to come inside you?”

“Yeah,” you whisper, brain short-circuiting at the way those words sound in his voice. 

—

On the other side of the line, Spencer isn’t doing a fantastic job of thinking clearly either. His dick is half-hard already and it’s only getting worse with each little noise you make that you don’t seem to realize you’re making. 

“Really? That would be very messy, baby. I’m surprised that’s what you want.”

“But I really want it,” you breathe. He’s not even looking as he slips his hand under the waistband of his pajamas and palms himself, his other hand rubbing tiredly over his face as his phone rests on his chest. This was not how he intended for this call to go, believe it or not—but he’s here now. 

“Yeah? Is that why you’re touching yourself right now?”

You go silent—which is more or less exactly the reaction Spencer had been expecting. Patiently he waits for you to deny it, in three, two—

“’M not.”

Now, he could explain how he knows that’s a lie. How your breathing pattern changed, and your voice got softer and airier, and how you started speaking with smaller words in fragmented sentences. But he doesn’t feel like explaining any of that. 

“I know that’s not true,” he murmurs. “You know what? It wasn’t fair to get you all worked up last night and then leave. I don’t want you frustrated, honey. I want you to do whatever you need to do.”

You make a little gasping noise, and Spencer can imagine the way your back would arch when you did it. His own hips buck slightly as his dick twitches under his fingers. 

“Where are you touching?”

“Um—over my clothes.”

Cute. 

“Go under them for me. Tell me how it feels when you’re touching yourself like that.”

It takes a moment, in which all he hears is the rustling of fabric, until you’re whispering, “feels… it feels good. I wish you were here.”

He inhales, freeing his cock and squeezing the base. 

“I know. Just listen to my voice, pretty. I’m right here.”

Spencer allows himself a few slow tugs as he imagines what’s happening in his bed. You make a squeaking noise, like a held-back moan, and his eyes screw shut. 

“I need them inside,” you whine, and he knows you��re referring to his fingers—the ones currently stroking his own leaking cock. 

“You can use your own, just give yourself a minute first. Remember what I said about needing to be ready?”

“I am ready—” judging by the surprised chirp you interrupt yourself with, you’ve proven yourself right. What surprises Spencer is the weak sound of disappointment you make next. “Spence, it doesn’t feel the same.”

“We’re different sizes, honey. Your hands aren’t as big as mine. But you can still make it feel good.” 

He almost says, 90% of the nerves in the vaginal canal are located in the lower third—in other words, within approximately 2.36 inches from the opening, which you can most certainly reach—but he refrains. He’s not sure if that’s good dirty talk. 

“You have a really sensitive spot about three inches up, right in front. It’s going to feel a little different than the rest of you when you touch it. I want you to try and find it for me, okay?”

“Okay,” you breathe, ever-eager to please even from a great distance. There’s a quiet moment. “I can’t—I don’t think I can r—oh,”

The moan is so pretty Spencer can’t help speeding up the motion of his hand, hissing slightly as his fingers brush against the angry tip with every pump. 

“Did you find it?”

“Yeah,” you whine, a weak, high-pitched thing. “Oh my god.”

“Be gentle,” he warns with some effort as his own hips jump slightly. “You’re really sensitive there. If you’re not careful you’ll make yourself sore.”

“I don’t care—holy shit—” the way your voice rises and tightens to a squeak at the end has Spencer moaning as he fucks his fist. A black hole forms and warps time, turning every minute into a second and every second into an infinity until he has no idea how much time is going by. He drags his thumb over the tip, smearing precum over his cock and whining as his jaw drops at the feeling. “Oh my god, Spencer,” in that same strained, high voice. “’M gonna—ah!”

He gets the general sentiment. 

“What, baby? You’re gonna make yourself come all over your fingers? Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

“Mhm!”

“Yeah, I bet you are. It feels good, huh?”

“Yes,” you cry. 

“See? You don’t need my fingers to feel good. Mine barely fit, you know that? I have to hold your fucking hips down whenever I put my fingers in you because you can’t stop squirming. I don’t know how you think you’re going to take my cock.”

“Spencer!” 

He knows. 

“Come, baby. Let me hear you.”

The delicate sounds you make as you bring yourself to orgasm tip him over the edge of his own—grunting as he comes all over his fist. 

“Jesus,” he strains under his breath, the word dragging out into two long syllables as his hips buck involuntarily and cum drips down his knuckles. He’s lightheaded and he’s created a mess and it all happened so quickly. “Fuck,” he breathes, a rasping chuckle as he reaches for the towel he’d dropped on the bed after his shower earlier. “You conscious over there?”

“I’m conscious,” you slur, breathing heavily. “I’ve never had an orgasm by myself before.”

“Are you proud of yourself?” Spencer smiles, wiping his hand off and making sure he’s otherwise clean. “You should be. I am.”

He’s barely kidding. 

“I’ll be proud when I can do it without your help,” you tease. 

“But I’ll always want to help you with that.” His already warm face flushes further as he goes over what he’d said. “Sorry I was so vulgar.”

You laugh. He blushes even more. 

“Are you? I think you secretly love being vulgar.”

“I don’t know why! I have no idea where it comes from. I would never speak that way in any other context. I should probably work on that. Sometimes I look back on the things I say and I’m genuinely appalled.”

“Well, don’t stop on my account. Personally I enjoy it.”

“Yeah, I think I’m corrupting you. You probably shouldn’t enjoy it.”

The truth of it weighs heavy on his mind, but he’s pretty sure his voice alone doesn’t betray that and you can’t sense it through the phone. 

“Oh, my god. Do not do that falling on your sword shit. I like being corrupted by you. If you stop I’ll be very upset.”

“Well god forbid you get upset,” he teases gently. Idly he wonders if the reason he’s suddenly feeling so depressed is because his cortisol levels were already high from the case, and then he jarred his system with an orgasm, spiking his dopamine and ultimately causing it to plummet without the oxytocin release that post-coital physical contact would usually provide. 

Or if it was something else. It could also be something else. 

For the millionth time, he wishes he was with you. Part of him also wants to go to sleep. But mostly he wishes he was with you. 

—

A comfortable silence settles over the conversation. In the ditch between words, you’re mapping constellations in the texture of Spencer’s ceiling. If you squeeze your eyes almost shut, you can imagine it really is the night sky. You can imagine he’s really here. 

You think about what he said—his apparently mindless vulgarity. Did it mean anything? Or was he just rambling to get you off?

“Spencer?” you murmur. 

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

He sounds earnest, perhaps a little tired, as he replies, “always,” through the little metal rectangle on your chest. He likes me and my questions are important to him, you repeat to yourself silently as you work up the strength. 

“If Penelope hadn’t called, last night… were you going to have sex with me?” 

Your lip tastes like his toothpaste as you chew it. Spencer sucks in a breath of air like he’s about to speak—and lets it fizzle out like foam on a carbonated drink. 

“I don’t know,” he finally admits, lamely. “That wasn’t my plan, but you can be extremely convincing when you want to be.”

“But why can’t it be your plan?” It’s an almost whine, pouty and childish—but the next words are quiet and pained. “Is it something I’m doing wrong?”

“No, no! It’s not you. You’re perfect. It’s—it’s complicated. It’s a me thing.”

Such trite words—such a ubiquitous, simple excuse sounds almost comical from his mouth when you know he’s capable of all the eloquence in the world. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s ridiculous. 

“Okay. Let me simplify this for you,” you begin with an uncharacteristic assertiveness that surprises even you. “I want to have sex with you. Either we are going to have sex or we’re not. So your future branches in two diverging paths. In one, we have sex, and then we keep having sex. In the other we never have sex ever. If you want to ever have the privilege of fucking me, then we just have to do it. Otherwise it simply will never happen. And I’m not eternally patient, Reid.”

Go me, you think, slightly breathless from your monologue. 

“Watch your mouth,” he says dryly. Something about the chastisement makes your stomach flip and your whole body tingle. “When you talk to me you call me Spencer. I will also accept Doctor Reid.” You wrestle down a smile, refusing to let him change the subject. A delayed sigh from him sobers up the conversation. “You know what I want. I’ve been very clear with you about that. But…”

“But…?”

Another sigh. A deeper, shuddering sigh, like his breath is searching for balance. Like Spencer is in a precarious position for which he was unprepared. 

“But—but to be completely honest… I worry that you’ll regret choosing me. And I know virginity is a social construct and I’m not implying that your worth will somehow be diminished if we have sex but regardless of my views on virginity as a construct, having sex for the first time can be weird and scary and it’s incredibly intimate and I don’t want you to regret your first time like I regret mine because you chose the wrong person.”

The words come at you so rapid-fire it takes you a moment to process them. And aside from all the ways you want to reassure him that you will not regret choosing him—that you could never, ever regret anything about him—one thing stands out. 

“You regret your first time?” 

Something between a scoff and a sigh travels through the line. You can tell he’s not annoyed at you for asking so much as he’s flustered himself with all his own words as he occasionally does. 

“Yeah. Yes. Sometimes I do. The person—she didn’t… like me as much as I liked her. And I was really, really in love with her, and she knew that and she knew she wasn’t in love with me—or maybe she was, I don’t know—but my point is, when one person likes the other more than the other person like them, things get complicated. And however you feel about me—that’s fine. It’s fine. I don’t want you to feel bad if we don’t feel exactly the same way about each other. I understand that this is newer for you, it’s different, I—I just don’t want us to do something we can’t undo because I don’t want to relive that. And I’m not saying it will never happen but I just don’t want you to make this choice when… when right now, I think we’re in different places emotionally. Regardless of that, I want you to choose the right person. I don’t want you to choose me and then find out that we feel differently after we sleep together and leave you feeling like you signed up for something you didn’t understand. I’m sorry. Maybe telling you this is selfish. But I’ve been thinking about it and trying to ignore it and I think I just have to be completely honest.”

Your ears ring like Spencer just fired a blank right into the microphone. Like you just got backhanded across the face and now you have the world’s worst case of whiplash. 

Every finger is numb and your blood is so cold it feels blue as it slithers thick through your veins. 

What you want to do is scream. What you want to do is go back to last night and stop yourself from almost telling him I love you, slap yourself and keep your cards a little closer to your chest. Because now he knows, and he doesn’t feel the same. 

You want to scream bloody murder. 

But when you try, when you unhinge your jaw and part your chapped lips and expect a bellow to come hurdling up the corridor of your throat with so much force it rattles your bones, all that falls out is a small, “oh.”

Maybe that’s worse. 

Spencer doesn’t reply. You hate yourself for feeling obliged to fill the silence. 

“I didn’t realize you…”

I didn’t realize that you don’t love me back. 

I didn’t realize I like you more than you like me. 

I didn’t realize you’d tell me to masturbate in your fucking bed and then drop this not even five minutes later. 

If Spencer Reid was able to talk to you over the phone with the same amount of affection and familiarity as always, like everything was still okay, knowing you love him and he doesn’t love you the whole time, he is not who you thought he was. 

“I’m sorry,” he lamely says again, like it could ever help. 

More silence. Now you can’t bring yourself to speak, so Spencer does. 

“I realize how awkward this is. I really didn’t mean to put you in this position. Especially not over the phone when I—god, I’m stupid. I’m sorry. But can we—can we talk about this in person when I get back? Please?”

Is that what grownups do? Is the proper etiquette for him to take you out to dinner and explain why he’s not in love with you? Is he going to break up with you?

What does one even wear to a breakup date?

“Okay,” you whisper. Your eyes sting, your everything stings, like you’ve been wrapped in a shroud of briar. Sheets that were soft a moment ago feel like sandpaper on open wounds. You feel like an open wound. 

Spencer sighs. It’s a sound of relief that confuses and hurts you even more. 

“Okay. I—okay. Thank you. Um—I’ll let you go back to sleep, now.”

“Okay,” you repeat—as if any of this were okay. But you can’t keep being that stupid girl who feels it all so much harder, who loves easily and begs to be loved in return, too naive to assume that someone who treats her so kindly might not reciprocate her feelings. It has to be okay, because if it’s not, you’re silly and dramatic and you’re just proving him right. 

“Goodnight,” Spencer whispers, and you can’t help but feeling that it’s the last time you’ll ever hear those words from his mouth while you’re in his bed. And he’s not even fucking here.

So you pull the blanket a little higher. You let your tears stain his pillow because they’ll be invisible by the morning. It will be like they were never here. Like you were never here. 

“Goodnight.”

[jeansplaytoy]

𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐥

part two

conniexreader, playing with feelings (not readers), ex talks, cursing, alcohol, weed, aave usage, sexual references.

sorry that i took so long with this part y’alllll, and i know it’s honestly really short, it’s really a side chapter that i’m posting before all the good stuff happens.

⇦ part one here | part three here ⇨

you stared at connie from across the room. he was sitting in the kitchen again, and you were in the living room with mikasa and sasha now.

“they def’ fucked.” sasha whispered to mikasa as they both sat on different sides of you. mikasa nodded while staring back and forth from you and connie.

from the kitchen, ony did the same thing.

“bruh what is y’all doin, bro? y’all been staring at each other for bout five minutes.” ony glanced at connie from his phone. connie smacked his lips and looked down at his drink. “nothing.” he muttered while shaking his head.

“yall i hate that nigga.” you frowned, realizing that connie’s gaze had been off of you for a few seconds. “girl you say that about every dude that beat them doonies down real bad.” mikasa mumbled, leaning up to get her cup. “okay but i really hate that one. nigga took full control over me like i was his bitch or sum.”

“so you fucked him?” sasha muttered. you hummed. “he fucked me.”

“disgusting.” mikasa scoffed with a small smile before swallowing the rest of her drink.

you stared at the ground, shaking your head before looking at connie again, who looked at you after a seconds. he chuckled a little before standing up, putting his phone in his pocket while walking through the crowd, towards the front door.

“hold up.” you said before standing up and following him through the crowd. some seconds passed before you finally made it outside, instantly seeing him stand beside the door.

“you obsessed, huh?” he shook his head, putting a blunt to his lips and lighting it. you stood in front of him, not saying anything before rolling your eyes. “not wit’ you. who you think you is?” you tilted your head. connie laughed. “girl i’m connie fuckin’ springer. hoes love me.”

“well i ain’t no hoe, so ion love you.” you rolled your eyes. connie hummed. “oh, but you loved me an hour ago.” he said, tilting his head at you while exhaling smoke in your face, making you move your head to the side a little.

“i don’t like nothing about you. you prolly got hoes anyway.” you muttered. connie slowly smiled. “hell yeah. and i know you got some too, so we both equal, huh.”

“i guess so.” you exhaled, glancing over to the side. you saw a group of girls glaring at you and whispering things to each other. “i got yo hoes mad. forgive me if they don’t want you no more.” you said, smiling to yourself as they walked off.

“we aint together, i can have em back whenever. i saw some muh’fuckas lookin at me too. ian gon trip tho.” connie whispered the last part, passing you his blunt.

you grabbed it, putting it to your lips and inhaling deeply before exhaling through your nose.

“i see you stuck to me now.” he raised his eyebrows, putting his hands on his sweatpants pockets. you tilted your head, shaking it and staring at the ground, flicking the ash beside you. “not really. i just wanna see what you bout. is that a bad thing?” you raised your eyebrows, looking back up at connie, who just shrugged.

“nah, not completely.” connie mumbled. “i just wanna make sure you ain’t one of them hoes that go around fucking everybody.”

“so i’m a hoe to you, now?” you squint at him. “nahhh, no, ion mean it like that.” connie lazily laughed. “i mean, an actual hoe. im just tryna make sure you ain’t for everybody.” he admitted, making you purse your lips together. “and you ain’t? you talking to me like you tryna fuck wit me.”

“i fuck on girls when i feel like i’m gon like it, not when a girl feel like she like me. i really just be staying to myself most of the time.” he muttered.

before you could say something back, someone tapped your shoulder once. “excuse me.” a girl raised her eyebrow at you before wrapping her arms around connie’s neck. “heyyy, baby. what you doin here?” she tilted her head, completely ignoring your presence.

“excuse you.” you muttered, watching her. she glanced back at you for a second. “who she posed to be?” she pointed back at you with her thumb while looking up at connie with a slick look on her face.

“we was just talkin.” connie mumbled, patting her waist a little. when she got off of him, she looked back at you, once more. “i’ll see you at home tonight.” she smiled, softly squeezing his hand before walking off.

you watched her, looking her up and down. “so that’s the hoe you cheated on for me? and multiple other bitches?” you pointed at her, giving connie back his blunt as he sighed.

“we together, but we on and off. she just be doing that shit when she see me wit somebody else, don’t worry bout her.”

“i promise you i ain’t worried.” you scoffed before shaking your head, reaching towards the front door to open it. “wait, where you goin?” connie frowned. “home. this party lame as hell. and all i got tonight was some ran through, good dick.” you muttered to connie as he slowly smiled.

“you liked it.” he whispered to you. you bit your lip softly before shaking your head.

“for now.”

[dreamwritesimagines]

The Eye of the Hurricane [7] - On Edge

A.N: Here’s the new chapter my loves! ❤️ Thank you so much for your wonderful feedback, you made my day! ❤️I hope you’ll like this chapter as well and please don’t forget to tell me what you think! ❤️

Summary: New enemies can complicate everything.

Word Count: 3200

Pairing: MobBoss!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Violence, death, guns, crime, blood, explicit language, drinking. This is an AU, friendly reminder that I don’t condone any of the actions depicted on this story and please read with care.

Series Masterlist

You had to admit; your therapist had many good ideas but this?

You weren't so sure this was one of those good ideas.

You pulled the souffle out of the oven and took a look at it, then grabbed a toothpick and put it through the center, only to pull it out completely dry.

“God damn it!” you exclaimed, putting it next to the other five failed attempts, and grabbed the bowl again. “This fucking…”

“What are you doing?”

Your head shot up and you looked over your shoulder. “What the—go away, why are you here?”

Bucky raised his brows.

“Hello to you too Charm,” he said, putting his hands into his pockets, his eyes darting around the kitchen. Even you had to admit that the sight of you in the kitchen was unfamiliar, considering that you barely knew how to make eggs but seeing him in your kitchen was equally strange. Your chef would normally be in the kitchen at this time but you were pretty sure he wasn’t here to see her.

“Who told you I was here?”

“The maid,” he said and motioned at the bowl you were holding. “What is this?”

“Why are you here?”

“I asked first.”

You heaved a sigh and put the bowl back on the counter, then crossed your arms.

“I’m baking,” you said as if there was nothing out of the ordinary with that statement, and Bucky frowned slightly.

“Why?” he asked. “What is this, your plan to play house with your civilian boyfriend?”

You rolled your eyes at him.

“My therapist seems to think it’s a good idea,” you said. “She says I should do things like these to relax my mind.”

“Right, you sounded very relaxed when I walked in.”

“It’s because these fucking souffles refuse to have chocolatey center!” you snapped and Bucky blinked a couple of times.

“You’ve never baked once in your life and you decided to start with one of the hardest things to bake in the world?”

“Go big or go home.”

“I’m right with you on that but when it comes to baking, people usually start with cookies.”

“I already baked cookies, they weren’t challenging enough,” you said, motioning at the plate on the kitchen island and he walked to it to get a cookie.

“Did you poison these?”

“Yeah,” you said and he shrugged, then took a bite of it, a look of surprise crossing his face as he chewed on it.

“This is actually good,” he said. “Is this cinnamon?”

“It’s arsenic,” you deadpanned and he nodded his head.

“You know, if you ever decide to go into it professionally, we can get you a bakery.”

“Uh huh.”

“I’m serious, we’d put it in the neutral territory if it makes you feel any better, it could work—”

“Why are you here?” you cut him off and he popped the rest of the cookie in his mouth, then leaned back to the island.

“I’ve been summoned,” he said. “So has everyone else.”

Your eyes widened. “Everyone else? What do you mean, everyone else?”

“All the bosses in the city.”

“What the—why?” you asked, lowering your voice and he shot you a smirk.

“How long have you been here?”

“Bucky!” you hissed and he grabbed another cookie.

 “There’s been an attack.”

“An attack?” you asked, your heart skipping a beat. “From a family?”

“Not from a family,” he answered. “An outsider, or so it seems.”

“What outsider?” you asked and he chewed on his bite.

“No seriously, if I paid you, would you make more of these for me?”

You smacked his arm and snatched the cookie out of his hand.

“Hey!”

“What outsider?”

“It happened in Stark’s territory,” he said, eyeing the cookie. “He knows more than I do, he and your father had a talk I heard but we will all be informed in the meeting.”

You arched a brow. “And?”

“I swear to you, that’s all I know. Can I get it back now?”

You heaved a sigh and handed him the cookie, making him shoot you a happy smile.

“Thank you.”

“Do you think they’re the same people who were involved in the shootout?”

Bucky clenched his jaw, then cleared his throat.

“Who knows?” he said. “So did you think about my proposal?”

You threw your head back in frustration, then jumped to sit on the island, crossing your legs.

“I did,” you said, leaning slightly back, resting your palms on the island and pretending to be in deep thought. “And you know what, it kind of makes sense to use a marriage for my benefit and rise to power.”

If you didn’t know any better, you would’ve thought he was holding his breath, a hopeful light glimmering in his eyes.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah so, Steve or Sam?” you asked airily and he frowned.

“What?”

“Yeah, I mean Romanoff is with Banner, Barton is married, so is Stark…”

A groan left his lips. “Charm…”

“So that leaves us Steve or Sam.”

“They’re my best friends.”

You shrugged your shoulders. “I know that. So what?”

“They would never.”

“Why not?” you asked. “Because you called dibs on me or something?”

He averted his gaze from you and you sat up straighter, pulling your brows together.

“Bucky,” you growled. “You have exactly three seconds to tell me you didn’t call dibs on me as if I’m a cookie because we’re standing in a kitchen full of knives—”

“I didn’t!” he said. “They just…they won’t, okay?”

“Well then that plan is not going to work because I’d never marry you—” you started but heard a knock by the door, making you turn your head to look at Steve.

“Am I interrupting?”

“Not at all,” you said. “Bucky was just leaving.”

Steve glanced around the kitchen with his brows raised. “Since when do you bake?”

“It’s very good for mental health!” your defensive answer came almost too fast and he held up his hands.

“Alright then.”

“It does calm you down,” Bucky said solemnly and you narrowed your eyes at him.

“I’m going to take your cookie back.”

“Don’t you dare.”

Steve eyed the cookies. “Can I have one too?”

“See? He asks for permission,” you told Bucky. “Perfect marriage material there.”

“Excuse me, what?” Steve asked, gawking at you before Bucky grabbed a cookie from the plate and tossed it to Steve who caught it mid-air, then he turned to you.

“You know where to find me.”

“Yeah, between some woman’s legs,” you retorted, making him roll his eyes as Steve chuckled.

“I’ll see you around Charm,” he said and walked out of the kitchen with Steve following him. You nibbled on your lip, then grabbed a cookie and laid down on the island, keeping your eyes on the ceiling.

“So relaxed,” you murmured as you bit into the cookie. "I'm so very relaxed."

                                            *

That meeting took hours to be finished and even though you wanted to stick around in the house, you still had plans with Ethan for lunch. You were at the end of your wits from curiosity so by the time Ethan got there, you were still glued to your phone, waiting for a text from Becca.

“Hey,” he said, pressing a kiss on your cheek and you smiled up at him.

“Hey,” you said and took out the small container out of your handbag to put it in front of him, making him tilt his head.

“What is this?”

“Cookies,” you said, taking a sip of your coffee. “I made them today.”

Ethan stared at you. “You made cookies?”

“Why does everyone sound so shocked about it?” you asked back and Ethan chuckled.

“Y/N, while we were dating, you tried to make toast in the microwave.”

“It’s not my fault if microwaves aren’t that advanced yet,” you told him and he chuckled.

“Of course,” he played along, opening the container to take out a cookie. “What brought on this sudden interest in baking?”

“My psychiatrist,” you said as he took a careful bite and his eyes widened.

“You made this?”

You gasped in a dramatic manner and pushed at his boot with your heel. “I take your disbelief as a compliment.”

“You should, it’s amazing!” he said. “So your psychiatrist told you to bake cookies?”

“Well not just bake but more like…you know, relaxing stuff,” you said. “I started with baking because it sounded more interesting than the other options. And more delicious as well.”

“I think you unlocked a talent there,” he said and you hummed.

“Eh, maybe. My souffles disagree.”

“You made souffles?”

“I started for souffles but now I have muffins,” you said. “You know, not much of a difference there.”

“Muffins are better than souffles anyway,” he told you, grabbing another cookie as the waiter brought his coffee. “Thank you.”

“So I was going to ask you,” you said, turning your phone in your hand. “Where is your apartment exactly?”

“Between 33rd and 34th street right across from the bank, downstairs there’s a cute—”

“Drawing supplies store,” you finished his sentence for him and he blinked a couple of times.

“Do you have a map in your mind or something?”

“My father made me basically memorize the whole city so yeah,” you said and heaved a sigh. “Great. Stark’s territory.”

He pulled his brows together. “Is that bad?”

“Not necessarily,” you said, running a hand over your face. “So hypothetically speaking—”

“Jesus, we’re back to that?” he teased you and you shook your head slightly.

“No I’m serious,” you said. “Hypothetically speaking, it wouldn’t be a good idea to wander around there late in the evening nowadays.”

His frown deepened.

“Is this related to that attack there earlier today?”

Your eyes shot up to his. “You were there?”

“No no, not very close at least,” he said. “It’s just—there was terrible traffic and I heard the police cards and the ambulance, and people were saying there was an attack.”

“At who? Or what?”

“I really don’t know,” he said, shooting you an apologetic look. “Sorry, I didn’t really think much of it. So is this related?”

You pursed your lips together and shrugged your shoulders.

“I’m not sure but as my dad says, you can never be too careful,” you said. “Alright, here’s the thing. I’ll hire someone to keep an eye around your apartment just in case—”

“Wait, what?”

“Just as a precaution.”

“Y/N, I’m a civilian,” he said with a small laugh. “You said civilians don’t get involved—”

“They don’t, it’s a just precaution,” you repeated, taking another sip of your coffee. “I’m sure nothing is going to happen, but it’s good to be careful.”

He leaned back in his chair, deep in thought.

“I’m not gonna have a bodyguard following my every move, right?”

“No they do that with me, not you,” you said, a smile curling your lips. “I assure you, you won’t even notice they’re around.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Not really, I don’t hire amateurs.”

A small chuckle climbed up his throat and he shook his head.

“This is insane.”

“You wanted excitement,” you pointed out. “I’m just making sure that excitement doesn’t turn into actual danger, that’s all.”

He popped another cookie in his mouth. “Did you bring me these so that I would feel more relaxed?”

You shot him a mischievous grin. “Maybe. Is it working?”

“I feel better about it than I would have with zero cookies,” he joked, coaxing out a giggle from you. “So wait, you wanted to let me know first?”

“Yeah because I don’t want to be the psycho ex who puts people in your tail in secret.”

“No, just the ex who has the ability to pull something like that and bake cookies at the same time.”

“I’m nothing if not versatile,” you stated, making him laugh.

“Oh trust me,” he said. “I’m well aware of that.”

You mirrored his smile and held his gaze, biting at your lip before sitting up straighter.

“So,” you said. “Enough about me. How’s everything at the office?”

                                            *

When you got back home, the meeting was mostly over but apparently Bucky and Sam had stayed for a short talk with your father. Even Ian was sent out of the room which gave you a strange satisfaction but it didn’t last very long when you saw him smirking while talking on the phone in the living room. You stepped inside and flung yourself on the couch, crossing your arms while waiting for him to finish.

“Yeah no, because I said—that’s what I’m saying, just be prepared for anything, we don’t know whose territory it might be next. If it’s ours…”

You checked your nails, humming a song just so that you could get on his nerves and Ian stole a look at you.

“I’ll call you later,” he said and hung up, then put his phone into the inner pocket of his jacket. “Y/N.”

“Ian,” you said. “They kicked you out while the real bosses speak then?”

“I had to step outside to make some calls,” he said and you hummed.

“Before or after they kicked you out?”

“Better than not being invited in at all,” he stated, making your jaw clench. “I half expected to see you eavesdropping in the hallway, you surprised me.”

You clicked your tongue, then shot him a fake smile.

“Do they ask you to bring them coffee?” you asked. “While they talk? Like an assistant.”

“I know you find this hard to accept, but I hold a very important part in those meetings,” he said. “Seeing that I’m the heir.”

“Are you though?” you asked. “Father didn’t officially announce you.”

“And he certainly won’t announce you,” he said and you crossed your legs, trying to seem calm and collected.

“So what is going to happen if our territory is next?” you asked him airily and he sat down on the couch across from yours.

“We are going to retaliate.”

“And you hope our territory is next,” you stated and he shrugged his shoulders.

“Not at all but if it is, we will handle it.”

“And the rest of the city?” you asked. “The other territories?”

He rolled his eyes. “You might want to check your priorities there, Y/N.”

“Do you seriously think our territory can just survive on its own?” you asked back. “Do you think if it somehow leads to a war, if any of the other territories get affected, we will still be fine? That will affect the truce and if the peace—”

“That’s the difference between you and me,” Ian cut you off. “The exact reason why uncle chose me as his heir over you. I don’t care much for peace.”

You stared at him, your heart beating in your ears because of the fury spreading through you over his words but before you could say anything, you heard Bucky’s voice in the foyer. You shot up from the couch, rushed to the foyer to see Bucky and Sam, your heels echoing on the marble floor.

“Hi Sam, nice to see you,” you said without even stopping, and grabbed Bucky’s arm to drag him towards the spiral stairs. “You’re coming with me.”

“What, it’s not good to see me?” Bucky asked but followed you without so much as an argument. You made your way through the hallway after you reached the top of the stairs, then pushed him into your room and slammed the door behind you.

“Charm if you wanted me in your bedroom, all you had to do was ask—”

“Keep dreaming,” you snapped at him and he shot you a mischievous grin.

“Hi.”

“What did you all talk about?”

He looked around the room as if trying to take it in as much as he could, and you followed his gaze as it fell on the fireplace and to your reading corner by the window, then to the antique mirror and your vanity before he approached your bed to sit down on it.

“Lovely room,” he commented and you crossed your arms.

“Tell me.”

“This relationship is starting to feel very one-sided—”

“That’s because it is,” you cut him off. “What is going on?”

He heaved a sigh and ran his vibranium hand through his hair.

“Well, at least now we have a name,” he said. “One of the men Stark captured, he said something.”

You arched a brow. “What did he say?”

“Hydra.”

You pulled your brows together, deep in thought.

“Doesn’t sound familiar,” you said. “What, are they new or something?”

Bucky scoffed a laugh and shook his head.

“Not at all,” he said. “We’re still gathering more information about them but they’re not new, that’s for sure.”

You clicked your tongue.

“And let me guess,” you said. “They’re not just a couple of people?”

Bucky shook his head again and you closed your eyes for a moment, letting out a breath as you opened them.

“Fuck.”

Bucky shot you a dry smile. “My reaction exactly.”

“But either way, if all families are working together against them,” you thought out loud. “It means—where did they attack in Stark’s territory, by the way? One of his places?”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

“A café.”

“Stark doesn’t own a café.”

“No he doesn’t.”

Your stomach did a painful flip as you stared at him.

“Civilians?” you asked, your voice hoarse. “They’re attacking civilians?”

“They’re attacking everyone including civilians,” Bucky answered and you pursed your lips together.

“So no code then,” you murmured. “They’ll create chaos and…”

“We will stop them before they do that,” Bucky assured you as he stood up from the bed. “But Charm, listen to me. From now on, nowhere in the city is one hundred percent safe, no matter whose territory it is. That whole bullshit you keep pulling with no bodyguards—”

“I don’t have a death wish,” you cut him off. “I know how dangerous it can get in a situation like this. I grew up with the same stories as you, remember?”

Bucky’s phone started vibrating and he checked the caller ID, then put it back in his pocket again.

“I gotta go,” he said. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”

“To repeat, I—”

“Charm,” he interrupted you as if he didn’t have the time for nonsense, his tone completely serious. “Promise me. Please.”

You frowned slightly, then shrugged your shoulders.

“Yeah sure,” you said and he nodded to himself, then walked to the door but stop when he heard you say his name.

“Bucky?”

He turned to you. “Yeah?”

“This whole thing, it won’t lead to the truce breaking, will it?” you asked, desperately trying to convince yourself. “Between the families?”

Bucky shot you an almost reprimanding look like he could see right through you.

“I’ll lie to you if you want me to but we did grow up with the same stories Charm,” he reminded you. “It will lead to something, and you know it as well as I do.”

With that, he walked out of your room and you sat down on the armchair across from the fireplace with a sigh, your heart slamming against your ribcage. You gritted your teeth together and leaned your head back, then pressed your palms on your eyes.

 “Oh,” you said. “God damn it.”

Chapter 8

[lonelystarrs]

He’d Never Admit it -Prt 2

Gojo had a funny way of dealing with feelings, unfortunately it might be a little too late for the sorcerer when he finally realises what they are.

♡ part one ♡ part two ♡

Gojo Satoru x FemReader (Senior High School)

Word count: 5.5k (oops)

Warnings: BullyGojo . Gojo bring a dense menace . Crack . Smut . 18+ MDNI. Dirty Talk . Angst . Cliffhanger. No comfort (this chapter) . Jealous Gojo .

Seven days had passed since the incident on making a mess on dipshits desk, a nickname that Gojo had given the guy who was talking to you more and more as the days went.

It was annoying him, spurring him into feeling agitated -an emotion that was foreign to the six eyes.

He watched as your attention towards dipshit had started to focus more, you were smiling and chatting with him so easily.

So for the last five days Gojo took a slightly new approach to getting your attention.

He was going to cause the problem and then fix it, show you he was charming n’all that stuff that get girls attention, y’know the hero vibe!

Genius right?

Pftttt…

You were currently on path to walking past the strongest sorcerer as he stood acting like he was listening to the girl talking to him in the hallway. When you past he stuck his foot out making sure to catch yours, your books against your chest splayed out across the floor as your hands went to stop your face from hitting the ground.

But Gojo caught you, he never caught you, blinking at the hard floor his hand was gripping your shirt from the back, bunching the material in his hands as he grinned down at you like a Cheshire Cat.

“You’re so clumsy~ can’t have that pretty face all smashed in can we~!” he sang, thinking his smooth little plan had gone his way.

It really seemed it had. Until you squealed.

The buttons popped from your shirt, breasts straining against the material from Gojo gripping it at the back, your whole weight put into the flimsy material. Your arms flew to cover your chest as your tits practically burst from it, buttons popping as they echoed from their bounce down the halls.

Your knees tucked under you and your glared over your shoulder at Gojo, his smirk had dropped clean from his face.

Well, that didn’t go to plan.

“I didn’t-“ Gojo tried, his face not even hinting any amusement as he stared down at you.

“You’re such an asshole!!!!”

“It’s not my fault! Y’ storing cursed energy in those tiddies or something? You lost five buttons! They’re not even massive!”

He instantly regretted the words that left his mouth, he knew he was blabbering nervously but it came out a lot witter than he actually felt. But he couldn’t let anyone else see he was getting jittering could he?

Humour is his defence and deflection tactic after all.

The blush formed across your face as you tried your best to ignore the students who had stopped to watch the scene unfold.

Gojo blinked, eyes drifting to your breast squashed up and exposed from the torn shirt, your arms doing their best to cover you up.

They do be looking good like that though. He thought.

Ah man, he was getting hard again, seriously why did you always affect him like this? You looked so flustered… one of the cupboards wasn’t far from here maybe he could drag yo-

“Look at them tits! Wonder how big they are!”

“Man, a perfect handful maybe a little more!”

Your head snapped around to the boys gossiping who instantly shut up.

“Yeah? How big are your dicks huh? A thumbs length at most, maybe a little more.” You spat sarcastically.

“8.5 inches, 9 on a good day.” Satoru announced whilst he shrugged before bending closer to you and lifting you to him slightly, like you weighed nothing.

“-and it’s always a good day with you.” He whispered the last part winking at you.

“NO ONE ASKED YOU GOJO!” You seethed.

The boys sputtered, girls giggling in the background at them as the attention was briefly taken from you.

Which soon returned when a jacket was thrown over you and Gojo’s hand.

Ah, we meet again, sir dipshit. Gojo thought as his eyes narrowed on a blazer being placed over you.

“C’mon, you have your blazer in your locker right?” Dipshit suggested, smiling at you with some Prince Charming fucking look.

You nodded and stood with his help.

“Nice one, Romeo.” Dipshit mumbled whilst looking over his shoulder at Satoru.

That was day one of Gojo being left stood dumbfounded as to why his tactic didn’t work.

0 to Gojo and 1 to dipshit.

Day two came and he bought you a box of your favourite Mochi as an apology .. without having to actually verbally say sorry.

But Satoru ate the whole box on the walk here.

Gojo frowned as he looked down at the box, seeing one left sitting innocently as if to mock him.

You said to yourself she won’t notice if you have just one and here I am.

0 to Gojo 1 to his sweet tooth and lack of self restraint.

The third day went better, as some one opened their locker a little too harshly and Gojo had got there in time to stop it slamming into the side of your head. His hand flat pressed against the locker door and he grinned at you, you rolled your eyes and shut your own, turning away from him. He looked over his shoulder and glared at the boy who laughed nervously.

“Watch it will you?”

Gojo’s mood changed as he pouted looking at you disappearing into the hall way, his long legs caught up with you quickly and he grabbed your shoulder…

“Hey! I just saved that pretty face again, you’re not gonn-“

He didn’t realise you were drinking some water, tugging your shoulder back had caused the bottle to leave your lips whilst still tilted, pouring it down your shirt which instantly became see through.

Gojo eyed the bottle of water -was it bubbling? It looked like it was boiling in your hand. Blue eyes turning to you answered his assumption.

“Heh, you’re mad at me.”

Your eye twitched, but his eyes kept flickering down to that pretty lacy bra you were wearing under your white shirt, which was now sticking to you like second skin on your chest.

“Fuming.”

Gojo took a step backwards and held his hands up innocently. The bottle soon colliding with his head knocking his glasses half off his face.

“Take your jacket off Satoru!”

Your hands started gripping said item, causing him to laugh at you fumbling with his clothing. He kept his hands up in a surrender but it didn’t stop his cockiness.

“You’re not usually this keen to get my clothes off~! Heh look at you go!”

He was happy to see you walking away with his blazer around you, absolutely swallowing you cause y’know, he’s a big boy and he grinned smugly.

1 for Gojo.

Later that day you’d found him after your last class, handing back his blazer that he couldn’t help notice smelled so much like you now, mixed with his own scent.

Fuck it was a good combination.

“Here,”

“Hmm, I think you owe me for borrowing it all day. I’ve been all cold without it!” Satoru chimed giving you a smirk, eyes looking at you over the rim of his glasses so you could see his mischievous intention.

“You’re kidding right? It was your fault in the first place!”

“Nah I done nothing wrong!”

He didn’t take him much to back you into a nearby cupboard, hiking your skirt up to your waist and pushing your panties to the side. Your hands gripped against the cupboard shelves as he pulled your hips back into him, his breath fanning across your neck as he placed little bites along the skin.

Pressing the tip of his dick between your slick folds and rocking his hips, a long airy moan left him, your hips twitching back as his head caught your clit.

“Watch it then,” Satoru pushed your head forwards, forcing you to watch as his dick slid between your thighs, rubbing along your clit in the process. The head glistening with slick as it pushed through your folds, using them and your thighs as a flesh light. Gojo leaned forward to bury his face in your neck, his hand in your hair still keeping your head down to watch as he thrusted.

“Shit this feels s’good - Hah -I ain’t even done anything and y’so wet already, bet I could slip right in huh?”

“Nah-“ you huffed, arching your hips back before bringing them back as you started to rut against him yourself, Gojo stopped moving and watched as you rolled your pussy against him, tightening your thighs. “-you’ll have to try a little harder.”

Gojo chuckled behind you before pulling back, with the wet slap of his cock hitting his stomach before he spun you around, hands gripping the back of your thighs he lifted you up to wrap them around him. One of your hands gripped the shelf behind your shoulder, the other gripped the hair at the back of his head. Pink dusted both your cheeks as the closet started to get stuffy.

Gojo looked down to the slight gap between you, cock rested against his abdomen, he flexed it watching the trail of slick and pre cum link from his bellend to his stomach.

“Reckon? It’s dripping from just rubbing ya.”

You groaned and pulled his head back roughly, he winced but let out an airy moan.

You rose an eyebrow before a smirk spread on your face. You tugged his hair again, even harder and watched as his dick flexed, his hands tighten on your thighs and a moan caught on his throat.

Oh, the cocky bastard liked it!

“You’re pathetic Satoru, you really have no idea do you? Hurry up and fuck me then before a change my mind.”

You lifted and rolled your hips forward, your hole catching at his head, it only took him one thrust to slid in. A moan leaving you both as you clenched squeezing him. his cock flexing again in you as he felt you adjust around him.

“Shit -how are you always so fucking tight?”

He shifted you, lifting you a bit higher than him and wrapping his arms around your waist. He went to press his face into your neck but you pulled his head back again by his hair to take in his expression. Blue eyes glazed over, light pink across his cheeks and his mouth slightly open.

“You look so fucked out already Sato’”

He didn’t say anything, his eyes drinking you in.

“Open your mouth,”

And he did, your hand pulling his hair back again as you let spit gather on the end of your tongue, Gojo watched as you slowly let it dribble onto his own. Cock flexing again he moaned, closing his mouth he swallowed without even being told.

Because this was his way of being sorry, ‘cause he fucking loved it when you took control of him like a dog.

But he’d never admit that.

“Guess I can be a lil rough,” he mumbled before twisting his hair from your grip and burying his face into your neck, arms wrapping even tighter as he started to fucking rut into you. His heavy moans and sighs fogging against your neck, vibrating down your skin and making you clench around him

“S-slow down Gojo-“

“Nah, I’m way too fucking fired up now.”

Day four however took a turn of events, he hasn’t actually seen you today which was unusual.

However when he did see you it only spurred something ugly in his chest.

Anger wasn’t an emotion that Gojo felt often, if at all. He was far too care free and lacked any real connection to most things, he didn’t care deeply enough for things to get him angry.

Or so he thought.

Seeing you at that coffee shop with that fucking guy?

That did it.

Yeah that guy! The Dipshit.

Gojo didn’t get it, did you not understand the message he was giving you when he made you cum all over the guys desk? The guy who was asking you about your dating choices?

The message was clear, so he thought anyway.

You’re mine.

But he’d never admit that, right?

You actually ended up going out with him even after Gojo made a sloppy mess between your legs and had the name Satoru falling from those pretty plump lips of yours as you cum over his tongue again and again. He didn’t even relieve himself with you that day on the desk- that’s how selfless he was being that day! Yet you were actually went on a damn date with him! Even after he fucked you dumb yesterday in the closet!

And you were happy.

You were laughing, smiling and fucking flirting with him.

You didn’t smile at him no matter his goofy behaviour -you never laughed at Satoru Gojo.

That really bugged him. He was always goofy and silly!

And he knew your body inside and out -he always made you feel better after he upset you. That guy didn’t, as far as Gojo knew anyway.

Shit, wait, what if you cum for that guy like you did the six eyes? Was he better than him? No freakin’ way! Is that why you were happy and smiling with that guy? Shit, shit, shit.

“Satoru, you good?”

“Huh? Yeah m’fine,” he waved Suguru off side glancing at you again from his booth at the cafe.

“Really? You look like you’ve just been dumped.”

“What? I’ve never been dumped, no one’s dumped me!”

The all too fast reply was humorous, it didn’t match his trying to look cool facade -in fact he broke it altogether.

Geto rose an eyebrow, a smirk twitching at his lips, his eyes had seen his best friend staring at you with another guy and he seen those blue eyes of Gojo’s stealing another side glance like he was worried to miss something.

Suguru chose his words specifically when he said the dump word.

Plus that defensive sputtering of a reply that was so out of character from his usual cocky, flippant friend?

Oh no, this was hilarious ! Satoru was actually hung up -he was upset. Over a girl.

“I didn’t say you had, said you looked like it,”

“Tch, whatever. There’s not even an expression for that kinda crap, you’re talking shit Suguru.”

Geto’s eyes widened slightly, pink dusting across Gojo’s cheeks, his body and emotions totally betraying the look Gojo was trying to give -flippant and unbothered.

“Man, look at you!” Geto laughed, leaning forward on the table to point at Satoru’s cheeks “-the blush brings out the blue in your eyes~”

Gojo slapped his hands away and glared over the rim of his glasses. Leaning back into the boot he swung an arm over the spine of it, man spreading and shifting his pose to deflect his feelings as if trying once again to convince his emotions into what his body language was showing, however they still weren’t meeting to agree.

“So you’re not into her?”

Gojo snorted and rose an eyebrow at Suguru,

“Her? As if,” Gojo waved his hand dismissively “-not my type.”

Suguru nodded, crossing his arms and leaning back into the booth seat, turning his head up to the ceiling as if he was in thought.

“Yeah, gotta be honest you’d be punching with her Satoru. Guess you’re not into wife material,”

Suguru was playing the game and it was working.

Gojo frowned as he looked away eyes unfocused as he stared aimlessly into the cafe.

“Aren’t you dating Gojo?”

“-who said that?” You practically spat, you were flustered but it came out more aggressive than you wanted, seeing as you cleared your throat and asked again in a nicer manner, still looking at the guy like he has grown three heads.

“Uh I mean the whole school is whispering about it, you not seen that little fan club of his death glaring at you?”

“What idiot would date Satoru?” Your nose wrinkled as if he disgusted you, as if the thought of actually being with him was so unimpressive that you couldn’t imagine someone that would go for him. HIM, GOJO SATORU UNIMPRESSIVE! The audacity!

“So, you’d be up for me taking you out for a coffee? It’s the least I can do y’know.”

The conversation ran clear, even as he ate your pussy an hour after they were spoken it still rang at the back of his head. That insecurity of his that he buried being triggered.

You’re not good enough, everyone thinks you’re annoying and only see you for your potential -only see you as the six eyes.

The whole conversation you had and he heard, your reaction to dating him was actually hurtful -why did he disgust you? Sure he teased you a lot, but he always made you feel better! It was part of the game right? He teased you, you get angry and you both make up.

He was good looking -incredibly so if you asked him and most people. He always smelled good -he bought really expensive cologne. He was hygienic, his clothes were always clean and stylish. He had money. He was the strongest sorcerers around even at 18. He was the pride of his family.

So why did he disgust you? Why did you act like he wasn’t good enough?

Tch.

So you wanted to act all high and mighty huh? Like he wasn’t good enough for you.

Well, Satoru would settle the score -he’d stop the rumours and clear things up no problem!

Let day five commence.

“Oi,”

Your shoulders hunched as you heard that dreaded voice appear in class, it was Friday and clock out was fast approaching, in fact this was the last lesson of the day before a few weeks holiday. You were sat at your desk grabbing your book for the study session.

A hand slammed down on your desk as he half bent over, reluctantly you looked up and your face fell. His shit eating grin was smug, eyes glistening over the rim of his glasses as they reflected from the sun bouncing on them through the window.

“You left these at my place-“

Hanging from Gojo’s index finger were the panties he’d ripped off from you last week, looking innocent as they swayed so silently from his digit as he lifted them to gain focus on it -no he lifted them so the whole class could see them.

The gasps from the room flooded your ears, your eyes darting to see everyone in the class was looking at you both.

“Satoru that’s too fa-“

Oh? The fact Suguru was finally saying something was perhaps enough to kick your brain into drive that this was actually happening.

“Ah, they didn’t fit you Satoru? What a shame,” even though you were trying to deflect him the heat was rising to your face, feeling up your neck like bugs under you skin.

Like Gojo fucking Satoru under your skin.

Gojo snorted and rolled his eyes.

“Wrong pair those looked great on me. These I ripped off you remember? Hence the condition, thought you’d want’em back for your new dipshit boyfriend.”

In a fluid movement he bunched the panties in his hand and pointed that thumb over to someone behind him. Your eyes followed and landed on the guy you’d been to coffee with, your eyes then followed to where he was sat and it clicked.

That desk..

“He’s not my boyfriend, you’re the dipshit!”

“Yeah yeah, s’what you said ‘bout not dating me yet you’re leaving this at my place hmm?”

He grinned at you, if you were less upset you’d maybe see that his eyes weren’t entirely amused like they usually danced with when he teased you. You’d see he was hurt, he was annoyed there was a slight hardness to them.

But he’d never admit that.

Your hand covered your mouth and cheeks in an attempted to cover your face going beet red, eyes filling with tears as the shear embarrassment hit you like a train. There were so many eyes on you and you felt corned. Your heart sank to your stomach, drowning in the acid that sat there, eating away at you so viciously you felt nauseous.

You stood from your seat, clumsily grabbing your bag and books, looking at Gojo with enough pain on your face to make his own expression fall.

The glistening of feral amusement from his eyes dulled as he set his gaze on what he could only guess was his first look at heart break. -his first look at really hurting you.

No, this wasn’t right, it wasn’t supposed to make him feel like this.

Your hand lowered slightly to release words that made him freeze.

“I hate you Satoru,”

It was eerie how quietly and calmly you spoke, yet it was just so fucking sad how your gentle voice cracked. There was no insult, no temper -nothing.

No, this was different to your usual anger, this wasn’t how it usually goes. You started off like you always did, keeping him place and bantering back. But this?

You never said you hated him, you never looked at him like that before. These weren’t tears of frustration this was something else.

Suddenly he didn’t think your eyes looked so pretty like this, glistening with tears that he caused.

You turned and he stood frozen at your run from the room, everything slowed as you left. How your hair whipped around you, how those stray tears left you dancing a battle through strands of your hair. It was all so clear as time slowed and that was nothing to do with his unique eyes.

The class wasn’t full of people yet -you hated crowds and always got here early but there were a few here.

Suguru gripped the back of his collar and pulled him back, dragging him out the class.

“Satoru, you’re beyond dense. You really outdone yourself this time.”

The next few weeks of a short holiday flew by and Satoru heard nothing from you, his texts not delivered and his calls straight to answer phone.

Satoru > Yo pretty

Satoru > you ignoring me now? Don’t do that :( you’ll miss me too much~

Satoru > c’monnnn babe don’t be like this :( I know how you make you feel better~! ;D come spend next weekend with me! I’ll even take you to get some Mochi, there’s this Zunda and cream flavour you gotta try! I’ll buy you a box!

Satoru > oi stop being a big baby, talkkkkk toooo meeeeeeeeeee!

Satoru > oi

Satoru > hellllllooooooo

Satoru > ╰⋃╯ both know mines bigger :D he misses you <;3

Satoru > Hey, it’s been two weeks, seriously you good?

Satoru > Hey, y/n you’re not back at class, can you just let me know you’re good?

The return to senior high for the last few weeks before everyone left for university or careers came and went quickly -he never saw you again.

He never seen you to tease and he missed it, he missed finding you to annoy you. He missed burying his face in your thighs to cheer you up, he missed pushing that silly school skirt up, he missed how your thigh high socks felt under his hands as he grabbed your thighs whilst bullying his dick into you.

But he’d never admit that to you.

“Y-You’re a r-real asshole you know that?”

A flat line presented on Gojo’s mouth, cracking his can of drink open his head tilted in the direction of the voice, blue eyes looking over his glasses as he stared at the guy without much expression. The guy brave enough to stutter an insult to him.

Yeah, the guy who took you out on a date. Sir dipshit.

“S-s-sorry what was that?” Satoru mocked uncaringly, stuttering to remind the guy he was scared to talk to him.

“Yeah, that! Exactly what I mean. She never dated me you idiot -I asked her out for coffee so she could help me come out to a guy I liked, who’s now my boyfriend.”

Gojo’s heart accelerated in his chest, he finally understood what the phrase meant ‘the colour drained from their face’ because he literally felt the blood dropping from it.

God that was weird, he’s never felt that before.

Outwardly he stayed collected -he stayed cool because he was Gojo Satoru.

“So?”

“So?! Everyone’s noticed how grumpy you’ve been, you deserve much worse after what you did. You should have just asked her out like a normal person would, but your crappy god complex wouldn’t allow that would it!”

“Who said I liked her like that?”

He deadpanned at Gojo, the silence between them was thick as the blue eyes stared at him without much expression trying so hard to remain cool. Trying so hard to not show his discomfort.

But his heart was bouncing against his rib cage, his lungs were trying to pick up his breathing as his emotions started to physically unsettle him, Gojo’s palms were sweating yet he felt a cold rush over his skin.

What the hell was going on? Was he sick?

“You’re kidding right? Do you not realise you’re completely head over heels for her? The whole school knows it, how do you not? Y’know, you don’t deserve her, good job you have no idea, you were so mean to her because you couldn’t figure out you liked her and you’re useless in dealing with it. You saved her from it.”

Turning and fanning his hand dismissively over his shoulder Gojo was left to stand by himself with his can of drink fizzing against the silence he was plunged into.

Eyes blinking, his cool attitude and posture absolutely crumbling to a dumbfounded display.

He liked you?

Is that what this was?

No he didn’t like you!

Right?

The whole school knew? The fuck?

Gojo collected his phone from his pocket, turning on his heels he walked down the hallway whilst making a call.

“Satoru,” Geto answered

“I like her?”

“What? Was that a statement or a question?”

“The whole school knows I like her, what-“

“Oh, her. You finally realised huh Satoru?”

“YOU TOO?! Why didn’t you tell me!”

“You’re hopeless,” Suguru sighed heavily down the line, “-like you’d have done anything about it. Thought it was best forgotten after the last day you seen her, it’s been weeks and schools over, s’a bit late. She’s gone Kyoto for university Satoru.”

“How do you know that? She’s not carrying on as a sorcerer?”

“I seen her last week at Jujustu Tech. Her dad died recently on a job and he wanted her to get away from it all.”

“Her dad died?”

“Yeah, that mission couple weeks ago with the train, that special grade took him out and she finished it off, she has a pretty nasty domain apparently. She had a meeting with the higher ups about it, she was injured.”

You never told him about that, ah man, if Gojo didn’t know what guilt felt like before then he sure fucking did now.

Is that why you weren’t messaging him?

“Just let it go Satoru, you screwed up, move forward.”

No, that wasn’t why you weren’t messaging him.

You weren’t talking to him because of what he did, because of how he was treating you. Because of what he did the last day he saw you.

He tried to forget it because hearing you say you hate him was horrible, seeing you truly upset was weighing heavy on him and the fact he wasn’t there this time to wipe your tears, or make you feel better didn’t sit right with him.

But you’d disappeared from his life, you’d ignored his texts and calls, you left him.

Was it really too late?

You really had left.

Your house was sold, waiting for a new family to occupy the building. Gojo stood before it frowning, hands in his pockets as he looked over it looking so empty and lifeless, a mere shell of the comfort it would bring him. He’d see your cursed energy residing within it, sometimes your dads if he wasn’t away on missions.

The same building that looked so different now, weird to think it had your window on it which Gojo had thrown stones at in the middle of the night when he was having trouble sleeping. He rarely needs a lot of it and his eyes are the reason for his lack of sleep, not to mention his intake of sweet things to try keep his mind stimulated.

It was only getting worse as he got older, he seemed to realise. Yeah, both his eye sensitivity and his sweet tooth.

You were never particularly happy about it, him rattling stones at your window when your dad wasn’t home.

“Piss off will you?! It’s like 2am you menace! Quit throwing stones at my window and find someone else to torment.”

So he did.

Stop throwing stones at your window that was, he’d still turn up only this time floating innocently outside your window knocking on it asking to be let in.

“I told you to quit it Satoru!”

“Nah, said stop throwing stones at ya window so I did, just knocked instead.”

“Get in before someone sees you!!”

Worked like a charm. Every time.

Now though? Doubt he could be getting away with that at the new owners. Besides you weren’t there.

Turning he left the house behind him and found himself walking past it at least once, maybe twice a week for the next two years.

He hoped he’d find your cursed energy there, maybe the new owners were distant family and you’d come back to visit.

But the family held no cursed energy, not even a flicker of it. So Gojo eventually stopped walking by, but one place he did return to was the grave of your dad.

He’d leave a flower there.

“Guess I shouldn’t have been such a dick to her huh?”

Silence as usual.

He’d stand and leave, sighing as he now replaced his glasses with his blind fold he had started to wear because it was being too much for his eyes to deal with.

Everything was so damn blinding.

At first he thought of you everyday, thinking he never used to think this much about you when you were around.

At least he didn’t think he did. Besides Suguru and Shoko he didn’t really rely on anyone, but perhaps you were someone from his past that he could have included on that list back then that only seems to get shorter.

When Suguru dumped him outside KFC, not one of his classiest moments, Gojo truly started to feel alone in this life.

As the weeks turned into months, months turned into years and he gradually forgot about you the best he could, only occasionally being reminded of you every now and then.

Usually when another girl asked him about his past relationships.

“So you’ve never had that special someone?”

They all thought they’d be that thing for him but they never were, 90% of the time he couldn’t even get around to sleeping with them. He wanted something deeper than surface sex, sure it felt good but something was missing.

He never had a relationship, because he just wasn’t the kind of guy to be involved with someone like that. His work was dangerous, he alone would make anyone around him a target. So Gojo kept his distance, his god complex grew trying to bury that deep, gnawing insecurity and stomach churning loneliness. His infinity kept people at bay, both for his emotional and physical protection, burying his sickening need for touch by something that loved him.

These girls after you? They never stood up to him, they were pillow princesses and only aided his dominant nature. He never got that rush that he got with you -that high and low.

He was never as hard as he was for you, that 9 inches on a good day? Yeah, definitely remained at a 8.5inches

He stopped comparing to you after three years, he stopped thinking about you and he buried his head into his work because the weight of Suguru leaving him was another thing for him to carry. He was lonely and he didn’t want more people close to him again and feel that loss.

Funny, because the people he loved were still alive and left him, it hurt more than people dying around him that he knew.

Suguru was a deep friendship lost, you were something he didn’t fully understand.

He started to get comfortable, he started to move forward from you and Suguru…

Then the order came from the higher ups.

Stood in the usual room, Gojo remained in the centre, bored and irritated with these douches already sputtering at him.

“There has been an issue in Kyoto, we need you to go and investigate, students have been going missing. There have been rumours that a cursed object has been confirmed, resulting in a reincarnation of a past cursed spirit rising. You are to investigate and execute, minimal damage and lives lost Gojo, we mean it this time.”

“-and put a damn curtain up will you?”

He didn’t even reply, turning he fixed his eyes in front of him, he heard them and had nothing to say because his mind was else where.

Returning back to you, just when he stopped thinking about you almost three years later.

Kyoto?

That’s where you went right? He’s pretty sure Suguru told him you’d be studying at a university there.

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed <3 I’m tempted to make this into a part three in a slight time skip. Hmm! We shall see, do we need a part three for closure & comfort? Cause I think so 😎

Thank you thank you thank yoouuuu for all the comments / reblogs etc 🥹

Tags: it isn’t letting me tag everyone! Sorry! I’ve tagged the accounts that are letting me. I’ll try again tho. <;3 ps I won’t engage with ageless blogs or blank ones!

@tomiokas-lunchbox @krisp0415 @ifartmangos @ritsatoru @ekaterinatepes @angrydaughter @jessie9008 @marie-morningstar @love-me-satoru @jspenft

© pharix 2023 permission is not given to repost, translate or post anywhere else.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 410: Kacchan Fights a Baby

Previously on BnHA: Kacchan was born and then he grew up and murdered the Demon Lord.

Today on BnHA: Kacchan fights a baby. Tomura and Deku finally remember that they were supposed to have been fighting too this entire time, and get on with that once again. Tomura is all, “[literally just reaches out and grabs Deku’s face because Deku’s main character powers suddenly abandoned him in a fit of confusion].” Deku is all, “[chops off Tomura’s fingers which is somehow not even in the top twenty of violent things that have happened in this series in just the last five chapters].” Tomura is all “joke’s on you I still got your quirk :D” and fuck me he actually stole Danger Sense, what the fuck.

logically I knew AFO still had to be alive somehow because he’s too big of a villain to go out that easily without a proper sendoff. but deep in my heart, I’m still secretly disappointed

it just isn’t fair, lol. this guy has died more times than Rasputin and he’s still out here scheming his schemey schemes. when oh when will it end

sir you did not just say you had yet ANOTHER unused trump card up your sleeve??

(ETA: the translation isn’t fully clear here, but I think the trump card he’s referring to is the whole “I’ll just go back inside him and join the part of me that was already in there and we’ll take over Tomura’s body again together” plan that he was trying to pull off. I think. if not though, that’s certainly something worth speculating about.)

well as always the psychology in this series is unironically fascinating! he just wants acknowledgement at the end of the day, huh. just wants some love and attention. too bad he was born in a rat-infested hellscape and learned all the wrong lessons and turned into a crazed omnipotent murderlad

also he really did turn back into a baby sdfsdlkjfl oh no. I need to see Katsuki’s reaction to this immediately

oh my lord

(●__●)

lmao this is so incredibly fucked up

ngl though, this is karma at its finest. he tortured and killed so many people trying to earn everyone’s fear and awe and reverence, only to literally blip out of existence at the end with absolutely nothing to show for it

everyone please enjoy this series of panels of a deeply vexed Bakugou Katsuki picking a fight with this slowly melting evil baby

“you think I care that you’re a baby now. you think I won’t fight a fuckin’ baby. let’s do this you little punk”

also I’m sorry but it’s absolutely ridiculous that the gigantic chest wound Tomura inflicted on him got sewed up so neatly lol. AFO’s not the only one who stubbornly refuses to die no matter what

...

just once, it would be nice if Horikoshi didn’t immediately shred my plot nitpicks to pieces mere seconds after I write them

LMAO

BABY AFO DON’T CARE. BABY AFO WILL THROW HANDS WITH ANYONE ＼(｀0´)／

KACCHAN MY BELOVED FAVE OF ALL TIME, ARE YOU REALLY ABOUT TO LOSE TO A LITERAL FUCKING INFANT

WHAT HAPPENED TO “PERFECT VICTORY” LMAO. MOVING THE GOALPOSTS EVEN AS HIS CONSCIOUSNESS FADES. “EH, CLOSE ENOUGH”

-- OH FOR THE LOVE OF --

me: wow it sure is uncharacteristic of Katsuki to just pass out before he properly wraps up this battle

Horikoshi: oh yeah good point, sure would be a shame if someone... IMMEDIATELY ADDRESSED THAT CONCERN ON THE VERY NEXT PAGE

me: ఠ_ఠ

ldskjflaksdjfkds

fdsfsdkf. “SORRY ABOUT THAT, FOR A MOMENT THERE I ALMOST FORGOT TO BEND THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE TO MY WILL”

holy fucking shit. his body was all “um, just a quick reminder that you’re HORRIBLY WOUNDED and have lost like ten gallons of blood and all of your cells are about to call an emergency meeting to shut this thing down before you get us all killed.” and he was all “WHAT WAS THAT?!” and his body was all “oh my GOD, FUCK, OKAY just forget we said anything”

and meanwhile Baby AFO is just lying there all “(◉⌓◉)”

this six-month-old child is truly and sincerely still trying to kill Kacchan while screeching death threats in high-pitched baby talk

this actually would have killed him too, if he’d succeeded in passing out. all that just to be punk’d by a damn baby

you are actually shitting me right now

at this point I’m genuinely not sure which of them has the more powerful angry toddler energy

oh no ffuffkdsfk

meeeeelting. meeeeeeltiiiiiing!!! oh what a world what a world

jesus Horikoshi I am genuinely speechless

... welp

WAIT NO WAY, REALLY?!?!

?!?!?! WAS IT ACTUALLY THAT SIMPLE THIS WHOLE TIME

-- lkjf

three times. three times in the same fucking chapter. I give up. apparently I’ll literally believe anything this man says. does it feel good, Horikoshi. preying on your readers’ hopeful naivete

yeefuckinghaw lmao

GOOD JOB KACCHAN YOU DEFEATED THE EVIL BABY

awwwww

I actually had a theory about this! well more of a wishlist item, really. I can’t remember if I’ve actually posted about it yet or not. but it’s like. you know how Deku and Kacchan are always being really dramatic about holding hands? wanting to hold hands; not wanting to hold hands; being afraid to hold hands; holding hands via proxy, etc. etc.?

and you know how both Endeavor and All Might have each done their own version of the victory pose that Kacchan is referring to here? with each one using a different hand?

so you see, I was thinking that it might be nice. might be a little poetic and all that. if at the end of the fight, Deku and Kacchan did, in fact, hold hands. and then did the victory pose together. and it became like their iconic hero moment. them standing there together. having accomplished their goal and defeated TomurAFO through teamwork. realizing their shared childhood dream. and sharing that moment of triumph with each other and with the world, ushering in a new era of heroes

anyway yeah. I was thinking that might be a pretty good ending. but it looks like Kacchan maybe really is about to pass out here now, lol, so maybe not? anyways time to finally scroll down

-- okay I literally said awww again out loud

what a fucking nerd. I have never felt more fondness for a character in my life

every damn person watching this on the news better have leaped to their feet and started applauding, goddammit. those motherfuckers better be CHANTING HIS FUCKING NAME. all those nagging reporters better be bombarding his phone with calls. those fuckers who deleted his footage from the Shouto interview better be shamelessly leaving him dozens of voicemails acting like none of that ever happened and presumptuously asking when he can free some time in his schedule to visit their studio again. all the heroes who haven’t hugged him yet better be lining the fuck up. that one guy from the post-kidnapping press conference in chapter 86 better be writing a fifty page letter of apology!!

oh hey it’s a random pre-battle flashback mysteriously taking place in Troy “a few days before the battle” even though I thought they only moved into that place the night before the fight

I love how Katsuki immediately narrows his eyes (I assume. we can’t see for sure but that’s the vibe I get) at Jeanist and has to resist the urge to call the police on him for that pun

so Hadou’s wondering what Jeanist is talking about because they already evacuated the civilians, so what else are they trying to protect. and Edgeshot is all, “well obviously we’ve gotta protect everyone’s future,” which is a nice... rearshadowing?? for him saving Katsuki’s life later on lol

and now Mirko is all “get to the fucking point already.” which, same

so Jeanist says that Tomura is an even bigger problem than AFO, because at least AFO doesn’t want to murder everyone on the entire planet. and he concludes with “he’ll probably try to touch the ground and use his quirk.” which is a conclusion that I have to say wasn’t really worth two pages of flashback buildup for, considering that we all figured that out years ago

I’m guessing this is all just some sort of awkward transition back to Deku’s fight now lol

and now we’re getting two pages of exposition on how long it would theoretically take Tomura’s Decay to spread throughout the city, and then the entire country, yikes

damn. talk about stakes

and now finally back to Deku!!

shoutout to everyone who correctly predicted that Deku was once again talking out of his ass when it came to being out of Gearshifts. we all knew. unlimited supply

wow Tomura way to throw AFO under the bus

the way I recall it, AFO wasn’t the one who failed to kill him back then lol. but go ahead and talk your shit king

DEKU WHAT ARE YOU DOING

holy shit?!?!

like my first thought was “well last time he did this he just tried to steal OFA rather than Decay him, so he’ll probably try that again and it’ll be fine.” only to remember that the AFO inside Tomura is currently permanently(?) out to lunch, and Tomura himself doesn’t give two figs about stealing OFA. so, uhhhh >_>

(ETA: nevermind.)

but then this happened

Deku what the actual fuck

OH MY GOD??!?!

HOLY SHIT

okay. okay, fuck. lemme gather up my thoughts, and then we’ll wrap this up

they’ll never admit it, but you know the other OFA Vestiges secretly resented Shino a tiny bit for being the only one of them to not be gruesomely murdered. bet they all feel guilty for thinking that now

Shino and Banjou also seemed to have this cute little pseudo-rivalry thing going on, so I really feel bad for Banjou now. :/ he looks so horrified in that bottom right panel

gotta admit, I did not see this coming in the slightest. OFA has been this immutable “I do what I want!” quirk for so long that I never thought Tomura or AFO would actually succeed in stealing it, even partially. that shook me to my core

BUT, it’s also really exciting to me because it’s going to make this battle much more interesting if Deku can’t use his get out of jail free card. shit just got way more real and I’m here for it

lastly, so! let me tell you guys my prediction. I still can’t see Tomura being the final villain lol. I just can’t. it feels too anticlimactic. if I’m wrong, I’m wrong, and I’ve certainly botched MANY predictions in the past, but I have not yet learned my lesson from any of it and I will not apologize lol

so here’s what I think. Deku and Tomura battle it out for the next chapter or two, and Tomura snatches up more of Deku’s quirks one by one. we see all of the Vestiges disappearing and the mood gets more and more desperate. eventually we’re down to just Kudou and Yoichi. Deku is panicking, but for some reason Kudou seems even MORE panicked

Kudou/Gearshift eventually gets stolen too, and it looks like this might finally be it for Deku (I have no idea how he’d stop Tomura from Decaying the ground once Blackwhip gets stolen, btw, but maybe Katsuki or someone else interferes in desperation towards the end). but just when it looks like Tomura is finally going to take the last piece of OFA, Deku’s vibes suddenly do a 180, stopping Tomura in his tracks

cut to the OFA Moon Gorgeous Meditation Realm, where Deku and Yoichi are staring at the door -- yes, that door -- in shock. because it’s finally been opened (now that the other Vestiges are no longer there to keep it at bay). and just like that, enter AFO, for the THIRD FUCKING TIME :D :D

tl;dr, HERE’S HOW HORCRUX!DEKU CAN STILL HAPPEN!!! wait where are you all going. wait come back

anyway so wow that was a really bizarre chapter that I truly thoroughly enjoyed, which should probably be a bit concerning. on to the next two week break! (for anyone who’s not aware, Shounen Jump will be on break next week, so yeah.) I’m on chapter 391 now. so close but still so far. the end of the year has gone by too damn fast tbh

[siren-serenity]

ingame voicelines 🌈

what would they say about you? would they murmur sweet compliments or chuckle at your silly mistakes? in which yuu asks these strange students of night raven college about you: and is surprised to find out that they have lovers?

characters: cater diamond, jamil viper, idia shroud, dire crowley, gn!reader warnings: - spoilers for chapter 4! - reader is not yuu! a/n: feedback is appreciated!

"hey hey hey! how are you, yuu? *smiles* have you seen y/n around? i need them for this super cute magicam trend! it's for couples exclusively so i totally need to get y/n and i into this one!...you said they were at the library? okay, thanks!"

"hello yuu *grins* i'm currently on my way to my date with y/n but you said you wanted to ask me something?....'what do our dates look like?' hahaha funny story! so y/n loves sweets, like- seriously loves them. we met through trey since y/n works part-time at his family's bakery. i was so charmed by her beauty that i asked to court them ASAP! they rejected me but gave me a challenge: make them fall in love with me within a month! luckily, with my charming looks and sweet mouth, they accepted!"

"omg look yuu! i need someone to rant to, lmao, so you don't mind if i grab you for a quick five secs? *pauses before getting a nod from yuu* great!! look at this beautiful gift that y/n bought for me the other day! when you press the pendant, it lights up and sends the other person a message! it means you miss them. *the bracelet blinks* OH MY SEVENS!! y/n is so sweet! they're in class but they're able to find time to reply!! *heart eyes* see yuu? y/n is the best s/o anyone could ask for!"

"hello yuu. do you mind tasting this dish? i need to know if i have used the correct ratio of flavoring to balance out the spices since y/n can't handle those...huh? you're asking who is y/n to me? *smiles* they are my lover of almost three years and tomorrow marks our anniversary."

"hmm? 'how did we meet' you ask? well, y/n was actually kalim's fashion designer when it came to the important events he and his parents had to attend sometimes. i met them when they were designing his outfit and i accidentally spilled hot curry on the garment. believe me *chuckle* i was beyond horrified but they were ever so sweet when they accepted my apology."

"oh! prefect yuu, how may i help you? *listening* so you're asking me for dating advice? got your eye on someone in nrc? *laughs* well, my advice is to always maintain communication and don't let things become misunderstood. i learnt that lesson the hard way after my...incident back in scarabia. y/n had to sit me down and i really just- let loose. they comforted me, gave my over-emotional self a quick reality check and by the time the sun was setting, i felt my heart get lighter. *gives yuu a gentle smile* i don't know what i'd do without y/n."

"hahaha! take the L, losers! i got a s/o and y'all dont' LMAOO...*jumps in surprise and shrieks* y-yuu! w-when did y-you arrive? *listening* o-oh? you h-heard everything that i-i said?....shit."

"lmao you're asking me how to get a s/o? newsflash, they came to me! not the other way around! i honestly don't know what part of me did they fall for, but after being together for so long, i don't regret saying 'yes' to their proposal."

"h-huh?! you're a-asking me about w-what do our d-d-dates look like? erm- well, most of the time, we game. like i swear to the sevens, y/n has a magic hand when it comes to the ten-pull summons! like i'm playing this game called we-can't-defeat-the-super-evil-boss-with-the-power-of-friendship-and-love and in just the FIRST SINGLE PULL, they brought home the rarest gacha card ever?! bro they are my personal cheat card!"

"why, good morning to my favorite magicless- I MEAN hello yuu! how can i help you? be quick because i have to get this drink to y/n before it gets cold! see? i'm so generous to my darling, they are so honored to have the one and only me as their lover!"

"where did i meet them? well, at night raven college of course! they were hired as the lecturer for developing 'unique magic' and i fell in love with their uniqueness of their own *laughs heartily* oh, i was such a fool in love."

"hmm...'what do i like most about y/n' you ask? *in deep thought* well, of course i love y/n completely...it's really hard to choose just one...*snaps his fingers and smile* oh! we have this cute ritual every weekend where on the days that our jobs feel like too much, y/n and i will make what you 'youngsters' call a pillow fort! i'll summon some romance books and y/n will make some quick snacks and we'll just read together. sometimes, we'll re-enact some of the book scenes *coughs shyly* BUT we'll not talk about that."

[rogersideup]

｡°✩ ♊︎ The Gemini♊︎ ✩ °｡

Chapter 9

True Romantic

Series masterlist

Previous part: Twinkles Next part: Star crossed lover

Word count: 7,040

Warnings: My blog is 18+ only. All minors or blogs without an age in bio will be blocked. Minors DNI.

As soon as you left your apartment for your meeting with Fury, Steve raced to his own place. As fast as he could, he took a shower and got dressed and as presentable as he could in the short amount of time that he had before fast walking all the way to Fury's office.

In the hallway and outside of Fury's door, there was already a small group of Avengers awaiting the end of the meeting to find out what you chose to do.

Bucky leaned against the wall, tapping his fingers against it. Natasha was trying her hardest to read Fury's lips through the small window in the office door, unfortunately she couldn't see your lips or facial expressions since your back was facing the door. Tony was also there, but he was trying his hardest to pretend like he couldn't care less about any of this debacle. Sam was there too, but mostly because he just wanted to be where Steve and Bucky were. As crazy as it was, you and Sam had never met each other before regardless of how close you both were to the boys, but based off the stories that were told back and forth, the two of you might as well have been friends this whole time.

Steve let out a breath of relief as he approached, knowing for sure now that you were still on the meeting and hadn't missed the Avenger's interrogation to follow.

All of the Avengers turned their heads to investigate Steve's fast approaching steps, but he didn't hold their attention for more than a couple seconds as they all turned back to continue their investigation.

"Fury is smiling." Nat informed Steve, still on her tippy toes staring through the small window.

"Fury never smiles" Steve noted, leaning against the wall next to Sam.

"I didn't even know she was back at the compound." Bucky told Steve.

"She came home last night, I didn't know she was coming back either." Steve told him.

"Oh so 306 sneaking into your apartment was a surprise to you too?" Tony asked Steve, obviously trying to get a rise out of him.

Steve didn't miss the way Bucky's eyebrows raised, or the snickering coming from Sam and Natasha. "You make it sound so naughty"

"Just calling it how I saw it. Deflecting much?"

"So you two really made up, huh?" Bucky flung his arm around Steve's shoulder.

"Oh my go- no. I mean, yes, we did make up. But no, nothing weird happened." Steve confirmed... and denied. Either way, his cheeks felt hotter than the surface of the sun. "What? Were you spying on me?"

"No, I was just walking down the hallway and was visually assaulted by the sight of a woman way out of your league opening your door." Tony explained. "Don't really know what else that could be other than a Star Spangled booty call"

"Unlike you, I respect women too much to participate in booty calls, whatever that means." Steve huffed in disgust. "Not that it's any of your business, she was actually just being a good friend. I was having a tough night and she came to cheer me up."

"Oh, I bet she came alright" Sam joked with a wink, voice taunting Steve.

"That's my boy!" Bucky held his hand up for a high five from Steve, but he was left hanging and earned a death glare.

"You boys are all stupid, I think this is all code for Rogers had a panic attack last night." Natasha noted, eyes never leaving the window.

"Alright, Cap, what's more embarrassing for you? Admitting you were clapping cheeks or having a breakdown." Tony raised an eyebrow.

"Nothing embarrassing about either of those things, but I prefer to keep both of them to myself. Thank you very much." Steve refused to let them get a rise out of him.

"What a noble answer" Sam noted.

"306 is signing papers, Fury is laughing." Nat updated.

"I didn't know Fury was even capable of laughing." Tony raised an eyebrow.

"She must be really charismatic if she has the big guy laughing and seems to have you boys wrapped around her finger." Sam theorized.

"Or she's demonic. Maybe she practices witch craft and puts spells on people." Tony agreed.

"If that was the case, the poor girl wouldn't be terrorized and miserable every day of her life." Natasha defended you. "Maybe she's happy she can finally get the hell out of here."

"You think she's going to leave for good, pal?" Bucky questioned looking right at Steve who was looking down at the floor.

"No." Steve lifted his eyes to look at Bucky while shaking his head. "Fury wouldn't be happy if she was leaving. She makes his life too easy. If she left he would be losing a lot."

"What ever ended up happening to that guy? The one that go her really hurt?" Tony asked.

Steve sighed. "He's on a final warning, one wrong move away from getting fired and black listed from the compound."

“Why do I feel like that's always the case, yet he keeps doing shitty things and he's still here?" Sam asked.

"It's not always him that's doing it, his punk friends aren't any better." Steve said regretfully. "Admittedly I've been trying for a while to get him out for good but he's slimy, always finds a way to slip right through."

Nat turned her head away from looking in the window for a few moments to look at the sad look evident on Steve's face. "Why didn't you tell me? Give me 10 minutes of digging and I'll find some dirt to get him out of here."

"If you can do that, I'd be the happiest man on the planet." Steve encouraged.

Natasha's eyes went back to the door. "Everyone shut up they're standing and shaking hands!"

"Act normal!" Sam announced.

Nat took a big step back and leaned against the wall with everyone else. The door swung open and Fury came out first.

He looked at everyone, but didn't even stop walking while announcing "I'm not even going to ask."

Then, out came you.

Steve couldn't even stop himself from smiling when he saw you, and he was painfully aware of it. You looked just as pretty as you did an hour and a half ago, and it still made his heart beat unfortunately fast.

You stopped in your tracks when you noticed the group that had formed in the hallway. Feeling a bit confused, you looked down the hall to the left, then the right, then you looked behind you.

"I'm confused, what's happening?" You asked. Intimidation overtook the confusion.

Your brain raced and started overthinking when you saw Natasha. Now that her and Bucky were dating, you wondered if she knew what happened and if it would make her not like you. The thought of that happening made you sad, all you wanted was to be friends with her.... And Sam. Why was Sam here?

"You're what's happening, Bug." Bucky confirmed.

"What did you choose to do?" Steve asked, Hope smeared all over his face.

With a blank face, you looked down at the signed contract in your hands before lifting it up to show them.

All four of the Avengers in front of you took a step or two forward before squinting their eyes at the paper, there was a moment of concentration as they all read the header.

Contract of employment: The Avengers Initiative.

Immediately following, there was a lot more celebration than you ever anticipated. You stood with a smile on your face as there was some gasping, shouting, jumping up and down from Sam and Bucky, you're pretty sure you caught a glimpse of Nat whacking Steve's arm, and Tony saying I knew it a few times.

That was all before Sam walked over to you to give you an unsuspecting hug that you happily granted him. But all was not as it seemed because that hug turned into you being picked up and spun around.

Your squeak of surprise didn't go unnoticed by Steve who was quick to pick you up out of Sam's arms and return your two feet back to the floor before giving you a hug of his own. But because they were Avengers, and the chaos seemed to never trail too far behind them, Bucky joined that hug too.

Being held by both of the boys was healing in a way you didn't quite know you needed. Especially when you could tell neither of them were harboring resentment or hard feelings. It felt normal, happy even.

Then Nat joined, followed by Sam, then Tony walked away because he definitely wasn't going to get in on that.

Your head was smushed into Steve's chest so you couldn't really see much, but you could hear Sam. "Nice to finally meet you, 306."

"You too, Sam." You giggled at how unable you were to move any part of your body in the big Avengers hallway cuddle. "We should grab a coffee one day."

"Not before I get to spend a day with you!" Nat spoke, fighting for your time. "Rogers says you like to eat, so we're going out to eat with no boys."

"Steve, what the fuck is that supposed to mean?" You questioned jokingly, trying your hardest to lift your head to look at his face.

"That is not what I said." Steve defended himself with a shake of his head and a laugh. "I said you love food, like your eyes light up when you have food in front of you. Don't twist my words!"

"Mmmhmm" You said suspiciously.

"Are you free to get dinner tonight?" Nat asked you, releasing you from her arms.

Sam followed by letting you go, but it was clear that Bucky and Steve had no interest in dropping their arms, but at least now you could look at Nat as she spoke to you.

Your head immediately went to all of the stuff you needed to get sorted out. Bucky, Steve, telling Luca you were an Avenger, definitely calling your parents.

“Wait, not tonight." Steve reminded Nat. "We have that thing tonight, remember?"

"Oh! Right! So I'll be seeing you tonight anyways! That works for me." Nat said.

"Oh and me too. We all get her!" Sam enthused.

"What thing tonight?" You questioned.

A beeping sound came from Sam and Nat's smart watches, they both read the notification. "Well, duty calls. Congratulations, 306, so happy to have you on the team and I'll see you later!"

"Welcome to the team" Sam waved before they walked off together leaving just you, Steve, and Bucky.

"This is nice and all, but will one of you tell me what's happening tonight?" You asked the two boys who were still holding on to you.

"The team is going to a winery to celebrate the new addition!" Steve told you.

"That's suspiciously fast planning" you raised an eyebrow.

"Be ready to go by 6 o'clock, you're going with Steve." Bucky told you. "We can't get drunk, so obviously, we're going to drive."

Bucky let go of you, and only then did Steve let you go too.

"I guess that makes sense" You nodded, suddenly feeling self conscious and painfully aware that this was the first time the three of you have been together since that night before evaluation.

The boys read your body language like a hawk, especially when your big smile finally fell and your arms crossed over your chest, while your back leaned onto the wall.

"What's wrong?" Bucky asked, eyes filling with concern.

You let out a chuckle before standing up straight again, arms falling back down to your side. "Just overwhelmed. I still can't really comprehend what this means for me but I guess this is the only way to find out."

Steve could read between the lines. "You're worried about how the agents are going to react to this?"

"Yeah" You nodded. On the wall was a big Avengers A logo, and under it was an electronic screen displaying the names of the entire team. The boys eyes followed your finger as you pointed directly at it. "My name is already on it. The word is already out and admittedly, I'm a little scared to walk back to my apartment."

"I'll walk you home." Steve understood your anxiety.

Even a couple weeks ago you were getting shoved into walls and tripped by your peers when you gave them no reason to be angry. But now, they had a whole lot of grounds for jealousy. They both knew that probably wasn't the safest situation for you to be living in.

"We're always here in the compound, Bug." Bucky reminded you. "If you need us to hang out with you until the buzz dies down, we will."

"Thanks, Buck." You said genuinely, but you couldn't get rid of the uncomfortable feeling that settled deep in your stomach. You knew you just had to address what happened. "And I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was coming back. I just decided last night and when I got back it was late and-"

"Don't sweat it" Bucky denied your apology. "Don't sweat anything. We're fine."

His words made the heaviness feel so much lighter. A sigh of relief escaped your lips "we're fine?"

"We're fine." Steve agreed.

All you did was open your arms again for another hug from them, feeling more than ready to put this all behind you. Once again they happily accepted, one arm squeezing each of them tightly.

"I really love you guys." You reminded them, squeezing your eyes shut to stop the tears of relief that started prickling through.

"Love you too, both of you." Steve smiled.

"You both already know how much I love you" Bucky announced. "All I ever want is for you guys to be happy, whatever that may look like."

You nodded in response to his statement. There was an understanding that he was giving the two of your his blessing to date without embarrassing Steve, especially because he's had no recent updates and you've never admitted to Bucky that you were also painfully in love with the idiot. But Bucky knew, of course he knew, he was far too smart and level headed to be fooled by either of you.

"Will you give me the updates on you and Natasha?" You asked him, wiggling your eyebrows suggestively.

"Oop! Gotta go!" Bucky let go of you and started booking it down the hallway. "See you later!"

You and Steve laughed at his dramatics. But now that it was just the two of you, you finally let your shoulders slump and your real emotions poke through.

"You're terrified." Steve sympathetically noted.

"Not even of the job. How sad is that?" You questioned. "I'm also just... still tired. Being back at the compound is challenging."

"I can only imagine." He understood what you were trying to tell him. Though things were getting better, healing takes time. Steve could still see that part of you that just wanted to go lay down and avoid the world trying to fight through the brightness in your eyes. "But you don't have to be alone this time, and you're a tough cookie."

"An overwhelmed cookie, but a tough overwhelmed cookie." You agreed.

"I'm really proud of you." Steve emphasized. "Your success is a hard journey under perfect circumstances, yet you've made it look easy while facing a lot of adversity. It's no wonder to me why you're always exhausted, but I'm confident that once all the tension within the agents dies down, you'll find that a spot on the team means you'll have a lot more time to relax."

You let his words sink in and validate all of the hardship you sometimes felt crazy for. "Thanks for helping me get here. I don't know if I could've done it without you."

"It was all you" Steve denied your statement. "It always has been."

"I know you think that, but I don't, so thank you anyway."

"What can I do to help you feel less overwhelmed?" Steve asked.

You shrugged your shoulders. "I think I need to call my Mom."

"You should definitely call your Mom" Steve agreed with a giggle. "I actually have a few things for you, do you want to hang out at my place for a little bit? We can just chill out for a while, you can call your parents, I'll fill you in on some things?"

"Yes please" You agreed, enthusiastically nodding your head. His apartment was down the hallway, and yours was across the building. Knowing you could just relax on his couch while he convincingly told you all the reasons why you didn't need to be so scared sounded like heaven to you.

Steve grinned at your willingness to continue spending time with him. "Come on, let's go."

You walked along side him down the hall to his apartment, then happily plopped onto his couch.

"Stay right there, I have surprises!" Steve pointed at you as you settled into the very corner, tucking your feet underneath you and pulling his blanket over your lap. It was still pretty cold despite the shining sun.

"Surprises? Why do you have surprises?" You asked loudly so he could hear you as he disappeared into his bedroom.

"Because you love surprises!" Steve called out in response.

You could hear his closet door open then shut again. "Only when I know what they are!"

"Then it's not a surprise." He challenged as he walked back into the living room, a small box and a garment bag you recognized.

All uniforms in the compound came in that same garment bag, it was made of a heavy cotton twill. Always grey, always with an Avengers 'A' embossed on the back, a sleek black zipper down the front.

"Let's start with the obvious" Steve said, handing you the garment bag by the hanger.

Thinking you knew exactly what it was, you unzipped the front expecting your old suit to be remade exactly how it was before it was destroyed. Instead, upon taking it out you noticed it had been changed.

It didn't look like all of the other agent uniforms, instead this one was all jet black like Natasha's. Black hardware, black industrial fabric, your last name stitched into a label that fit right along your  collarbone. It reminded you of how Steve's suit had a small little 'Rogers' tag on it.

But unlike Natasha's suit, yours had a more pronounced chest plate that almost looked like a bodice. You could tell from the feel of the material it was made out of that it was bulletproof. The whole garment, down to all of its details had you speechless.

It was beautiful, sleek, tight, functional, and dare you say... sexy?

Then you saw it, on the shoulders where you usually dawned a shield logo, there was an Avengers logo.

The loss for words remained as you looked back up at Steve who was anticipating your reaction. "How-"

"The team has a new tradition. We all come together to design the suit of the members, and this is what we came up with for you." Steve explained. "You needed a new suit anyway, we all knew in our gut that you belonged with us, hence why it's already made and in your hands."

"Did you do this?" You questioned, still a little stunned by how much you loved it.

"All of us did." Steve told you. "Well, I got the ball rolling and Natasha called most of the big shots considering, you know, she's a woman and she'd be better at making those choices anyway... but yeah. I know how important family is to you so I made sure your family name was on there, oh, and all your pockets. I remembered that you loved the pockets on your last suit so I advocated for those to stay. But of course if you don't like it we can revise-"

"It's beautiful" You cut him off with a shake of your head, genuine smile on your face. "I love it, thank you."

"Oh and look at this!" Steve enthused, sitting next to you on the couch. He took off the front panel of your suit and showed you the inside. "Luca has been a big part of your journey and obviously a big supporter of the Avengers, so we stitched a little L right over where your heart is so he can have a small part in the team and go on missions with you."

"Stop it right now." You pouted your lip as you looked at the L embroidered into the lining. "That's so cute, it's going to make me cry. He's going to be so happy."

"I'm glad you like it" Steve grinned.

You shook your head. "I love it, it's so thoughtful."

Then Steve handed you a small box that was perfectly wrapped in brown paper with a blush pink satin ribbon tied in a bow nicely wrapped around it. "This is also for you." This time, he seemed a bit shyer.

"A present? Why a present?" You questioned sweetly, unable to understand why he got you something.

"Because you deserve your accomplishments to be celebrated!" Steve enthused.

You smiled at his statement as you untied the bow and unwrapped the paper. Underneath the wrapping was a pair of airpod max headphones, the exact color you'd been contemplating getting yourself for months but never did because you knew how expensive they were.

There was also an immediate recognition your mind was quickly drawn to about how modern these were to your timeless best friend. He's gifted you music before in the form of vinyl records, a cocktail in a live jazz bar, you two even saw a concert together once. But these? They were picked out with you and only you in mind.

They were a sign that he actually listened to your silly complaint about the headphones one time in passing, and maybe even a way of telling you he actually did care that one time he claimed he didn't out of anger.

Though you loved them, and they were the nicest most thoughtful gift you could've ever been given, you were flooded with immediate guilt.

"Steven" You shook your head.

His smiles stretched wider at your reaction because he knew this was exactly what it was going to be. Even as he pressed the checkout button on his laptop to buy them for you, he could hear every argument you would use about how you couldn't accept them, but he did it anyways.

He raised his eyebrow at you. "Aren't they so pretty?!"

"They're beautiful, the exact pair I've been wanting for a long time." You nodded before trying to shove the box right back into his hands. "They're going to look great on your hard head."

Steve laughed as he pushed it back to you. "No, they're yours. If you open the box you'll see they're engraved with a 306 which means they're non refundable and custom made for you, leaving you no choice but to accept and enjoy them."

"You bitch." You deadpanned, not completely believing him until you ripped off the plastic cover and opened the box to see for yourself. And boom, there it was, an engraving just for you. "You bitch! Why? That's too much, twinkles, you didn't have to do that."

"Of course I didn't have to, but I really wanted to." Steve explained. "You've been existing with one airpod in since you-know-who ruined your headphones and I know how important music is to you. You deserve to hear music in both of your ears while also drowning out the compound nois-."

Steve was cut off by you practically leaping over the couch cushion and falling into his arms. A little oof sound escaped his lips as he wasn't prepared even in the slightest for the amount of force your body had against his, but his arms were quick to wrap around you regardless.

"Thank you so so much." You shoved your face into his neck, and your arms squeezed him tighter than ever before. "I love them and I love you."

"You're very welcome, and I love you too" Steve was more than happy to squeeze you tightly in return. "I'm so happy you're an avenger! It'll be fun getting to go on missions with you"

"I don't know if fun is the right word" You giggled while letting him go.

"You're right, there's no such thing as a fun mission, let me rephrase that." He agreed. "Missions will be so much more bearable if we can do them together."

"It's going to be so weird." You settled back into the corner of the couch and Steve sat right next to you. Tossing half the blanket over his lap wasn't even a second thought to you. "Me? Fighting alongside Iron Man and Captain America? Black widow? I think I'm experiencing imposter syndrome"

"You are more than capable" Steve reminded you.

Under the blanket, you threw your legs over his lap, and he took that as permission to move even closer to you. You two cuddled last night, so certainly there was no harm in snuggling on the couch, right?

Steve felt like a pathetic teenager once more when he realized how desperately he craved your touch, even if it was as innocent as tangled legs and touching arms on the couch. He searched for it everywhere, and soaked up every opportunity he could to just exist alongside you, and whenever he got it he felt so warm and fuzzy inside.

"Will you tell me all about being an Avenger?" You asked sweetly.

"Anything you want." Steve happily agreed as he kicked his feet up on the coffee table and settled in.

The two of you talked for hours on end all about the complexities of your jobs, but somewhere along the way it strayed far from the original topic and morphed into trivial matters such as the differences between an iced latte and an iced coffee, even down to which bodega nearby had the best sandwiches. But you claimed neither of your opinions mattered to each other anyways because you were more of a bacon egg and cheese kind've girl while Steve would always choose something far less breakfast-y and more classic sandwich-y.

It was a great conversation nonetheless, you'd always take any opportunity you could get to pick Steve's brain apart. Eventually, maintenance came to swing by and finally fix his heater, you called your mom and dad, and it was quickly approaching the time you needed to get to the winery.

Steve got ready, dressed in perfectly fitted jeans, a nice button down, his favorite leather jacket before walking you to your apartment so you could get ready too. There was no question that walking through the hallways and main spaces of the compound felt thick with tension. Whenever you walked by, agents heads would turn and they'd watch you pass as if you had committed an unthinkable crime, or maybe like you were some sort of A-list celebrity setting out into a sea of journalists watching and noting your every move.

He was proud of how you handled it like nothing was happening, but he still couldn't help the feeling of an undeniable shiver down his spine when he thought about how different this would turn out for you had he not been walking by your side.

Steve also didn't miss your sigh of relief when your apartment door closed and locked when you guys made it inside. The silence felt domestic and comfortable as Steve plopped down on the couch while you ran off to touch up your hair and makeup from this morning and change into a more formal yet still kind've casual and warm outfit for the outdoor occasion.

He felt so happy and relaxed as he listened to your music playing from a room away, but all of his chill left his body when he heard the clicking of your heels against the hardwood flooring. Not soon enough to gain his composure, you came out of your room with a huff.

"Is this outfit appropriate for the occasion?" You asked him, feeling unhappy you didn't have more time to plan for this, and reluctant in your ability to pull something together.

Steve had to work hard to keep his mind from going blank as he looked at your outfit. A pretty black sweater dress with a turtleneck and a brown leather jacket that he swore went missing from his closet a few months ago over it, some sheer black tights, and heeled boots. You looked painfully pretty, effortlessly casual yet elegant and pulled together.

"Is this the part where I'm allowed to start telling you how beautiful I think you are?" Steve asked, unable to think of anything but that.

"Permission granted, at this point in my life I need all the confidence I can get." You nodded, feeling nervous about the upcoming event.

"You look so pretty" Steve gushed like a secret he's held in for too long. "You are so pretty."

"The outfit, Twinkles" You giggled, "what about the outfit?"

"The outfit is perfect, but are you going to be cold?" He asked.

"Of course I'm going to be cold, but that's a problem for me later." You nodded.

"And your feet are going to hurt."

"A sacrifice I'm willing to make"

"You're so brave." Steve placed a hand over his heart. "Cool jacket, where's it from?"

"It's vintage" You smiled, he squinted his eyes at you.

"I don't know if I'm more upset that you said that, or that it looks better on you. Either way, I'm wounded."

"Oh please, everything you wear looks good on you. Plus, we match!" You shook your head with a smile. "If it's not already obvious, I also think you're very handsome."

"No, you can't say that to me because my knees will go weak and I'm not going to be able to get off the couch." Steve shook his head, earning your laugh.

"For such a strong man you let me have so much power." You stuck your hands out for him to take. "Come on, I'll help you and your weak knees off the couch."

You did manage to peel him off the cushions and get him out of the door, and he almost successfully safely ushered you through the whole building and to the parking garage, but unfortunately, he couldn't control the words coming out of people's mouths.

Especially when those words came from pure jealous rage. He also couldn't help how they probably hurt more when they tore you from such a good mood.

He finally managed to pull some real laughter out of you for the first time in what felt like months. The sound of your belly laugh filled his soul with so much joy as he threatened to take his jacket back after you kept poking his shoulders and pretending like it wasn't you. He fell for it the first couple of times, but you were nonchalant... until your giggles erupted when he looked behind him.

Thats how you two ended up fighting off each others arms while walking through a corridor. You fought relentlessly to keep the jacket while Steve protected his shoulders from your passionate pokes.

Both of you were so distracted by each other you didn't even notice that you weren't the only two people in the corridor, so when Steve managed to tangle your fingers with his and hold your arm above your head to stop the vicious attack, it felt like two deers in headlights when one of Harvey's friends appeared in front of you.

Immediately Steve let go of your hand, your arm was pulled back down and crossed over your chest. Your smile fell even faster.

"Well well well, if it isn't proof that you fucked your way onto the Avengers" He barked out a condescending laugh.

Steve was taken aback. He knew they were all brave enough to do this to you, but this behavior in front of him was even more bold than he thought any of these agents were capable of.

He looked between you and the agent, fully waiting for your attack on him and fully supporting your decision to do so, but instead you had completely sunken in. You didn't have a response, no remark, no reaction. You just looked sad.

"Moved on from sucking off the brainwashed fuck-wad to Rogers real quick huh?" He questioned, taking one small step towards you.

Immediately Steve put his body between the two of you. "That's enough. Repo-"

"What did she do, Cap? Huh? Did you get the winter soldier treatment as well? Was it really that good she got to move up in ranks?" He questioned, trying to make himself bigger to see your smaller frame over Steve's broad shoulders. "If it's that good maybe I should try her out myself considering she makes it so easy."

"This is your last chance to walk away before your record is damaged." Steve warned, taking a deep breath to contain his hands instinctively balling up into a tight fist.

"Harvey told me she was nice and tight when he got her but he definitely loosened her up for you. Hope you appreciate that next time she wants a new job."

Your heart slowly cracked in your chest and a lump formed in your throat over the words being spoken about you. All you wanted was to be like your old self, so willing to take on this fight that he would've never had the chance to speak another word. But now, you couldn't even bother. It felt like you had no choice but to roll over and show your belly because you were still so beat down and tired.

But you're an avenger now, you should be able to deal with this. You should be able to do anything but this.

Suddenly the walls were spinning, and your broken heart was pounding as if it had never been more put together, the floor might as well have been made of broken glass.

Just as you were about to be swallowed whole by your racing thoughts, your attention was pulled right back.

"You can do much better than that half ass ran through nymph-"

Those were the final words that came though clearly before you watched Steve lose composure. The agent swiftly walked forward trying to get around Steve to get to you. In a moment of pure rage, and in honor of all those times you were sent to Steve's office, he provided a hard kick straight to the agents dick.

Hard enough for the agent to immediately scream in pain, fall to the floor and cry. Rolled in a pathetic ball, he clutched his precious jewels, you didn't know if his pain made you want to smile or cry.

He deserved it.

"It's funny, when we started this conversation you were a little less... swollen." Steve sassed, no ounce of remorse in his tone. "I hope you appreciate me every time the nurse has to replace your ice pack."

Steve was talking, but you doubted the agent heard a single word he said over the sound of the blood that rushed to his ears and his own whaling.

Confident that there was no chance of being able to stand back up without assistance, Steve pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed a number before placing it to his hear and turning around to comfort you.

You looked to be in a state of shock as he pulled you into a one armed hug. Trying to take deep breaths became a lot easier when the air started to smell like Steve's cologne.

Someone on the other line must've picked up, Steve spoke briefly and got to the point. "I made a mess in the sector A corridor, could you clean it up for me? I'm uh, accompanying precious cargo, I'd rather you be late then leave her side. Thanks, Nat."

Just like that, the agent would be taken care of, his phone slipped back into his pocket, and his precious cargo could get the full of his attention again.

His other arm wrapped around you before you could get your arms up to gently hug him back. "Thank you" You whispered.

"I'm so sorry" Steve shook his head. "That was so awful, I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine, I just- need to breathe I think." You spoke, definitely having an anxiety attack.

"What can I do?" Steve asked, stepping back to look at your face.

You still looked shocked and a little dazed, but you seemed relatively okay.

"Nothing." You denied. "That was... more than anyone has ever done."

"Do you want to just take some time to let that settle or should we cancel?"

"No" You shook your head, firm on your answer. "It's okay, it's a long drive there. By the time we get there it'll all be okay. I'm okay."

Steve's face softened, his body language followed quickly after. "It's okay to not be okay. That was a lot." His hand was gently rubbing the top of your arm up and down.

"He was so mean to Bucky." You sighed, trying not to let tears pool into your waterline. "Do you think people have been treating Bucky like this too? Because of me? He doesn't deserve that"

"You don't deserve this either, Buggy." Steve reminded you, nearly falling apart over the way you always thought of everyone else's feelings before your own. "Nobody is mean to Bucky to his face, people are too scared to do that."

"What if he finds out what he said?" Your big eyes looked right into Steve's. They were soft and twinkling with empathy just for you, and that brought you more comfort then he would ever realize.

"If Bucky found out what he said, he would be in a lot worse of a state than he's in right now because he would be livid that anyone was saying that about you. I'm livid too, but you're my focus."

You nodded fully understanding Steve's words, while looking over to see the Agent laying on the floor still crying, still shouting. "I did what you would do, I think it makes a pretty bold statement that this behavior cannot be tolerated anymore. No exceptions, I have to put my foot down. You don't deserve to live like this anymore."

"Thank you, Stevie."

"Natasha is going to take care of the rest, okay? He's getting fired. He'll never come back here."

"I'll get worse now, I think more of them are going to try to get me, maybe even you now." You explained.

"Then they'll all get fired and removed from the property as well" Steve challenged. "We need agents who will make the world better, these ones are very obviously not qualified for the job.  And quite frankly, I'm tired of tip toeing around the issue to make them comfortable. All of them deserve to be just as uncomfortable, if not more uncomfortable than you are. I will personally make sure none of them lay a finger on you ever again."

"That's a lot of paperwork for you."

"I'll do it all, I don't care." He reassured you. "I should've done this sooner, I regret every single time I ever let these pricks pass by without proper reprimand."

"It's okay, Steve."

"No it's not." He disagreed. "Are you positive you still want to go?"

Despite the hidden sadness behind your that came back after working so hard to get it back, Steve saw your bravery right before his very twinkly eyes. "I'm positive. I think getting away from here is the best choice I can make."

Steve sympathetically grinned. "Luckily you have a lot of people who love you and want to celebrate you tonight. Hopefully some of that love helps to cancel out what just happened."

You nodded in agreement and grinned back at him as he offered you his arm to walk you the rest of the way, hopefully being closer to him would bring you a better sense of comfort.

Instead of taking it, you hooked your arm around his like intended, but slid your hand down to hold his just like you'd still be doing had it not been ruined for you.

He looked down at your interconnected fingers with a bitter sweet pinch in his brow. "What if someone sees?"

You shrugged. "No matter what I do or say, people are going to be mad. I might as well let them be mad, and let myself be happy."

"This makes you happy?" Steve questioned genuinely, giving your hand a gentle squeeze.

"You've always made me happy, I've just never been brave enough to let myself enjoy it." You admitted. "But now I'm too tired to even fight with myself anymore. I have to surrender or else I'll never get to enjoy what I have while I have it."

"I'm so proud of you" Steve said sincerely. "You're a lot braver than I am because this makes me feel like I'm going to throw up."

Then, your real giggle came back and the tears that once threatened you never fell. "Are you sure you even like me? It seems like nausea is the emotion I instill in you the most these days"

Your arms swung gently between the two of you as you continued your journey to Steve's car. "The throw up is exactly how I know I like you. Nobody else makes me feel like I don't have control over the contents of my stomach whenever they look at me."

"If anybody else said that to me, I think I would be offended."

"But I said it, so you know it's a good thing."

"Has anybody ever told you that you're a true romantic?" You questioned rhetorically.

Steve giggled. "Never in my life."

"Hmm, I wonder why."

Next Part: Star crossed lover

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[teriri-sayes]

Reactions to Young Master Shield's Chapter 209

TL;DR - Lily worries about failure and disappointing her family. Everyone reassures and supports her. Cale meets academy staff and is overwhelmed by the welcome. Effric keeps saying stuff that makes Cale embarrassed. Sui and Alberu laughing at Cale's situation. A wanderer gatecrashes the event.

Lily's Worries The first quarter of the chapter was about Lily. She was happy that her brothers were attending, but also worried about her future. Like what if she failed? Fortunately, everyone was supportive of her.

CH said with a sincere and gentle smile that he couldn't study and was bad at it. Basen told her that he was bad at swordsmanship. And Cale told her that it was fine to fail. Her family would not be disappointed in her even if she failed. Awww~ 🥰

Effric's "Attacks" on Cale The entire chapter after Lily's part was so hilarious. Effric, the president of Roan Academy, dealt several blows on Cale that made him feel so embarrassed. And Raon's comments that his human's eyes kept shaking added to the fun. 😂

Effric: *bows at a 90 degree angle* It's an honor to meet you, LORD CALE! Cale: ... Various deans from other departments: IT'S AN HONOR TO MEET YOU! Raon: Human, your eyes are shaking! Effric: A lot of people wanted to hear your speech, and we barely managed to reduce it from the tens of thousands who wanted to. Cale: (Huh? How many thousands?!) Effric: We cleared all schedules today for your speech! Hahaha! Raon: Human, your eyes keep shaking! Effric: I'm sure you'll be a great role model for the students. And for us adults too! Hahaha! Raon: Human, why is your smile like a shrivelled persimmon? Effric: I am looking forward to it, Lord Cale. No, Commander Cale. Hahaha! Cale: ...Yes... I'll do my best...

Cale: *sees the academy plaza* Effric: What's the matter? Cale: It reminds me of the capital's plaza. Effric: You're right. It was modeled after the capital's plaza. Cale: *freezes* Effric: *smiles* I guess you remember that time. Cale: ...Pardon? Effric: Where the legend began. Cale: *freezes again* Effric: *talks more about Cale's shield legend in the capital plaza* Cale: *awkward smile*

Embarrassed Cale Next part was funny. The way to the podium had a red carpet laid on it, and Cale felt embarrassed walking on it while thousands of eyes were watching him. Raon's comments weren't helping him either, especially the one about how Sui kept laughing for some strange reason. Cale could only mentally curse and hold it in. 😂

Cale was dressed in his black commander uniform, so the students were very excited. And when Cale met eyes with a knight student, the "Shield" chant began and spread all over the plaza. Cale was embarrassed again, and Raon made it even funnier again.

Raon said that Alberu had arrived and was laughing out loud at Cale... 🤣🤣🤣 Poor Cale... 🤣🤣🤣

We did get some thoughts on Cale about his past. His KRS self found school life as dull, and he found speeches boring, so he decided to keep his speech short. And also a line about original Cale not having gone to school because he was busy acting like a trash.

Speech Curse is Real We were all expecting the speech, right? Unfortunately, Cale's speech curse is back! 😂 Anyway, we find out that CJS actually headed back to report to GoD after his time on the Central Plains. Cale had messaged GoD, asking to send CJS and reporting about his finding of the Five-Colored Bloods being like wanderers, but GoD ghosted him... 😂

As for the speech curse...

Cale to the students: Nice to meet you. Raon: Human, CJS is here! Cale: (Okay, I just greeted them...what now?) Raon: CJS said it was urgent! He said he could sense another wanderer nearby! Water AP: The sky is strange. Cale: *looks up the sky and sees an incoming black dot* Cale: (Is that a person? A wanderer? No, why is this always happening to me?) Cale: Damn it.

Ending Remarks I loved today's chapter. Reading about an embarrassed Cale is so fun~! 😂 And the speech curse at the end! 🤣🤣🤣 Given the chapter title, I guess we'll see the return of Cale's shield legend next chapter. I can't wait for Friday to come!

[jujumin-translates]

★ Main Story | Act 13 - Budding Spring | Chapter 3 - One Step Up

*Door opens*

Kumon: We’re back~!

Juza: We’re home.

Taichi: I’m starving~.

Tenma: Looks like Omi-san’s in charge of dinner tonight.

Tsuzuru: Smells like it’s something with a demi-glace sauce…

Omi: The beef stew will be ready soon.

Kumon: Woo~! I was hoping to eat some meat~!

Kazunari: The Yosei Uni Gang’s really building up their forces~.

Muku: Kyu-chan’s the only new one, though.

Yuki: But he’s got the presence of about two or three people.

Tsumugi: How’s college life been going, Kumon-kun?

Kumon: It’s super interesting! Unlike with my classes in high school, I actually feel motivated to study on my own.

Kumon: Plus I get to be with Nii-chan!

Banri: I figured you had had that planned from the start, but you actually didn’t decide on where you were gonna go for school until much later, right?

Kumon: Hey, I thought about it a lot, y’know.

Kumon: And I didn’t just think about Nii-chan, I also made sure to think about the best college for me to go to.

Azami: The growth of someone with a brother complex.

Yuki: They still ended up at the same college, though.

Kumon: That’s ‘cause Nii-chan and Tenma-san seemed like they really liked it there!

Tenma: Well, you are right about that.

Juza: Glad ya got accepted in.

Taichi: You’ve been doing great with writing essays and doing job interview prep~.

Kumon: Hehe. That’s thanks to you, Nii-chan, and Tenma-san for teaching me so much!

Chikage: It’s so touching to see Tenma becoming the tutor.

Tenma: Thanks for that.

Kazunari: Yawn~…

Tsuzuru: You seem tired, Miyoshi-san.

Kazunari: I had a deadline for some urgent work yesterday. Hardly got any sleep~.

Tsuzuru: Good work.

Muku: You suddenly seem like much more of an adult, Kazu-kun.

Kazunari: What I do is kinda just an extension of what I did in college, but once that label of “student” is gone, it makes you a little more conscious of it.

Omi: It’s a lot of work and responsibility, but it’s also a lot of fun.

Tsuzuru: Is that so…

Kazunari: You’ll get what we’re talking about in a year, Tsuzurun~.

Izumi: Omi-kun’s right, your impression of things changes once you graduate from college.

Azuma: I enjoy seeing these changes every year once spring comes.

Homare: Yes, however, there are still some of us that haven’t changed much at all.

Azuma: It’s thanks to everyone that spring is nice like this.

Tasuku: Well, even though some of us haven’t been through any major changes, I’m sure we’re all busy with something, right?

Guy: It appears that you’ve been getting more and more requests to do guest appearances, Takato.

Sakuya: Ah, actually, I’m about to get an offer to perform on a slightly bigger stage too--.

Tsumugi: Really? That’s great.

Tasuku: That’s probably the result of steadily building up your experience. Shows how much you’ve become recognized as an actor.

Sakuya: Thank you so much!

Citron: I have started getting pressured to do arts and culture-related work from all over the place~.

Itaru: And I’m still annoyed that I’m stuck being treated like some mid-level NPC…

Chikage: That’s normal for having worked there for five years.

Guy: Speaking of that, I’ve been entrusting Mikage with more work, too.

Hisoka: I know how to make a few appetizers now…

Tasuku: What, like toasted marshmallows and marshmallow pizza?

Hisoka: Well, yeah, but there’s other stuff too.

Homare: To be dabbling in dishes other than ones with marshmallows… that’s quite remarkable progress!

Misumi: Speaking of new things, my friend Mii-chan just had a litter of kitties~.

Muku: Congratulations!

Yuki: Why are you congratulating the Trianglien for it?

Izumi: Seems like everything’s going smoothly for the company while each of you is moving forward and changing in your own ways.

Izumi: That reminds me, the kid we met today also said he was going to be a new high school student starting in the spring.

Kumon: Huh~, what was he like?

Tsuzuru: He was an interesting one, for sure.

Masumi: He wasn’t interesting, he was annoying.

Itaru: He was an avid Masumi fan.

Izumi: He said he used to live in a rural area and that he’s been supporting us for quite some time via our streams.

Sakyo: Is that the power of MIZUNO Enterprises…?

Sakyo: We’ll have to keep up our efforts to reach an even wider audience.

Izumi: He said he was really looking forward to seeing one of our performances live.

Tasuku: There is just something different about seeing a play in person.

Sakuya: There really is. He was really looking forward to seeing it, so we’ll have to do our best not to disappoint.

Izumi: Ah, right! The idea came to me when we were talking to that kid, but--.

Izumi: How does a workshop aimed at beginners sound for the upcoming event?

Izumi: When I realized that people were interested in theater because of MANKAI Company’s performances, I thought that maybe promoting theater as a concept could be necessary too.

Izumi: And I think it’d be a good experience for us to share the joy of plays with them more directly and to have fun together.

Sakuya: That’s true, that could be a really good idea!

Citron: It sounds very fun!

Chikage: But wouldn’t people who have more experience with theater, like Tenma, Tasuku, or Tsumugi, be more suitable for teaching people than us Spring Troupe members?

Tsuzuru: He’s got a point, most of us are still pretty inexperienced actors. I mean, almost all of us were complete amateurs until a few years ago.

Masumi: I can do it.

Itaru: You’re probably the least qualified to teach.

Izumi: That’s the point. You all still feel like amateurs and remember how you felt when you first stepped on stage just a few years ago.

Izumi: I’m confident that you guys will be able to convey theater from a perspective that’s closer to a beginner’s.

Izumi: It’s not a workshop for actors, and it’s definitely not just for teaching like Yuzo-san’s workshops…

Izumi: I think it should be about just trying to enjoy theater together, just like if you were reminiscing about your old selves. That’s the best we can do, I think.

Izumi: And it could be an opportunity to expand our fan base too…

Izumi: I think it’s only because of how everyone is now that we can try to make people more aware of theater.

Sakuya: Yeah… I get it. Up until now, we’ve just been doing our best in regards to ourselves, but now…

Itaru: Exactly. Maybe we’ll be able to have some fun together.

Chikage: We could be our own motivation.

Tsuzuru: Maybe I’ll even be able to get a hint for our next play.

Citron: I will take on any challenge!

Izumi: Alright, it’s decided!

Izumi: Once the date is decided on, can you take care of the flier design, Kazunari-kun?

Kazunari: You betcha!

Izumi: I’ll take care of the printing and distributing myself then.

Masumi: I’ll help.

Itaru: We’ll also need an announcement on our social media, right? Leave it to me.

Chikage: It’d be a good idea to also put something on the theater noticeboard, right?

Izumi: Alright, I’ll leave all the announcement-related stuff to you two, and then… Sakuya-kun and Citron-kun, can I leave outlining the workshop to you guys?

Sakuya: Roger that!

Citron: We will think of an eggciting workshop that will eggcite everyone~!

Manager: Ah, everyo~ne, it’s almost time~!

Kumon: We gotta turn on the TV!

[ ⇠ Previous Part ] • [ Next Part ⇢ ]

[piracytheorist]

Episode 32 notes!

Starting off right in the middle of action, right where we left off!

And some great animation there, too!

The thing about Anya is that her plans are so innocently silly that thanks to her young age, they actually work.

She's right there in front of Yor, acting like she doesn't recognize her, and Yor accepts that because a) it's easy and b) well Anya is a little kid, isn't she?

The fact that Anya is visibly sweating and has a very nervous expression shows that she's worried her plan won't work, and the entire family could come apart right there. She knows it's a risky plan... but because of the circumstances, it works perfectly not only to cover Yor but also to cover Anya's knowledge of Yor's secret.

I love her.

Also, a great way to take the fear of exposure away from Yor and help her focus on the fight! Worth waiting the entire week for!

I also love how excited the entire crowd was about seeing two people "play" with what seems to be lethal weapons. They'd do numbers as WWE fans.

The camera focuses on Yor as she's starting to question herself.

Yes you are! You're hesitating to get close because you fear you'll get hurt and you know that will make Anya and Loid sad! (And of course because you'll have no excuse to tell them but okay yeah)

Anyway. I just like how in comparison to the manga, we see her expression there during her inner monologue.

Yor comments about how professional the guy is with the chain, but then she has no problem using the chain's momentum to wrap it around his wrist and then his torso. Some excellent animation there showing the small details of her control of the chain!

~YOU'VE BEEN HIT BY-

YOU'VE BEEN STRUCK BY-

THE THOOOORN PRIIINCEEEEEEEESS~

She even used his immobilized body to make him bow. She's an absolute legend.

I've talked before that this isn't even a five-year-old roleplaying. She's actually getting involved with actual enemies of the state, helping their plans without them knowing, and having a blast. Her moral compass may be a little unhinged but by god is it steadfast XD

And then. The Grand RevealTM

WHITE ASS LEGS

I love him your honour. How did he even combine all that, I don't wanna know. The rainbow-tinted glasses is what ended me.

Anya Forger, professional heart-breaker.

Again. Talking with a guy who believes humans will never understand each other and who wants to wage another war, while Twilight has his own war trauma? No big deal. Anya calling him uncool? THE SHOCK AND DESPAIR OF HIS LIFE.

And off to the next chapter! Great transition in the anime - I can usually notice when they jump onto the next chapter, but this time I was surprised with how smoothly they took it from one to the next.

Turtleneck guy says he can't pick up Yor's scent? Even though he seems to have extraordinary smelling abilities?

Is that another reason why Yor is so good at sneaking up on people? She did sneak up on Twilight, after all...

"The bones" mentioned above... is that Loid talking about the skeleton keychain? There was, after all, a hidden bug in the store Loid and Anya were in...

Some things never change.

I can't wait for the moment he realizes how soundly she sleeps on his arms because she trusts him and he makes her feel safe, just like his mother did for him :)

Zeb! I finally get the name of the guy! I won't lie that calling him Furseal felt so weird, like, apologies if your name is Furseal but hey.

Anyway. His outburst felt so real. This man doesn't belong in crime.

And of course, Olka is way too desensitized to such violence, having grown up in the family, after all, and I kinda like how she goes like "Yo snap out of it". Endo really doesn't hold back from having women tell men off huh. I also love the baby talk she used with Gram. So cute.

This scene has the very same music used in the first episode where Twilight has his flashback and remembers what his reason to become a spy was. I feel kinda sad hearing it here because I'd thought that this melody would be used as [redacted]'s leitmotif, but its meaning seems to be connected with how people broken by war can find the hope in humanity needed for peace. Or something.

McMahon berates Yor for going near the door earlier even though she didn't hear their secret knock, but in reality it wouldn't matter - unless the assassin heard their voices from outside the door - because the assassin shot anyway. It would have been the same if she had protected Olka from the first moment and then tried to assess how to attack the guy. So maybe calm down, dude.

The moment Zeb was like "How are we supposed to sleep like that?" I was certain we'd see him sleeping and snoring deeply. I was not disappointed XD

Me when proper trigger discipline: 🥳💯👀🥳👌💯👀👌👌👀🎊👌🎊💯

First, good ol' focus on the ring on McMahon's finger. Second, I'm confused by the translation here in comparison to the manga. Here it says "as long as people continue to be people" while the manga says "as long as people are the way they are", and that can have a different meaning. The former sounds like conflict is in the nature of humans and that it's something we can never avoid, which doesn't seem to follow the story's ideal. It's what Donovan Desmond beliefs are based on, after all. The latter sounds like people are currently very focused on matters that cause conflict, and have a chance of reaching peace if taught differently.

I think, depending on the interpretation, it can tell a lot about McMahon's character. I will wait to see the rest of the arc to make up my mind.

And after he says that they're soldiers even in time of peace, the manga treats us to a panel of a pensive Yor, but the anime doesn't.

Stop robbing us, anime team!

Yor tells the others they should keep their shoes on - nice detail, btw - and Olka looks very familiar with such a concept, while it's Zeb who is a little surprised but accepts it. It's interesting what a character not reacting to something can tell about them!

As expected, Yor and Olka are vigilant, while Gram and Zeb sleep like babies. Let them rest XD

Some brand new music there! There's a lot of new music in general. And then THIS!

THIS IS THE FUTURE LIBERALS WANT ETC

The way Yor widens her eyes when she realizes what she just imagined! AAAAAAAAAHHHH!

And BOY we talk a lot about Loid's denial but the way Yor is still going like "No, no, no, priorities!" though. THE WAY SHE THINKS OF YURI BEING PROUD OF HER, THEN BEING AN INDEPENDENT MAN SHE MANAGED TO RAISE WITH A FEW ISSUES, AND THEN THE HAPPY FACES OF LOID AND ANYA EATING HER FOOD I WILL GO FERAL

Someone hug her omg she deserves the world 😭😭

Neither Twilight nor Yor are the only people neck-deep in denial though.

"The man decided to live for his job" yeah right. He sees one (1) pretty woman pay him some attention because of Bond and he's like "Well imma adopt a dog then". Bond's doubtful and rejecting reaction was priceless XD

This is so fucking funny to me for some reason aadshadfhsdgh. Look at him. Brought into despair by one (1) five-year-old.

I kinda love how he admits that he does fear the unknown, and has been simply trained to overcome it and try to deal with what he has in front of him.

And currently, his fear is for Anya's emotional state.

Having no idea that she's actually having the time of her life, even though she hasn't realized how deeply dangerous her situation is.

Anyway, I love that she brought Mr. Chimera with her on the trip <3

LOID HAVING HIS VERY OWN OH MAH GAH MOMENT I LAUGHED SO HARD

He is very seriously focusing on how he can make Anya happy. He thinks she asked to go for mini golf because she likes it, so he followed along, he saw her upset with how she lost, and believed she needed to experience winning in order to feel fulfilled, so he was determined to stay there until she won.

Anya takes him to the library and of course he's read everything. And even if he hadn't, he has photographic memory and can practically read through an entire tome in minutes.

But still, he's focused on her happiness, and he's satisfied that Anya is having fun reading comics. She goes for the puzzle (btw I love the idea of having a big puzzle available and leaving it to passersby to solve it. I once visited a school where they had one on a table in the halls and students would sit and try and solve it during recesses) and he analyzes it, thinks he can solve it quickly. Anya reacts in shock, and we hear a tiny hesitant "Oh" from him, because he noticed her sudden change in reaction.

Oh no. Twilight is rubbing off on her a little too much. You're five, darling. Enjoying yourself is your job!!

Just like with the bullet in butt date, Loid cannot understand why Anya looks so angry now after having spent an entire day having fun - and he cataloguing what she seems to be having fun with.

The way that he ends his internal monologue with his fear of the Forgers breaking apart and Operation Strix doesn't cross his mind once, tells a lot about how his priorities are starting to change enough to even silence his "For the Mission" talk. My mans falling hard.

Anya sees how worried Loid has gotten... and maybe she reads even deeper and realizes how genuine of a worry it is? That he's not worried for her as an asset of Operation Strix, but as a kid that deserves to have fun and be happy. And she steps up to reassure him.

And oh, how his face changes! T_T

And the way he alternates between "Loid voice" when he speaks and "Twilight voice" when he thinks. Have I congratulated Takuya Eguchi for this feat yet?

And by the way, he "justifies" Anya being so upset of missing her mama because she's still a "small child". Because of course only small children can miss their mothers, right? Twilight definitely doesn't miss his, right?

Forget neck-deep denial, this man is deep down the Mariana Trench of denial.

And the "Small Daily Life" track from the soundtrack plays, with the beautiful family leitmotif...

I love them. He can be so sweet with Anya, I can only imagine how he'll end up post-identity reveals and especially post-feelings realization.

The final few hours before Olka, Gram and Zeb get safely transferred! I think you can see the tension on their entire faces.

Also some intense, new soundtrack there! Interesting! The composers have done a lot of job this season, carefully mixing up tracks from the previous season with new ones to create the respective mood.

And that's it for this week! I foresee way more action on the next episode! :D

[rhoorl]

Delta Landscaping | Chapter 17: Cousin Joel

Series Masterlist | Chapter 17 A03 Link 323 Mulefall Crt Chapter One: Monday (by @trulybetty)

Word Count: 7k

A/N: This is probably the chapter I’ve been the most excited about. In case you missed it, the Delta Landscaping universe is expanding. @trulybetty and I have been collaborating behind the scenes for months on this companion series. More to come at the end!

Previously on As the Mule Falls: Benny featured heavily as the boys continued to get him ready for fight night. The neighbors hosted a party at Lucille’s house to welcome the Pikes and Vanessa to the neighborhood. Benny and Vanessa finally kissed, which was inadvertently live-streamed via the Pike’s Ring doorbell camera. 

In this Episode: If this were an actual TV show, this would be the episode when that special guest star they’d been teasing all season finally shows up. dun dun dun Cousin Joel finally arrives. Before we get to him though, there’s some Benny and Vanessa to get through. Then we have the boys at the gym and enjoying a meal together. Thoughts on which neighbor Joel meets first?

Chapter Warnings: Cousin Joel. I’ve edged you for months with his arrival and he’s finally here. Other warnings - mention of hangovers, children, flustered Benny, the boys at the gym, swearing, and more food. Also, David. But, you should already that by now. 

*Cue the theme music and roll opening credits*

Five Days to Fight Night

Marcus groaned as he heard Mariella flopping around in her crib through the baby monitor. He could already feel the pounding headache starting despite preemptively taking some Tylenol last night. 

Next to him, Victoria rubbed her eyes. “I'm never drinking again,” she groaned.

With a chuckle, Marcus leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Get some rest sweetheart, I'll get the kids up. Don't worry about today. Stay home. Vandy and I can take them to the aquarium.”

“Oh shit, that was today, ughhh. I'm the worst mom ever.” She flipped on her stomach, burying her head into the pillow. 

“Baby, you're not the worst. You're just a mom with a hangover. Just sit tight, I'll bring you some coffee soon.”

“Can you just pluck my eyeballs out instead, they're throbbing,” she whined.

“Hangovers are a bit different than in your 20s huh?” He smirked. “I'll be back, mi amor.”

Victoria looked up, squinting as she watched her husband throw on a pair of thin gray sweatpants. “I love you.”

He paused as he fed his arms through his faded Washington Capitals T-shirt sleeves. “I love you too. As much as I love seeing you like this,” his eyebrow twitched as his eyes dragged down her body, appreciating how little of the comforter was covering her naked form, “you should probably throw some clothes on in case you get an unexpected visitor.”

Vanessa padded down the stairs to the smell of coffee and pancakes as Disney Junior played softly on the TV. She was still on cloud nine from her kiss with Benny after he walked her home last night.

She rounded the corner to the kitchen and leaned against the wall, a soft smile across her face as she watched Marcus. He hummed a tune to himself as he cut up strawberries for Mariella, swaying to whatever imaginary beat he was playing in his head. It was in these small moments that Vanessa appreciated her brother-in-law even more; he was her standard for what a father and husband should be.

Sensing someone behind him, Marcus turned around slowly before a giant smile flashed across his face realizing who it was. “Oh hey, Vandy! You have a good walk home last night? Benny get you back here ok?” He tried to suppress his grin, eyes following Vanessa as she walked over to the coffee pot. Her cheeks flushed, remembering the way her and Benny's tongues tangled together.

“He did, it was a good…walk,” she cleared her throat. “Where's Vic?”

“Your sister is nursing what she calls ‘the world's worst hangover’ so she's still in bed,” Marcus said as he flipped a pancake. “Looks like it's just you and me taking them to the aquarium today,” he nodded toward the living room.

“Buck, you're probably not feeling too hot either, you guys got back late. You can stay, I'll take them. Besides, I'm sure having hours to yourselves with an empty house will perk Vic right on up,” she snorted as she sipped her coffee.

Marcus shifted his weight to one leg, drumming his fingers along the quartz countertop. Vanessa had a point. He did have a splitting headache and would much rather spend a lazy day in bed with his wife than surrounded by people.

“You make a compelling case…you sure you're ok taking both of them on your own?” He looked over at Vanessa who nodded with a tight smile. She was an amazing aunt and the kids adored her, but he knew she got anxious doing things alone with them in public. Suddenly, a lightbulb went off. “Hey, I know…why don't you ask Benny to go with you?”

“Bunny?! I see Bunny?” Mariella screamed from her high chair, clapping her little hands.

“Umm…we'll see Mari,” Vanessa called over before she turned to Marcus. “She has superhero hearing I swear,” she whispered.

“Only when it suits her,” Marcus winked.

“You put me in a real bind here, Buck. She's going to be so disappointed.”

“Just ask, I'm sure he'll say yes,” he avoided her gaze as he put some pancakes on a plate for her.

“I'm sure he has plenty of better things to do on a Sunday than spend it with two kids at an aquarium,” Vanessa rolled her eyes, pouring syrup over her neatly formed stack.

“Yeah but you'll be there…c'mon just try, give him a call…pleaaaase,” he pouted. “Do it for Mari.’

“That's downright cruel you know, using your daughter like that,” she narrowed her eyes with one hand on her hip.

Marcus threw his hands up in surrender, “you'll thank me later.”

Vanessa took a deep breath as she eyed her phone.

Will couldn't help but grin when Benny trudged into the kitchen, tossing his phone on the counter and running a hand through his hair. He’d been debating texting Vanessa good morning but didn’t want to seem too eager.

“How was the rest of your night?”

Benny's eyes narrowed. Will was a morning person, sure, but he was a bit too chipper. “Good…just walked Vanessa home.”

“How'd that go? Made sure she got there safe and sound?” Will winked.

Benny was thankful to have his back to his brother as he poured his coffee. He blushed remembering their kiss…and what he did once he got home.

“Speak of the devil, look who's calling,” Will picked up Benny's phone from the counter and handed it to his brother, eyeing him as he listened to one side of the conversation. 

Benny shifted from one foot to the other as he talked to Vanessa. He sported a toothy grin as he rubbed the back of his neck, occasionally breaking into some nervous laughter. 

“I really don't mind…when do we leave…ok I'll be there. See you soon.” He stared at his phone as he hung up.

“Sooo?”

Benny told him about how the Pikes were nursing hangovers and that the kids were supposed to go to the aquarium today. He noted that Vanessa sounded nervous to ask him to go with her, but he accepted before she could get it out. 

“Wow, I know you like kids but damn, she must really be special,” Will chuckled.   

Victoria managed to get herself out of bed in time to help change the kids into their marine-themed outfits and pack their bags. She sat on the couch fussing with Mariella to get her little curls into pigtails when Marcus walked by, arms flexed while carrying a folded stroller. 

“Babe, I’m going to go put this in Vandy’s car and then I’ll come back to load up the bags.”

“Ok…looking good there Agent Pike,” she winked as he rolled his eyes, even though his chest puffed out at her praise. If there was one thing about Victoria, she always made sure Marcus knew how much she appreciated him in all aspects.

As Marcus closed the trunk of Vanessa’s SUV he heard heavy footsteps behind him, turning in time to see Benny walking up the driveway. 

“Oh hey man,” Marcus waved.

“Hey! How’re you feeling?” Benny shook Marcus’ outstretched hand.

“Killer headache, but I’m in better shape than Vic. Thanks for going with Vandy, means a lot that she won’t have to go by herself,” Marcus smiled.

“Course, it’s going to be fun…need help loading anything else up?” 

“Nah, all good. Just have to get Nico and corral Hurricane Mari, but it’ll help now that you’re here. She may listen to you. C’mon, come inside.”

Benny and Marcus walked over the threshold just as Vanessa came down the stairs. She was dressed in a simple black athletic dress and sneakers. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail with a Tampa Bay Rays baseball cap. Benny’s eyes trailed down her neck to her exposed collarbone, involuntarily licking his lips as he remembered kissing it mere hours ago.

Vanessa paused when she saw Benny, amazed at how made the most casual outfit look so good. He paired a tie-dyed “Miller Contracting” T-shirt with a simple pair of slate gray shorts. His hair was still damp, he clearly took a quick shower before coming over. He passed his baseball cap between his hands as he looked at her, his eyebrows doing that little puppy dog look that always made her melt.

“Bunny!” Mariella squealed, getting herself down from the couch and scurrying over to Benny who quickly picked her up and tossed her in the air to a fit of giggles.

“Hey baby girl, you excited to go see some fishies?” 

Mariella babbled on as Marcus and Victoria gathered everything and Vanessa got her crossbody and keys. Nico looked on a bit shy as he packed up his tablet and headphones into his backpack 

“Hey bud,” Benny bent down on one knee, Mariella clutching his side. “I'm excited to hang out with you today.” 

Nico smiled and Vanessa’s heart skipped a beat. She knew she was getting ahead of herself, but she couldn't help the butterflies seeing how seamlessly Benny fit into her family. 

Walking up to Benny, she quickly hugged him and kissed him on the cheek, “It’s not too late if you want to back out,” she whispered.

“Nah, you’re stuck with me,” he winked. “Besides, I’ve always wanted to go to this aquarium, just didn't wanna go by myself.”

With a wave to Marcus and Vanessa, they were off. Benny offered to drive, but Vanessa politely declined, saying she needed him on entertainment duty should Mariella grow tired of her tablet. 

They seemed to hit every red light on the way to the interstate, but it gave Benny and Vanessa a chance to steal glances at each other. At one particularly long light, she looked over and noticed his hand twitch before covering it with his other hand in his lap.

“Everything ok?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Hmm? Oh yeah… it’s just…” He didn't want to admit how nervous, but excited he was. “I haven't told you yet, but you look really pretty today.” He swallowed hard.

Vanessa was thankful the light turned green, so she could face forward and try to cover the fact that she was starting to blush. “Well, thank you. You look pretty good today yourself.”

“Thanks.”

She placed her hand on the gear changer, seeing out of the corner of her eye that he was looking at her hand. Deciding to just go for it, she moved her hand to grab his, which he eagerly took. He brought their joined hands up to his lips, kissing the back of her hand, and then moved to each knuckle. They stayed like that for a while before Benny dropped her hand so he could rest his on her thigh. The contact sent an electric pulse down Vanessa's spine.

David: How's everyone feeling? Just came back from a run and everyone looks to still be sleeping.

Melissa: How are you even up right now? My head feels like it’s in a vice 😩

Ty: He got up at 6. He's unfazed

David: I feel fantastic! 

David: Thoughts on inviting Tori and Ness to this group chat?

Megan: Already have nicknames for them huh? 😆 But I vote yes, they're fun!

Ty: Agreed, they're fun. Ness is so sweet, I'm trying to see if I can help her find a job.

Olivia: That's so sweet of you Ty!

Lucille: She and Benny are so sweet.

Oliva: They’re so cute!! 😍

David: Who's going to be the one to spill that we all watched them kiss?

Ty: I feel like we know *cough* Liv

Oliva: Hey!

Katie: Aw guys, we can’t say anything. They're going to be so embarrassed if they find out! I swore Will to secrecy

Ty: You hear that babe? Zip it.

David: Alexa play Our Lips Are Sealed 

“Aaaand we're here! Sit tight while Bunny and I load up ok?” Vanessa looked back at her niece and nephew who nodded enthusiastically.

She popped her trunk open and got out, slipping on her crossbody before making her way around to the back of her SUV. There, she saw Benny busying himself with unloading the stroller, struggling with how to unfold it. 

“Here, it’s just…this latch right here,” she pointed. 

She used her sunglasses as a cover to admire how Benny’s forearms flexed as he undid the latch and opened up the stroller before going to help get Mariella out of her car seat. The toddler protested a bit when Benny tried to put her in her stroller. Vanessa couldn't help but laugh, realizing that Benny was going to get a full dose of headstrong Mariella today. 

“Bunny, no…uppies! Uppies peeeease!” She pleaded, raising her hands toward him.

Vanessa was about to step in when Benny put his hand up to stop her and turned his attention to Mariella. “Baby girl, how about this. When we get inside the aquarium you get allll the uppies you want. But right now when we’re in the parking lot, can you go in the stroller for me? Please?”

The little girl twisted her face as she processed what he said before finally pointing to her stroller. Benny pulled out some Goldfish crackers from the lunchbox, placing some on the tray in front of Mariella who clapped and eagerly started shoveling them into her mouth.

“Dang, Goldfish crackers at an aquarium. Your sister is hardcore,” Benny quipped as he started walking with the stroller.

Vanessa giggled. “You’re kind of a natural at this, you have any kids I should know about?” She side-eyed him with a smirk as she and Nico walked hand-in-hand towards the entrance. 

Benny brushed his hair back and put on his hat. “Nah, I don't have any kids. I do have a niece though. Well, she's technically not my niece, she's my cousin Joel’s daughter, Sarah…she made me this shirt,” he proudly showed it off. “I lived with Joel for a bit when she was a toddler. I dunno, being around Mari reminds me of those times.” 

“Well, you're a natural,” Vanessa smiled, noticing how his face lit up when he talked about Sarah.

They walked the rest of the way in comfortable silence, making the queue to purchase tickets. Despite her protest, Benny insisted on paying for everyone and stopping to take the commemorative photo at the entrance. As soon as they scanned their tickets, Mariella put her hands up and made a grabby motion with her tiny hands.

“You have a good memory,” Benny chuckled as he picked her up. “C'mon let’s go explore huh?”

Vanessa noticed that every time they stepped foot into a new room Benny quickly scanned the space to identify all of the exits. Although it broke her heart that being on alert was second nature to him, it did make her feel safe. Outside of Marcus, she had never felt safer with another man than Benny. It definitely helped ease her anxiety about going out with Mariella and Nico alone.

Benny was so patient with the kids. Mariella clutched at his side like a baby koala. His arms had to be hurting, but he never complained. The pair was simply adorable. Occasionally, she asked to be put down so she could walk up to a tank. It was in those moments when Benny made sure to pay extra attention to Nico, which elicited big, but shy smiles from the boy.

Mariella insisted her brother walk her to the next exhibit, the one with jellyfish she was so excited about. Vanessa looked on affectionately as the two navigated their way hand in hand. She didn't realize that Benny had moved closer to her, his hand brushing against hers before he finally reached for it. He looked up at the sign as they walked under it and snorted. 

“What’s so funny?” Vanessa arched an eyebrow. 

“Sorry…it's just,” he chuckled, angling his chin up so Vanessa could read the sign. 

No Bone Zone

“Hell of a name for an exhibit, don't cha think?” 

Vanessa groaned and rolled her eyes which made Benny clutch his stomach as he laughed. 

“Sorry, sorry…I just had to, it was too funny to pass up,” he flashed the biggest smile.

“I feel like I could make a joke, but I don’t know…” Vanessa smirked. 

“Make a dirty joke here? With kids around?” Benny sarcastically scoffed. “What am I going to do with you boss lady?”

Vanessa flashed a mischievous look. She got up on her tiptoes, her lips hovering around his ears, goosebumps forming on his forearms, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She quickly got back flat on her feet, winked at him, and scurried off to catch up with Mariella and Nico, leaving Benny a bit stunned…and insanely turned on. 

“It kinda smells weird, you smell that?” Benny asked, sniffing the air before he turned to see Vanessa's smirk. “What?”

Vanessa turned her attention to Mariella, “Do you need your diaper changed?” Mariella nodded and then turned to Benny who suddenly looked panicked. “Don’t worry Bun, I won't subject you to the full immersive experience,” she winked. She grabbed the backpack and turned to her niece, “Ok, we'll be back, ven aquí mi amor.”

Mariella reluctantly let go of Benny’s hand. He turned to Nico who looked nervous. To his left, Benny noticed a small interactive table for kids with some activities. “Nico, wanna go over there while we wait on the girls? I think they have coloring.”

Nico’s face lit up as he walked up and saw some coloring pages. He found a spot to sit while Benny struggled to get his tall frame into one of the small chairs. Once seated, he grabbed a few colored pencils and asked which animal was Nico's favorite so he could start sketching. 

Benny got a bit frustrated with himself, not liking how the fins of the shark were turning out. He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair before putting the cap on backward. He noticed Nico looking up at him. 

“Tia likes your hat like that.” He said softly before quickly focusing his attention back on coloring.

Benny felt himself blushing, wondering what Vanessa may have said for Nico to know that. He cleared his throat and picked his pencil back up to continue sketching. “You know, I really like your Aun- I mean your Tia.” 

Nico nodded, not looking up as he continued to color in his cartoon shark. After a few moments, he stopped and turned to face Benny. “Her last boyfriend made her cry a lot. Are you going to make her cry?”

Benny shook his head, his brows pinched as he regarded the boy, “No, no buddy. That's the last thing I wanna do.”

“Good, because I like when she smiles. And she smiles a lot around you. And she laughs too. I like that.” And with a small smile, he went back to coloring.

Benny could feel himself tearing up at the boy's candor. He didn't know a lot about Vanessa's ex, but he gathered it was a bit tumultuous at best.

“You boys having fun?” Vanessa appeared behind Benny, her eyes looked a bit misty seeing the boys bonding.

“Sure are, nice to have some guy time, right Nico?” Benny knocked the little boy lightly on his shoulder. 

“You really don't have to get them anything, Bun,” Vanessa leaned over as they watched Mariella peruse the stuffed animals in the gift shop while Nico looked at the books.

“I know, but I want to. It was a fun day, we should get something to remember it.” Mariella excitedly pointed at a pink jellyfish, her big brown eyes looking up at Benny. “This one?” He pointed to the toy, laughing when she started jumping up and down. “What about you darlin’?” He looked at Vanessa.

“Me? I… you're sweet, but I don’t need anything.” She looked down, feeling her face get warm.

“C’mon, course you do. My treat.”

Vanessa grinned as she looked at the display of stuffed marine animals, trying to control herself when all she wanted to do was squeal and kick her feet.

“Here, let me drive,” Benny lightly grabbed Vanessa's wrist after they finished loading everything up. “Just relax, I've got this.”

“Ok, thank you.” Vanessa smiled. Today was fun, but also overstimulating. She was thankful for the offer and appreciative that Benny thought to do it.

As they pulled out of the parking lot, she looked over her shoulder to see both kids passed out. Benny turned on the radio, turning it down slightly as he hummed along. Vanessa rested her head against the headrest and turned her face toward Benny, admiring how his forearm on the steering wheel flexed when he turned a corner. 

She reached for his right arm, fingers grazing down his forearm until she reached his hand and threaded her fingers with his. He glanced over with a quick smile and brought her hand up, again pressing his lips to it. The rest of the drive they kept in some contact, whether it was holding hands or Benny resting his hand on Vanessa's thigh.

When the exit for Torrey Hills was in sight, Benny looked over, “You can say no if you'd rather have some alone time, but the guys’re going to a baseball game tonight…I was gonna stay home and watch a movie since I should get to sleep early…if you wanna come over…no pressure.”

Vanessa placed her hand on top of the one Benny had rooted on her thigh, “I'd like that. I can make you something for dinner. My treat for putting up with us all day.”

“You don't need to do that sweetheart. It was fun, I liked hanging out with you…all of you.”

“Bun, I know you have to be hungry. Goldfish crackers and that sad turkey sandwich from the café didn't cut it…besides, I can’t have you starving on my watch. We have to keep your strength up for Friday, right?”

Benny glanced over with a smirk, “Good point. I’m kinda trying to win this fight. I’ve got some extra…motivation.”

Four Days to Fight Night

“I made it baby girl…yeah, I’ll tell them you said hi…maybe we can FaceTime with everyone later ok? Alright, have fun with your mom. Love you.”

Joel cursed under his breath as he walked out of baggage claim to the bustling, chaotic scene that was arrivals. The Florida humidity was thick and he already felt the beads of sweat forming on the back of his neck. He set his backpack on the ground and undid the buttons on his green plaid shirt, deciding to just go ahead and take it off leaving him in his white Miller Contracting T-shirt. 

He spotted Will’s Jeep in the distance, waving over the crowd which Will acknowledged as he made his way over to the curb.

Will looked around Joel, brow furrowed as his cousin opened the door, “Where’s Tommy?”

“Well hello to you too,” Joel scoffed, putting his suitcase in the back before settling into the passenger seat. “It’s hot as hell here man.”

“Welcome to Florida,” Will winked, clapping Joel on the shoulder. “Good to see you J.” He put the Jeep in drive and started to make his way out of the chaos.

“Good to see you too man. Sarah says hi, she sent me with some stuff for you and the guys.”

“She’s a sweetheart…hopefully you can bring her next time. I’m sure Bean will lose his mind wanting to take her over to Disney or something,” Will chuckled.

“Yeah and maybe Tommy’ll stay out of trouble for more than five goddamn minutes and he can come too,” Joel shook his head as he took in the rows of palm trees lining the road.

“What’d he do this time?”

Joel took a deep breath in through his nose and out, “I dunno…he went to a bar, sounds like some guy was harassin’ the bartender…girl he likes. Anyway, one thing led to another and he decked the guy, knocked ‘em unconscious, so he got taken into Travis County. By the time he got around to callin’ me it was early this mornin’ and I needed to leave for the airport...at least I have a free airline ticket now,” Joel shook his head with a smirk. 

“Damn…sounds like we should have had him out here to help Fish train Benny then huh?” Will looked over with a lopsided grin.

“How’s he doin’?” Joel asked.

Will glanced over, “Gotta say, I was really nervous when he first signed up for this but over the last week or so…I dunno man, he's unstoppable.”

“Good…good. Reckon Nox has something to do with that. She seems like a sweet girl.” Joel looked over quickly making eye contact briefly before the stoplight turned green.

Will paused, taking in the fact that Joel not only had an unprompted nickname for Vanessa already, but he seemed so supportive of the relationship. “She is…really sweet girl and she looks at Benny like he's the most important person in the world, which is a good thing because he does the same with her,” Will chuckled. “He's started drawing again…even singing too, heard him in the shower the other day. He thinks I don’t notice, but I'm pretty sure I saw him writing too.”

“The kid sounds happy, he deserves it…” Joel trailed off, smiling at himself.

David: 🚨 🚨 COUSIN JOEL ARRIVES TODAY 🚨 🚨 

Megan: I'm surprised you aren't camped out on your lawn waiting!

Ty: Don't give him ideas. We're out scouting a couple of wedding venues for a client so we are going to be gone all day.

David: The. Worst. So we need one of you to send us the goods when daddy shows up

Megan: 💀

Melissa: Ty do you just walk around with a spray bottle for him 😆 

David: You could dump my ass in the bay and it still wouldn't quench this THIRST

Megan: Well at least you're self aware

David: Katie. I need a flight number. Airline. General ETA. Anythingggg

Lucille: He'll definitely be here by dinner time, Benny asked if I could make them some food for tonight. I’m at the hair salon so I may miss his arrival.

Megan: I’m in the waiting room for Connor’s physical so we’re not around either.

Olivia: I don’t even know what time it is right now. Diana was up and down all night.

Melissa: I’m with a client today. 

David: YOU ALL ARE THE WORST

David: Katie. You’re my only hope. 

David: Katie??

Joel looked out the window as Will turned into the subdivision and turned down Mule Fall Court. “Looks like a nice place,” he observed.

“It is, I think you’ll like it here. It’s quiet, but the people are really fun.” Will pulled into the driveway and cut off the ignition.

Joel climbed out of the Jeep and took a look around, giving an approving nod at the landscaping in front of 319. He looked further down the street at the other houses and their manicured lawns, stopping to admire the construction of one of the homes a few doors down. It had a beautiful, large window in its front room.

Will started pointing out where everyone lived, starting with Lucille. “Great fuckin’ cook man, you’ll see tonight. She’s been taking care of us so we look after her.” He then pointed out Megan’s house, Melissa and Danny’s, Olivia and Chris’, and David and Ty’s. “And right over there is where Vanessa lives with her sister Victoria and her brother-in-law Marcus.”

“Well, ain't it damn Leave It To Beaver ‘round these parts,” Joel chuckled, wiping the sweat off his forehead. 

A sudden slam of a door made them both turn their heads. Katie carefully rushed across her porch, minding some of the gaps between the planks so as to not trip in her heels and break an ankle. She had rushed home quickly before her big presentation to find an elusive USB drive. Her hands were full as she made her way down to her car, juggling her sweater, purse, and work bag.

“Oh, someone I want you to meet,” Will smiled, patting Joel on the chest as he took off in a light jog down the driveway. “Hey, Katie!” He called over.

She was even more beautiful in person than the photos Joel had seen or that random FaceTime they had a few weeks ago. Trailing behind Will, he cleared his throat, taking full advantage of the fact that he was wearing sunglasses, giving her an appreciative up and down, stopping just a beat longer to admire how her legs looked in her pencil skirt and heels.

“Hey, Will,” Katie responded a bit out of breath.

“Katie, I wanted you to meet Joel,” he patted his cousin on the back. “He’s in town for an overdue vacation and just in time for Benny’s fight this weekend!” 

Joel extended his hand, his sunglasses now pushed to his forehead. “It’s great to finally meet you, Katie. I’ve heard a lot about you from Will,” he said with a friendly smirk. 

“So you’re the infamous Cousin Joel we’ve been hearing so much about?” 

Amused by the question, Joel’s smirk turned into a smile, “Infamous, huh? I hope Will's been keeping it a positive one,” he joked.

Will raised an eyebrow at Joel’s flirtatious tone, one that he knew very well from their younger days, but hadn’t heard in well over a decade. Joel and Katie stayed looking at each other for a beat before the sound of running feet snapped them out of it. 

“J MONEEEEYYY! You made it!” Benny sprinted across the street and leapt at Joel who caught his taller cousin with ease. 

Katie chuckled, seeing Benny so excited. Will mentioned how much he was looking forward to Joel’s visit, but now witnessing his reaction in real time, the energy was infectious. 

“Bean. It’s good to see you.” Joel’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he hugged his younger cousin with equal enthusiasm. 

Benny pulled back after a moment and grinned at Katie, his eyes sparkling excitedly, “So you got to meet the man himself!”

“Indeed,” Katie responded. She knew this sudden uptick in activity at the end of her driveway was sure to have pulled the attention of the Neighborhood Watch. The group chat would be blowing up any minute now. “But, J Money? Did I hear that right?”

Joel laughed, “It’s a nickname,” Benny swung his arm around Joel’s shoulder, “It’s a long story.” 

Katie willed herself not to melt into a puddle with the way Joel smiled at her. Her phone buzzing in her hands brought her back to reality. “Sorry,” she held up her phone. She could have sworn she saw a flash of disappointment sweep across Joel’s face, but she didn’t focus on it.

“Work?” Will asked, giving her a sympathetic look.

“Yeah,” she mumbled as she read Miranda’s message and looked back to the guys. “Unfortunately. Big presentation.”

Will nodded sympathetically. This presentation had been weighing on Katie for the past week, but he knew she could handle it after all the preparation she put in. “No rest for the wicked.” he quipped with a wink.

“Yeah,” Katie rummaged through her tote for her car keys before finally finding them at the bottom of her bag.

Benny pulled Joel’s attention away, running through his training regime for the week. Will walked a couple of steps closer to Katie and placed a reassuring hand on her arm, “You got this Kat.”

“Thank you,” she said with a tight smile. Her phone buzzed again and she sighed, “Okay, I really have to go now.”

They all quickly said their goodbyes, Joel and Katie lingering on each other just a beat longer than the rest. 

“J, you wanna come to the gym today? Fish says I need to take it easy, but I dunno maybe you wanna get in there, see what we've been up to, n’case you have suggestions,” Benny shadowboxed towards Joel as they made their way across the street. 

“Yeah Bean, sounds good, whatever you want man,” Joel smirked, wrapping his arm around Benny’s shoulders.

Benny talked a mile a minute on the way back to the house, Will laughing occasionally at how his brother’s hands flailed as he gestured excitedly. Joel turned his head, catching Katie who watched them all with a smile. He nodded his chin towards her to say goodbye, feeling something he wasn't quite sure how to describe. 

Katie took a deep breath before getting into her car and dialing her phone. “Hey, Miranda, I’m on my way back to the office… yeah I’ve got it. We need coffee, what can I get you?”

Benny connected with a combination, putting a bit too much behind his last punch, and knocking Frankie off balance.

“Ok, Ben, you're good man, let's put up the gloves and get out of here,” Will called over from the side.

Next to him, Joel chuckled, arms folded in front of him as he stood with his legs hip distance apart. After sitting for a few hours on the flight and then in the car, he didn't mind standing around and watching Benny spar. Santiago tossed a towel to Benny and Frankie while Connor brought their water bottles over.

“Whad’ya think J?” Benny asked as he tried to catch his breath. He flipped his hair back frustrated that it was getting in his eyes.

“Lookin’ good Bean, how are you feeling?”

“Good, actually…yeah, I feel good,” he smiled.

“You need to ask Vanessa to give you a haircut, hermano…you were too distracted with your hair getting in your eyes, I almost got you a few times,” Frankie’s hand ruffled through the front of Benny's hair.

Joel and Will exchanged a knowing look. “She cuts hair too?” Joel asked with an arched brow, eliciting a snort from Santiago.

“She did mine,” Connor offered, his bright eyes looking up at Joel.

Joel gave the boy a once over, his head cocked to the side with an approving look and shrug. “Talented girl, huh Bean?”

“Wonder if you’ll get some special treatment, Ben, get the full service,” Santiago snorted, ducking to avoid Frankie slapping him upside the head as he cut his eyes towards Connor.

Benny felt his face getting hot so he turned on his heels and headed toward the weights, missing the way all the guys tried to stifle their laughter. 

The group trailed behind, pairing off to different stations to finish their workouts. Joel walked over to Benny, who sat on a bench checking his phone.

“Need a spot?” Joel asked softly.

Benny turned around, sporting a big smile, “Yeah, that'd be great.” He reclined onto the bench and under the bar bracing himself to do some bench presses. 

“This gonna be your last fight Bean?” 

“We'll…see…depends on…how it…goes,” Benny managed between reps, racking the bar and taking a deep breath. 

“You seem more focused this time…this guy do somethin' to piss you off or what?” Joel chuckled softly to himself. As he brought the bar off the rack, his chest tensed, waiting for Benny to start his next set.

“Nah,” Benny chuckled. “I dunno…feels like…things are…clicking,” he let out a big exhale. 

“That's good Bean, that's good,” Joel looked down with a soft smile as Benny gritted his teeth to finish the set.

After two more sets, Benny slid from under the bar, sitting up and wiping his brow with his shirt.

“You should get that haircut,” Joel smirked.

Benny looked down at his feet, feeling warm as he thought about Vanessa and her fingers in his hair like they were the night before. As he glanced up at Joel, he chuckled. “You need one too?”

“Nah, but I'll go with you…supervise.”

Benny snorted and they both started laughing. Benny hopped off the bench and gestured towards it. “C'mon old man, you gonna do a couple of sets or what?” 

Joel stretched his arms up, his shirt riding up a bit before he brought his hands to his hips, “Sure, rack it up, Bean.”

“She should be here any second,” Benny rubbed his hands together looking over to Joel with a huge grin. 

And almost on cue, they heard the doorbell, Frankie moving to answer the door while Will finished setting the table and Santiago poured whiskey for everyone.

“Hola Lulu,” Frankie said softly, the corners of his mouth lifted into a smile before he leaned down to kiss Lucille.

“Hola mi amor,” she leaned in, patting his arm. Frankie pulled back, brows drawn together as he saw she was empty-handed. “I didn’t forget the food Francisco, it’s down there,” she nodded behind her to the little wagon at the bottom of the porch steps. 

Frankie tutted, “¿por qué no llamaste? We would have helped bring this over.”

“Ay, I didn’t want to bother, figured I’d just drop it off anyway.”

“Drop it off?” Benny appeared behind Frankie, Joel trailing behind him. “What do you mean Lulu? You’re not gonna stay and have dinner with us?”

“I didn’t want to impose, mi vida. It’s ok, I have leftovers,” Lucille waved him off.

Joel cleared his throat, pushing himself past Benny so he stood shoulder to shoulder with Frankie. “Hola, señora soy Joel,” he reached out to shake her hand. 

She eagerly took his hand, realizing how frail her small hand looked in his. She felt the rough calluses of his palms, the hands of a working man. He was striking, his broad frame seemed to tower over the other men, but there was a softness tucked away in his eyes as he looked down at her. “Joel. Un placer conocerte. You speak Spanish a lot better que tus primos,” she winked.

Joel chuckled, looking over his shoulder at Benny who pouted a bit. “Well, I cheated a bit. Grew up speaking Spanish because of my mom.”

“Bueno, well, I’ll leave you boys to it,” she started to turn before Joel pipped up.

“Where are you going? Stay with us. How’re we supposed to compliment the cook if she’s gone?” He winked. She got the sense this man could be quite persuasive when he wanted to be.

“Yea, Lulu, please stay,” Benny pleaded, resting his forearm on Joel’s shoulder.

“Ok, ok, fine. Here let’s get everything in before it gets cold,” she motioned towards the wagon.

She spared no expense in preparing this meal, knowing she had five grown men to feed, really six if you count how much Benny had been eating in the lead up to his fight. Arroz con pollo was always a crowd-pleaser and easy to make in bulk. She also brought some yucca, black beans and snuck in a few favorites for the guys – empanadas for Benny, maduros for Frankie, tostones for Santiago, and a flan for Will.

They sat around talking, catching up, and eating. Lucille watched on fondly as Joel shared the latest with his daughter Sarah. His face softened when he spoke of his little girl, she could tell what a proud father he was. 

As the last forks hit the plates, Joel pushed his forward, leaning back in his chair, resting his hands on the back of his head, and letting out a low whistle. “Wow, Lucille, that was delicious. Couldn’t remember the last time I had a meal like that.”

Lucille blushed as the rest of the guys chimed in with their praise. “Oh stop, you mean to tell me you don’t have an old neighbor who cooks for you and your daughter and brother?”

Joel shook his head laughing, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the table. “Nah, best Mrs. Adler can do is cookies. They’re mighty fine cookies, mind you, but she’s not much of a cook.”

“Well, I’m glad you liked it,” she pushed back from the table, moving to get herself up to start clearing the dishes. 

Joel moved, resting a hand on hers, “No ma’am, you sit on down. We’ll take care of it.” He stood up and took her plate and glass from her. Frankie, Santiago, and Will all followed suit and started promptly clearing the table.

Benny stayed back, scooting his chair closer to Lucille whose eyes lingered on the men as they walked to the kitchen, “Hey Lulu, I…um…I have a question”

“Que mi vida?” She raised her eyebrow.

“I was wondering if sometime you could show me how to make something.”

“Empanadas may be a little advanced, but we can try it,” she smiled, patting his hand.

“No, no, not that. I…um…could you show me how to make Cuban coffee sometime?”

She eyed him conspiratorially and nodded, whispering that she’d be happy to give him a lesson just as Frankie returned to the table. 

“Lulu, we’ll clean everything up…return all the dishes tomorrow if that’s ok?”

“Well, with this kind of service I may be making dinner for you all every night,” she laughed.

Benny and Frankie laughed as they helped her get to her feet. 

“C’mon, I’ll walk you home,” Frankie offered her his hand as he walked her over to the kitchen to say goodbye to everyone.

Lucille and Frankie exchanged small talk as they walked the short distance back to her house. Before long, the conversation naturally shifted to Jo. 

“She’s actually coming on Friday, for Benny’s fight,” his hopeful eyes found Lucille’s.

She cocked her head to the side, the corners of her mouth curling up as she rubbed his arm, “Well, I’m excited to meet her. Can’t wait to see the woman who is making you look like that.”

His forehead creased, “Look like what?”

“In love.” She said matter of factly. It didn’t take extremely astute powers of observation to see the shift in Frankie’s demeanor over the last two weeks. The sadness that used to be at the surface, ever present in his eyes even when he smiled, had evaporated. There was a glow to him. He seemed more relaxed, sure of himself…happy. 

Frankie chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck, taking in her words. With a deep breath, his eyes met hers, “yeah, yeah maybe I am.”

Next Time on As the Mule Falls: Benny goes to a foodie event with Vanessa (get the Bingo cards back out, we'll have a cameo). The boys have a poker night. And there’s another encounter between Katie and Joel. David also continues to wait until he can get eyes on Joel.

A/N: Hi! Sooo…what do we think? Benny and Vanessa continue to be one of my favorite storylines, but Cousin Joel is right up there! 

I’m still sharing some extras between chapters. Since the last chapter, I posted a little extra of Benny’s Instagram thanks to the creative help of @undercoverpena. I also had a Benny x Vanessa post, After, about how they both reacted to their first kiss. I’m planning on posting another Benny x Vanessa extra about what happened after the aquarium. 

I highly recommend checking out 323 Mulefall Crt if you want some more Cousin Joel! We've been dropping little hints for months and I'm so excited to finally share it. Betty - working on this little universe with you has brought me so much joy. Thank you <3

Until next time!

Taglist: @goodwithcheese / @gemmahale / @trulybetty / @noxturnalpascal / @periodtsparadox

@ramblers-lets-get-ramblin / @maggiemayhemnj / @mysterious-moonstruck-musings /  @avastrasposts / @meveispunk  

@chaoticfestninja / @beboldbebravethings / @casa-boiardi / @katw474  / @laughing-in-th3-purple-rain

@pimosworld / @lynnchun / @anoverwhelmingdin /@lilmizmoz  / @mclibs23

@pedrit0-pascalit0 / @titlee78 / @noisynightmarepoetry / @inept-the-magnificent / @perennialdoll247  

@for-a-longlongtime / @readingiskeepingmegoing / @harriedandharassed / @musings-of-a-rose / @anavatazes 

@sherala007 / @midnightraain / @partyofone3413 / @inthedarkestnight / @millennial-teenybopper 

@csarab615 / @darkheartgatita / @southernbe / @weho2kcmo / @itspdameronthings

[justatalkingface]

The 'Great' MHA Read Along, Part Five (Chapters 22-44): The Mandatory Exploitive Tournament Arc

Been awhile, huh? Let's see if I can still pull this off. I'm warning you, this is probably going to have a bit of heft to it.

We start off people trying (and failing) to investigate Shigarki and the Villains and, first off, a couple of things. The whole, 'Quirk Registry' shit? Very X-Men. I'm... kinda mixed feelings on it. It makes sense for a government to try and keep track of this kind of shit, but at the same time it feels like a whole lot, you know? That said... the way the guy in the suit phrased it makes it seem like they only searched for 'Shigaraki/Disintegration' and 'Kurogiri/OP warping' pairings, which seems... dumb. Like, really dumb.

Are they.... are they not going to search for anyone with a similar Quirk? Because it sounds like there are other people with similar Quirks, so... what about them? Oh, this pale haired guy who mutters a lot about how horrible heroes are isn't named Shigaraki, so clearly this isn't the guy? Do some ground work or something, man, bloody hell.

*spits out drink*

Even All-Might thinks Shigaraki is a man-child, lol. Brutal. That said... Vlad goes, 'You mean he's just like a kid with a 'power' or something?!'

And I. My dude. You're just some guy with a power. It feels like some depersonalization of the 'villains' because, yeah, everyone in this story is, in fact, just some rando human, 99.9% of the time with super powers. I don't know, it just feels like that's this really concerning perspective for someone in authority to have.

'I keep forgetting this is an actual school!'

That. That's... actually really concerning? Everyone, literally everyone, from Aizawa, to the students, to the actual author, can't seem to figure out if UA is some military academy meant to pump out child soldiers, or an actual high school meant to prepare children to go into society. And not to belabor the point here, one I've talking about on and off again for awhile, but that's fucked up.

I can't help but get the impression that UA (and presumably every other hero academy) is some military complex, setting up the students to live a life where the only way they know how to live is through violence and trying to be famous, but it's just... pretending to have standards, pretending to care for the kids as anything more than the next generation of... idol-police, or something. The way every school related thing is so out of place, the way their grades are so unimportant... it's very telling.

And like. It's not a bad thing, per say. Morally bad, sure, but from a story telling perspective? For a story like this, the way the heroic's school is morally dubious is actually a really good plot point to work off of. But... that's the problem. It never happens.

If the setting was fucked up enough, it'd be understandable if it wasn't explored, but it's not. I feel like there's some fertile ground to talk about... how heroes don't know how to handle living normal lives. How to cook, clean, do taxes, hIstory (which is, of course, very loaded sort of topic in a more dystopian kind of a set up) and so on. There's no way they have the time and energy to do all the thing a normal kid should do at their age, and as they grow up, and get these dangerous, fucked up jobs? There has to be consequences to that.

And the next line later, they bring up, you know, a bunch of terrorists just attacked the school. Which is, in fact, a serious fucking concern! What does Aizawa say?

'No no, we're only doing because we're so sure we have this shit locked down.'

Spoiler alert: They did not, in fact, have this shit locked down. In the least.

My god, this is so fucked up. It's pretty clear that the fact this is still happening is because UA, and heroics as a whole, honestly, is doing a show of force to try and make all the bad things go away. In all honesty, they're putting these kids lives at risk; the only reason nothing went wrong isn't because 'the school had all its ducks in a row when it comes to crisis control' or what the fuck ever, but because AFO didn't want to do anything. And you know why he doesn't interfere?

Because it's so damn useful for him that they flat out broadcast the details of the students and what their Quirks are!

And don't even get me started on this 'Olympics have fallen out of favor' bullshit. It's a world wide event, and it doesn't matter if the population has... shrunk (? That's what my translation says, anyways. Is this honestly saying that so many people died that the Olympics no longer holds any attraction? I mean.. what? What the fuck? What happened???? Why in the hell is this getting brushed over?! Or is that just a bad translation, and if so what is he saying is the reason the Olympics no longer have any appeal?) or whatever, because that's just... bullshit. That's just bullshit. If super powers happen, and they get at all stabilized and regulated like they are in here, all that's going to happen is that the powers are going to be part of the Olympics, and a lower population count really isn't going to change the fundamental reasons why it's popular in the first place.

Speedster racing, various forms of competitive flying (racing (in all its variations), acrobatics, mid-air dancing, synchronized flying.... flight along has dozens of potential new Olympics sports, easy), something like shot-put hurling but with some kind of projectiles, fire, lasers, whatever? Oh yeah, the Olympics are going to be just fine.

So please, Hori, spare me your obsessive need to make heroics the most important thing EVAH all of the time.

But, wait, there's more! It's not just, the new super Olympics, oh no, this is for their careers. In high school. This is, apparenlty, a make or break moment for the rest of their lives (again, with however that undefined heroics ranking and what not works). How old are they? What, fifteen? 'Here, go do bloodsports, and if you fuck up, you're going to be a menial, loser fry-cook of a wannabe police officer, dressed in brightly colored spandex for the rest of your life, barely making any money, and never getting any real respect or validation for putting your life at risk'.

Oh, I have opinions on the Sports Festival, believe me, I have a lot of opinions, but I'd like to save at least some of these more for when the actual Sports Festival starts, and not, like, five pages into the first chapter out of what, twenty two? We've got the time.

Uraraka! You're an actual character! My, this is nostalgic. I always loved the contrast between her hyper cute-zied design of her and the fact she's down to beat the living shit out of someone at the drop of a hat, and it's nice to have that again.

(Also, she's showing more ability to inspire the class here than Bakugou has shown literally the entire series, no matter how much Hori goes on about his 'charisma' or whatever.)

And then we get into her "impure" motivations to be a hero, (which I've also talked about on occasion), and it's very humanizing, both for Uraraka as a character, and the industry as a whole. It's one of those great set ups Hori ended up dropping on world building, which sucks because it'd be so interesting if he got into the nuts and bolts of the world a bit. I'm not saying we need to see the tax code or anything, but for a series that's about corruption and what not, some more detail would really help pull all of this together.

Ah, Dumb Might. I didn't miss you, except I kind of did because Dumb Might is still better than Useless-Side-Character Might.

Also, can I talk about how stupid it is that Dumb Might is burning his less than an hour's worth of time 'teaching' students again? Because holy fuck that's such a waste it's honestly criminal.

And what the hell is this switch in motivations, here? All Might never mentioned, you know, replacing him is the Symbol of Peace before now. Before this point, the whole reason he chose Izuku is that he'd be worthy user of his power, not, what, replacing him. If Izuku never gained any real fame, but still managed to save a lot of people? Before-this-point All Might would have been fine with that. More than that, he would have been proud of it, proud his successor was humble and chose to focus on doing good rather than fame. Hell, not too long ago it was pointing out by All Might that Izuku wouldn't want to use All Might's fame to benefit himself, to go slow and steady and earn his success rather than relying on fame.

Where the fuck did this come from? What the fuck kind of pressure is he trying to put on this kid?

And then right after that, we see flashes of who All Might used to be with the whole 'don't forget how you felt at the seaside park, that day', bit. Because, like, that's good. That's great! It's real, and deep, and gritty, and I'd love it if it wasn't being use with this set up, because those expectations work in other shonens, but they don't work here. Izuku can't do what All Might did, because he can't stop damn hurting himself. Going Plus Ultra, here, now, for this? It could cause real, serious harm to him for the rest of his life! And for what? To make a good impression?

And if something would call him on that, it could still work, because All Might is canonly shit at taking care of himself, that could, like, close the circle for all of this, bring it together with the two them as shit at at self care as a place to build them improving off of, but for whatever reason, Hori never went all the way on that because he was too damn afraid to commit to it, commit to a story, commit to a theme, commit to a moral.

...Holy shit, how many pages is this? We haven't even gotten to actual Sports Festival yet in the post about the damn Sports Festival.

And now we have this creepy, kind of morbid mob of people filling the hallway to stare at Class 1-A for.... being attacked by terrorists.

*what the fuck.jpeg*

What is wrong with you people?! What the actual hell is wrong with you???

And then Shinso rolls up:

"Wow. Look at these arrogant assholes, so excited about not getting killed. I'm going to declare war on them, because they deserve it for getting all high and mighty."

...

You know, I completely forgot about the epic story of, 'Shinso Hitoshi and his Completely Unmerited Persecution Complex'. I'm sad that I remember that now.

Bakugou: "People's opinions don't matter once your at the top."

Me: *looks at how much people's opinions matter to getting to the top, and staying there*

Me: ...Uh.

Thank you, Kaminari, for pointing out his edgy bullshit is, in fact, actually bullshit, and is only going to make his life more difficult for no reason. I like you as an actual person who does things other than cheerlead for Bakugou.

Izuku. Izuku no, Izuku...! Damn it. Bad Izuku. Bad! Stop getting inspired by the festering waste spewing out of Bakugou's mouth!

Cue all of two panels of the media being absolute assholes only out to make ratings with no redeeming features.

And... here's the actual Sports Festival, god knows how long into this post later!

(if you believe the text editor I just posted all of this into? Well into four pages. ...Even with my generous use of spacing, I think I have a problem.)

..Wait. Wait. Where the hell is this happening?

*does five seconds of research on the wiki*

I'm right. They have a stadium for this. Like, a giant ass sports stadium that exists for this. Only for this. That is used once a year.

At this point, I'm honestly wondering why UA isn't just it's own city. Like, Izuku should have moved here, along with the rest of the students, and all the families and various staff needed to run this just.... live on site. It's not like it'd cost them anything, since they apparently have spare cities sitting around for the kids to trash.

That's... that's actually a really interesting idea? Because it'd be a hero run city, then, which feels like it'd work well into the over commercialized, corrupted state heroics is supposed to be like, their overwhelming level of influence. I don't think that's what Hori was going for, to be clear, I think he has no idea just how much space he's causally put on UA's campus and didn't think through the implications... at all.

Ooh, and here comes Todoroki's characterization.

And... here comes the bloodsport, because that's what all of this is: bloodsport. They're throwing a bunch of teenagers onto this stage, broadcast them to the entire country, and have them fight against each other for fame. This society is so fucked up.

Random Gen Ed kid: Yeah, he placed first in the Heroics Entance Exam.

...Yeah. As fucking stupid as it is that Bakugou somehow placed first, it does make sense the person who place first in the Heroics Entrance Exam would be class representative in a school for heroics. Damn, you're salty, kid, but you're also kinda dumb, not going to lie.

Bakugou: *opens his mouth on live TV*

Bakugou: *vomits diarrhea for the entire country to see*

Izuku: ...Wow, Bakugou's so cool! He's grown up and mature now!

...Izuku. Izuku, buddy, please, stop doing this to yourself.

As yet another thing I've mentioned before, a lot of our views on Bakugou comes from Izuku. Izuku who has, from chapter one, all but worshipped Bakugou. Even when he does things wrong, even when he's actively fighting against him, Izuku can't stop himself from going on and on about how great Bakugou is, how cool and tough and determined he is. Izuku's hero worship of his abuser is sheltering Bakugou's actions from the readers, papering over all of his worst traits with a a transparent facade that he's this glorious figure. It's the narrative going the extra mile to cover his arrogant ass, to make him seem like a rival instead of an bully, someone worthy of respect rather than contempt.

Hmm. I don't want to go too much into the nuts and bolts of the event, I think, since I've done that before, so let's try something else: How Many Times Could This Kill A Literal Child? Where I, you guessed it, count how many times a teenager could have been killed, on national television, in this event.

Count one: The start of the race itself, where... *counts how many kids are in 1-A, multiplies by eleven*... two hundred and twenty kids run forward at the same time, trying to force themselves through the same opening. This shit is why it's illegal to shout fire in a theater, because a stampede like this could get someone trampled to death, or maybe crushed by the sheer weight of the crowd (which is something that happens, someone getting killed by the a crowd of unruly people just... squeezing them on accident).

*stares at Shinso being carried around like a wannabe king instead of using his own damn legs judgingly*

Count Two: Mineta gets bitched slapped by a robotic arm bigger than he is. I don't think I have to get into how that could be fatal.

Count Three: The army of Zero Pointers who could easily step on someone.

*Momo wondering about how UA can fund this makes me feel very validated, BTW*

Count Four: Todoroki dumping the Zero Pointer on the rest of the competition to block the way, again for obvious reasons. He obviously doesn't meant to, but this kid isn't even looking back. This is both lamp shaded and then dismissed because it happens to the only two people who could shrug that off, but holy shit that could have killed so many of them.

...The cameras are robots. The cameras are robots with AIs that are cheering on the other robots. I- I can't- what?!?

And then everyone can't stop themselves from praising Bakugou for the radical idea of going over a problem instead of blasting through it. Wow, Bakugou. Amazing. Such brains, such smarts.

Count Five: The Fall. Because there's no way that anyone could get themselves killed by. You know. Falling. If I was more generous, I'd say something like, 'There's probably something down there to catch them if they fall', but I'm not terribly impressed by UA's ability to actually keep these kids safe, so that doesn't make me think they'd have thought that through that much.

Grudgingly, I'm going to give a landmines a pass, because they're explicitly supposed to be non-lethal, and them blowing up didn't do any real damage. Burns, maybe, possibly a broken limb, probably some scars, but this count is about people dying. Izuku's pile could have been, maybe, but that's a level of deliberate action on his part big enough that I can't really blame UA, per say.

Eraserhead, on how 1-A has improved: I didn't do anything.

...Well. At least he's honest.

One other thing: I've said before how bullshit All Might telling Izuku to 'fight to win' was, and right here, here's the proof: All Might explicitly going, "I was afraid you'd be too nice to try and beat other people in competitions, but you proved me wrong! I'm so proud!". You know, fighting to win. Like he later says Izuku doesn't for some mysterious reason *cough*, to make him seem at the same level as Bakugou, *cough*. Poor, poor All Might, yet another victim of Bakugou's narrative warping favoritism.

And here we see the management kids going all out in how to sell Izuku and his brand, which is so very fucked up, for them and the people they're 'selling'. I'm aware this is something that celebrities go through, (which is fucked up for them as well, don't get me wrong; I'm an equal opportunity 'this is fucked up' call out-er), but these kids are in high school. The fact that they're doing this, and getting this done to them, in such numbers, in such an early age... yeah. There's no way this could give them lots and lots of long term stress and psychological problems, right?

Meanwhile, as we get to the offical rankings, I think it's time go back over the 'How Many Times Could This Kill A Literal Child?' count... at five. Five times they could have been killed on complete accident.

That is not a good score.

I'm stopping it here because the other events don't have the same problem, but instead of a whole new problem of delibrately pitting them against each other. On live TV. With minimal supervison. Cementoss popping in at the last second in Izuku vs Todoroki, considering how badly Izuku got hurt in the process, does not fill me with a great sense of these fights being well monitored.

*gets an omake chapter*

*Bakugou gets called Izuku's childhood 'friend'. Bitch, please.*

So. Here's a new point: the million point bullshit is... well. Bullshit. It's the snitch in Quiddich all over again, giving the hero something both super import, with an extra layer of difficulty, to drive up the stress and stakes, only kicked up by a million. Making more than the others makes sense, and making it enough to pass by itself is still pretty reasonable, but making it so excessively much has no point other making Izuku feel isolated from his peers and hunted by his classmates.

Also, Mt Lady going on about how 'great' an exercise the second round is is missing the point that this is literally a thing Japanese kids do in school. Literally, this is a game they're playing with Quirks, not some tactical exercise; it's like saying that playing hide and seek makes you great at hunting people down or something. Again, Hori, dial back your constant need to tell us how great the Sports Festival is. Because it isn't. It really, really isn't.

More doses of everything drooling over how great Bakugou is, and how much of a total shit of a human being he is, joy. Mineta and Shouji's teamup is actually pretty damn brilliant, even though it's tainted by how much of a one-dimensional character Mineta is. Iida is getting shown as Izuku's enemy, but honestly it looks more like he's just trying to improve himself more than anything, while acknowledging how competent Izuku is. Not just that he won the first round, or has a lot points but that Izuku, as a person, is the goal he wants to surpass; there's some good shit there, and pretty validating, if Izuku could allow himself to accept it.

Oh Mei! Mei... actually, I have a post I need to do about the Mei and Izuku dynamic at some point, how they're so designed to work together, but yeah she's fun.

And then Uraraka thinks about how strategic Izuku is being and again, I can't help but contrast this with how things happen later on; even if Izuku never lets himself really feel the respect people have for him, people at this point in time really, honestly seem to respect him, not for his Quirk, but for his brain, his determination, his heroism; it's so well setup for Izuku to stand on his own two feet without OFA and it's some really good stuff. It's a shame Hori gets rid of it.

Hmm. Class B. Class B is... interesting. They're set up as rivals but after this it never goes anywhere, and just leaves us with a bad impression of Monoma, without letting him get a good chance to get past it. I don't like him, honestly, his personality grates at me and he needs to get over himself, but he doesn't deserve the hate he gets from the fandom.

That said, though, the Class A vs Class B victory philosphy is honestly just another example of destroying yourself vs having realistic limits, how All Might and Izuku keep destroying themselves vs everyone else not doing that. The fact Class B is actually thinking ahead is smart, but the series doesn't give them that credit because it's not ambitious enough... even though that runs straight into conflicting with Izuku and his issues.

Hori, fucking commit already. In all honesty, it feels like 1-B should have won over Bakugou and knocked him out of the compition; they planned it out, and played him like a sucker, because he's a bullheaded moron. It's all right there, but right as they win... Eraserhead shows up in the booth and says, 'Yes, you've won, but actually no, because Bakugou need to win anyways. So he is. Because REASONS!' Then All Might gets dragged into that same bullshit just to make it really clear that no, Bakugou is right. Planning? Strategy? That's for losers. Real winners just need to want it hard enough, and no one wants things more than Bakugou!

It would have been better, as a story, and for everyone's character development, if that had happened. Bakugou would have lost to some 'nobodies', Izuku would have gone past him without even validating him with a fight, and Class B and Monoma would have gotten a better chance to show themselves as characters; win win win.

And then Endeavour shows up. Fuck Endeavour. Also that is a man who looks like a serial killer. Dumb Might continues to reign and be completely unable to recognize when someone hates him when he monologues about it right in front of him.

Meanwhile, Bakugou is just... there. For some reason. Why? Why does he need to be there for this? It makes his hissy fit later even worse when you realize he knows why Todoroki doesn't use his fire, and it has literally nothing to do with him. Ignoring him, though, Todoroki and Izuku's moment here is some good stuff, a nice setup for a healthy rivalry based on mutual respect, rather than the toxic mess he has with Bakugou.

Ugh. That cheerleader bullshit. Honestly, it says a lot that they can be told that, 'Aizawa says you need to dress up as cheerleaders', and apparently no one questions this, because of course Aizawa would pull some kind of weird bullshit on them with absolutely no warning at what anyone else would think is the worst possible time.

Midnight being really creepy about how she talks to teenagers, of course, and now... Shinso.

'Consent is for losers' Shinso. 'Everyone is coasting on their Quirks except for me, who only knows how to use my Quirk' Shinso. 'Let me use my Quirk on someone before we even get in the arena so I can blatantly cheat' Shinso. 'No one else has dreams or ambitions' Shinso.

I don't like Shinso. I like the idea of Shinso, sure, but that idea is another one of those paper thing veneers Hori likes to put on his characters, without doing the work to make that match the reality; the only hardship we've seen him go through is his apparent inability to work hard. Like, everyone loves Shinso, in story and out, they can't stop themselves from telling him how great his Quirk is. And you know what? It is. It is a great Quirk.

But Shinso talks like he's had a such a hard time with it, even though he seems to love it, love using it, and the way he acts, like he knows he can go through a career as a hero based only on that Quirk. He's wrong, since he's so out of shape he can't even run, apparently, but he's operating off that assumption at this point, which conflicts with his poor little martyr act.

I want you to look at the iceberg Todoroki makes, and compare it to his efforts against Stain. If he did that against him? That fight would have been over the minute he showed up, and Todoroki ambushed him. This is pretty much our last moments of Todoroki, certified badass, before the nerfs roll in. Savor it, Todoroki fans, because he'll never recover from having to lose against Bakugou.

Another omake, which seems like foreshadowing about Hori deals with women characters: bringing up a good characterization, or valid idea (do women heroes need sexiness to do their jobs?), before throwing it away to fall for the same tropes that he was making a stand against just a minute ago (women getting in a cat fight, which apparently gets really explicit, all of this on a TV before Mineta, Hori's avatar of his own horniness).

Then, as if to prove my point, we get Bakugou vs Uraraka where, like Class B before her, she does everything right, gets the win... and then gets it taken away at the last minute by idiotic bullshit pulled out of nowhere (since when could Bakugou make a blast like that? Why does he need those bomb gauntlets if he can do that?) because Bakugou isn't allowed to lose. And then Eraserhead, Hori's mouthpiece, shouts down the crowd, and us, when we think bad thoughts about it because that isn't allowed either; we need to love Bakugou.

Bakugou respects women! ...Just as much as he respects everyone else. That is to say, he doesn't. Hell, he doesn't respect her enough to think Uraraka planned her own fight! He just gets one line for one second that makes it seem like he respects her, but of course once that moments gone it's back to the normal level of complete disrespect. That's totally character growth right there, one second of acting different before returning right back to standard behavior.

So... Izuku vs Todoroki. I like the fight, it's very dramatic, very cool, but... stop to think about it a second, and about a minute in, Izuku's entire ass hand is broken. That is not OK. Why are they letting it go on? It's simultaneously a great fight, but a seemingly awkward implementation of Izuku having a Quirk, because so much of this arc is built off of him not using a Quirk, not having it. This fight only works with it, though. And it's cool, don't get me wrong, but it's shallow at the same time because of the Quirk, because Izuku has to go Plus Ultra, has to go past his limits. Instead of accepting a more reasonable win, he has to win, period, and he doesn't have the power for that.

There's this awkward conflict here between the story's various narratives, between Izuku needing to suffer, and struggle, and break himself, and his more grounded planning and actions, and you can see Hori's old, better planned out ideas getting replaced with newer, less thought out ones. It's honestly kind of a theme for this arc in it's own right.

Flaws aside, though, the fight is gripping, and it's a great setup for Todoroki, a great starting point in making him an important character, in giving him growth. Shame Hori ends up throwing all that away literally the next fight.

Well, before that happens, let's talk the one two punch of, 1, Izuku having done himself permanent, life long damage, which nobody thought to stop, and 2, the sheer, unmitigated clusterfuck of Recovery Girl going, 'I'm not going to treat wounds like these'.

So. If Izuku breaks anything... well. She's not going to treat that. I guess he has to walk around with a broken finger/hand/arm, without any medical attention whatsoever? Well. I certainly don't see any problems with that.

Then we get Bakugou, who canonly has problems using his Quirk for extended periods of time, outlasting someone by using his Quirk for extended periods of time, before going on to fight someone who uses cold, his canon weakness, and ignoring how it should completely neutralize his Quirk to overpower it, through what I can only call his sheer, narrative warping concentration of favoritism.

On what happens after he wins... I've seen people say that he doesn't mean to attack Todoroki, just try to wake him up, but looking at that scene: he's holding Todoroki's body up with one hand as if to shake him, sure, but it's the other hand that's the problem. The way he's holding it is, for his Quirk, an offensive pose, making it ready to attack his target. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt (against my own opinion) and say it's not proof positive that he was about to attack, but there's no getting around that Bakugou had himself perfectly set up to hit Todoroki, full blast, while he was unconscious. Even if it's the more innocent explanation, that feels like something that should have disqualified him because... that's really concerning. That feels a step away from him threatening victims he thinks should have stood up for themselves or something; it's not heroic, in the slightest. The fact they had to knock him out, presumably for Todoroki's own safety, says enough about how bad that is.

The fact that the ending comment is basiclly lamenting from his perspective, that this 'isn't what he wanted' is... certainly a choice. He won, but, gasp! The person with long held issues in using his full power that long predate him didn't use his full power! The poor baby!

Then we get to the award ceremony where they... chain him up? Why!? If the doesn't want the damn award, don't give it to him; they let those guys earlier give up when they felt they didn't deserve it, why is Bakugou different? It feels like it's Hori tying him up here, against Bakugou's own will, and characterization, to give him that win just so he can win, but also to forcefully set up Bakugou's own importance with the League later. It's ham handed. It's probably child abuse. It's stupid.

It's fucked up all the way down, is what I'm saying.

Then All Might shows up, and fucks up his entrance timing because he's not allowed to win anymore, of course, and then forces that medal on Bakugou.

Uuuugh.

Last couple of panels, though, are pretty nice: we build up Uraraka's character, get the next arc set up, set up Izuku (fucking finally) getting away to use his own damn power, and develop Todoroki a bit.

A nice little cherry on top of the shit sundae.

[therealcocoshady]

Recovery - Chapter 20

Eminem x FemReader Fanfiction

Summary : Y/N gets back home from the hospital and Em comes for a sleepover.

Tags : Fluff - SMUT (P in V, foreplay)

Y/N’s POV 

The whole incident had brought you and Marshall a lot closer than you already were. You took it to heart, when he said he was missing you, when you were talking in the studio that fateful night before you were assaulted. You had been so focused on your relationship with Josh, so eager to get Marshall out of your head (or rather, your heart), that you had probably neglected your friendship a little bit. Still, he had been absolutely amazing to you while you were in the hospital, basically acting like your personal guard-dog, pillow, assistant and dream catcher. It got to a point where it was annoying for other people. Josh didn’t complain about it, he never would, but he did make a few comments about Marshall “always being around”. Talia and Jamal even joked about Marshall moving in, because he would never leave you alone. You could tell that Talia was a bit pissed off. You knew she loved him, but she also wanted to care for you. So when you got out of the hospital, they were basically bickering at each other, fighting over who would get “custody” of you. Marshall offered for you to stay at his place and hang out, while Talia seemed to strongly disagree. 

You’ve been with her nonstop for five days, Em, you’re not her only friend, you know ? She said as she rolled her eyes. 

I know. I’m just saying she can chill at the house if she wants, he shrugged. 

We have a house too, she said. She can chill there. 

Or maybe she wants to enjoy the movie room or the pool, he replied. 

Or maybe she wants her room, Talia insisted. 

Or maybe she wants y’all to stop fighting like divorced parents ? Jamal chimed in. 

You couldn’t help but giggle. You had been cleared by the doctor and were ready to leave the hospital. You’d been ready for about an hour and couldn’t wait to get out of that dreadful place but they wouldn’t stop arguing over small details, like who would drive you home. You didn’t tell them, but on top of that, you had Josh blowing up your phone, asking when he would actually get to see you. You were actually touched by all of this attention : not everyone had this many people they could count on. As annoying as it could get - because you just wanted to leave - it was a blessing. 

We could just leave them here and grab food somewhere, you suggested to Jamal. 

I like that, he said as he grabbed your bag. 

I want to eat too, Talia said. 

Me too, Marshall added. 

Look who’s suddenly on the same page, Jamal grinned. So, what do you want to eat ? 

Of course, that was enough for the bickering to start again. You offered to cook dinner, but obviously, none of your friends would let you lift a finger, even though you had basically spent five days sleeping and were more energized than ever. Thankfully, everyone ended up agreeing on the food, and you managed to display some excellent diplomatic skills when it came to organizing your schedule. You sent Marshall home after dinner so that he could actually get some rest and a full night of sleep and had a movie night with your roommates. As for Josh, you made plans to see him in a few days. Initially, you wanted to invite him to dinner on the night you got home, but your friends made a valid point that it would be wiser to wait for a few days, so that your first night home would be more chill. After the movie, you and Talia went to your room to do some pampering and she could not refrain from grilling you about “Em”. 

So… First night without cerberus in a while, huh ? She playfully asked. 

I guess, you giggled. He wasn’t that bad, though. 

Oh he definitely was, she chuckled. You should have seen him when you were asleep. He was standing there like some sort of bouncer, making sure not too many people were in the room. And then, when it got too loud, he turned into a cranky old librarian like “Shhhhh”. 

She imitated him, with his serious demeanor and frown. You couldn’t help but burst out in a fit of laughter. 

It’s sweet, you said softly - you couldn’t help defending him. 

He’s too much, she said. I swear, he is the most dramatic person I have ever met. 

It’s part of the charm, I guess, you shrugged. 

Oh, really… “Charm” ? She grinned. I thought we already had a prince charming… 

You know what I mean, you said with a frown. 

Actually, I don’t, she said. I mean, you’re wearing his clothes all the time, he spent five days in the hospital with you, you guys are always hanging out… I’m telling you : I wouldn’t enjoy being your boyfriend if I had to deal with Em being all over you. 

I know, you sighed. 

Especially when you enjoy it so much, she added. 

You looked at her but said nothing. Had anyone else made that comment, you would have lied, but it was Talia, so there was no use. 

I knew it !!! She almost screamed. 

Yeah well, you can know it but not shout it, ok ? You said. 

You like Em !!! 

I do, you groaned. But believe me, it’s not fun. 

Oh, boo-hoo, “my crush is all over me and it’s hard”, she giggled. Yeah, must suck to be you, Y/N. Especially when the crush in question is the wet dream of millions of people across the world. Remind me again, why are you bothering with Josh ? 

You ended up explaining the whole story to her : how you had a chance with Marshall, that was ruined by the argument, how you had planned on confessing your feelings for him in NYC but didn’t because he ended up dating Nicole and how you ended up dating Josh. 

Here’s the thing, you said : I love Marshall, but he doesn’t love me back. And I like Josh too, you know ? Like, actually like him. I want to give this relationship a chance, because he is so great. 

I feel you, she said in a voice full of compassion. You deserve to be happy. Em is a fucking dumbass in my opinion… 

He’s not. He doesn’t like me like this, it’s ok. He’s still my best friend. 

Yeah, but I don’t understand, though. For someone who doesn’t like you like this, he is all over you. That doesn’t make sense, you know ? She said. Anyway, if Josh makes you happy, that’s what matters, right ? 

He’s just nice, you replied. And Josh does make me happy. I can’t wait for you to meet him. 

I can’t wait either, she said. But he’s no Em. 

Promise me you’ll still be nice to him ? 

Of course, she said. 

A MONTH LATER 

You had finally introduced Josh to Talia and Jamal and they seemed to like him. The four of you would go on double dates, even some triple dates with Hailie and Evan. You had lots of fun and it felt really nice to have your closest friends supporting your relationship. Talia’s birthday was coming up in a few days and she even invited him. Josh was being as amazing as ever, and you wished you could say everything was perfect but it wasn’t. You’d been together for more than three months at this point and you still hadn’t been able to seal the deal. You’d had plenty of opportunity and slept together a bunch of times but that was all it was : sleeping. Not that you didn’t want to do the deed, on the contrary, you were both up for it, but the attack had left its mark, so every time he tried to do more than kiss you or hold your hand, you ended up being triggered. He said he was fine with it but, obviously, you could tell he was a bit disappointed. At that point, you were a triggered, yet horny mess, which put you in quite a mood. You weren’t even sure you’d be able to have sex ever again. Thankfully, you also spent a lot of time with your friends, which helped you get your mind off things. You were either hanging out with Jamal and/or Talia, at the studio or with Marshall. 

That night was your first night sleeping alone in a month. Ever since you got home, you were prone to nightmares. The doctors at the hospital had offered to give you some medication for anxiety and even some sleeping pills, but given your past, you refused to pick up the prescription. You’d been sober for a while now, which was great, but you still didn’t trust yourself. So your friends, being as amazing as they were, took turns having sleepovers in your room. The most frequent guests were either Talia or Josh, but sometimes, Marshall would come over too. It was the middle of the night and you were waking up from yet another nightmare and, normally, you would have someone by your side, but you had decided to try sleeping alone for the first time, since Talia and Jamal had a romantic weekend getaway planned and were spending a night in a hotel, and you weren’t too sure about wanting Josh coming over. Not that you wouldn’t enjoy his company or that he wouldn’t happily cuddle with you, but you felt like he might get his hopes up about finally having sex and you didn’t want to let him down yet again. You tried to pace yourself by using some breathing exercises, but to no avail. It was as if you could feel the attacker’s breath down your neck. Plus, it was a windy night and every noise from the outside was startling you. So much for putting on your big girl’s pants. You decided to call Marshall. 

Hey honey, you heard his sleepy voice say. What’s up ? 

Am I bothering you ? You asked in a little voice. 

Never, he said softly. What’s up ? 

I’m scared, you said on the verge of tears. I’m alone in the house and I feel like… He’s watching me or something. 

Oh. Isn’t Josh sleeping over ? He asked. 

Not tonight…, you said sheepishly. 

Want me to come over ? 

Do you mind ? You asked. 

You know I don’t, he said. Movie night ? 

Sure. 

Great. Be there in 30, ok ? 

When he arrived, he gave you the biggest hug and you put on some random, crappy movie. You were both laying on your bed, watching the movie on your computer. He had an arm wrapped around your shoulder and was mindlessly playing with your hair. His presence was soothing, and his hilarious comments were keeping you distracted. At some point, a steamy sex scene came on, and it made you feel a bit awkward. It didn’t help that it reminded you of all the action you were definitely not getting. Marshall picked on it right away. 

Are you blushing ?! He asked with a grin. 

What ? No I’m not…, you replied awkwardly. 

You’re so red. You’re blushing. 

Shut up, please, you whispered. 

Come on, it’s a movie, he chuckled. 

It’s just… It’s so awkward, you know ? I hate love scenes in movies, you said. 

Oh, believe me, actors usually hate filming them, he said. More awkward to film than to watch. 

Have you ever filmed one of those for a music video ? You asked. 

Sort of, he said. But the worst was the scene in 8 Mile. Didn’t take long, but I definitely didn’t have much fun. 

Oh right, you said. I sort of forgot that you were in a movie. 

What ?! You haven’t seen my movie ?! He asked in a fake offended voice. 

I haven’t, you giggled. What’s it about ? 

He proceeded to describe the movie for you, explaining the plot. You thought it was absolutely crazy that you were friends with someone who had a movie based on his life. Once again, it reminded you of the big deal that he was. 

Can we watch it ? You asked. That sounds like something I’d enjoy. 

Sure, he chuckled. Haven't seen that in a while. 

You changed the movie and put on 8 Mile. It was both weird and fun to see Marshall twenty years ago. 

God, you’re hot, you said before you could catch yourself. 

He looked at you with a smirk. 

Why thank you, he said with a smile. 

No, I meant before, you said. I mean, in the movie… Uh, you look good in that. 

Better than now ? He asked with a grin. 

No, you said. 

So I’m even hotter now ? 

Yeah. I mean no, I-I…, you began to say as you felt your cheeks burning. 

Relax, I’m just fucking with you, he giggled. God, you’re blushing so hard it’s hilarious. 

You focused your intention on the movie and tried to ignore him. The movie was good and you enjoyed it. Marshall definitely had great acting skills. At some point, the love scene with Brittany Murphy came on and you found yourself biting your lip. It was just a movie scene, for sure, but it was a steamy one and you were lucky enough to know that Marshall was actually good in bed (or on a couch, or in a car…). In fact, he was the best you ever had. And the last. This thought had you hot and bothered, and equally frustrated. 

Like what you see ? He teasingly whispered in your ear. 

God, shut up, you groaned as you blushed. His voice in your ear wasn’t helping you. 

Not a chance, he giggled. 

It’s not funny, Marshall… 

He chuckled and kissed your cheek. It was an innocent peck, as there had been thousands before, but it definitely made matters worse. And obviously, you had no poker face, so he picked on it right away. 

Don’t tell me you’re horny, he chortled. 

Don’t you ever shut up ? 

What ? Isn’t the lobster up to the challenge ? He grinned. 

Well, I guess we’ll never know, you groaned. 

He looked at you in confusion and pressed pause. His eyebrows were furrowed. 

What’s wrong ? He asked. 

Nothing, you said. It’s just… Nevermind. Let’s watch the movie, ok ? 

You can tell me anything, honey, he said softly. What’s up with Josh ? I thought he was great. 

I can’t put out, you blurted out. So, yeah, he’s great, but he’s probably going to end up leaving me and I’m going to grow my hymen back and die a virgin. 

He couldn’t refrain from chuckling and you shot him a death glare. 

Sorry, he said as he caught himself. It’s not what you’re saying. It’s the way you’re saying it. I feel for you, though. 

You do ? You asked with a pout. 

Well, I mostly feel for him, but yeah…

He’s not the one panicking every time someone tries to touch him, you groaned. But yeah, whatever, let’s feel for Josh, I guess. 

No, he chuckled. What I mean is that having you as a girlfriend and not getting any action must be really hard. Pun intended. 

He managed to make you chuckle. He always had the silliest jokes. 

Come on, you horndog, let’s watch the end of the movie, he said as he shook his head, trying not to laugh. 

He wrapped an arm around your shoulder and pulled you to him and you went back to watching the movie. 

Is that alright ? He asked with a smirk. Or am I too hot for you ? 

Fuck you, Marshall, you whined. 

Well, yeah, you wish, he chuckled. Just kidding, I’ll stop. 

Thankfully, the movie was good and you managed to focus on it. Soon after the movie ended, you fell asleep. 

MARSHALL’S POV 

Showing 8 Mile to Y/N was pretty interesting. Marshall got to watch her reactions and it was a fun sight, especially when it came to the sex scene. He couldn’t help but notice her blushing and biting her lip and, obviously, he wasn’t going to miss that great of an opportunity to make fun of her. He didn’t mean to be an asshole, but learning she hadn’t actually slept with Josh made his day. Not that he didn’t want her to be fulfilled - he did - but the fucker didn’t deserve her anyway. He knew he shouldn’t rejoice in another man’s sexual misery, and karma made sure to remind him. As Y/N fell asleep, he kept on tossing and turning. For one, he wasn’t really tired anymore - somehow, being woken up at 2AM fucks up your sleep schedule. Secondly, seeing her all hot and bothered had him all hot and bothered. He could make fun of her all he wanted, but he hadn’t had any action in a while either. He probably would have if he hadn’t blown it up with Nicole, though. 

Y/N encouraged him to patch things up with her, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. After realizing his feelings for Y/N were far too strong, dating Nicole seemed stupid. Years ago, he definitely would have used her to get over his feelings, but that wasn’t exactly the man he wanted to be. So he did the “right” thing to do : he sent flowers and apologized for lacking empathy being an ass, but decided not to see her anymore. Thankfully, none of his friends knew he was dating, so he didn’t have to explain his change of heart to anybody except Y/N. She didn’t understand at first but she ended up leaving him alone on the matter. 

He took a look at her as he tried to fall asleep. She was really cute and the sight brought a smile to his face. She seemed to sleep peacefully - at least for now - and he hoped she wouldn’t have any nightmares. He kissed the top of her head and cuddled with her before closing his eyes. He almost went to sleep when he heard her moan. Not an unusual sound since she kept on having these awful dreams. He almost woke her up when he heard something unexpected : his name. 

Marshall…, she moaned. Harder. 

Was she having a dream… about him ? He was about to shake it off when she moaned again. He had absolutely no clue as to what he was supposed to do. Leave ? Wake her up ? He thought about letting her enjoy her dream but as her moans got deeper, he felt as if he was about to go crazy. To make matters worse, she was squirming. She always moved when she slept but now, he couldn’t take it anymore. 

Honey, wake up, he whispered as he gently shook her arm and turned on the little lamp on the nightstand. 

She slowly opened her eyes and looked at him, flustered. She sat up and he could see her nipples poking through her tee-shirt. This woman was going to be the death of him and he knew it. 

Are you alright ? She asked in a small voice. 

Are you ? He asked as he couldn’t keep himself from smirking. 

At that point, it was second nature to him. He had to tease her about it. Anyone would do the same if they were laying in bed with a beautiful woman having a wet dream about them, right ? She looked at him and he could tell that she knew he heard her. She said absolutely nothing, though. 

So… sweet dreams ? He chuckled. 

She was biting her lip, looking away. She looked incredibly hot and it took everything he had not to jump on her this minute. Plus, he didn’t want to trigger her, obviously.  Not to lie, he was having a huge fucking ego boost, knowing it was him who had her in this state. Not Josh. Not anyone else. Him. As seconds went by, the silence was starting to become heavy. They were both horny, it was painfully obvious. She was looking down, obviously uncomfortable. 

Look at me, he said softly, coaxing her chin in his direction. 

Her beautiful eyes seemed lost in a haze. Her pupils were dilated and her chest was heaving. She seemed to be in some state. 

What did you dream about ? He asked. 

Y-You, she whispered in a husky voice. 

I didn’t ask who, I asked what, he said softly, his hand still on her cheek. Care to describe ?

She opened her mouth but no sound came out. He chuckled softly, amazed at the effect he was having on her. He could definitely get high on this feeling. He grazed her bottom lip with his thumb. It was swollen from the biting. All he wanted was to kiss her. He brought his face slightly closer to her. They were staring into each other’s eyes. He traced her features with his fingers : her cheekbones, her jaw, the curve of her neck… 

Marshall, she whispered. 

Tell me to stop, he said. 

But she didn’t. Instead, she brought her hand to his face and cupped his cheek. It was soft, intimate and unexpectedly sexy. Her breathing was heavy and so was his. He couldn’t resist her anymore. He captured her lips in a soft kiss. His heart was pounding. For a quarter of a second, he feared that she would push him away, slap him or run away from him. But she kissed him back. Thank God. Their kisses were delicate and soft, but they could both feel the passion brewing in each other. He gently bit her lip, causing her to moan. 

Tell me about your dream, baby, he said in a husky voice. Describe it for me. 

Y-You were…behind me and… I was in your arms, she said. Spooning. 

Her voice was breathy and her eyes were closed. He kissed her gently and grabbed her hand, interlocking their fingers. 

What else ? He asked. 

You were hum… kissing my neck… and biting it, she whispered. 

I know how much you love neck kisses baby, he whispered in her ear. Can I kiss your neck ? 

Yes, she muttered, almost pleading. 

He smiled and gently got her hair out of the way before planting soft kisses on her neck, in that soft spot he knew she had. This caused her to whimper, much to his satisfaction. She ran her fingers through his hair, maintaining his head where it was. He chuckled and gently bit her neck. 

Tell me more about your dream, honey, he commanded. 

You were pounding in me, she said hoarsely. 

Was it good ? He asked. 

So good. 

He kissed her neck again. He was dying to make her his, but he didn’t want to rush her. He just wanted her to enjoy the moment. He could tell she needed some release. 

How about you show me how good it was, baby ? He suggested. 

W-What ? She asked shyly. 

Touch yourself for me, honey, he said before kissing her shoulder. 

He knew he probably shouldn’t ask her to do that. But in this instant he absolutely didn’t care. He was burning for her and he could feel her desire. They were looking at each other, as if they were high. She nodded and began running her hands on her body, on top of her clothes. She was wearing a tee-shirt and shorts. She closed her eyes, seemingly enjoying the sensations. One of her hands went to her breasts, stroking and pinching her nipples, while the other rubbed her thigh. Apparently, it was enough for her breathing to accelerate. This was the sexiest thing he had thing in a while. He was so hard it was almost painful. This view was both a blessing and a curse. He needed to touch her. He gently cupped her cheek and she leaned into his touch while she kept on touching herself, her hand going from her thigh to her pussy. 

I want to hold you, he said softly. Can I ? 

She nodded softly, her eyes still closed. He settled behind her. He took her in his arms while she rested between his legs, still busy with herself. Her head was resting on his shoulder as he traced the features of her angel face. Eventually,her hands got underneath her clothes.

You can just take them off, baby, he whispered. 

Once again, she said nothing. Only sweet moans were escaping her lips. However, she seemed to agree, as she removed her tee-shirt and her shorts. She spread her legs a little and rubbed her clit, which made her whine. He kissed her temple while his fingers were gently tracing circles on her shoulder. Her moans got louder when she inserted a finger inside her pussy. He knew she was soaking wet and it was making him ever hornier. He knew how good it felt to be inside of her. 

Does it feel good, baby ? He asked in her ear. 

Yes, she moaned before inserting a second finger. 

He spilled kisses in her neck while she fingered herself, determined to see how loud he could make her moan. 

Come for me, babygirl, he whispered. 

I can’t, she replied in a croaky voice. 

Do you want me to help you ? He asked softly. 

She stopped what she was doing and turned to him and looked at him in anticipation. She looked shy. He placed a tender kiss on her lips and stroked her cheek. 

I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to, baby, I promise, he said. 

Ok, she whispered. 

Ok what ? He asked in order to make sure he wasn’t misunderstanding anything. 

You can… help me. 

He kissed her again. He felt so proud that she trusted him enough. All he wanted was for her to feel safe. He grabbed her hand and gently sucked her fingers, enjoying her taste. He removed his tee-shirt so that he could feel her skin against his. 

Come here, he said as he put her in a spoon position. Take my hand and show me what you want, baby. 

They were comfortably laying in bed, cuddling while he kissed her neck. She grabbed his hand and put it on her breast. He could feel her heart pounding. He gently pinched her nipple, causing her to moan and arch her back against him, no doubt feeling how hard he was through his sweatpants. He did it again, a bit harder, while he bit her neck. She started grinding her ass against him, still in the spoon position, driving him crazy with each one of her hip movements. He gently put his hand on her hip, stopping her. 

Hold on, babygirl, he chuckled. You’re driving me crazy here. Let’s focus on you for a bit, alright ? 

It was true : he wanted to focus his attention on her. She chuckled softly and grabbed his hand again. They interlaced their fingers. 

Can you… touch me ? She whispered. 

Anything you want, honey, he replied with a smile. 

He gently cupped her sex, feeling how wet she was. His palm was against her clit, his fingers teasing her entrance. 

Is this what you want, baby ? He asked in a husky voice. 

Yes, she moaned. Please, Marshall. 

He pressed his hand harder and inserted two fingers in her as she let out a gasp. She was squirming against him, rocking her hips in sync as he was moving his wrist. At first, his movements were slow. He wasn’t in a rush anyway. Plus, the last thing he wanted was to trigger her or hurt her. 

Are you alright ? He asked carefully. 

Yes, she moaned. It’s good. 

He buried his face in her neck as he went a bit faster. Her moans became a lot deeper and he could tell she was about to come. He accelerated the movements of his head and she let out a small cry as he felt her walls clench on his fingers. Her whole body seemed to contract before relaxing altogether. 

Oh God, she whispered. 

Did you like it, honey ? He asked with a smile - already knowing the answer. 

Yes, she softly giggled before burying her face in the pillow. 

He gently turned her so that she could face him, so that he could see her beautiful face. She looked relaxed and happy, though still hazy.  

You’re so beautiful, he said. I want to kiss you. May I ? 

Instead of replying, she kissed him passionately. He wrapped his arms around her as their tongues found each other. It was a deep, ardent kiss. Their legs were tangled together, as their arms were clutching at each other’s body. 

I think… I want you, she whispered shyly. 

Are you sure baby ? He asked softly. You don’t have to. 

I’m sure, she whispered. Just… be gentle ? 

Of course, love, he said. How do you want it ? 

Spoon ? She asked with a little smile. 

He chuckled. She seemed to enjoy this position. It wasn’t particularly his favorite, but he was happy to indulge. There was something about it that was soft and intimate, which he had to admit was enjoyable. He removed his sweatpants and boxers and they resumed the spooning position. He slowly positioned himself at her entrance and he felt her tense up. 

Are you sure, honey ? I swear we don’t have to…

Yes, she said hoarsely. I want you. And I trust you. 

He kissed her temple and entered her. She let out a groan and he froze for a second. However, she relaxed and he took it as his cue to start moving. He was thrusting slowly while peppering her face with soft kisses, holding her in his arms. He started to gently explore her body with his hands, making sure she was ok with every move. He teased her nipples with one hand and stroked her clit with the other. 

Faster, she begged. I’m… so close… 

He happily obliged and started to thrust faster, going deeper as well. He felt her clench around him again, slightly jerking as they both reached climax. He buried his face in her neck while they were both panting, gasping for air. He grabbed her hand and held her close to his body. 

Are you alright ? He asked after a few minutes. 

Yes, she said softly. Are you ? 

Absolutely, he said. 

She turned to face him. She had such a pretty face and reaching orgasm definitely gave her a nice glow. He chuckled as he cupped her face with his hand. 

God, I’m so in love with you, he said.

He didn’t even think twice before saying it. It felt natural to him. Before he could catch himself, he saw the soft smile of Y/N turn into an expression of shock.

[sp0o0kylights]

Part One: Merry Crisis 

It’s also on A03 (this chapter will go up too but not for a bit bc I have stupid adult work to do) 

Five days after New Years and Steve Harrington was haunting Eddie’s head.

This time at least, it was consensual. 

Mostly. 

“I thought you said New Year's resolutions were a total waste of time and a conformist’s mmrrph--” Gareth cuts off as a ringed hand claps (gently) over his mouth, Eddie’s glare burning a hole in the side of his best friend’s head. 

“No one asked you to comment.” Eddie informs him darkly.  

“He’s got you there, Eds.” Jeff teases, seated on a bin in Gareth’s garage, friends occupying the couch across from him. “It is one of your yearly rants.” 

“New Years Resolutions are just a convenient way for normies to understand my quests.” Eddie sniffs, ignoring the fact that he’d been going on about this since he showed up, several hours ago.    

 He releases Gareth’s mouth, springing up to pace another circuit round the garage. “I refuse to repeat another year in this god-awful high school--and!” 

Spinning on his heels, Eddie flings a hand in the air, the exact same way he had when he auditioned for Sherlock Holmes in Hawkin High’s performance of Hounds of Baskerville. “It is my duty as Hellfire’s DM to figure out what the hell those freshmen are wrapped up in with Harrington!” 

“Rii-iiight.” Gareth remarks. “I’m sure your obsession with this has nothing to do with those, what did you call them?”

Grant covers a laugh with a cough as Gareth pretends to think before saying: “Harrington’s big ol’ puppy dog eyes?”

Eddie’s face goes red. “I told you, I’m not crushing on Steve!” 

“Bro.” Grant says, expression calling out Eddie’s lie better than words ever could. 

“The entire planet knows you have a crush on him, Eds.” Gareth adds, leveling his best friend with a knowing look. “Frankly I’m amazed Steve himself hasn’t figured it out.”

“Shut it!” Eddie hissed, face aflame. “This is about everything else!  What he’s hiding! Why the kids--”

“--worship him.” Jeff, Grant and Gareth all finish as one, their impromptu chorus deflating Eddie like a sad balloon.

“We know.” Grant says. “You think Harrington and the kids are wrapped up in some kind of crazy conspiracy that's eating them all alive and because you have a compulsive desire to solve every mystery put in front of you, you can’t leave it alone. This is starting to become something you should really like, work on man.” 

Eddie turns his glare on Grant. 

“You need to drop out of that AP psychology class.” He demands with another sniff. “It’s rotting your brain.”

“Uh huh.” Grant says, voice dripping in sarcasm. 

“You;’ll see.” Eddie mutters as he resumes his pacing. “You’ll all see when I finally figure it out. You’ll be all,” Eddie straightens, clutching his hands together and squeezing them against his chest, “Oh-my-gawd, Eddie, holy shit, you were so right, they were hiding a huge secret!” 

“Keep dreamin’ bud.” Jeff says flatly, prompting laughs from Gareth and Grant.

Eddie takes off a shoe and throws it at him. 

(Jeff swears it was worth it.) 

xXx

10 days after New Years and Steve Harrington was right there.

Right.

There.

It would be easy to walk across the parking lot, strike up a conversation. Hell, the kids' presence makes it even easier, Eddie knows all he has to do is talk about them before Steve drives them home. 

He just--has to do it. 

"You do know the first step is actually talking to him right?" Jeff teases, leaning against the school’s doorway.

Eddie startles, flushing scarlet. 

"Shut up!" He snaps, turning around to run his hand over his face.

 God why was this so hard!? 

He's talked to plenty of people. Hell, he's talked to Harrington before. Talking was the thing  Eddie arguably did best and suddenly he just fucking…couldn't!? 

"He's waving at you." Jeff observes. 

Eddie whips back around to face the parking lot--to find that Harrington wasn't even facing their direction.

Jeff chuckles. 

"Oh screw you!" Eddie shoves  his shoulder into Jeff’s, glowering. 

Jeff playfully nudges him back. "Just go talk to him man. He didn't bite at the party, and he left you that note, so he's clearly open to it." 

"I know.” Eddie grumbles, moving so he could lean against the opposite side of the doorway. 

“So what’s holding you back?” Jeff turns to look at him now, as Eddie tangles a finger into a few strands of his hair. “It’s not like you hesitate instead of jumping into something head first.” 

Eddie hides in his hair for a moment, unsure of how he wanted to handle this question.

Jeff knew he was gay. All the Corroded Coffin guy’s knew he was gay, after the first (and last) time he tried to buy product from a supplier that wasn’t Rick. 

(Eddie was smart, but he’d been young back then. Hadn’t caught on to the fact the weed he’d been sold was laced with who-knew-what. 

What he did know was that when he and the boys tried it out; Grant had given a very emotional speech about love and acceptance, Jeff wouldn’t stop hugging people, Gareth ended up crying over gender issues and Eddie had admitted he was flamingly gay. 

He never bought from another supplier again, even if he did technically owe the guy who’d brought him and his best friends closer together.) 

Being gay wasn’t exactly the issue.

It was being gay, and having a blatant crush on Steve--the guy who the Hellfire kids loved. The guy who had surprised Eddie by being decent and downright fun. 

The guy who kept insisting he and Buckley were “Platonic with a Capital P”and even with Robin climbing all over him like a lemur, he had in fact kept his hands and eyes to perfectly respectable places. 

Who was practically built to appeal to Eddie, between his stupid sexy smile and the weird mystery he was wrapped up in, the same one that caused his smiles to drop the second he knew no one was paying attention. 

Add in the fact he’d played D&D once before and it was like God had made Eddie’s perfect match.

Of course because Eddie’s relationship with a deity of any kind was agonistic at best, they’d made Steve not only the straightest man to ever rule a high school, but also dangled him in front of Eddie constantly. 

Like a treat he could never, ever have, but will always crave. 

“Oh he’s actually waving at you this time.” Jeff says, and despite the high chance of this being another joke, Eddie looks anyway. 

Sure enough there was Harrington, dumb little grin on his face, waving his hand.

Eddie managed to get his brain to function long enough to wave back. 

“Wow Eds, you actually waved at him. That’s a lot of progress for you.” Gareth chimes in, appearing in between his friends with a smirk. 

“We’re proud of you buddy.” Grant adds, standing behind Gareth. 

Eddie groans aloud. “I hate you all.” He mutters, trying to keep a smile on his face for Steve until the guy turns back to herald the children into the car.

“No you don’t.” Gareth sing-songs, to the snickers of Jeff and Grant. 

And no, he doesn't--but fuck if Eddie didn’t want to wring all their necks. 

xXx

January 13th, Eddie finally gets his first resolution breakthrough.

It came in the form of Sinclair’s girlfriend, oddly enough, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

“I’m not Lucas’s girlfriend.” The redhead spat, which Eddie thought was a hell of a lot of anger for someone who he had not been formally introduced to but had flung herself into his passenger seat anyway, with a declaration that he would drive her home. 

(He, of course, had been about to protest until Max reminded him with a glare that they were neighbors--which had the effect of making Steve look relieved, like Eddie was doing him some kind of massive favor.

A favor Eddie wanted.

“For totally normal non crush related reasons Gareth, god!”) 

Currently Max is staring out the window as Eddie drives home, arms crossed and in a full sulk.

Eddie recognizes it in her the same way he recognizes it in himself, and knows intimately that he has a chance to be to her, what Wayne was to him.

Someone who didn’t just see the problems he had, but acted on them. 

That began with a conversation. 

“So not that sitting in awkward silence isn’t totally fun, but uh, why am I driving you home instead of Harrington?” Eddie asks, watching Max out of the corners of his eyes. 

She doesn’t even flinch. “What, and miss the chance to ride in the drug mobile?” 

He expects the snappish response but has to give Max credit--she is absolutely the most vicious of Steve’s kids. 

“Ok fair,” He says, because getting angry back was what she wanted. Or at least, what Eddie wanted, back when he was in Max’s shoes. “But don’t all you kids like, worship King Steve? Thought you’d want your beloved babysitting to drive you home..” 

Max’s shoulders hunch immediately, her jaw clenching. “Don’t call him that.”

“Babysitter?” Eddie questions. 

“King Steve, you ass.” She bites back. “If you like him like Lucas and Dustin swear you do, then you wouldn’t be an dick.”  

Quieter, she mutters, “He hates that nickname.” 

“Hate to break it to you, but Steve gave himself that nickname.” Eddie says, if only to buy time while he swallows the fact that the kids have decided he and Steve aren't just cool with each other, but like each other.

Obviously not like-like, as in romantic like, because they weren't psychic, but--

'Focus, idiot! Max is still talking!' 

Max rolls her eyes, huffing angrily as she finally tears her gaze away from the window. “You don’t get it.” 

“I sure as shit don’t and won’t.” Eddie agrees easily, and has to look away to keep the laughter off his face at the confused look it nets him. “Not unless you want to clue me in.” 

She chews over that for a moment, before apparently coming to a decision. “You’re annoying.” 

“Oh come on Red, if you’re gonna insult me at least do it right. Annoying is boring.” Eddie fakes a yawn, and this time does laugh at Max’s outright offended face. 

Thankfully, the antics get him exactly what he wants. 

An answer. 

"Steve saw the real world and decided he wanted to be a better person. To grow up and leave all the stupid high school petty shit behind." Max says, and for a moment it's almost like she's speaking to someone else.

Likely the person she really is mad at, Eddie assumes. 

"Calling him King Steve just takes all that progress away, and for what? Cause you're jealous?" 

She's on a roll now. Eddie remains silent, knowing Max needs to get this out.

That this rant isn't aimed at him. 

"You're mad that things were easy for him? Because newsflash, they weren't. He put in the effort to be a good guy, could even," Max fakes a dramatic gasp, "--apologize!" 

An idea takes shape, both of the unsurprising source of the younger teens' hurt and frustration, and why she at least defends Harrington so hard.

Eddie may not know how exactly Max fits into "The Party" (or even who all is included within it) but it's clear she's just as close to Steve as the rest.

Maybe even a touch moreso, in a way that's eclipsed by Henderson alone. 

Max is still going. "Steve's a genuinely good person and he's earned the right to be acknowledged as one!" 

Her eyes are wet when she finishes and Max angrily swipes at them with her sleeve. 

Eddie knows better than to comment on it, but does take a moment to think her words over. 

"Have you seen it too?" He decides to ask. It's the part that sticks out to him, so it becomes the thread he decides to pull. 

Max blinks. "What?"

"The real world. Have you seen it too?"

"Yeah." Max admits, after a long moment of silence, chewing on her lower lip. "I did. And I wish I hadn't." 

"Sucks huh?"

"You don't know half of it."

"I might not know the exact parts you saw," Eddie agrees, as he pulls up in front of his trailer. "But I have seen plenty of other nasty bits and bobs." 

He puts his van in park. "Just because the monster changes shape doesn't make it any less of a danger, you know?" 

Max sits with that for a moment. Eddie sits with her, his music on even if he has the volume turned down low. 

Waits to see if she'll say more, or if this is all he's getting. 

There’s a slight hesitation--as if for a moment, Max considers opening up--but something in her balks and she opens the door instead. 

“Thanks for the ride.” She grumbles, quiet enough that he almost doesn’t hear, before slamming the door and walking fast to her trailer.

The lights are off, and the car he knows belongs to her mother isn’t in the driveway. 

It’s not unusual to be home alone at this hour. Not for Hawkins kids, and especially not for trailer park kids like them, but for the first time, Eddie finds himself wondering how often she’s alone. 

“Hey, Red!” He calls, as he makes his way out of the van. 

She turns to look at him, and Eddie realizes he must be getting a glimpse of what every adult used to see in him. Fury and discontent, all rolling over a sadness that’s bone deep and afraid to face daylight. 

“You ever wanna explain it to me, you’re welcome to come over.” He says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at his own trailer. 

“Whatever.” Max says with an eye roll, before storming to her front door. 

Eddie waits for the lights to go on, before retreating back to his own house, feeling like he at least established something.

Even if it was just proof that he wasn’t going to blow up or brush her off like everyone else.

xXx  

January 13th's luck didn't end there.

A few hours after Eddie made sure Steve's attack chihuahua child made it home safe, a car pulls up in front of her trailer. 

Curious (and nosey as fuck) Eddie peers out the window to spot Harrington’s Beemer flick its lights off, owner crawling out and up to Max's front door with an arm full of takeout.

Steve stands there for a while, alternating between knocking and not-quite yelling, before finally putting the food down.

Eddie knows now that Steve's some kind of pseudo parent to these kids, that the intent he has towards them is a combination of brotherly and maternal. 

Can't help himself from the opportunity that arises when Harrington moves to peek into one of Max's trailer windows, though. 

"Damn Harrington," Eddie calls out, after quietly slipping onto his front porch. "Didn't know you were the kinda creep to stare into teenage girl's windows."

Steve spins, startled, and nearly goes down on the gravel while doing so. 

Eddie laughs--it's like watching Bambi on ice--but regrets it immediately when the younger man trots over to him. 

Puts his hands up and is about to defend himself out of sheer habit. 

"Is she okay?" Steve asks, trotting up the two steps so he can lower his voice. 

Eddie wiggles his raised hands in a “maybe” sort of gesture before lowering them. 

“She’s fine right now, but she’s definitely upset.” 

Steve hums, peering worriedly at the opposing trailer, takeout food sitting innocently by Max’s door. “

“She’s been upset for a while. I just…” He trails off, running his hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to do for her, you know? She’s not as easy to figure out as the others.”

Which isn’t the least bit surprising. At least, it isn’t to Eddie. 

While he can’t speak for their missing fourth member, the remaining three freshmen are the kind to wear their emotions on their sleeves, in their own ways. Mike and Dustin compete for loudest but even Lucas, the most likely to let things go, eventually explodes. 

All Harrington has to do to handle any of their issues is simply see that something is wrong, and then ask about it. 

The drive from the high school to the trailer park took less than fifteen minutes but in them, Eddie knew immediately that Max was far more like himself at heart. Angry at everything and everyone, using insults or humor to distract from her real problems. 

Eddie now was better than he was, the eleven year old kid who’d been dumped on his Uncle, extremely wary of adults and furious at the world at large. 

Like recognizes like though, even if he’s made progress. 

“I think the best thing you can do is keep being there for her.” Eddie admits quietly, because this is an area he can actually provide some insight for.  “That all that anger isn’t going to push you away. Just don’t be surprised if it takes her a while to understand you won’t abandon her like everybody else did.”

“Huh.” Steve says, and Eddie shouldn’t be surprised that Steve is taking him seriously. Not after the not-Christmas party, but he is. 

That’s part of the mystery of Steve Harrington, after all. 

The way Steve never quite reacts the way Eddie thinks he’s going to. 

“If she doesn’t take the food can you let me know?” Steve asks, and he sounds so sad about it that Eddie couldn’t possibly refuse, even if he’d wanted to. 

“Sure thing man.” He agrees. 

Harrington watches Max’s door for a moment longer before heaving himself off the porch with a sigh

“Oh,” He says, turning around partway to his car. “ We’re gonna have a movie night next Friday night. You should come.” 

‘Bing-fucking-go.’ 

“Well how could I say no to the King himself? Tell me the time and I’ll be there.” Eddie says, and then watches Steve’s face as he winces. 

Apparently, Red was right. 

Steve doesn’t rip his head off for the nickname though. Plows right on ahead, as if Eddie hadn’t called him it at all. 

"We were planning on making it just the adults--or at least, not the freshmen.” He nods towards Max’s trailer. 

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “Oh I’m sure they’re just delighted to be left out.” 

"You’d be surprised.” Steve says with a long-suffering look. “I've been informed I need more adult friends." 

Eddie can’t help but tease, though he softens his voice and grins to take the teeth out of it. "Band geek and a bunch of fourteen years olds not good enough for you?" 

"You’re forgetting my ex girlfriend." Steve adds, with his own self deprecating tone. 

“Well damn  Harrington, guess the town freak might actually be a step up for you!” Eddie says, loving that this version of Steve is willing to banter like this. 

“I dunno man, I think that nickname might be overhyped.” Steve says, and there’s that grin back on his face, the one he wore when he was stealing meaningless corporate trophies out of his father’s office. “I don’t think you’re that freaky at all.” 

He dips down in a movement that takes Eddie a moment to realize is him mimicking the curtsey he had given Eddie at the Christmas party, before getting in the Beemer. 

Then he’s gone, leaving Eddie trying to recover on the porch, wondering if the last part of that conversation actually happened or if he just wanted it so badly he dreamed the whole thing.

(When he looks back over to Max’s trailer, the takeout by the door is gone.) 

xXx 

20 days after New Years and Eddie didn’t know what he expected from a movie night at Steve’s-- but it wasn’t getting his ass kicked at beer pong. 

Of course, this may have been his fault. 

It started when Steve, three beers into a home recording of Animal House, made an off comment about Nancy Wheeler once putting all of Hawkin’s to shame at a party. 

(“Her aim has always been insane.” He'd added, as Nancy rolled her eyes and tried to hide her pleased grin behind a hand.  

Eddie had been a little surprised to see Steve hadn’t been kidding about Nancy coming--but also realized that Steve might have been serious when he’d joked about not really having a lot of friends. 

In Eddie's head, a miniature bat version of himself donned a detective's hat and cape, whipping out a notepad to dutifully write down; ‘Clue one: Steve has very few friends.’

“You, Nancy Wheeler, beat out four teams of dumb jocks…at beer pong?” Eddie asked, in total disbelief. 

“I did.” Nancy told him smugly. “And I could do it again.” 

“Really?” Eddie had said and it hadn’t been intended as a challenge, but it was taken as one.)

 Three games in, the beer having a long run out (they were actually playing “Vodka Shot Ball") and Eddie has to concur. 

Nancy Wheeler was in fact, god’s gift to throwing small orange balls into cups.

“How are you doing this!?” Eddie yells, throwing his hands in the air as Nancy sinks her last shot, Robin shrieking in victory behind her. 

Hand on her hip, Nancy gives him a lazy, smug smile. “I suppose,” She says, tilting her head, sounding for all the world like a cat who’s caught a canary, “--it would be my incredibly good aim.”

 Robin, who previously had been paired with Steve before insisting they switch (and who is more than a little drunk), shouts; “Take that Munson!” before grabbing Nancy’s wrists, pulling her into a dance. 

Laughing, Nancy goes with her, their celebration a stark contrast to the other half of the table where Steve is leaning heavily on his elbows. 

"Alright. Maybe, you do have some ungodly skills." Eddie admits, putting his hands on his head. “Forgive me for doubting you, oh Queen of beer pong.” 

"Oh, now you admit it?" Steve mutters playfully, head hanging low. "Couldn't have done it before I ran out of beer?"

"Hush Harrington, you enjoyed it." Eddie grins knocking a hip into his teammates

He too, is more than a touch drunk, despite having been on Nancy’s team for the prior two rounds. 

Vodka-Shot Ball, as it turns out, is enough to really mess a person up if you miss enough. 

"Did I?” Steve moans, before hiccupping.

(“Harrington you’re a jock, are you missing on purpose!?” Eddie had asked early in this game, when Steve’s shots had gone from fairly decent to fucking abysmal. 

“He’s two shots in, Eddie.” Robin had spoken for her soulmate, as she aimed a ball at a cup. “All those concussions don’t play nice with hard alcohol. Why do you think I switched sides?”

“I’ll remember this betrayal, Rob.” Steve grumbled in response. “See if I ever do your hair for you again.”

Batective Eddie promptly scribbled; ‘Clue Two, Steve has had a lot of concussions and can no longer handle a lot of hard liquor’ down on his notepad, puffing on his little old-timey pipe. ‘Also he does hair.’) 

“Now that Stubbornson over here has finally admitted defeat,” Steve says, “Can we please go lay down? We're way too drunk for another round.” 

“Speak for yourself, Lightweight. I’m fine.” Eddie tells him, walking towards the door to the kitchen.

Of course life cannot tolerate him being smooth and so Eddie walks dead-on into the closed glass door rather than the open one next to it. 

He staggers back and loses his balance, falling hard on his ass. 

“Shit!” Someone curses. 

“You okay Eddie?” Someone else asks.

“Yeah.” He moans, rubbing at his head. 

Wheeler appears next to him, shooing his hands away from his face so she could examine him. 

“You’re an idiot.” Nancy informs him calmly, hands expertly checking his head. Her touch is professional, but Eddie's surprised by it anyway, “But I think you’ll live.” 

Eddie squints up at her. “How come you’re not drunk?” He asks, and okay, yeah, he definitely hears the slur in his voice this time. 

"I only had three drinks across all three games." Nancy informs him sweetly. "None of them were vodka."

"I hate you." Eddie moans dramatically, before opting to lay down on the porch. 

“No you don’t.” Nancy says confidently, and then pats his head, before getting up from her crouch. “How are you doing Steve?”

“Kill me.” Comes Harrington's voice from across the patio, sounding very pathetic. 

Eddie wishes he could pet his head.  

“Denied!” Robin calls out. “Don’t even joke about that dingus, you got too close last summer as it was.”

(Batective Eddie, swaying a little with a beer bottle in his paw, tries to write that down.

He somewhat succeeds.) 

Nancy disappears for a moment and Eddie wills himself to sit up--or at the very least roll to where Harrington and Buckley are. 

"I'm going to drive myself and Robin home.”  Nancy announces as she reappears, alongside a hovering bottled water. 

Gratefully, he takes it.

With a tone that’s only this side of too-sweet, she asks; “Eddie? Would you like a ride?”

He considers it.

On one hand, that means he leaves his van here. So someone else has drive him to get it back in the morning (unless Harrington drives it to him and while Eddie finds himself weirdly unopposed to that idea, he doesn’t want to impose.

…Or inflict the current sad state of his van’s interior on Steve before he knows the guy better.) 

On the other hand, he’s clearly too drunk to drive, which means more time with a drunk Steve Harrington.

That’s gotta be good for figuring out clues, right? 

(In his head, Batective Eddie shoots him a thumbs up from where he lays, facedown on the floor.) 

 "If I get into a car I’m going to hurl." He announces. “So I’m gonna pass.” 

Nancy makes a very unlady like noise, and Eddie grins, finally managing to lurch up to his elbows. “Nancy Wheeler was that a snort!?” He teases gleefully, as she rolls her eyes. 

“Maybe.” She says, then holds out a hand. 

Eddie slaps his in it, but does his best not to pull on her. Instead he mostly uses her for balance as he works his way to his feet. 

“You guys get home safe okay?” Steve says, voice uncharacteristically serious as Robin helps him up from the pool chair he'd collapsed in. “Check in when you do.” 

That’s weird--Eddie half expects it to be some sort of inside joke or macho, alpha man type comment but instead both Robin and Nancy nod seriously. 

“We will.” Nancy promises. “Thank you for inviting me, Steve. Nice meeting you properly, Eddie.” 

She gifts him with a smile, an honest one, before guiding Robin out the door. 

Who screams; “Bye losers, love you!” as she exits.  

(Eddie thinks this might be another moment for Batective Eddie except he’s sort of getting a headache and kinda just wants to sleep rathe than envision his Sherlock Holmes styled bat-self.) 

They follow the ladies in, Eddie beelining for the first cough he sees. 

“You can sleep it off here.” Steve tells him, zombie-walking to his fridge. He pulls out a soda and chugs it as Eddie falls face first into couch cushions, taking a moment to let his stomach settle before adjusting to a better position. 

"Nah I'm just gonna close my eyes for a second." Eddie mumbles. “Be fine in a ‘lil bit, promise.” 

Does so, and enjoys the sweet, sweet darkness that envelops him. 

He jerks awake a moment later, blinking hard in the dark. A blanket has been draped over him, and his shoes kicked off, though judging from where they landed Eddie thinks he’s done that part himself.

A glance at his wristwatch reveals it's 1 AM, and Eddie goes to scrub his eyes with his hands.

Shit, he hadn't intended to stay this long. 

Harrington’s creepy Christmas shit’s all gone, replaced by walls so blank they look almost sterile. 

It creates a different, quieter vibe that's almost more spooky than the Santa-themed tomb Eddie had previous seen. The large windows throw shadows across the open space, like elongated fingers. It covers parts of the room in thick darkness, giving the appearance than anything could be hiding within them. 

There's blankets on the couch catty-corner to Eddie’s. They're rucked up, and the sound of running water abruptly clues Eddie in to where Steve might be. 

A golden glow erupts from the kitchen, then off again, before repeating the pattern.  

( Batective Eddie returns with a squeak, frantically waving a sign. 

It reads ‘Steve is afraid of flickering lights, remember!?’) 

The noise in the kitchen has gone eerily quiet. The bad kind, that makes the hairs on his neck stand up, and Eddie rolls off the couch and to his feet, making his way to the kitchen. 

Comes around the corner to see Steve frozen halfway to the stove, his head craned upward at the ceiling lights. 

Eddie knew that whatever had happened, a clear trigger for all those involved (the kids, Harrington, hell even Nancy Wheeler that one time in the library--) was electrical issues in lights. 

He clears his throat, the sound coming out like more of a growl. He coughs to clear it, then sidles closer. 

Steve has a stillness to his body that Eddie doesn’t clock until it’s too late, his hand already reaching out to tap the taller man’s shoulder. 

"Hey, uh Steve?"

Gets the shock of his life when Steve yanks his shoulder away, spinning back and around like he's been burned. 

Eddie gets a flash of wide brown eyes, glassy and wild, before a frying pan is swung at his head. 

"What the hell Harrington!" Eddie yelps, falling down on his ass and scrambling backwards, pan missing his head by inches. 

(Envisions in his head his Batective self throwing his notes in the air, taking flight with a startled “Fleeeee!”)

Harrington stands over him. Looks just like Wayne did that one time a car battery caught fire and exploded near the trailer. 

Like he was somewhere else, and prepared to do what he had to in order to get back. 

Chest heaving, Eddie put aside all thoughts of stupid bats and did what he did best.

Talked.

xXx

20 days after New Years, Steve almost takes Eddie's head off with a frying pan. 

Doesn't realize he's swung it like a weapon until he hears the surprised shout, his brain too steeped in adrenaline and old fears. 

Freezes, because the shout sounds like one of the kids but he doesn’t remember them being here...

"--eve?"

"What?" He asks, the ringing slowly easing as his tunnel vision does. 

He'd heard the growl, saw the lights flicker…

A gentle hand presses into his bicep, and he finds himself staring into Eddie Munson’s eyes. 

The guy has a sort of look on his face that says he's trying his best not to freak out, but then Steve blinks and it's gone. 

Replaced with something gentle, if cautious. 

"You wouldn't mind if I just," Eddie trails off as his ringed fingers slowly stroke down Steve's arm, before carefully taking hold of the pan’s handle. "--took this, aye love?"

It's the nickname that brings Steve back fully, and he loosens his grip on the pan, surrendering it to Munson. 

"Thank you Steve." He says, leaning to put the pan back on the stove, far out of Steve's current reach. 

Then his hands return to Steve's wrists, and he finds himself staring at them in confusion.

Not because he doesn't know what happened--he does.

It's  more that he's shocked Eddie is still willing to touch him after he nearly brained him. 

"There's egg on the floor." Steve says, because it's the easiest thought to have at the moment. 

Easier than apologizing. 

Definitely easier than explaining.

"We'll clean the egg up later." Eddie says firmly, and Steve's never heard him use that tone of voice before. Firm and unyielding, like he has all the answers.

It's the kind of voice Steve can surrender his anxiety to and he finds himself almost sinking into it. 

If Munson asked him to walk over a cliff just then, he would be more than a little tempted.

"Let's go sit down, just for a few minutes." Eddie tells him, a gentle tug on his wrists and Steve finds himself breathing out, his body shivering with the release of stress. 

He nods, unable to speak, and allows himself to be maneuvered out into his living room, then down on one of the loveseats. 

Eddie sits next to him, his thigh a line of grounding heat pressed against Steve's leg and he focuses on it to keep himself in the present. 

"You back with me?"

Steve works his throat, hyper aware of how dry it is. "Yeah." He says.

Then adds, "sorry."

"Don't apologize, man. I've done plenty of trip sitting in my day. I know a panic attack when I see one."

Steve vaguely wants to ask what the hell trip sitting is, but finds himself unconsciously leaning towards Eddie instead. 

Somehow he doesn't mind, even though Steve's practically squished up against him. Not that Eddie's ever been one to care about personal space, but Steve knows there's a difference between a teasing joke and whatever this is. 

Eddie's thumb begins to rub gentle, grounding circles into the meat of Steve's wrist. 

It gives his eyes something to track and gratefully Steve does, so he doesn't have to look Eddie in the face. 

Isn't sure he can clear the tears trying to wet his eyes in time to brush this off. 

Claim it's nothing serious.

"You wanna talk about it?" Eddie asks and somehow Steve didn't account for how direct the metalhead could be.

The tears strengthen and for a moment his vision blurs with them, before he sucks in a shuddering breath and forces himself back under control. 

'God Steven, toughen up.' His father's voice rings out in his head, the memory branded into Steve's very being. 'It's ridiculous how much you cry. Do you think anyone wants to put up with that?'

Steve had answered no then, tone wobbling. 

"I--" He starts, "--signed an NDA."

Which is not, at all, what he meant to say, but too late now. 

"The cops and I aren't exactly on speaking terms, your secrets are safe with me." Eddie says, entirely unphased. 

Which ghosts a smile over Steve’s face at least, even as he finds himself totally lost. 

How exactly is he supposed to explain this? 

The Upside Down, the Russians, hell even the way he's become hyper vigilant?

That certain words or references act like bullets, sending him to the floor in a spiral of burning panic? 

Nevermind his finely honed instinct to use anything as a weapon when startled.

Sensing his discomfort, Eddie hums quietly before making a suggestion. "How about you tell me a totally fake, very unreal  story?"

Steve croaks a laugh. 

"I'm a really bad story teller." He warns. 

"Practice makes perfect." Eddie tells him, leaning his shoulder into the taller man's. 

Grateful--and feeling more than a little pathetic--Steve finds himself seeking out the touch. 

"Okay." He agrees quietly, with a jerky nod of his head. "A--completely untrue, over exaggerated story. I can do that." 

So he does. 

xXx 

The story Steve tells in halting, fumbling bursts of words involves monsters, the supernatural, government secrets and coverups. 

The latter half of which doesn't even surprise Eddie--anyone with half a brain could see the sheer number of incidents that happened one after another was a cover up for something big-- but he can't help himself from trying to detangle reality from fiction. 

Monsters he gets. It's easier to pretend the bad guy is an evil creature than a real person, to distance yourself from it in such a way it feels fake. 

The supernaturally gifted girl is a little harder, but if you replace superpowers with some poor kid involved in some kind of shitty, abusive government program, then he can buy it. 

What Steve never explains, is what set him off. 

Eddie tells him so. 

"I told you I was a bad storyteller." Steve says in response, which isn’t an explanation but then, Eddie realizes he is pushing awful hard for a guy who he barely knows to bare his soul--and who, in turn, barely knows him.

Not really anyway.

Not outside of rumors and old wounds. 

"Is there anything that ever helps you feel safer?" 

"People." Steve says immediately. "People always help but ah, well." His smile is pained, self deprecating. "I can't exactly ask for sleepovers every night, can I?”

He shrugs. “So I just keep a few things close.' 

"A few things?"

"My nailbat."

"Is the nailbat a bat…with nails in it?" Eddie hedges, desperately attempting to keep a calm, straight face because what the fuck? 

But this was a no judging zone, and it wasn’t as if a bat with nails in it was the weirdest thing Eddie had ever encountered. Not since Uncle Wayne’s friends informed him they had at minimum, seventeen guns hidden in their own trailer across town. 

‘Things are happening at night, kid. Bad things. Don’t go too far into the woods looking for trouble.’

"Maybe." Steve admits. 

"How about instead of hugging a nail bat to sleep, if things get bad you come over. Wayne works the night shift and I have insomnia anyways." 

"Really?" 

Eddie can’t blame him for sounding surprised. 

"Yeah man. No skin off my nose, though you will be stuck hearing my beautiful sweetheart. She's a guitar sent from heaven. "

"I can handle that." He says, a smile ghosting across his face. 

Then; "Thanks Eddie."

Eddie presses his shoulder against Steve’s. "Anytime, big boy." 

(Crisis over, Batective Eddie returns, swooning. 

Eddie mentally squashes him under his own notes.) 

[joelswritingmistress]

You Scare Me, Professor: Chapter 27

Summary: The reader is taking graduate classes at a local university in the wooded upstate New York. She is drawn to her professor, Dr. Joel Miller, though she is also inherently aware that he has something dark about him that she can't quite put her finger on. As the reader's attraction grows deeper, she has to decide whether to endure the danger or run away as fast as possible. 

Pairing: Professor Joel Miller x f!reader 

I saw Trevor glance over at me several times during the walk. When my phone buzzed in my jacket pocket, I desperately wanted to answer it but I decided I would wait until I got into the building and we had some space.

“Hey, (Y/N)!” I turned and smiled with a wave.

“Hey James.” He donned his security uniform. “They have you on this night shift still, huh?”

He shrugged. “Extra guys have been on at night to keep an eye out,” James explained, “Especially since.. everything's happened.”

“Have they caught that guy yet?” I asked him.

James shook his head and looked down. “Not yet.”

“You're talking about the murders?” Trevor asked.

I nodded and introduced them. “James, this is Trevor.” My phone buzzed in my pocket again and I needed to answer it. “Trevor.. James.”

James extended an arm and Trevor took it. I could see a vague hint of disapproval as Trevor looked him up and down - at least that's how I perceived it.

“Well, we have to be getting to class,” I said. “Five minutes and the doors close.”

“Okay,” James gave a nod. “Let me know if you want me to come around to walk you out. It just worries me because of what happened in the bathroom.”

He sounded like Dr. Miller. I couldn't blame either of them, but I was mostly over it.

“Thanks.” I nodded again.

“It was nice meeting you, Trevor.”

“Likewise.”

I gave a little wave and then walked in through the building with Trevor. We rounded onto a staircase and started to descend to the lower floor.

“May I ask what happened in the bathroom?” He shrugged his backpack up and it fell back down against his back.

“Oh, it was probably nothing.” When he continued to stare at me I decided to just fill him in. “I went to one of the bathrooms over here a week or two ago and someone was twisting the door handle and pounding on the door. They left when I said I called campus security.”

“Did you see who it was?”

I shook my head and pulled open a door at the bottom of the staircase. “No.”

“It was probably Dr. Miller.” He allowed me through the door a step ahead of him.

I whipped my head in his direction. “What?”

“I think he followed you one night when you went out the back door,” Trevor said. “And I know he saw you go into the library today. He always tries to talk to you after class.”

I let out a huff of a laugh. “I don't think Dr. Miller would come into the women’s bathroom.”

“He looks at you like you're something to eat.”

I got goosebumps and somehow felt flattered by the remark. “Dr. Miller is not stalking me.” My eyes lifted and right on cue, there was my lover exiting his office at the far end of the corridor. I wanted to laugh at the timing, but I was also concerned that Trevor was that observant.

“Maybe you could get your boyfriend to-”

“My boyfriend?” I asked.

“The cop.”

I actually did laugh this time. “James? James isn't my boyfriend. Far from it.”

“Oh.” The corner of his mouth tipped upward and I made eye contact with Dr. Miller down the hall. He smirked at me and Trevor noticed him for the first time. He glanced over at me and I shook my head.

“Trevor,” Dr. Miller greeted with a nod. “Ms. (Y/LN).”

“Dr. Miller.” I nodded at him and I couldn't contain a smile. Trevor held up a hand to address him.

“Don't be late.” He winked at us as he passed by and it practically reinforced all of my classmate’s suspicions.

Trevor gave me another look and I laughed. “Come on.” I waved him into Dr. Stevenson’s classroom with me just before our other professor closed the door.  “Thanks for walking me in.”

“Any time.”

I hurried to find a seat and checked my phone, finding a handful of texts from Dr. Miller. Three of them were checking on my safety, the first two were dirty responses to the Kama Sutra poses I had sent to him.

Safe and sound, I typed back to him despite us just passing by one another.

Thirty seconds or so went by and he texted me back: Leave to use the bathroom in exactly fifteen minutes. Come to my office.

Tingles traveled to every area of my body.

Yes sir, I texted back to which he replied, good girl.

The next fifteen minutes felt like two hours. I looked at my phone probably every forty-five seconds. The only thing that kept my mind slightly occupied was Trevor’s constant glances in my direction from across the aisle.

What is his deal? I didn't like him being so nosy. It's not like we were friends, or even acquaintances. We had only talked a few times during or after class - and it was always short and sweet.

At the fourteen minute mark I excused myself and wandered down the steps of the stadium seating classroom. I glanced around the empty hallway and hurried down the way until I got to Dr. Miller’s office.

I gave a light knock and the door opened immediately. Dr. Miller pulled me in by the arm and closed the door. Our lips collided in fiery passion and his hand squeezed my buttocks on the left side while the other secured me to him by the back of my neck.

My body craved him and he made sure of that with all his perfectly designed tactics. They kept me feigning.

The kiss ended with a loud smack of his lips leaving mine and my eyes remained closed for several seconds. I put a hand over my mouth when he didn’t dive back in for another one and finally my eyes flickered open.

“Go back to class.” He playfully tapped the side of my face with his first two fingers and my mouth fell open.

What a tease!

“That’s it?” I smiled and he chuckled wickedly.

“For now.” He sighed and pulled me back against him, resting a hand on my lower back. His erection pushed up against me. “I just needed a fix.”

“I didn’t get mine.” I kissed him hard again until he moaned into my mouth and pulled back.

“You will.” Dr. Miller held my stare. His eyes were loaded with desire and it made me want to ravage him even more. His hand weaved through my hair and he held a strand of it tightly in his palm before letting go.

“This isn’t right.” I eyed him with a grin. “Leaving a woman in this state.”

“At least you can hide it.” He grinned and adjusted himself in his pants.

When I didn’t make my way toward the door he kissed me firmly on the lips again and reached for the handle, popping it open.

I shook my head. It made me want him more. I knew he was well aware of what he was doing. When he went to go, Dr. Miller reached for my hand and pulled me back to him, kissing me again with the door open this time. I laughed against his lips.

“You’re going to get us caught,” I whispered.

He smiled when he pulled back. “I’ll see you at home.”

“Okay.” I pecked his lips once more and wandered back out into the hallway. He watched me until I was yanking open my classroom door and then ducked back inside his office.

When I got back to class, I saw Trevor’s seat was empty. And he didn’t return for the remainder of the hour-and-a-half. I thought it was odd, but I put it to the back of my mind because all I could think about was Dr. Miller’s heated kiss.

I thought about texting James to walk me to my car, but that night it was in one of the closest parking spots to the building. There were plenty of students in the immediate area that night and so I wandered without much of a care toward my car.

Across the lot I spotted Dr. Miller’s Mercedes and smiled to myself. A part of me worried how badly I wanted him all to myself all the time.

I returned my attention to my own vehicle and spotted a white envelope with my first name printed in boxy, red lettering on the center of it in all capitals. It made me glance in all directions before retrieving it and ducking in my car. Immediately, I locked all the doors and then ripped the envelope open. It was a Valentine’s card that appeared as if it was home made. It actually looked professional, like something from a store, but I could tell, somehow, that it wasn’t.

A heart on the front cover encased the phrase: ‘Roses are red, violets are blue..’

I opened to the inside cover and the saying concluded with small, bright red cascading hearts. ‘For a very long time, I’ve had my eyes on you.’ On the bottom were the letters XOXO.

This wasn’t Dr. Miller’s style. I knew it wasn’t from him, but I would certainly show him the second he got home.

I tossed the card into the passenger seat and rested my head back on the headrest. Lately it felt like there was never a dull moment.

A part of me gave up trying to figure anything out in my present life and I just smiled to myself as I rested a hand on my forehead. I knew I had to just ride the crazy wave. I whispered to myself in a quiet vent as I started up the car. “What the fuck.”

CLICK HERE FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER

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[moni-logues]

Kintsugi 5

Pairing: Yoongi x reader

Genre: strangers-to-friends-to-lovers, non-idol!au, angst, smut, tiny bit of eventual fluff

Summary: In a fit of spiteful, post-break-up self-improvement, you sign up to a baking class. Yoongi, in a bid to appease his demanding girlfriend, signs up, too. Determined to make him your friend, you end up with more than you ever imagined.

Word count: 7.2k

Content: depression, self-harm (cutting)

A/N: first and foremost, please read the warnings; there's literally only two and one is a pretty significant one so plleeeeasssseeee take heed!!!!!! And let me know if there's anything else I should be tagging for it. Feels too flip for me to ramble in my usual way here given the content of this chapter, so just to say be safe, and I hope you like it! Thank you to my betas @amethystwritesbts @quarter-life-crisis2 @here2bbtstrash

Chapter Four | Masterlist | Chapter Six

Chapter Five - The other shoe

The sun was shining and birds were singing and you wished you were a character in a musical so you could burst into (tuneless) song and run across a field in a circle skirt. You hadn’t felt this good for a long, long time.  

“Looks like someone’s in a good mood,” was Taehyung’s greeting to you as you plopped down in your chair next to him. “You get laid or something?” 

You had, in fact, got laid last night. It had been even more anxiety-inducing than you had thought it would be, particularly given that Sungbin was a verified Greek god of a man and, well, your body had been through a little since the last time you were fully naked in front of someone new. You had put your body through a lot. The body keeps the score and it also shows the scars. You did not tend to keep them on display and you had hesitated and become awkward and flustered when you remembered them, when you realised he was going to see them, going to see what you had done to yourself.  

He didn’t mention them. He didn’t make it weird. He didn’t avoid them nor did he bring extra attention to them. He acted as if they weren’t there at all. Then he made you come until you were seeing stars.  

“That good, huh?”  

It had been that good. Or maybe it had just been a long time. Either way.  

“I think I’m going to fall in love with him, for real,” you said, all dreamy and moon-eyed, staring at your computer screen and seeing nothing but love hearts. 

“Girly...” Taehyung’s voice had a slight warning note but you let it wash over you. 

“I know, I know, but seriously. I feel happy, Teddy. Legitimately happy. I feel like I can see a future unfolding, a future I might actually want to live in.” 

“With Sungbin?” 

You shrugged. 

“Sure, why not?” 

He didn’t answer, not really. You could feel his reluctance; you could almost hear all the questions he wanted to ask. You let him think them. You weren’t going to let anyone burst this bubble.  

“What are we doing this weekend, chick?”  

You looked up from your desk and took the coffee cup in Taehyung’s outstretched hand. He sat down next to you. 

“What do you mean ‘what are we doing this weekend’?” 

“What do you mean ‘what do you mean “what are we doing this weekend”’?” 

“What do you mean-” 

“No, I’m serious. We always do something, but I haven’t seen you for weeks now.” 

“Teddy, we are together every day. You’re seeing me right now!” 

“That’s not the same and you know it! You’re reserving all your time for Sungbin these days.” 

“That’s not true.” 

Not entirely. He wasn’t being fair. It was true that you had seen Taehyung a little less over the past month or so but it wasn’t like you hadn’t seen him at all. You had someone else in your life now; you would’ve thought Taehyung would have been a little relieved to get some time back, to be honest. 

“Well, what about you?” you asked. “You’re spending all your time with the barista.” 

“Hyunjin. And I’m really not. I still have plenty of time for my other friends. For you.” 

“Are you suggesting that I’m not making time for you?” 

He shrugged.  

“I know you’re really into Sungbin right now and things are going well and that’s great. I’m genuinely fucking stoked for you and I hope that it’s everything you want it to be, but I feel a little tossed aside, yeah. Especially because I’m the one who’ll have to pick up any pieces if it goes south.” 

That hurt. Coming from Taehyung, that really hurt. 

“Why do you think it’ll go south?” 

“I’m not saying that it will but you’re honeymooning hard right now and it kind of feels like you’re putting a lot of eggs into one basket. You’re ditching me to spend all your time with a guy you’ve know-” 

“I’m not ditching you!” 

“I’m just saying you’re letting yourself be taken over by this. You haven’t seen me outside of work for ages. I know you didn’t go to therapy last wee-” 

“How do you know that?” 

“I know when your appointments are and you were posting on Instagram with a cocktail in your hand at the time.” 

“What makes you think I didn’t rearrange the session?” 

“Did you?” 

No, you didn’t. You skipped that one. Just one. That would hardly hurt. And you were feeling so happy right now, the need for therapy had receded a little, dipping past the horizon, not entirely out of sight, but almost out of mind.  

“That is exactly what I’m saying-” 

“No, what exactly are you saying? Is this about wanting to see me more or is it about telling me that me and Sungbin are going to crash and burn?” 

You could feel tears burn in your eyes and you desperately wanted not to cry. You always cried. All the time. It was exhausting and embarrassing and you were at work, right now – you didn’t have time for this.  

Taehyung’s eyes softened and this made your tears well even more.  

“I’m saying that I miss you and I’m worried. You are acting like he’s fixed you, like the only problem in your life was that you were single and now you’re not so everything must be perfect. But that’s not how things work and I don’t want you to get hurt.” 

“I’m not stupid,” you spat, your voice thick with unshed tears. “I don’t think he’s fixed me. I think he likes me. And I like him. And we are together-” 

“Are you?” 

“What?” 

“Have you had that conversation? Are you together?” 

“Well-… What about you and Hyunjin? Have you had that conversation?” 

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “We’re keeping it casual for now.” 

You didn’t like the sound of that. You hadn’t talked to Sungbin about it because you didn’t think you had to. You thought you were on the same page. Isn’t that what dating was? You dated and then, if you kept dating, you were in a relationship. It was automatic, by default. Why would you date someone if you didn’t want to keep doing it? If you didn’t imagine a relationship with the person, what was the point?  

You managed to blink your tears away but an uneasiness had settled in your stomach. What if you’d got it all wrong? Did Sungbin want to keep it casual? You didn’t. It was already too late for that. You were a goner. 

Maybe Taehyung was right. 

Was he? 

You sniffed. 

“Well maybe Sungbin and I aren’t.” 

“Does he know that?”  

Fresh tears. Anxiety. Your old friend insecurity crawling up your throat again. You should have known that this was coming, that there was a line you needed to acknowledge and either cross together or not at all. It hadn’t been like this with San because you had known each other so well before you got together, it really had been a foregone conclusion. This time, though... And there was so much Sungbin didn’t know about you, so much you knew you would have to share at some point and didn’t want to. The thought of revealing your ugliest self to him – to him, a flawless specimen of a man, inside and out, his parents’ pride, and the person you thought most about – was nauseating.  

You stood and walked off to the printers, pausing there only long enough for you to realise there was nothing you could pretend to print. Then you carried on to the kitchen, making yourself another coffee, even as the one Taehyung brought you was sitting, steaming, on your desk. 

“I’ve been thinking,” you began, sitting across from Sungbin at an outside table, running your finger up the wet glass of your iced latte. “What are you doing for Halloween?” 

He looked a little taken aback. 

“Halloween? In October?” 

“Yeah!” 

You held your palm tight against your glass, the discomfort of the cold playing distraction. You were trying to be casual about this. It was normal. Of course you’d make plans. Why wouldn’t you? You fought off the voice in the back of your head saying that you wouldn’t if you were just ‘keeping things casual’. That was why you had to ask.  

“I... have no idea yet. It’s only August.” 

“That is true, but I’ve been thinking. Teddy always has this massive party for Halloween and does costumes and everything and I would like, this year, to outdo him.” 

The party thing was true. Taehyung did throw one every year. And he did always have a good costume... You also always had a good costume, because he planned and bought it for you, but Sungbin didn’t need to know that part.  

“Wow, if he’s planning it this early, it must be big.” 

“Oh, no, he’s not yet, but I want to get a head start. Like I said, this year I think we can beat him at his costume game.” 

“We?” 

“Yeah, there are so many good couple costumes out there; it’ll make more of an impact if we do it together, right? Two is more than one etc.” 

“Right, yeah, uh... Sure.” 

“We don’t have to decide right now, but get your thinking cap on. I am going to destroy Teddy this year and you’re going to do it with me!” 

He chuckled a little and you thought this was good. Halloween was, as he suggested, months away, but he hadn’t said no. That counted for something. You ploughed on. 

“Also, what do you think to a double date?” 

“Oh. Um, who with?” 

“Teddy and Hyunjin. They actually got together the night we met! Might be fun. Also, to be honest, I really want Teddy to meet you. It’s been long enough, haha; you need his seal of approval!” 

“A test?” 

“Yep. He’s my bestie so he has to approve.” 

“Right. Yeah... Ok. You and he are really close, then?” 

“Yep. And, besides, it gets to a point where someone’s seen you have enough breakdowns that you have to keep them close: he knows too much!” 

There was a pause and you could see Sungbin considering his words. You fought the urge to move it on, to brush over it, to drop a hundred words a second to blow past it. But you also just had to... check, to let him know, to try to drip-feed him the information you, truthfully, didn’t want him to have but knew that he had to have, if this was ever going to be serious. It made you anxious, slowly revealing your brokenness to him, pushing him closer and closer to the threshold at which he might say ‘stop, that’s enough; I don’t want you anymore’. He hadn’t yet, but you’d barely begun.  

“Breakdowns, huh?” 

“Yep. Although, actually, while it was Teddy who held me together after the break-up, it was my ex who really did the heavy lifting before that.” 

Sungbin nodded thoughtfully and you didn’t know if you imagined his eyes flicking down to your thighs or not. Probably imagined. But it wasn’t like the two didn’t go hand in hand. 

“Sounds rough.” 

“It was. Both times, haha.” 

He nodded again. 

That was enough, you thought. That had to be enough disclosure for now. You could feel it pressing on you, like the oppressive summer humidity; you felt stifled by your exposure, almost a little giddy with the force of your discomfort. If this is what it was like, revealing your darkness to someone, you crossed all your fingers, hoped, and prayed that this thing with Sungbin would last so that you would never have to do it again.  

* 

You went home with him that night and there was a background buzz of something in your head, this kind of vertigo-swirling of standing too close to the edge of a cliff, an unsteadiness of foot that Sungbin was able to kiss away but which came back two-fold when you were lying naked in his bed. You tried to look at yourself, discreetly, objectively; what did you look like to him? Was he looking at you differently now, tonight, armed with new knowledge? What did he really know? What had he taken from the things you had said? You didn’t want to ask him, didn’t want to talk about it more, didn’t want to have to explain and elucidate and make explicit things that you hoped he would infer.  

He didn’t seem different, then, didn’t turn off the light or kiss you goodnight any differently from the way he had before. Maybe it was fine. Maybe your brokenness wasn’t fatal. Or so you could dream. 

“Last day, baby!” you cried when Yoongi put his bag on the counter at your very last baking session. 

“So it is,” he replied, cool as ever. 

You shoved him. 

“Be excited! We made it! We’re bakers!” 

He rolled his eyes and grinned. 

“A rather generous term for yourself, isn’t it?” 

You shoved him again. 

“How dare you? Do I need to remind you of last week’s triumph? Or should I say my triumph and your tragedy?” 

You weren’t being entirely fair. Yoongi’s buns had failed because he had taken on the risk of your illicit ingredient, allowing you to follow the recipe correctly. It was gallant, really. He even said that his buns were alright, not that bad, kind of ok which you knew without having to try them was untrue.  

“Should I remind you who is responsible for my tragedy?” 

“No, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

You grinned at each other and started unpacking your bags. It felt easy between the two of you now. Long gone was your anxiety that used to accompany Thursday evenings, that gnawing embarrassment and glowing shame that you used to feel in Yoongi’s proximity, sure that you were the worst person in the world and that he wanted to get away from you, desperate as you were for his friendship and approbation. You didn’t have to be desperate anymore, because you had it. You were friends. In the spirit of said friendship, you had agreed to celebrate your last baking class tomorrow, so you could get as drunk as you liked without having to suffer the consequences in the office. 

* 

“Generous term,” you scoffed, looking at your layered cake at the end of the session, assembled and decorated and still standing. “How very dare you. Look at what I’ve made! I’m a genius!” 

Yoongi laughed quietly and swiped a finger through the buttercream frosting on top before you could swat his hand away. He put it to his mouth. 

“Yeah, it’s not bad.” 

“Not bad!” 

You swiped a finger through the frosting on top of his cake. 

“Yours tastes like shit.” 

“Well, now you’re just being mean and I won’t let you have a slice.” 

“Fine.” You turned your back on him to put some things in your bag and then turned back. “I didn’t want to eat your shit cake, anyway!” 

“You had better be careful or I’ll bring this as dessert for tomorrow.” 

You gasped. 

“You wouldn’t dare.” 

Yoongi turned to face you head-on, a smirk on his lips, mischief in his eyes. 

“Wouldn’t I?” 

You mirrored his expression and crossed your arms. 

“I won’t let you in my apartment.” 

“Not even for the booze?” 

You faltered. You didn’t buy the expensive shit that he did. You still fully believed that expensive alcohol didn’t give you such bad hangovers. You didn’t want to lose this spat, didn’t want to come out of the bit, but also didn’t want to say no to booze. 

“You can leave the booze on my doorstep and go.” 

Yoongi broke first and laughed loud, tipping his head back. 

“You’re spoilt,” he said. 

You sniffed haughtily. 

“I deserve nice things.” 

Then he gave you that smile that he did sometimes, warm and soft, that made you feel like a broken open caramel truffle, oozing and sweet and sticky, like the two of you were stuck together, sugary fingerprints on your skin and a brown sugar taste on your lips. It was like a secret smile, for special occasions; you wondered who else got to see it.  

“Yeah, you do,” he agreed. “Which is why I’m bringing this cake to dinner tomorrow!” 

You groaned and pretended to fall, dead, to the floor. Yoongi laughed again.  

“I mean it.” He packed the last of his things in his bag. “I’m going to bring this and you’re going to eat it and like it.” 

“Over my dead body.” 

“If I recall correctly, I do, in fact, owe you a murder, so that can certainly be arranged.” 

You both laughed this time and you could think of much worse ways to go, much worse last things to see before you died. Yoongi picked up his stuff and his cake and turned to leave. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“With bells on!” you called after him. 

You had taken the Friday afternoon off, just to make sure you had enough time to shop and prepare and, gulp, cook dinner for Yoongi who you were expecting that evening. It was a celebration of your finishing the class but it was also a sign of intention, a new set-up for this kindling friendship that didn’t have anywhere else to meet. You’d take turns: one of you would cook and one would bring dessert and you’d alternate fortnightly. You weren’t sure whether you’d got the short straw to be tasked with dinner first or if you’d rather it were this way. You got the feeling Yoongi was a good cook and you didn’t want to have to follow that, but it felt like a lot of pressure being the first to host. You felt a little embarrassed of your shoebox apartment and cheap things and you knew Yoongi would never care—you knew he would understand completely—but it made you feel a little small, that this was all you had to offer.  

Never mind, you said to yourself. He didn’t care and neither would you. It wasn't about the venue; it wasn’t even really about the food. It was about the company. It was about making a space and a time for you and Yoongi to hang out. It was about making a commitment to taking your friendship outside of its bounds and cultivating it. That was what mattered and that was all you needed to focus on.  

You were scrolling on your phone, looking for recipes when a message from Sungbin came in. 

Sungbin: hey I’m wfh today. I'm about to have lunch can you come over? 

Obviously, the answer was yes. You did your best to make yourself look presentable in a rush and hot-footed it across the river to him.  

* 

“I ordered food, hope that’s ok,” Sungbin said as he gestured to the dining table where two bags of lunch had been placed. 

“Sure! I’ll eat whatever.” 

It felt a little strained, like the world had twisted itself into an uncomfortable position, but you put it down to the fact that you had never been to his apartment during the day before. He was also working; maybe he hadn’t shrugged off his focus yet. His job was still new and still stressful and this lunch was interrupting it. He was quiet as he sat down and you felt stifled. He ate a forkful and another. Then he put his fork down. 

“Thanks for coming all this way. I really wanted to speak to you but work is really hectic so I can’t get away.” 

“Yeah, no worries! I have this afternoon off anyway, so it’s no big deal.” 

“Oh right. Good. Um.” 

You thought to yourself that you were getting good at this: letting silence reign. Maybe it was all the time you’d spent with Yoongi; maybe it was all the time you’d spent in therapy. Maybe it was a sign that you weren’t letting your anxiety run your mouth anymore – even if you really, really wanted it to. 

“I thought we should talk,” is how he began. 

“About what?” Your guts twisted as you asked. 

“I know you were talking the other day about all sorts of plans and things and I just wanted to be clear about... where we are. What we are.” 

“Oh, right.” Your voice was airy and thin, even your lungs being squeezed by this cold-creeping fear working through your body. 

“I really enjoy spending time with you and I’d like to continue that but, ah, I’m not looking for anything serious. I don’t want... a relationship, y’know? I just moved here and I’m still finding my feet and getting to know everyone and everything and I don’t want to, uh, settle into anything? And I get the feeling that... you do. I didn’t want, um, wires to be crossed or uh, I didn’t want things to get complicated or- I just thought we should talk before it went on any longer. I wanted to just make myself clear. I would like to keep seeing you but I think you want... more than I do. If I’m wrong, just tell me, sorry if I’ve assumed but I, uh, just, get the feeling...” 

“Right.”  

Your eyes were already blurry with tears. Here it was. The other shoe dropping. Taehyung was right. Sungbin didn’t want you. Not really. He knew who you were and he didn’t want you. You tried to tiptoe into it; you tried to slowly heat the water in the pan but you’d overcooked it. The frog was jumping out. You wanted more. Too much. More than he wanted. He didn’t want you. He didn’t want you that much. He didn’t want your broken parts. He didn’t want your ugliness. He saw your scars and he heard of your breakdowns and he knew that was ‘more’, too much. He didn’t want to carry you. He would have to carry you if you went on for too much longer. You had to be carried because that’s who you were: you weren’t enough, not even enough to lift yourself up. All your good parts, the shiny parts, the parts you thought you had in you somewhere... It wasn’t enough.  

“It’s not-” Sungbin was trying to start again, to explain, to let you down even more gently. “I like you; I think you’re a cool person and we have fun. I just can’t commit to more than that. I don’t want to lead you on or pretend this is going somewhere it’s not. Y’know, I really appreciate you making all these plans and things but that’s just- it's really, well, it’s a bit too much for me right now. Do you know what I mean?” 

You nodded and hummed and bit your lip to stop it wobbling. Your face was burning with embarrassment: that you were being dumped, that you were crying about it when this hadn’t even been real to start with. It had never been what you thought it was. It was just fun. You had pictured parties and holidays and walking off into the sunset but that was just you. It had never been that for Sungbin.  

He didn’t want you. Like a woodpecker pecking at your skull, it hit you again and again: he didn’t want you. He didn’t want you. You tried to show yourself to him and then he didn’t want you. You took him to your water’s edge and he decided not to swim. You should have seen this coming. You should have heeded Taehyung’s warnings. You should have had this conversation before now.  

You could feel yourself spiralling, crumbling, sitting at his table with an uneaten salad bowl in front of you. You couldn’t speak because you didn’t know what to say. ‘Please just love me’? ‘Can’t you change your mind’? ‘What if I were different’? ‘I can change’? Would anything make a difference? You couldn’t be different. Not really. It hit you at that moment: you would always be you. All of these things that you had been doing to try to change, to be better, to grow, to stop being such a mess all of the time. They wouldn’t work. Couldn’t work. Couldn’t change who you were. What you were. You’d always just be... this. 

“Yeah, I understand,” you whispered, your voice trapped in your strangled throat. “I have to go.” 

You stood and whirled around, heading immediately for the door, shoving your feet in your shoes any which way, as long as they stayed on long enough for you to escape. 

“No, wait, hold on!” Sungbin called, following after you. “Don’t just go, please. I want to talk- I don’-” 

But you were opening the door and running down the corridor and he was calling, but not running, after you.  

You wanted to break down, just fall to the floor in a heap and stay there until the ground ate you up but you had to get out of his building. The lift was stifling, a too small metal box with mirrored walls that showed you your red eyes and running nose and face contorted with the effort of trying not to cry, with the fact that you were crying anyway.  

You had never felt so stupid. Humiliated. You wanted to scrape your skin from your body with the shame of it. Of course he didn’t want a relationship with you. A man who already loved you and loved you for years didn’t want a relationship with you anymore; why would Sungbin, with the world at his feet, settle for you?  

* 

You were crying on the subway again. You had sworn you wouldn’t do that. Not after the break-up. Not once you’d finally stopped crying over San. You weren’t going to be that person, that’s what you’d said. No one took any notice; no one said anything; everyone averted their eyes, but you could still feel their attention, were still so aware of the way they were not noticing you. You were a weirdo, a pathetic woman crying on the subway in the middle of a Friday afternoon.  

When you got off the train, you considered throwing yourself on the tracks. You would never have done it. Too many people around. A traumatised driver. Delayed and cancelled trains. Compounding your worthlessness by ruining other people’s days? You hadn’t sunk that low, not yet.  

You traipsed home, your feet feeling lead-heavy, your legs feeling weak and, as soon as the door to your apartment closed behind you, you dropped to the floor. You gasped in huge, choking sobs; you couldn’t see for your tears and could barely breathe. Your chest felt as though it were caving in on you, squeezing the life out of you. You dragged your nails across your skin to try to feel something else, something different, some other kind of pain and then a thought came to you, sharper than it had been for months, clear before where it had been vague. A directive, not just a thought anymore. 

There was a reason you didn’t keep razors in the house but your nails certainly weren’t cutting it. Then you remembered the knives Yoongi had bought you, how he had impressed upon you that they were sharp, that they were good quality and barely used so they should still, now, be sharp. You dragged your body to the kitchen counter and ripped open a drawer. You picked one at random – it didn’t matter which – and sat back down. You shuffled to pull off your cycle shorts and there they were, your mosaic thighs, criss-crosses of light, thin lines and thicker scar tissue. You had always taken a weird pride in the neatness of it. You had always cut carefully and deliberately, as though you were creating something other than scars, other than a mess, other than something you had to hide from everyone. You went over them again, re-cutting all the old lines, each sharp slice of pain a relief, grounding, pulling you back from somewhere.  

The relief made you feel hysterical, silly even, the strange, old euphoria of hurting yourself, of being in control of that hurt rushing through you and making you dizzy. It was like coming home. Your breathing came more smoothly and your heart slowed and your tears began to dry and you couldn’t stop, not yet. You had to see how far you could go. A little more. You needed just a little more. You had plenty of real estate; you could make more. You could expand the design, your bloody, little, monochromatic Mondrian.  

You felt empty when you stopped. Drained. Exhausted. Sick to your stomach. You let yourself fall sideways, lying on your dirty kitchen floor. You had nothing left in you. You lay there, unmoving, letting your brain tell you whatever it wanted. You didn’t care anymore. About anything. You had nothing. You had nothing to give and no one to give it to anyway. If you blipped out of existence, well, that would be the best-case scenario. Like Buffy’s key in reverse. Blink, and you had never existed at all. That would have been nice.  

It would still be nice. If you could just disappear off the face of the earth. You couldn’t bear to look towards the future – a future you didn’t want, that you knew wouldn’t be better than this. The thought of it made your soul shrivel, made you dig your nails into your reddened thighs, made you cringe and wince. When would it be over? Why couldn’t it be now?  

* 

You distantly heard your intercom ring but it felt as if it were coming from another world. You were gone. You were out of this world. No one missed you. Your apartment was a glitch, a tiny black hole where no one could go and no one wanted to go. It rang for what could have been a short time or a long time—you'd lost all sense of it. Then you heard knocking at your door.  

Then more knocking. 

Then something akin to thumping. 

“Hey,” Yoongi’s voice rang cleanly through the wood and metal. “Are you in?” 

Your phone started buzzing noisily on your side of the door, rattling against the floor bar in the entryway. Then there was silence for a while. You assumed he had gone away. 

Your door beeped and swung open and there were footsteps, the quiet flomp of shoes hitting the floor, the rustle of a carrier bag. You remembered you had given him your codes in the interest of fairness -- you did have his, after all. You felt so detached from everything that you didn’t know how you felt about that. Yoongi quietly called out for you. You didn’t respond. Didn’t even feel like you could.  

Your apartment was small enough that he could survey the entire space in a few small steps, so he would barely have to enter before he would see you. You knew the moment he did; you felt the way the air was sucked out of the room for a second. You felt him freeze, could hear the seconds tick by on the clock on the wall. Then he came into your line of sight, kneeling in front of you, saying your name. 

“Fuck, don’t be dead,” he whispered.  

He held his hand underneath your nose and felt you breathing. You felt the weight of the sigh that left him.  

“Shit, fuck.” 

He bent over, turning his head to try to catch your eyes; you could see him but you weren’t looking at him. You weren’t looking at anything. He was a blurry approximation of a man in front of you. He called your name for a third time.  

“You, uh, are you alright? ... fuck, fucking stupid. No, obviously not. Fuck. Ok. Uh. I-. Can I... What can I do?” 

You couldn’t give him an answer. It was as if all speech and movement had been taken from you. You really had nothing left. You couldn’t give him anything. You felt like a husk and that was all you wanted to be. 

“Shit, what should I do? I.. I do-. Well. Ok. Can you sit up?”  

You couldn’t even shake your head. You were aware of him continuing to mutter to himself. He stood up and disappeared for a minute or two; you heard the open and shut of cupboards, the rifling through of your jars and bottles and boxes. He returned with a light load. 

“I have to-” he started. “I’m going to. You.. I have to- I'm going to touch you, ok? I have to lift you up?” 

He hesitated as he came closer but was firm when he gripped your arms and lifted your body off the floor, pulled you sitting upright. You tipped your head back against the cupboard and a deep sigh pushed air from your lungs.  

“I still have to- this might hurt. You don’t have much stuff. I, uh, yeah, ok. I have to clean this.” 

You closed your eyes when he pressed a soaked cotton pad to your thigh. The burning sting of antiseptic made you feel a little bit alive but it was so short-lived.  

He was muttering again. 

“Fucking hell. I can’t. You don’t have anything useful. How am I-. What... This is... Fuck, this is going to need stitches. Is it?” 

You’d almost never heard him talk so much, not like this, not to himself, not with all these half-finished, curtailed sentences, this stopping and starting. Yoongi was straight-forward, even when he was feeling chatty. This Yoongi was going around in circles.  

When your eyes finally focused on him, he looked pale, paler than usual. A little grey possibly. His mouth was pulled in a taut, grim line when he wasn’t mumbling himself through the task.  

“Still fucking bleeding? Shit, did I make it bleed again? I can’t- I...” 

He sat back a little and looked at you; his eyes were sharp and focused and you couldn’t look at them. Yoongi took your chin in his hand, less gently than you might have expected, and he held you there until you looked at him.  

“How can you not have a fucking first-aid kit? What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?” The anger in his voice registered only dimly. “There’s a pharmacy on the corner and I’m going to go there.” He paused and his eyes were steely and his jaw tight as he worked his brain around how to say what he needed to. “I’m going to go and I’m going to come back and if I get back here and you’re dead, I am going to kill you, ok? I know I promised to kill you but I was fucking joking and you’re not allowed to be dead. Is that clear?” 

His face softened as he waited for an answer. You managed to nod your head. He held you a few more seconds before he stood and walked out.  

* 

It could have been only seconds or it could have been hours until he returned—you neither knew nor cared—but he did return and he dropped a plastic bag on the floor beside you. He tipped it upside down and dumped its contents. He wasn’t looking at you now, not at your face, just at your legs, as he cleaned and tended and muttered to himself some more. He unwrapped bandages and folded over gauze and you let him lift your legs and place them back down. You let him do whatever he needed to, wanted to. It didn’t matter.  

When he was finished, he sat back and sighed. He ran a hand through his hair and you saw his eyes alight on something to your left. You couldn’t read the expression that came over his face. Something like horror, something like disgust, something like despair. He leaned forward onto his hands and grabbed the offending object; he threw it into the sink with a metallic clatter.  

He sat opposite you for some time. You didn’t say anything. Neither did he. You felt hollow. You could hear it, the wind howling through your empty spaces. You felt like you were all empty space. Just an echo of nothingness trapped in skin. Every part of you hurt, as if the pain were radiating out from your heart, filling the void inside you with a sharp, persistent ache. You couldn’t talk. You couldn’t bring yourself to do it, to have to hear yourself, hear your existence continuing in the world. It hurt. As long as you were silent, you could fade away, you told yourself. Just disappear. Yoongi would go and you would be alone and you could just disappear. 

“Do you want to eat?” he asked. “You should eat.”  

The thought evidently set him on a path because he stood and opened your fridge, opened your cupboards, looking for food. He stepped over you and then stopped, foot in mid-air. He turned back to you. 

“If I’m going to cook, you’re in the way. Can you move?” 

You blinked. You sighed. You looked down. Then you felt his arms wrap around you as he pulled you to your feet. It was an awkward drag and shuffle to the sofa, your feet tripping over themselves, Yoongi lifting but not really carrying you.  

“Fuck, sorry,” he said on a heavy exhale as you dropped like a stone onto the sofa. “I’m going to cook now.” 

* 

He held a bowl out in front of you and, when you didn’t take it, he picked up your hands and placed them against the ceramic, lowering it all into your lap. Then he sat next to you. 

“Eat.” 

You looked at the food, steaming hot; it smelt nice. You wondered what on earth it was and how he could have found the right ingredients in your house. You were still not exactly domesticated, despite your efforts. Yoongi kicked your foot. 

“I mean it. Eat.” 

You sighed and continued staring into the bowl. Eating would mean conceding to living, to staying alive. You felt defeated but you also wanted to avoid this defeat. Everything about you felt wrong. Hideous. Like things were crawling beneath your skin. You didn’t want to continue that existence. You didn’t want to feed it. 

Yoongi took the bowl from your hands and placed it on your coffee table. 

“Fine,” he said. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

Absolutely not. You shook your head.  

“What do you want to do? I don’t know what to do. What can I do?” 

You, again, fell sideways, lying on the sofa with your legs still dangling down. It wasn’t entirely comfortable but that hardly mattered. You couldn’t answer; you didn’t know.  

Then Yoongi did something that you wouldn’t in a thousand years have expected him to. Just as you had, in his apartment, weeks ago, he crawled behind you and wrapped his arms around you. You stiffened, convinced for a second you might split and shatter. He was warm and soft and you could smell his hair and his breath tickled your neck and it hurt so much. It all hurt so much.  

You breathed in deep and when you exhaled, you choked, crying again. You didn’t know you had more in you. You had thought you were dry, but just as there was no end to your sadness, there apparently was no end to your tears.  

You lay there, letting him hold you as you cried, letting the sun lower in the sky, letting the stars come out.  

“I’m fucking sick of it,” you gasped. “Sick of it, sick of it, sick of it.” 

“Sick of what?” 

“Everything. I hate it. I hate everything. I hate it. I hate being alive. I hate being me. I can’t stand it. I don’t know how people do it. I just want it to stop. I just want it to stop.” 

“Life?” 

“Yeah.” 

“I get it. I don’t want you to stop being you, though. For what it’s worth.”  

You couldn’t hear that kind of thing. Not now. You couldn’t take it. 

“You just don’t know me,” you whispered, your voice hoarse from crying and thick from new tears.  

“Tell me, then.” 

“I fucking suck.” 

“How?” 

“Literally everything I am. Fundamentally flawed. I’m broken and stupid and I can’t be normal and no one can ever love me because I’m this. I’m just this all the time and I can’t get better and I thought that I could but it’s just me and my fucking broken head and I ruin everything. I ruin everything for everyone and always will and no one can stand me. No one can and I don’t fucking blame them. I can’t stand me either. It makes me sick to be such a useless heap of junk. I’m a worthless waste of space because what is the point of me? What do I do? I need people, I cling to people, I make myself their problem until they can’t take it anymore. I’m depressed and stupid and I will never achieve anything and never do anything and I might as well just die right now because who cares? Literally who cares. I tried and I fucking tried but I’m still me and I can’t run from it or change it and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to be here. I don’t know what to do anymore. There is nothing for me. The future is black and it’s bleak because I’ll be there. I’m always there. I can’t get away from myself. I can’t bear it. I have to live like this? For years? More and more years? Twenty? Or thirty? Forty years of this? It makes me sick to think about. I can’t think about it. I can’t think about having to be alive like this for another day let alone any longer. I hate it. I hate being me and I hate being alive and I just wish I wasn’t. I wish I could just disappear. I’m a broken, useless, fucked in the head piece of shit and no one will ever love me because they can’t. I’m unlovable. I’m this and it makes me unlovable but I can’t change it so I will always be unlovable and I can’t do it. I can’t live like that. I can’t do it anymore.” 

You took a deep, shuddering breath and Yoongi said nothing. He was quiet for long enough for your shame to creep back in, curling its fingers around the door frame and pulling itself in, unbidden and unwanted. You were embarrassed now, again. You felt stupid. Again. You felt pointless and petty and pathetic and you were about to shrug Yoongi off, to tell him to leave, to crawl into your bed and hide under the sheets when his arms tightened around you. You heard as well as felt him take a deep breath. 

“Yeah, I understand.”  

There was a pregnant pause and Yoongi cleared his throat. 

“But I don’t think any of those things about you. For what it’s worth.” 

Chapter Four | Masterlist | Chapter Six