#he actually thought he was safe and could mock john

[strvberrydoll]

CRIMSON TRAILS | Running Gun

Pairing: John Marston x F!Reader CW: mentions of past abuse, animal death, gun fight, period typical violence, injuries, blood loss, needles, in my mind John is 6’0 ok?? let me dream. WC: 7k A/N: and the story begins!! im giggling posting this eheh took me longer than expected to finish the chapter ‘cause i needed it to be impeccable. It’s nowhere near perfect but i fear my brain will melt if I look a second more at its google doc. As always let me know what you think and if you’d like to see more. Likes, reblogs and comments are highly suggested so I know what’s going on in your minds. Also! let me know if you want to be in the taglist

series masterlist | masterlist I AO3 link

The house always felt colder at night. Its long, empty hallways stretched out like an intricate maze, darkened by shadows that seemed to dance and twist with each flicker of candlelight. You had grown used to the chill that clung to your skin, used to the hollow feeling that echoed through the grand, oppressive mansion. The silence was suffocating, broken only by the distant tick of the grandfather clock at the end of the hall and the occasional clink of glass coming from the dining room downstairs.

You couldn’t sleep, like most nights, and wandered the corridors alone. Your little bare feet were silent against the polished floors as you wandered the empty corridors. Thankfully the second floor was empty, as all the maids were now occupied with a business party your father was hosting downstairs.

Not that it mattered, the maids barely looked at you anymore, and when they did, their eyes were sharp, filled with disdain. You heard them sometimes, whispering about you—how you were a burden, something unwanted. "The little ghost," they’d often call you, mocking how quiet and small you were. But it was the way your father looked at you that hurt most. Like you were the cause of everything wrong in his world. Like you had stolen something precious from him the day you were born.

Your chest tightened at the thought of him, and instinctively, your feet carried you toward the only place you ever felt safe.

A faint, warm glow spilled from beneath your brother’s door, a welcome contrast to the darkness of the house. You didn’t want to bother him, but you needed him. You always needed him. He was the only one who actually saw you, who cared for you in a world that seemed determined to treat you like a ghost and push you far away.

With a soft push, the door creaked open, revealing your brother, sitting on the edge of his bed. He was hunched over something, his dark hair messy from a long day. With the candlelight contrasting his frowning expression, he looked older than his sixteen years, but his eyes lit up when they met yours.

“Hey, Birdie,” he greeted, his warm voice chirped, though you could hear the exhaustion beneath it. “Can’t sleep again?”

You shook your head side to side and stepped into the room. The familiar scent of freshly washed bed sheets contrasted his usual scent of hay and tobacco wrapping around you like a blanket. He always smelled like the outdoors, like freedom. The kind of freedom that Governess Constance, the only person in that house aside from your brother that treated you like you were supposed to treat an eight years old kid, would read to you in one of your goodnight books.

“Come on then, sit here with me,” he said, patting the bed beside him. His voice was gentle, and as always, it soothed the growing ache in your chest. You scrambled up onto the bed, crossing your legs as you sat next to him.

On his lap was something wrapped in a soft cloth, the fabric fraying at the edges. He was working on it, carefully running a strange stone over the surface with long, practiced strokes. You watched in silence, following his every move with big curious eyes. The steady rhythm of the blade against the stone hypnotic.

“What’s that Isa?” You asked after a moment, your voice barely a whisper as you hugged one of his cushions.

Isaiah—your brother—hesitated, glancing at you from the corner of his eye before slowly unwrapping the cloth completely. Your breath caught in your throat as the object inside was revealed—a dagger. Not just any dagger, but a beautiful, intricately crafted one. The hilt was white adorned with swirling patterns with silver detailings, the blade gleamed in the candlelight, sharp and polished to perfection. A dangerous beauty.

“It’s for you,” he said quietly, holding it out for you to take.

Your eyes widened in disbelief. “For me?” you asked, your small hands trembling as you reached for it. The material of the hilt was cooler against your skin, the weight of the dagger much heavier than it looked. “W-why are you giving me this?”

He sighed, running a hand through his tangled hair, avoiding your gaze for a moment before putting one arm on your shoulder in a sideways embrace. “Because I can’t always protect you,” he said softly, the sadness in his voice startling you. He looked back at you then, his eyes shadowed with something you didn’t quite understand. “I’m not gonna be here much longer, Birdie.”

The words hit you like a punch much more painful than your father’s drunken beatings, knocking the air from your lungs. You stared up at him, your heart pounding in your chest. “What do you mean?” Your voice cracked, tears started to pool in your eyes and the dagger trembled in your hands. He didn’t respond and looked down.

“No,” you whispered, shaking your head in denial. “You can’t. Y-you can’t leave me. You p-promised you’d stay. You promised!” the weight of the situation made your stutter come back. Your training with Miss Constance to tone it down out of the window in this moment.

“I know,” he said, his voice breaking with the weight of the lie. “I know I did.” He reached out, his rough hand cupping your small face, brushing away the tear that slipped down your cheek. “But this family? This life? It’s killing me. And I don’t want to end up broken like him.”

Your chest felt tight, like you couldn’t breathe. The room spun around you, and all you could focus on was the weight of the dagger in your lap, the one thing that felt real. You clutched it tighter, trying to ground yourself, trying to keep him here with you.

“But you’re a-all I hav-h-have,” you whispered, your voice breaking. “What am I supposed to do without y-you?”

Isaiah pulled you into a fierce hug, his arms wrapping around your small frame. You buried your face in his chest, breathing in the scent of him, trying to memorize it. “Oh, my sweet, sweet sister, you’re gonna be alright,” he whispered into your hair, his voice thick with emotion. “You’re stronger than you think. And one day, when the time comes, you’ll use that dagger. You’ll protect yourself.”

Your tears soaked into his shirt, heavy sobs shaking your entire body. You didn’t want him to leave. He was the only one who cared, the only one who made you feel like you were more than just a shadow in your father’s house.

“Promise me you’ll come back,” you whispered, your voice muffled against the fabric of his shirt. “Promise me.”

He pulled back, placing a soft kiss on your forehead. “I’ll come back for you, little Birdie,” he said, but there was something hollow in his voice. You nodded, swallowing the lump in your throat. “You better.”

He smiled then, a small, sad smile. His eyes looked down at an identical set that was looking up at him, and for a moment, it was just the two of you. Two siblings, bound together in a world that had been cruel to them both since their birth. You wanted to hold onto him forever, to keep him from slipping away, but deep down, you knew you couldn’t. He was too restless, too wild for the cage your father had built around you.

In the morning, his room was empty. His bed was cold. A deep voice boomed through the halls calling his name, and then—

You jolted awake, your breathing unheaven as the remnants of the dream clung to your mind like a fog refusing to lift. Your heart pounded loudly in your ears, and for a moment, you thought you could still feel your brother’s arms tight around you, hear his voice whispering sweet promises he’d never keep. You laid there, staring up at the canvas roof of your tent, blinking against the bright light of the morning sun that filtered through the holes in the fabric.

You sat up slowly, rubbing your tired eyes, trying to shake off the memories that had followed you out of sleep. But they lingered, like the heavy, humid air that surrounded you.

Your hand drifted beneath your makeshift pillow, where his dagger laid sheathed. The leather now worn and cracked with age. You reached out and ran your fingers over it, the familiar pattern in the hilt soothing you like one of Miss Constance’s lullabies. It was the only part of him you had left, the only piece of your old haunted life that still mattered.

Your brother had told you you’d need it one day.

He’d been right.

But as much as you liked to extract yourself from reality and go to the comfort of your memories there was no time to dwell on the past. The present had demands of its own. The sun was already high in the sky, and the dry heat of October had begun to seep into the air of West Elizabeth, even though summer should have been a distant memory by now. It was unusual for the weather to be so hot this time of year, but the West had always been unpredictable. Today was no different. The earth around you was baked and dry, the sparse yellow grass crackling under your boots, and the few trees that shielded your camp offered little cover from the relentless sun.

You sighed and pushed yourself up to your feet, dusting off your floor length red skirt, stretching the stiffness from your limbs. Your camp, hidden in the Great Plains just outside of town, was modest—a second hand tent, a few basic supplies scattered around the campfire and your horse hitched on a nearby tree. It wasn’t much, but it kept you out of sight and away from trouble. Most of the time, anyway.

You washed your face, water splashing away the last remains of sleep and made a mental note to soon refill your bucket. As you prepared your coffee, your thoughts drifted back to your brother, to that final night you’d spent together. You wondered what he’d think of you now. A wanted woman. An outlaw, just like him. Though you doubted he’d wanted that for you.

But choices have consequences and your consequences, for better or for worse, led you to this life.

Finishing your coffee you put out the small fire as best as you could. You approached your horse Willow—a beautiful Ardennes with strawberry roan you managed to steal away from home. She nickered softly as you approached and gave her a gentle pat on the neck before slipping the saddle onto her strong back. You had errands to run today, groceries to buy and supplies to collect. The trip into Blackwater made you uneasy every time, but it couldn’t be helped. You needed to eat, and there were only so many supplies you could steal without drawing attention to yourself. So far, you’d been careful. You’d kept your head low, using a fake name, and stayed out of sight.

But Blackwater was dangerous territory. Given that it was the second largest town in the untamed west, the law had eyes everywhere, and bounty hunters passed through the town circling like vultures over dead meat.

Your wanted posters had been plastered all over the North East American regions. The first months after the day that sealed your fate you found the paper manifesto in a town nearby where you grew up. The paper inked with some vague artist’s rendering of your face and beneath your portrait written in all capitals was your name with a 500$ reward for whoever caught you, preferably alive. The portrait didn’t resemble you enough to get you caught. Yet, you decided to completely flee the region, finding yourself wandering in the famous uncivilized west.

Mounting your horse you steered her out of the camp, the town of Blackwater looming in the distance. The ride into town was quiet, the road dusty and empty save for the occasional wagon passing in the distance. The heat was oppressive, the sun beating down on your head, making sweat bead on your forehead. By the time you reached the outskirts of town, your shirt clung to your skin, the dry dusty wind doing little to cool you off.

Blackwater was bustling with life by the time you arrived. The town had grown over the months you spent in the region, more folk moving in, more buildings popping up along the main street. Wagons creaked along the dirt roads, horses snorted, and people moved about their business with the kind of hurried energy that only came with trying to escape the midday heat. You kept your head low, as you guided your horse down the main street.

“Cornwall City Railway expanding ever more with rumors of the works coming to Blackwater. Come and read more Ladies and Gents!”

The newspaper seller shouted as you dismounted outside the general store and tied your horse to the nearest hitching post. Your eyes scanned the street for any signs of trouble, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary, just folks living their lives as usual. For a brief moment, you let yourself relax.

Inside the general store, the cool air offered a momentary relief from the unforgiving heat outside. You greeted the shopkeeper and moved through the aisles quickly, picking up fruits, canned good, coffee, and a few other essentials for camp. The shopkeeper, an older man with a long thick beard, barely looked at you as you placed the goods on the counter.

"That all?" he asked, his voice disinterested as he bagged your items. So much for customer service.

You nodded, sliding a few bills across the counter. He took them without a word, and you turned on your heel, leaving the store as quickly as you’d entered. The exchange was quick, with no questions, no lingering looks, you wondered if that was for the best. You stowed your items on Willow's back, gifting her an apple before resuming your chores.

Your next stop was the post office.

As you entered the wooden building you were met with a couple of empty benches, the wooden building almost empty save for the post office clerk and another man. The post office clerk, a tired-looking man with silver thinning hair, was shuffling through a stack of letters when you approached the counter.

“I’ve got a parcel,” you said, your voice calm and steady.

The post clerk barely looked up. “Name?” he asked, his fingers still rifling through the letters.

“Deliah Hill,” you replied. Your fake alias coming out of your lips like second nature. The man shuffled to the shelf behind him, after a few seconds he turned back.

“Nope, no letters or parcels under that name.”

You shifted on your feet. Biting the inside of your cheeks you pondered on your options. Could she have used your real name to send you your parcel?

You looked around, the post office was deserted enough. With a sigh, you asked the man to search under your real name. Years passed from the last time you used that name. The moment your name left your mouth, you felt a shift in the room. A chill ran down your spine despite the heat. The clerk’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly as he looked at you before going to retrieve your parcel. For a moment, the world outside seemed to fade away, leaving only the pounding of your heart in your ears.

The post office clerk handed you the parcel. “Thank you,” you said, your voice steady despite the panic rising inside you.

You turned to exit the building and behind you, someone shifted—a man, leaning against the wall by the door. You could feel his eyes on you now, sharp and calculating. Recognition flickered across his expression, and a slow, dangerous smile curled at the corner of his lips.

Bounty hunter.

You kept your face neutral, your fingers twitching closer toward the dagger on your belt. Your steps were slow as you walked out of the post office, the weight of the man’s gaze heavy on your body. You could feel it, the way his eyes followed your every movement, like a predator stalking its prey. The moment the sun kissed your skin you wasted no time. You stalked down the street towards your horse when a man bumped into you making you almost lose balance.

“I’m so sorry, Sir” you quickly apologized. He stared down at you from under his tall hat with pensive eyes and a stretched smile under his thick mustache. He was dressed in a two piece black suit, definitely too warm for the weather. “Where wolves prowl, ravens follow.” he said and gave you a last glance before continuing his path. What a strange man.

You shook your head and mounted your horse, hands steady despite the adrenaline flooding your veins.

Don’t run. Act normal. Keep calm.

As you rode down the street, the hot air seemed to thicken with tension. Your heart raced in your chest as you prayed he wouldn’t follow you. Willow’s hooves kicked up dust as she made her way toward the edge of town, your mind racing with possibilities trying to form an escape plan and get back safely to camp. If you could make it to the woods, you’d have a chance to disappear and take a shortcut to camp. He wouldn’t follow you there. Not without backup.

But as the last building passed you by on the outskirts of Blackwater, all your hopes vanished. A shout boomed in the air.

“Hey you! Stop right there!”

Your pulse spiked, and you kicked your horse into a gallop, dirt flying up behind you as the sound of hoofbeats thundered from behind. You didn’t need to look back to know what was happening. The hunter had been waiting for you.

Judging by the sounds of hooves on the dirt there were three, maybe four of them. Their shouts grew louder as they gave chase. You risked a glance over your shoulder, your heart pounding harder as your eyes spotted them—three middle aged men with rifles strapped across their backs and pistols in their hands, their eyes hungry with the promise of a reward.

One of them fired a shot, the crack of the gun slicing through the air. The bullet whizzed so close you could feel the heat of it landed on your side. You cursed under your breath and leaned low over your horse, urging it to go faster.

The woods weren’t far now, but the hunters were closing in, their shouts carrying over the wind like hyenas laughing at their prey.

They weren’t going to stop. Not until they had what they wanted, and that unfortunately was you.

The air seemed to shimmer with heat, dust kicking up in a haze covering the surrounding area as your horse rode across the dry, cracked earth. The world around you blurred, but your mind was sharp, every instinct screaming at you to ride faster, to outrun them. Your heart hammered in your chest, its pulse loud in your ears.

“Come on, lady,” you whispered to your horse, digging your heels into her sides as you urged the animal to go faster, gaining back a strained neigh from Willow. The woods were close now, the trees loomed ahead like a dark sanctuary, the thick branches of the trees casting long shadows over the dusty trail. If you could make it there, you could lose them. You could be free.

But the bounty hunters were relentless.

You looked back at them once more. A man with a scar running down his cheek, leveled his rifle and aimed. The sharp crack of his gunshot echoed in the air. You turned to look ahead of you, squeezing the reigns in your hand in anticipation, and then you felt it—a jolt beneath you as your horse staggered.

“No!” you screamed, your heart plummeting.

Willow let out a terrible, guttural cry, her body lurching forward as her legs buckled for a moment. Blood spurted from her side where the bullet had hit, staining her coat. But she regained control and kept running, her strong legs carrying forward, even as the wound drained the life from her with every step she took. You felt tears sting your eyes as you urged your horse onward, knowing the animal was running on sheer survival instinct alone.

“Ardennes are war horses, they might not run like Arabians but they’re strong,” Mister Anderson, your riding instructor once told you.

“Can you teach me how to ride one?” You were met with a bitter laugh, one you were far too accustomed to. He wasn’t laughing with you, but at you. You knew that it was near impossible for a thirteen years old girl to control such an animal but there was no harm in trying. You felt anger bubbling up in your body as you eyed your father’s Ardennes.

“Just a little more,” You whispered, your voice strained with desperation. “Just a little more then we’re safe.”

The woods closed in around you, the thick trees swallowing you whole as you crossed into the shade. The bounty hunters' shouts grew more distant, their voices muffled by the forest, but you knew they wouldn’t stop. Not yet. You could still hear them faintly, calling out your name, their taunts carrying through the trees like a ghostly echo.

“Come on out, girl! We’ll make it quick if you give up now!”

“You can’t run forever!” another voice shouted.

But you weren’t listening anymore. Your mind was solely focused on your horse, your only friend, who had carried you through so much, and who had never once let you down. The mare’s breathing was ragged now, each step slower, more labored than the last. Blood dripped hot from her side, staining the dry grass beneath you, second after second you could feel the horse’s strength fading.

The horse collapsed to her knees, unable to carry on. She let out a weak, broken cry as her legs gave out beneath her, sending you tumbling from your saddle into the dirt. You quickly scrambled to your feet, your breath catching in your throat as you rushed to her side.

“Willow! No, no!” you shouted, kneeling beside the mare, your hands trembling as you reached for the horse’s injury. Your hands stained with blood in mere seconds. The animal was breathing heavily, her eyes wide with pain and fear, her chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven breaths. Blood pooled around you both, thick and dark covering the woods’ floor.

You ran a hand over the horse’s coat, your fingers brushing through the mane as tears blurred your vision. “I’m sorry,” you choked out, your voice breaking. “I’m so sorry.”

Willow let out a soft, almost pitiful sound, her head resting heavily in the grass. The horse’s body shuddered, life slowly draining from her eyes, but even now, she was trying to stay strong. It was like she didn’t want to leave you. Like she didn’t want to fail you.

Everything stilled, it was as if you were trapped in a bubble. You didn’t know, or care, where the bounty hunters were, but they were still out there, combing the woods for you. You could hear their voices, faint and taunting, calling your name but none of that mattered in that moment. All you could see was your horse, your loyal friend, dying in your arms. Another life lost because of you.

You pressed your forehead against Willow’s, your tears falling onto her soft, velvety nose. The pain in your chest was overwhelming, a grief so deep it felt like it might burn you from the inside. This horse had been with you through everything—through your escape from the hell that was your home, through lonely nights when you had no one else. And now you were losing her. You were losing the one good thing you had left.

“I’m so sorry,” you whispered again, your voice shaking. It was the only thing you could think of. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

You pressed a trembling kiss to the mare’s forehead. A last goodbye. “You were brave, girl. You can rest now.”

The horse’s breathing slowed, and as if following your command her body shuddered one last time before she went still. You could feel the life leave her body.

For a long moment, you stayed there, your hands resting on the horse’s neck, caressing her, as if your actions would ease her soul. You wanted to scream, to rage against the world, but there was no time. You snapped back to reality as the voices of the bounty hunters were getting closer now.

You forced yourself to stand, wiping your tear-streaked face with the back of your hand. Your heart ached, but you couldn’t stay. Not if you wanted to survive. The bounty hunters would be here soon, and they’d show no mercy. You had to run.

With one last, heartbroken glance at your horse, you turned and sprinted deeper into the woods, your legs carrying as fast as they could. Your boots thudded against the soft earth, your breathing ragged and uneven as you darted between the trees, your mind racing.

The forest was dense. Branches whipped at your face as you ran, one in particular caught on your skirt, tearing the fabric to your knees. You fell, knees burning from the scratch. Your lungs burned with each breath, but you couldn’t stop. You had to keep going.

Then, through the trees, almost as an apparition you saw it—an old, crumbled wooden cabin, barely visible through the thick underbrush. The wood was weathered and covered in vines, the roof sagging in places, and one of the walls had partially collapsed, leaving a hole covered by some planks big enough to enter in the side of the building. It looked abandoned, forgotten by time. It wasn’t much, but it was something. A place to hide. A place to catch your breath.

Without hesitation, you sprinted toward the cabin, using all the energy left in your body. You could still hear the bounty hunters behind you.

The planks on the side creaked loudly as you pushed them to open the hole, the wood groaning under your weight. Inside, the air was thick with dust and the smell of mold, the floorboards creaking beneath your boots. Cobwebs covered almost every corner of the room, and broken furniture was scattered across the room, but it didn’t matter. You weren't looking for comfort—you were looking for survival.

You put the planks in place and crouched low behind an overturned table near the back of the cabin, your breath coming in shallow gasps as you tried to quiet your racing heart. Your hand rested on the grip of your dagger, your knuckles white. You knew it was nothing against their rifles but at least if they found you, you wouldn’t go down without a fight.

For now, all you could do was wait with your heart heavy with the loss of your horse and your mind focused on staying alive.

The footsteps of the hunters grew louder outside, their voices drawing nearer. You held your breath, your body tense as you listened, praying they wouldn’t find you here.

This cabin was your last chance.

Your pulse pounded in your ears, louder than the whispers of the men searching for you. Then, beneath the irregular sound of your own heartbeat, you felt something else—something sharp and burning.

Your hand drifted to your side, fingers pressing under your ribs. Warm, sticky blood coated your palm. Panic flared in your chest as you realized—one of those bullets they fired didn’t scrape you but had actually hit you. You hadn’t felt it before, the adrenaline masking the pain and pushing you forward. But now as the effect started to die down, pain took its place. A shot, not deep, but dangerous enough. You gritted your teeth, wiping the blood on your torn gown, willing yourself to stay conscious, to stay alert.

You needed to figure out what to do next—escape, hide, something. But then, the cold sensation of the barrel of a gun made contact with the back of your head. You closed your eyes for a second before turning to face your fate.

Fate took the form of a man, no older than twenty-six, lean but muscular, his long dark brown hair falling messily over his sharp features covered by a faint beard. His piercing gaze was cold, focused. You could sense he carried himself with the confidence of someone used to the dangerous weight of a gun in his hand. And there it was—pointed right at you. You looked up at him from your kneeled position, completely at his mercy.

From the shadows, next to the man, another figure stepped forward. The second man was much older, his weathered face marked by lines of age and experience. His silver hair combed back. His eyes, though, were sharp with curiosity as he took in your state. His eyes seemed to look into your soul and that terrified you more than the gun pointed at your head.

You could feel both their eyes on you—taking in the tear-streaked dirt on your cheeks, your disheveled hair, the blood staining your skirt tored from the knees down. But more than anything, their gazes linger on the dagger clenched tightly in your hand, its intricate hilt glinting in the dim light filtering from the cracks of the cabin. Your brother’s dagger.

“Don’t move,” the younger man said, his voice cold and steady, the barrel of his gun unwavering as he clicked its safety off.

Your breath hitched, and without thinking, you raised the dagger in your hand, pointing it toward him in a futile attempt at defense. Not really a wise choice since he had a gun pointed directly at your head, but you were cornered, wounded, and outnumbered. Most of all you were tired.

The older man—his voice smoother, almost soothing—spoke next. “Easy now, no need for more bloodshed.” He stepped closer to the younger man, placing a hand on his arm. “John, calm down.”

John. The name floated in the air as your grip tightened on the dagger, your eyes flicking between the two men. The tension was thick, your body tense, ready to lash out or flee, but the older man kept his gaze on you, caging any movement. His eyes calculating but not unkind.

Outside, you could hear the voice of the bounty hunters calling for you.

“Come on out now! It’ll be easier if you don’t make us drag you out!”

“Miss,” he says softly, eyeing your trembling hand, gripping the dagger like a lifeline. “You're hurt. And from the sound of it, those fellas outside ain't exactly your friends.”

John’s grip on his gun tightened, his eyes flicking toward the door before settling back on you looking you up and down. His gaze piercing. “We can’t trust her, Hosea,” he mutters under his breath. “She could be one of them.”

Hosea didn’t look away from you, though he rolled his eyes at the younger man's sentence. “Does she look like one of them to you?” he asks, his tone calm but with an edge of irritation. His eyes swept over you again, the blood, the tear-streaked face, the bleeding wound on your side. “She’s in no shape to be hunting anyone.”

You have no idea who these men were, but something about the older one’s voice was reassuring, like hot milk and honey on a cold night. But the younger one—John—you couldn’t say the same, his distrust was palpable. Your instinct told you to run, to hide, but the growing footsteps outside told you otherwise. You were trapped.

“You gonna fight off all those men out there with a knife?” Hosea asked, raising an eyebrow. “Or would you rather come with us?” At his proposition the younger man lowered his gun in disbelief, eyeing the older man with fury.

You swallowed hard, feeling the blood drip from your side, the sharp sting of your wound biting deeper making your thoughts hazy. You’ve always been alone, fending for yourself, trusting no one. But here, now it wasn’t a choice between trust or caution. It was life or death.

“I—” you started, but the sound of boots crunching outside the cabin silenced you.

You felt your heart almost beating out your chest. Run or fight? Die here cornered like an animal or continue to fight. Who were these two strangers, could you even trust these men? Why were they willing to help a wanted woman? Your mind struggled to come up with an explanation and under the exhaustion you gave in.

“I’ll come with you,” you muttered, lowering the dagger, your fingers numb from the tight grip you’d held onto it with.

John scoffed. “You sure about this, Hosea?”

Hosea nodded, a smile tugging at his lips. “Oh, I think she’ll be more use to us alive than dead.” He outstretched a hand towards you, helping you up on your feet. “Let’s go, before those boys outside kick the door down.”

Without another word, Hosea moved toward the side of the cabin, looking outside before gesturing for you to follow. John, still glaring at you, holstered his gun but kept one hand hovering near his hip, ready to draw at any sign of trouble from you.

You slipped out, moving quickly and quietly through the dense underbrush. Your side burning with every step, and the world seems to tilt dangerously, your vision blurring as you stumbled after them. The sounds of the bounty hunters behind you fade as you made your way deeper into the forest, but your legs started to grow weaker, your strength fading with every drop of blood you lost.

Hosea led the way, his steps sure and practiced, while John brought up the rear, gun ready in his hand and eyes darting around as if he expected an ambush at any moment. They moved fast, and you could barely keep up. Your head spun, your breathing labored as the last remains of adrenaline slowly ebbed away, leaving only the raw, gnawing pain storming in your body.

“I’m not your enemy,” you hissed through gritted teeth, as you felt John’s eyes studying you. The effort of speaking sent a sharp, stabbing pain through your side.

“But you sure as hell ain’t acting like a friend either.” He replied, his tone harsh. He took a step closer, his gun never leaving his hand. “And from where I’m standing, you’re more trouble to us than you’re worth.”

Your blood boiled at his words, and despite the dizziness creeping in around the edges of your vision, you lifted your chin, his height making you glare up at him “You don’t know a damn thing about me,” you spat, your voice shaking with the weight of your fury and exhaustion. “If I was trouble, you’d already be dead.”

John’s lips curl into a smirk, but there’s no warmth in it. “Is that so? You’re half-dead on your feet, bleeding all over the place, and you think you’re in any shape to make threats?”

“I can handle myself.”

“Yeah? Doesn’t look like it.”

The sound of Hosea’s voice urging you two to move along snapped you out of your staring contest with the man.

After some more walking you reached a small clearing, in the distance you could see two horses tethered to a tree, a large black morgan snorting impatiently and a silver turkoman with various pelts on his back. You stopped in front of the horses, the memory of Willow’s death fresh and painful making you still. John stopped at your side, his eyes narrowing as he looked at you.

“You’ll have to ride with me.” He urged, the words clipped. Your eyes locked with his gray ones briefly before looking back at his horse. Though for a moment you hesitated, you clumsily climbed on the saddle, the sharp pain in your side restricting your movements. He climbed behind you, his arms circling your waist to keep you from falling off. You heard a clicking noise behind your ear and the horse started to move. The world blurred as your vision wavered, your fingers gripping tightly on John’s forearm muscles as exhaustion threatened to consume you. You could hear Hosea saying something, his voice distant and far away.

“Hold on tight, or you’ll fall off.” John’s gruff voice cut through the haze.

You wanted to snap back at him, but you couldn’t respond. Your strength long gone. You pressed your back against John’s chest. The pain in your side too intense, the blood loss catching up to you. Your grip slackens on his arms making him let out a curse.

And then, darkness took over you.

───── •✧✧• ─────

Consciousness returned slowly, like the gentle light of the sun after the rain. You blinked against the light coming mostly likely from an oil lantern, your vision a hazy blur of shapes and colors. As you tried to focus, you became aware of three figures looming over you, their faces shifting in and out of clarity. Panic fluttered in your chest for a moment as you struggled to push yourself up, your body heavy, the pain in your side reminding you of what happened previously. The last thing you remembered was John’s arms tightening around you and his low voice saying something in your ear.

One of the figures stepped closer, the soft glow of the lamp in the other man’s hand illuminating his features. It was an older man with a ginger mustache and hollow eyes, a look of concern etched deep into the lines of his face. There’s something kind about the way he looked at you.

“Easy there, Miss,” he murmured. “You’re safe now. Just relax.”

The other two figures remained just beyond your sight, their silhouettes casting long shadows across the room. One came beside the ginger man, a tall woman with a stern face, her arched brow furrowed in concentration as she spoke to the man. “—got to make sure it doesn’t get infected,” the woman said, her voice crisp and commanding. “If we don’t stitch her upright, we could lose her.”

As you laid there, struggling to grasp the situation, a wave of warmth washed over you, followed by a sharp sting in your side. You flinched involuntarily, the sensation jolting through you like lightning. That’s when the man with the mustache spoke to the woman beside him “Give something to this poor soul!” he exclaimed, and the other two turned their attention toward you, eyes widening as they saw your pained expression

“Stay still,” the woman commanded, her hands deftly working as she threaded the needle through your skin. “You need to let us do our job, Miss.”

The sharpness of the needle pierced you again, and a low groan escaped your lips as you squeezed your eyes shut, fighting against the pain. “W-what are you doing?” you gasped, panic rising again as the burning sensation spread across your side. Who were these people?

“Just sewing you up,” the man replied, trying to sound comforting, but his eyes held a glint of urgency. “It’s going to hurt a bit. Just keep breathing.”

The third figure, the man with the lamp in hand, stepped back, circling around the woman to give her more light, allowing you a clearer view. His face was familiar—Hosea. You remembered him from the cabin, the kindness in his eyes when he had convinced you to trust him and follow him and John. He watched you intently, a mixture of worry and sympathy written on his face.

“Hang in there,” Hosea said softly, his voice grounding you as the woman continued her work. “You’re going to be alright.”

You felt a rush of warmth and comfort at the sound of his voice, the sensation short lived and quickly replaced by the sharp stab of the needle as it pierced your skin once more. You winced, tears springing to your eyes, and the woman frowned.

With each stitch, the burning intensified, the pain nearly overwhelming. Your screams were agonizing and you tried to thrash against the cot beneath you, but a strange sense of exhaustion settled over you. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you realized you needed to focus on something, anything else. You thought of your brother—his laughter, the way he always made you feel safe, the last memory you had of him giving you that dagger, his last gift of love and protection.

“Don’t close your eyes, stay with us,” Hosea urged, as if sensing your thoughts drifting. The woman pressed a bottle into your hand. “Here, drink this. It’ll help with the pain,” she instructed. You blindly gulped down the liquid realizing after a few seconds that it was whiskey. The liquid sharp and burning as it travelled down your throat, making you cough slightly. Soon you felt its effects dulling your senses, a warm haze began to envelop you. “I can’t—” you started, but another wave of pain crashed over you, and you could feel your eyes fluttering, the world around you dimming again.

“Stay awake,” Hosea said, his voice soothing and steady. “You’re safe. Just breathe.”

You tried to focus on his words, tried to keep your eyes open, but sleep spread through you. The voices around you faded, the edges of your vision darkened, but not before you caught a glimpse of one last figure—the younger man, John—stood in the corner of the room, his expression unreadable.

He looked different now, less like a threat and more like someone who understood your pain. But as you slipped back into the void, your last thoughts were of your brother, his smile and the warmth of his embrace.

And then, with a final flicker of awareness, you drowned into the darkness, your mind drifting away on a sea of memories.

———————————————

taglist: @laylasredemption @starlightt180 @photo1030 @oceanwaves1998

[bluelolblue]

Santino D'Antonio screenshots with my silly comments PART 4

This is the final one, don't mind me being a simp😋

Did I analyze this twink for the 100th time? Yes. Will I do it again? One day probably bc I'm so happy to share my interests :D

Anyway, enjoy the last part <3

When he realized he might never see Ares again...

But still believed in her

"Ow my ear and face hurt 😣"

"I hope no one notices this, gotta stay calm." - Santino in his mind

Look at him struggling to remain calm, seeking out safety in The Continental

Cat in distress 😞

"I want his membership revoked. NOW. 😠"

That was so bratty of him 😋

And Winston was NOT having it

Bro came here and was like "Then you know that I have the right to demand..."

BOI YOU AIN'T HAVING SHIT TO DEMAND 💀

When Winston doesn't want to listen to you and suggests you to get dinner 🙄

The way he glanced Winston like:

"Eh whatever you old fuck."

When you're actually fucking supposed to be safe in The Continental hotel BUT you decided to taunt your crush even more (your crush is mf John Wick)

Moments before a big disaster

"Yeah Johnathan...walk away-"

Even in his final moments...he remained looking handsome 🤧

He died with a style...😞

What's even more fucked up he probably didn't even register the bullet, it happened too fast

If only he kept his pretty mouth shut...he would've survived

But NO he had to be a bitchy asshole and mock John even more 😭

Ugh Santino you beautiful bastard YOU COULD'VE HAVE IT ALL IF YOU JUST KEPT YOUR MOUTH SHUT AAAHHH

So that's all on this random posts :)

No one asked for this but I just felt the need to post about him, I hope it was entertaining enough (I had fun taking all of the screenshots and just writing down anything that came to my mind)

About this beautiful bastard

Rip Santino D'Antonio you absolutely beautiful asshole ❤️🤧

[ghostandsoap]

Sitting Pretty

Captain John Price x Fem! Reader Tags: Smut. Cockwarming. Price is being mean. Word Count: 1.0k "You're doing just fine, my love."

"John, please." Your lip had the slightest quiver to it when you spoke.

A cheeky, proud grin spread on the man's face, his eyes closed both from exhaustion and satisfaction.

"Don't whine, princess. You're alright." John's thumbs rubbed in sweet, soft circles over your waist that was in his hands.

You huffed at his response, which earned a small laugh from him.

The mattress of his bed felt indescribably amazing to his tired bones and muscles. John had expressed to you that he was worn out, which wasn't surprising given the stress of the mission that he had just returned home from earlier in the day.

It was difficult for John to wind down and take a load off after such a hard job. The pressure and trauma of his job wasn't something that he could just turn off whenever he wanted to.

He needed to ease himself into feeling relaxed...comfortable and safe even. When he suggested this as his means of un-stressing himself before bed, you were all over it.

But it was proving to be a bit harder than you originally bargained for.

His cock was buried deep inside you. His tip was pressing against a bundle of nerves far within you, which was intoxicating yet frustrating when he was restraining you from moving at all.

However, that didn't stop you from trying.

His eyes opened briefly at the feeling of you trying to rise and sink back down onto him, his eyes rolling into his head before his eyelids closed again.

You were soaked, the insides of your thighs and John's lap and lower stomach proved that. His cock was sopping from where it rested inside of you, twitching every once in awhile from the stimulation.

The sight of you falling to pieces and desperate for him was almost enough for him to give in from this little charade of his. Seeing you breathing heavy and practically shaking with anticipation was almost enough to make him feel bad.

Almost.

"Mmh. Quit moving so much," His hands gripped your hips tighter to keep you seated on his lap. "Sit still."

"John, please," You begged again. "I want you to fuck me."

Your right hand felt heavy on your thigh where it rested and laid flat. Your left hand was gripping the hem of John's t-shirt that you were dressed in, just barely covering your naked lower half.

"I thought you liked feeling me like this?" He teased.

His tone was in a mocking way. He wanted you to beg for it.

"I do, I promise, but..." You whimpered when he shifted his hips underneath you, causing your voice to crack when you spoke next. "I don't know what you want me to do."

A low chuckle rumbled out of his chest. Not an ounce of sympathy in his voice or on his expression.

"I just want you to keep looking pretty while sitting on my cock," He purred. "You're doing just fine, my love."

You never ached for him this bad before. When he was gone and off saving the world, there were certainly times where you were beside yourself with physically craving him and emotionally pining for him.

But this was so much worse because he was actually here and could take care of you.

John would've loved nothing more than to hold you steady and upright while you bounced on his cock and made a mess of yourself, but he was getting too much enjoyment out of making you squirm.

"Look at you..." He hummed, opening his eyes just long enough to get a good look at you. "So so beautiful sitting up on my lap."

He didn't get a reply from you, and when he felt all of your muscles relax and your body go limp, his eyes snapped open. He noticed you weren't fighting it anymore, eyes blurred with tears and filled with hurt.

"Oh, oh darling..." He sighed sympathetically, his hands moving to rest on the tops of your thighs. "You need my cock that bad?"

You nodded desperately, a pitiful sniff sounding from your chest.

John knew he had pushed you too far. No amount of fun in the bedroom was worth making you genuinely distressed and upset. He couldn't stand to see you cry, and that was the number one way to make his tough guy appearance dissolve.

John maneuvered to sit up against the headboard, his cock hitting you at an even better angle.

"Hey, hey..." He cooed, bringing his lips to your forehead to press a kiss there. "I'm sorry. Please don't cry, my love."

He watched your expression as he lifted you off of his cock just enough before sinking you back down, his hips rolling up to thrust into you. You visibly shuddered, a whimpered plea for more sounding from you.

"How's that feel?" He said through a groan. "That feel good?"

His breathing was getting quicker, and his movements to fuck into you were getting involuntary. He chuckled when you nodded, wiping at the last of your tears.

"Alright, baby. I'm gonna let you have your way with me," He pressed a sloppy kiss to your mouth when you began to rock back and forth against his cock. "Fuck."

His grin was blinding, his hands holding your body as close to his as humanly possible because he did not want you to stop. He probably would've deserved it if you did stop, but you were too good to him to do that.

"You're going to be the death of me." He groaned, his mouth falling open at the feeling of his cock pounding into you.

For a moment he wondered why he would ever deprive himself of this, even if it was entertaining to watch you fall apart for him. Your arousal further drenched his lap and the tops of his thighs, the sound of you slamming onto him making his head go fuzzy.

You couldn't help but give a soft laugh that turned into a breathy moan when he buried his face in your breasts, kissing and biting at whatever he could get his mouth around.

This was a much better stress reliever for both of you, and you knew you could have it any time that you asked.

And that was something worth taking advantage of.

"That makes two of us."

[alphajocklover]

just wanted to say that Uncle story you made was really good... Any chance for a part 2?

Hey everyone. I wanted to thank you all for your kind words concerning my Uncle John. After I shared what had happened to him and how I got into TF reporting, I got a lot of supportive messages (along with the regular ones that seem to think this is some sort of… kink blog? What even is that?). Because of how kind you’ve been, I thought I should update you on how everything is going. I’m sorry to say there isn’t much to update you on though. I have a good idea as to who transformed my uncle, which I’ll probably expand upon in another post (I keep saying that, I know, but I will), but what I don’t know is where he is. I haven’t got a clue where he is at the moment, but luckily I’m not the only one searching for him.

The Douchebag Revolution has been keeping an eye out for him for one. Since I help them out sometimes they’ve been helping me. They can be surprisingly nice at times, and they’re pretty sympathetic to people who have been transformed against their will, since they all were at some point. They also seem to have somehow gotten the idea that Uncle John was straight before he got transformed, but since that seems to motivate them more I haven’t corrected them.

I have members of other groups I’ve mentioned helping me too. I won’t name names, since they could get fired (or transformed), but I do have some connections at EB Jewelry, despite the company's anti-journalist policy. They’re the reason I was actually able to get some information on the company in the first place, and they’ve been using some of their connections within the company to help look for my Uncle. They haven’t found much yet, though it's because of them I can safely say that EB Jewelry isn’t involved in what happened.

Then of course there are the other TF Reporters who help, a few personal friends of my Uncle, and… Nick. My Uncles literally devilish friend, Nick. Honestly, he’s been looking harder than anyone, and I think I know why. I’ve always referred to Nick as my Uncle’s devil friend, and that's how he introduced himself to me, but… from what I’ve noticed, they were actually closer than that. It was the little things that gave it away. The look in Nick's eyes when he talks about my uncle, both fond and painful, the way he seems more desperate to find him than I do, how protective he’s been of me since my Uncle disappeared. I think he and my Uncle John were seriously involved, for quite a long time.

It’s kind of weird to realize your Uncle is, or at least was, in a long term relationship with a devil, but no matter the reason, I’m glad he's here. I don’t know If I could do all this without Nick's help. He’s half the reason I haven't been turned into a dumb hunk myself. I do worry sometimes that this is starting to get to him. Whoever transformed Uncle John has been sending… pictures, recently. He’s always transformed in a different way and with a different look, but I can just tell it’s him. They’re showing him off like some sort of trophy, using him to mock us. Nick never says anything but it’s killing him seeing my Uncle that way, I can tell.

This whole thing is my fault. I was the reason my Uncle got changed. I have to get him back. I know whoever took him is reading this post. I know you’re powerful, powerful enough that time travel, demons and capitalist don’t want to fight you. But I’m not afraid of you. I know who you are, and I’m giving you a fair warning: I’m coming for you, and I’m getting him back. No matter what.

**I’ve been meaning to do a sequel to the ‘My Uncle’ story for a while. I love big lore stories. I need to introduce the big bad soon, but there so much other stuff to write too so it might still be a bit. Hope you love this story and hope you guys can wait!**

[thewhumpcaretaker]

HENLLOO ✨️💖

I have this idea for some time, and it's something I wanna write one day, BUT I think you'd really like this idea bc it's hurt/comfort and Santino at the beach! I'm curious about your thoughts or if it's inspiring yk 👀

Santino having a wound, that's not fully healed, or not healed at all and he wants to go to the sea to feel that salt kinda "bite" his wound, he wants to feel that pain because he thinks he deserves it or whatever other reason.

John tried to talk him out of it just because he knew it would hurt, but then again, sea water could help the wound heal faster. So, John insists for Santino's own safety that he goes with him. And eventually Santino agrees. Of course it hurt and burned, it's salt on the wound and Santino maybe thought it would be easier but it hurt a lot.

Santino wants to make himself suffer even more 😞

AAAAAAAA this one cut DEEP for me!! Your asks are so good lately (well, always, but especially this one). It's so dark but honestly this is a topic that I love to write about and I think it says a lot about Santino and what he's going through. What a brutal scenario, Santino is really suffering. But John is there to make sure he's safe and build up his self-esteem, as always.

Also, as a note: the ocean is not recommended as a source of salt water to put on a wound even if it does help sometimes, because there's bacteria in the ocean! So don't try this at home.

🖤💙Salt in the Wound💙🖤

TW: self harm via salt water, attempted self harm via breaking and punching things, blaming himself for abuse, concerns over potential suicidal behavior (there is none actually attempted), Dead Dove Do Not Eat

“LEAVE ME ALONE!”

“I am not leaving you alone like this!”

The bedroom was wrecked in every way that wouldn’t be permanent. Pillows and blankets thrown around the room, the desk overturned, even the curtains torn down. John had stepped in to stop Santino from tearing up his own poetry, but he’d let him flip the chair and splinter its legs against the floor. And why was all of this happening? Because Santino had been punished by a High Table emissary. The Adjudicator and company had approached them in the middle of the Continental lobby, informed Santino that he had broken some inscrutable rule John didn’t even know about, and then slashed him across the gut in front of the whole room of people.

After the wound was patched up he had just sort of…gone quiet. It was obvious he blamed himself. He brooded all the rest of the day, until finally John pressed him about what was wrong and he exploded.

“Fuck off, John! Get your hands off of me!” He had Santino’s arms pinned behind his back so he wouldn’t punch the walls. Reluctantly, he let go, and just as he’d expected, Santino lunged towards the wall. John was too fast and put himself in front of Santino’s fist before he could make contact. Santino stopped short, flushing even harder at the frustration of having to restrain himself in that state.

“Get out of my way.”

“No.”

Santino stared at him for a long moment, his jaw set hatefully. Then he turned to walk out.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Through clenched teeth, “The beach.”

Their home was only a short walk from the ocean, and in this mood, Santino could make it there in five minutes. Horrifying scenarios flashed through John’s mind, of Santino walking out into the ocean and never coming back. His heart did a sickening sort of drop. “Why?”

Santino whirled back to him with his chin in the air, the picture of passive aggression and mock innocence. “Salt water is good for healing wounds. You want me to take care of myself so badly? Fine. Maybe I want to go for a swim.”

“That will burn like hell.”

“GOOD. But it’s healthy, so you can’t stop me.”

John practically growled in frustration. He couldn’t argue with that. He just grabbed his coat. “I’m coming with you.”

“You’re not invited.”

“I don’t care. I’m going to make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”

Santino’s scowl softened for a fraction of a second, replaced by something miserable and touched. But then he just growled back, grabbed his swim trunks, and marched out the door without another word.

They were silent on the walk to the beach, with the sun sinking down against the waves in reds and oranges as fiery as Santino’s expression. John began to hope that he’d cool down by the time they got there, but he had no such luck. Santino stripped down immediately and threw his clothes in John’s face. He would have laughed at the pettiness of it if he didn’t know how much pain was raging inside of Santino right now. So he just caught them and folded them neatly over his arm so they wouldn’t get covered with sand. Then he crossed his arms and watched from the edge of the water.

With his shirt off, and then his dressing thrown to the ground as well, John could see the red blooming across the slash on Santino’s side. The wound wasn’t deep at all, but it looked awful. It was long – an arc from the top of his ribcage on the right side to below the navel on the left. And it was still bleeding.

Santino took a first step into the water and already flinched. The evening wind was picking up and it was ice cold. “Maybe you should do this tomorrow,” John suggested. “Like noon? When it’s warmer?”

The very idea of sparing himself any pain seemed to just make Santino even more furious. He only turned back long enough to glare at John and then suddenly dashed forward, until the waves were up to his stomach.

Based on the sound he made, it couldn’t have felt good. It was a kind of yelping scream that he bit off with a long stream of swearing in Italian. John frowned hard. He knew what that felt like – he’d been in the ocean after a job before, by necessity, and it stung something awful. But all he could do was watch helplessly. At least Santino was standing still now, and seemed to be reconsidering. He even took a few steps back until the cut was mostly above the water line again.

But irritation with his own weakness seemed to give him a second wind. He plunged back in, up to his chest this time, and screamed again. This time, John couldn’t tell if it was pain or frustration or self-hatred, because it gave out into sobbing. He was crying so badly that John was worried he was going to double over into the waves. “That’s enough. I’m coming out.” He kicked off his shoes and trousers, set down their things, and waded into the frigid water.

He wasn’t sure if Santino heard him or not, because he didn’t move at all until John’s arms were around him.

“Come on, love. Let’s go back to shore, yeah?”

“No. I-I deserve this.” Santino didn’t hug him back. He just stood there shivering terribly.

“Why?”

“Because I fucked up! They had to punish me. And I’m so angry, John. I’m so angry, and there’s nothing I can do. I can’t even be angry at them. I just have to play nice because I’m powerless and it’s all my fault.”

“No you don’t. You’re allowed to hate them. You don’t have to hate yourself.” He realized they weren’t just talking about The Adjudicator, but about everyone who had hurt Santino. Especially those who he didn’t couldn’t bring himself to hate. His own father. The water swirling around their bodies was deathly cold and John felt himself starting to shake too, but he ignored it and held Santino as close as he could.

For a second, Santino cried harder against him, but it seemed to bring some kind of cathartic release. Finally, he went calm and hugged John back. He seemed drained. “Okay. This hurts too fucking much anyway. Cazzo, I didn’t expect it to be this bad.” His heart was still racing against John’s chest, probably from sheer pain.

“Yeah…I’m not surprised. Let’s go get the salt out, I brought stuff to take care of it so it doesn't hurt as much on the walk home.”

So Santino allowed himself to be led back to shore. John wrapped him in a towel and poured a fresh water bottle over the cut to rinse it. That stung too, and he was already back to whining about the pain, but John didn’t mind. As long as Santino didn’t want to make himself suffer. He kissed him hard. “You didn’t deserve that.”

He melted into the kiss and stayed curled up against his lover, trying to regain some body heat, but he couldn’t bring himself to reply.

“You didn’t, Santino. They did this to you because they’re on a power trip. Because the whole organization runs by making people feel trapped and small, and it pisses me off.”

His answer was slow and very quiet. “Honestly…I don’t want that to be true. If that’s true, then I have to do something about it.”

“Yeah.” John wove his fingers through Santino’s curls and studied his face. He was so precious, so fierce, so full of life. A world in which a person like Santino could be hurt over and over again until he wanted to hurt himself too wasn’t one that John could stand for. “We have to do something about it.”

[writeforfandoms]

Waking Lions 22

Find the series masterlist

Here we are folks! Three more chapters after this. I will be posting one chapter a week until this is done.

Hopefully that's enough incentive to keep y'all from mobbing me. Hee hee.

Warnings: Canon typical violence, stressful situations, threats of violence, deceitful practices and language, swearing, injury.

Word count: 1.3k

John parked in front of the building, which looked as nondescript as ever. But it felt like it had been much longer since you’d last been here, longer than the hours that had actually passed.

Less than a day. Less than one full day you’d been gone, and your world had tipped sharply. 

Thinking about it made you nauseous, so you shunted the thought aside. Kate. You were here for Kate. Everything else would wait. 

“Stay behind us,” John insisted, handing you the gun again. He held your gaze, waiting until you nodded to release the gun to you. 

You followed the two of them up the stairs, for once itching not to run away from something, but towards it. You needed to make sure Kate was okay, get her away from Gray and home safely to her wife.

Anything else, you could handle. But not losing Kate. 

John slowed as the three of you approached the top floor. He shot you one single look, a very clear reminder to stay behind him. 

You didn't need reminding. You had no intention of acquiring more bullet holes any time soon. 

John and Roach went first, pushing open the door to the top floor and sweeping the space. You moved a little more slowly after them, swallowing hard. 

Find Kate and leave. That's all you cared about. 

The door to the conference room shattered with a gunshot from inside. John and Roach both moved, and you ended up being pushed into the wall by Roach. The second shot hit the wall harmlessly. 

The fire alarm went off, likely pulled by someone on a lower floor. You grimaced at the loud siren, the extra noise doing nothing to help the situation. But Roach just motioned you to stay put. 

What remained of the door opened with a crash. The mercenary had barely stepped out of the room before John shot him, the body falling in front of the door. 

“I see you are still alive,” Gray called through the open door. “A pity my men did not do their job.” 

“And they still won't.” John kept his fury leashed, voice cold. “Give up now and I might let you live.” 

Gray laughed, sending goosebumps up your spine. “Such bravado! I am not surprised. But you see, you are outnumbered. I have something you want, whereas you… have nothing.” 

Roach pushed you back harder into the wall, which was good because you had just opened your mouth to protest. Instead you made a tiny wheezing noise as half the air in your lungs was forced out by the soldier in front of you. 

Fucking rude. 

“That so?” John remained calm, staying out of sight of the open door. 

“Price,” Kate said from inside the room. 

You clenched your hands as tight as you could around the gun. Fuck. She sounded okay, but… 

“Laswell.” John, somehow, was still not audibly responding. 

“You see? Something you want.” Gray sounded far too smug. 

John was silent for a few long moments, shifting his position just enough to be able to look at you and Roach. He lifted one finger to his lips, holding your gaze, and waited until you nodded to look away. 

“I do have something you want,” John pointed out, calm but cold. He had a plan, clearly. 

At least, you hoped he had a plan. If he didn't, he was faking it very well. 

“You?” Gray laughed. “What could you have that I want?” Derision dripped from every word, his amusement clearly mocking. 

John didn't seem to care. “Ace. And a way out of this building alive.” 

“You think I won't kill you too?” Gray hissed, the still-screeching fire alarm only making him sound more unhinged. 

“You're welcome to try,” John ground out, voice lowering to an absolutely threatening growl. 

Silence from the meeting room for several long moments. If you had to guess, Gray was debating his options. Debating the best way forward to get what he wanted. 

You fidgeted behind Roach, swallowing back nerves as best you could. It was not in your nature to stand by and listen to people haggling over your life. 

Roach reached back and tapped you twice on the side. You weren't sure if that was supposed to be reassurance or a reminder to stay quiet. Either way, you drew in a deep breath. 

“What is it you're proposing?” Gray asked finally. 

John was quiet for a moment, and you could see his gaze flick to you. “An exchange,” he finally offered. 

If you trusted him any less, you would have been outraged. As it was, Roach's tap to your side was unnecessary. You weren't going to jeopardize John. 

“Intriguing,” Gray said, curious. “I do appreciate a man who can weigh the worth of two lives and choose one.” 

Your jaw clenched tight at that, a memory slamming into you, of Gray standing before you father. Something about the weight of lives… But it was gone again, shoved back deep where you'd buried it. You needed to focus. Not fall apart. 

“Then come out,” John goaded. “Get this over with before more people get involved.” 

As if to emphasize his words, the fire alarm screeched once more and went quiet. The sudden silence was almost worse than the constant noise. Almost. 

The silence stretched. Five seconds. Ten. Too long, much too long. Gray was planning something, he always was, John had to know–

Gunshots broke the silence, and Roach pushed you harder back into cover, obstructing your view as he did. But you could hear the gunfire continue, then a masculine shout. Two more shots, a little different sounding than the earlier ones. The sounds of a struggle - grunts and thuds. 

Then three more shots, so close together you almost couldn't hear the difference. 

“Do not shoot,” Kate barked.

You perked up, straining to try to see around Roach. He didn't move, keeping you covered for now. 

There was a brief choking noise, spluttering, another thud. The steady beat of boots against the floor. 

“Need help?” John asked, further away now. Glass crunched under boots. 

“Move,” you hissed at Roach. “Let me see–” You pushed past him with a little bit of a struggle, half-running past the bodies on the floor without a second glance at them. 

There were exactly two people you cared to see right now. The bodies weren't either of them. 

You skidded to a halt outside the shattered glass door, peering into the room. Two more bodies on the floor, blood slowly seeping into the thin carpet. John, standing over Kate and Gray, where Kate had Gray pinned face-down in what looked like a truly agonizing hold. 

Blood smeared from Kate's temple into her mussed hair and down her cheek. 

The floor next to Gray's head caved in under the bullet, bits of carpeting flying away from the impact. Gray shouted something indistinguishable, thrashing a little under Kate. 

“Ace,” John soothed, turning to face you. “We've got him. Give me the gun.” 

You didn't give him the gun, gaze trained on Gray. On the man who'd haunted your nightmares for years. 

“Ace,” John repeated. “Give me the gun.” One hand stretched out slowly towards you, careful not to spook you. 

He needn't have worried. You would never shoot him. 

Kate said your birth name softly, and your gaze snapped to her instead. She watched you, holding Gray down with little effort. The pain he was in likely helped with that. “I've got him,” she told you, steady and calm. “Steady.”

You blinked once, looking back down to Gray. He was no longer moving, breathing hard against the carpet. You hadn't seen him last time, when Kate had captured him that first time. You didn't know if this was quite the same. 

But you did know that this time, you weren't a scared little girl. 

“I'm sorry, Kate,” you said sincerely. “But you had him last time, too.” 

You pulled the trigger.

[here-but-forgotten]

my collection of rambles : C.o.D. (I)

some of these I’ve sent to other tumblr blogs askboxes, such as @lucyisdoingfine and @southernbluebellereader under my main account ( @vangoghcoffeeco ) or as a ☕️ anon. so you might have seen those before, but they’re all me :)

notes, warnings and such:

some poly [gaz-price, 141, alej-rudy] - explicit - some fluff - fem reader - a lot of alejandro i love him - domestic thoughts

this is just my notes app series but for COD

characters: alejandro, rodolfo, john price, gaz, ghost, soap. 

Alejandro coming home, pulling you into the bedroom with him and just basking in each other’s presence quietly. Alej silently pulling off your clothes until you’re comfortable as he does the same. Laying down together in bed, bodies pressed together and faces only inches apart. His deep breaths silently signaling the stress of the day that was slowly lightening. His hands gently cradling your face with soft thumb strokes as he lazily kisses you to his content.

He ^ will 100% try to weasel out of minor begrudges with sweet talking and Spanish pet names.

Alejandro sitting with you after dinner, watching tv while his hand runs up your legs, his hands trailing up your skirt while his touch is sure but gentle.

Alejandro sitting with you after dinner, watching tv while his hand runs up your legs, his hands trailing up your skirt while his touch is sure but gentle.

✨ alejandro growls when he cums ✨

On that note, he ^ is rather vocal and doesn’t typically try to stifle it. Will be purposefully louder if gagged. Anywhere from low groans and moans, whimpers, to full on growling. Noisy mf.

Alejandro, Price, and Gaz have the capability to be a mean dom every once in a while. Manhandling, mocking, spitting.

Rudy grappling with unresolved emotions towards Alej while being with you; wanting the two of you while worrying over the complexity it would add. Discussing it with you to be on the same page, the addition of Alejandro being welcome if he wanted that. Gaining a blind moment of stupidity or confidence to Fuck you in Alejandro’s office, taking photos and frustratingly short clips of your body on the desk. Rudy leaving a cryptic note in a bad post orgasm mind fog on the desk. Alejandro acting on it and getting a wonderful shot of you sprawled out on his desk with his best friend fucking you on it.

Painal 👏🏻 rudy. He knows how to do it safely and loves if it’s both you and Alejandro doing it to him. Especially if it’s just around the house when all three of you are actually home, Alej grabbing his throat lightly to tease his hole just to leave him to do something else & you teasing his cock. Sometimes it’s your strap, sometimes it’s alejandro; Rudy’s favorite though is when he’s on his back, hips off of the side of the bed as Alej forces himself inside, with you resting pretty on his cock- just using him as a stress reliever and ignoring him as long as you two feel like it. Alejandro is really more likely to do it when he’s ungodly stressed out and knows Rodolfo’s body can handle more roughness than you. If you do it, it’s so much more overwhelming- what dildo did you pick, how long are you doing to fuck him without mercy. Rudy used to do it with dildos to himself before the three of you did together. Alejandro caught him once after he heard him groaning and it awoke something in him. Rudy didn’t realize for a moment that this happened and that only made it worse for Alej.

I wanna eat an ice cream cone in front of Ghost :)

Being with Gaz while both of you are Price’s playthings 😌 Gaz fucking you outside of Price’s office as he tries to work, the two of you being just loud enough to be bothersome while price is forced to ignore the bulge in his pants.

Gaz absent minded and lost in his thoughts while just. nibbling on your shoulder.

(a broad horny thought that could apply to anyone) him coming home and finding out you bought one of those strong wand vibrators. Holding you down and torturing you with it till you half black out

being free use for the 141 🥴 anyone fucking you whenever they want. Being a little stress relief toy while providing some domesticity. Getting bred into nothing just for another one of them to pull you aside.

A bit more on that: Price anal and throat training you so you can take anyone anywhere; slowing allowing the others to use you as they please while you still feel great from it. Starting with dildos and buttplugs till you can handle him. Inviting Ghost to watch and stroke himself. Allowing Ghost to gradually join in with you and Price till they’re both stuffing your holes. Price encouraging Ghost to go hard so you’ll get used to it. Soap and Gaz being introduced until you’re just a good little stress you for them. Of course there’s rules; there’s safe words and hard no’s. Whoever used you has to clean you up and take care of you. You have every right to stop it if you’d like.

thank you for reading! if you want to use any of these as a prompt for a story or such, feel free, just tag me!! i wanna see it! make sure to get some sun and drink some water today.

[ladyelissarose]

‘A Mother’s Revenge’

Chapter 3- ‘Can I Trust You?’

Warnings: mentions of warfare stuff, it’s COD stuff, this chapter mainly focuses on them getting to know and trust her, as her with them… but pay attention to details ;)

I sat inside what sounded like a large SUV or truck, the motor/engine was pretty loud. My hands were tied in front of me and I had a blindfold over my face, or to be more exact, it was a black balaclava, but it was put on me backwards so I wouldn’t see anyone or anything. I felt two people sit next to me on both sides, their arms felt large compared to mine, as we were squeezed up next to each other. I knew they were men, only because they breathe loud and smelled like men, hardworking men that pay for food with the sweat of their brow. I knew that for sure the Captain, John Price, sat in front of me, for he said he would in case I needed anything. (So far he was the only person I’ve met, that has been gentle, he was still serious, and quiet, but gentle.)  The road was very bumpy at first, loud too as we tried to find a way out of the safe house hidden in the forest, but now it feels like we are on an actual road, things felt smooth, and I could hear my surroundings more clearly without all the noise of the outside. I stiffened when I heard a low voice speak, finally breaking the silence,

 “Cap’, are we almost there yet?”

I thought for a second after hearing that voice, it sounded familiar,

 ‘Hey… I’ve heard that voice before… was it on the bus when I heard it?’

I voiced my thoughts out loud after clearing my throat,

 “I’ve heard you before..”

Soap’s POV

‘Fuck me! There’s no way in hell that this lass remembers my voice?? It was like… two to three words that I said??!’

I turned to look at Price, wondering if I should respond to her, he nodded his head once, and sat back, waiting for me to do the talking. I held silence for a bit, it wasn’t that I was shy, I just didn’t know what to say. But my good ol’ boy Ghost, Simon the fuckin’ Ghost Riley, spoke up for me, loud and clear, making his ‘heavenly’ and ‘gracious’ presence known in his deep, British accent,

 “You met him on the bus earlier… before you got down.”

Ghost sat on the right, next to her, I saw her clasp her hands together nervously, and nod slowly, it looked like she was collecting her thoughts and words. For it only took a minute for her to reply, in a calm, voice.

 “He’s wearing a Mohawk right? And black combat boots with grey laces?”

Alejandro stifled a laugh as he silently mocked my hairstyle and choice of shoes (as per usual). I looked at Ghost hoping he’d do something about that, but I didn’t find his eyes looking at mine, I found them already glaring at Alejandro and Rudy, who were talking amongst themselves. I smiled proudly knowing I didn’t have to worry about them when Ghost was around, but this time I did simply reply to Melione, 

 “Yes, I am. You have great memory.”

I heard her scoff lowly, 

 “I have to.”

 And from the rest of the ride on, that’s was all she had said, but though her talk was short, it still amazed me how much she remembered in such a little time. I could only imagine that she was probably military before or worked for a great agency, her talent and background was really good, and I had seen her too, while watching her on camera back at her place, that she could perhaps kill quite a few at once, she had the drive, and the motive that we are yet to figure out. 

 Ghost’s POV

Once we arrived, I was given specific orders from Price before we got down,

 “Lieutenant, take her to the basement, and leave her there, then come back up to see me, I need to talk to all you boys. Let’s go.”

 Commander Philip Graves and Sergeant Major Rodolfo ‘Rudy’ Parra, opened the two doors of the back of our truck and got out first, they looked around the area for a quick second then told us it was clear to go on. Immediately we all grabbed our things to move out in sync. Soap hopped out before Melione, and being the gentleman I never knew he was, he worded what he was going to do first, then took Melione’s waist carefully, and carried her off and made sure her feet were flat on the ground before he let her go. He then looked at me with a pleased look and I simply rolled my eyes and muttered to him,

 “Show off.”

I watched Soap’s face defaulter with a frown and I winked at him. 

 ‘Sensitive Scot.’

I then grasped Melione’s arm and started to walk her towards the little room we were about to walk in, well, it actually looked like a tiny shed, but behind those doors was a flight of stairs, going down. Price spoke through his radio and let the other soldiers know that they could let us in. Soon we were granted entrance and headed onward, I pulled Melione close to me as I informed her while at the edge of the first step,

 “We’re going down a flight of stairs, so don’t pull away and go slow.”

 She nodded and let out a small response,

 “Ok.”

The stairs went down about 40 feet. But it only took a few minutes for all of us to reach the ground. I recognized our personal safe house once we actually arrived. It was full of tactical gear and soldiers around us as usual, the same old shitty light that was above us, and the large wooden table that stood in the middle of the room, (that was where we usually had our ‘meetings’ or combat planning done) To my left was a door, that also had a flight of stairs behind it, which led to the ‘basement’. It was simply an empty room, maybe a ‘10 by 10’ size, with only a single lightbulb hanging on the ceiling. We usually held our captives there, to interrogate them and such. But before I began making my way there, Price pulled me away and whispered in my ear,

 “Take off her blindfold once she’s inside, But don’t undo her ties.”

To let him know I understood, I locked my eyes on him and shook my head, then I proceeded. Melione seemed nonthreatening for now, she was attentive though to instructions and obeyed them all, even if they were small orders. I warned her once more about the stairs and she replied the same, and we made our way down quickly but safely. I unlocked the door and guided her in, as she faced away from me I took the top of the balaclava she wore and yanked it off. In seconds she turned to face me to see who I was. And if I had to describe how I saw her expression change in seconds, I’d say it looked like if her breath had escaped her lungs, and her skin had lost its shade of color. Her eyes widened a bit, and she took a step back.

Your POV

‘Your eyes… they’re so empty? Why are you scaring me though? What about you is scaring me- shiiit… his eyes look like the ones that killed my family… cold and heartless.’

 The more I looked into his eyes the more I saw it, how dark they really were, how dark his soul probably was. I couldn’t see anything of him but his eyes, but it was enough for me to take into count, who he was, a cold-hearted killer. It was like if I could feel his intimidating soul lurking around me, trying to find a way inside me. Never in my life, had I seen someone so scary, but so intriguing at the same time, hence why my eyes, hadn’t left him yet. There was something about them that felt so familiar to me, but right now, the memory or realization didn’t click. I snapped out of it when he then sighed,

 “Stay here until someone gets you.”

And with that he turned around and left me alone in this tiny, dim lighted room. 

To say the least I felt a little worried, these people were military trained, killers, experts at their job, basically better off than me in a fight. But, my only known advantage at the moment was the fact that no one else knew who I really was, except for that lady Laswell and her unusual looking teddy-bear guy named Captain Price. The rest were completely unaware that I was a regular civilian with the capability of causing much more damage that they all combined could cause. And I really didn’t have problem with working with them, I didn’t. For I wasn’t here for them, or to get to know them, my only purpose, interest, and reason to breathe was to get the man that them and I are after, and as for right now, I didn’t care how or what means it took, to catch him and cage his soul into my own hands.

 Prices POV

I watched Ghost closely as he came up from the stairs and walked towards where we all stood. Honestly, for the first time in a long time, he looked… concerned. I could read it in his eyes, eyes that usual held no emotion but anger and sorrow, now held a twinkle in them that put me immediately off guard. But I would ask him about it later, when no one was around to hear his deep thoughts that he kept quite hidden and sacred from everyone else. 

“Melione is going to be working on our team, she will be beside us the entire time.  Though I expect every one of you to be vigilant of her actions, and mark her every move. Whatever questions you have, ask them now and never ask them again if not any.”

 I eyed them all, I could see Soap looking at me like if he needed to say something, so I asked him,

 “Lad, do you have a question?”

I saw Soap’s eyes gleam up as he replied,

 “Yes sir, umm... is Melione going to be staying with us too? And be working around us in everything?”

 I shook my head,

 “Yes, consider her a new member of the team. She’s doing everything we’re doing, going where we go. All her personal information is hidden and kept classified by the order of General Shepherd. So that I can’t give you.”

 Gaz then cocked his head and voiced,

 “She’s here to help us with our mission, right? I mean doesn’t have more than we do about our target?”

Ghost grunted and answered for me with a scoff,

 “I assuming she does if Laswell has her here, Sergeant.”

 I turned to Ghost and saw the gears turning in his head, something about all this was throwing him off, I definitely had to talk to him about it. But once again, I let it slide for now as I went on to say and suggest to them,

 “Try to be as civil as possible with this one. Let her open up to you so we can gain her trust and grab good information. If she doesn’t trust any of you, she won’t open up, she only use what you know to add up to what she has. We have to show her that we are not the enemy, because we aren’t. Understood boys?”

 They all nodded in sync, and Graves spoke up as he offered, 

 “I’ll try to open up to her, get her comfortable if not even give her a tour of this place... show her that we trust her around everything. Give her a place here.”

Ghost grunted again under his breath at what Graves mentioned, meaning he didn’t really approve, and I usually took a big interest in what he thought. So I then proposed,

 “Why don’t you and Soap do that? Soap happens to have an awful humor that miraculously breaks through all kinds of ice.”

 Soap scowled at me but I sent him a wink, knowing he’d understand. Ghost nodded and hummed approvingly this time. Soap then took a deep breath and commented,

 “Cap’s right... I’ll go on wi’ you Graves... come on, le’s go now.”

Graves clenched his fists and subtly rolled his eyes, which was weird, he always liked going with Soap everywhere, why not now? He’s probably in a mood. I then dismissed everyone and let them go do their own things for now, like check out their weapons and gear, make sure all is in tact and such. For tonight, was when we did the official planning to move on.

 Ghost was about to stomp off when I snapped my fingers and whistled for his attention. His head snapped towards me and then followed my finger which was pointed towards the room where we needed to talk. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in, before walking in front of me. As I mentioned before, I trusted Ghost’s thoughts, so I was always willing to hear a piece of what we he was willing to let go. 

Ghost’s POV

‘I think I should wear dark shades over my fuckin’ mask, Price has learned to read through my damn eyes.’

I waited for Price to walk in and sit down, then I shut the door after I made sure no one was around to come and listen in at the door. I then leaned against the door and covered my face with my gloved palm, trying to collect exactly what I wanted to say, so it’d make sense. I heard Price sigh lowly and ask,

 “Simon... what’s wrong? You seem.. off.”

‘Price wants to talk to Simon... alright.’

I trailed my hand behind me and locked the door. With my eyes on Price I slipped off my mask, and saw how his face lit up and how his shoulders dropped. He relaxed at my confidence to let my guard down for a little while. A switch always flipped the minute I took off my mask, I felt more... vulnerable and.. small. I found the floor interesting to look at while I spoke out my mind,

 “Listen John, I’m not sure about this one, Melione.”

I knew Price would understand me, my history of not trusting others right away was known to him. Price took off his hat and ruffled his hair as he replied,

“I’m not sure either... but Laswell seems pretty confident about this... and I wholly trust Laswell.”

 “I know you do... but do you trust her.. Melione?”

Price leaned towards me, making me snap my eyes on him as he quietly asked,

 “Do you trust her?”

I swallowed hard, and thought for a moment,

 ‘I don’t.. but I do at the same time... the way she looked at me... she looked afraid, but strong. Like if she’d be terrified to take me down, but she’d still do it... while terrified.’

 I shook my head and scoffed,

 “I don’t know yet, I trust her capabilities or abilities.. but not her.. not yet at least.”

Price sent me a warm smile, and could only say,

 “You’re Ghost, Simon. Treat her like Simon would.. but watch her like Ghost would. Balance who you are to get to her. That’s your main mission. I can’t tell you who she is, because I don’t even know. I only did what I was ordered and that was it, so if you want to know more about her... learn her. Maybe through all of this, we can still save her, before she’s all gone.”

‘Save her?? Damn it I really wish I knew where she came from...’

“Alright then... I will. Thanks John.”

Price stood up and gave me back my balaclava, with a smile he watched me put it on as he said,

 “Anytime Simon, you know where to find me if you need to know or tell anything.”

Once behind the mask I replied,

“I will Captain.”

 Your POV

I was now walking between two men, after they let my ties loose. I mean, I could’ve done it on my own, but I didn’t want to pose as a threat to them because I don’t listen to simple orders. The Mohawk guy told me in his Scottish accent that he was known as ‘Soap’. I did my best to hold my thoughts to myself at hearing such a funny name for a tough guy. The other was a blond guy, who asked me to call him ‘Graves’ or ‘Philip’. I was surprised to hear him tell me his full name, unlike Soap who only gave me his callsign or nickname. But he sounded and looked American, someone from my homeland, so he was probably a more relaxed and chill person. We had already gone through some other rooms, like the kitchenette, the resting rooms, showers and restrooms, all the civil places here underground. Soap talked my ears off telling me every detail of every room, I thought I would get annoyed after 5 minutes of hearing his rather interesting words and Scottish slang, but he actually kept me calm and interested. Graves on the other hand… was only eyeing me the entire time, he said a few words here and there, only when Soap asked him to free with him on a comment he made. But I caught him several times just staring at my face, at to start the least, the more time we spent together, I trusted him less, he made me feel uncomfortable.

‘I thought no one knew about me… why do I feel like he knows more than he says he does?’

Finally after an hour, we neared a room where Soap told me prior to arriving there that is was the room where planning for missions took place. Upon walking in, I caught eye of their entire team.

‘Why do they all stand like statues… and look like they’re part of a cult?’

I swallowed what was left in my already dry mouth, and stuck close to Soap, I felt 1% safer around him than anyone else right now. I guess he noticed my tense state, for he told me in a soft and low tone,

“T’s is our team lass, the 141 Task Force.. and Los Vaqueros. The’re all good guys, don’t worry your min’ eh?”

I sent him a curt nod that gave me a small smile from him, he then raised his voice and called to the rest,

“Boi’s… This is Melione. She’s working with us now.”

A tall man with a darker colored skin than the rest approached me first with a sweet smile and gentle voice, he shook my hand as he spoke up,

“I’m Gaz… glad to have you here.”

I replied as kindly and shortly as possible, trying to bury away my growing nerves,

“Melione.”

He accepted my answer and walked away after a sort nod. Then Two Mexican looking men, (good looking men) came towards me and the one with a goatee saluted me first,

“Lieutenant Melione, quite the rank you got their corazon… Colonel Alejandro Vargas.”

‘Lieutenant? Damn I didn’t read that part on the papers… why such a high rank though?’

He seemed like your cocky or proud type, but it was manageable, I shook his hand and replied in his energy,

“Earned it Vargas.. thank you.”

He sent me a toothy smile then ushered his buddy to stand in front of me as he spoke for his pal,

“This here is mi amigo, Sergeant Major Rodolfo Parra… my second in command for Los Vaqueros.”

Parra was shy for sure, he couldn’t even look me in the eye, but trying to be the normal looking one here, I took his hand into mine and shook it firmly,

“Nice to meet you Parra.”

“Y-You too, Melione.”

Those two were definitely Mexican, sharing everything about themselves, I had met people like them before, very kind and open to you, if you spent five more minutes with them you’d already be in their grandmothers house at their dinner table.

You know, if I had thought my nerves had disappeared, they resurfaced and came crashing harder when I met the scary man again… the skull faced one. He walked into the room with Price, with his eyes on mine almost immediately. It was like if my eyes were glued to his too, because I couldn’t get them off of him no matter how much he terrified me. His long legs got him to stand in front of me in seconds, which practically took my breath away. He then looked down at me, with those cold ass eyes, and sighed,

“Lieutenant… Ghost.”

He called you Lieutenant then gave you his name, ‘Ghost’.

‘Your name had to be just as freaky as you… happy fuckin Halloween.’

In my greatest ability to not have my hand shaking while raising it up to his, I took it and replied with the same tone he used, cold yet calm.

“Melione.”

He sent me a curt nod, looked like approval. His eyes then left mine and he stayed in the same place, right next to me, as Captain Price began to inform.

“Melione, you already have some kind of communication with our target… Hassan. I need you to contact him and see if you can push the deal for tomorrow night. If he really wants to work with you, he’ll oblige to what you want. We need time to seriously plan this.”

Taking out a burner phone from my pocket I waved it in the it as I asked,

“What time would be good?”

Ghost turned to Price as he suggested,

“Can we do 9:30?”

Price bounced on his heel for a split second before replying,

“certainly.. sounds like a good time. And the location, had you already discussed that Melione?”

“I did, we were planning to meet at the sea port where I’d arrive. Then from there I’d go where they wanted to deal.”

Graves shook his head and mockingly said,

“You were trusting them to take you wherever they pleased?”

‘Is he calling me stupid?’

“It’s called gaining their trust, stud.”

“T’s not a bad call, mate.”

Soap and I had spoken at once against Graves, him defending me and I defending myself and my choices.

We then all stayed quiet for a few seconds, weighing our next words of peace or fire if someone slipped up with an unnecessary comment again. But Alejandro spared us a when he broke the silence,

“If we are able to get a camera on you, we can see where you’re going, and follow behind as much as possible without getting caught.”

I sent Alejandro a tight lipped smile,

‘That’s more like it…’

“I agree.. Melione… make that call when you’re ready but not after midnight, and let me or Ghost know when the cal is through and successful. For the rest of you boys, call it a night and rest up, tomorrow we got an important mission.”

Like little busy bodies they all blessed themselves with a ‘good night’ and left the room, heading to their own destinations for sleep. But before Soap left, he called out to Ghost and said,

“Lt. Can I have a minute with you?”

I would be the only one left in the room if they left, which was ok, that’s give me time to make the call. I watched them both walk off, Sop looked back and saluted me goodbye, I returned the gesture before he was out of sight. For now, Price, Soap, and Gaz were the only ones I trusted, oh and Alejandro and Rudolfo for sure. The rest… like Ghost and Graves… I wasn’t too sure yet.

Ghost’s POV

I followed Johnny to a dark corner, and listened as he rapidly said,

“Gonna make t’s quick, but I think Melione has a family…”

I eyed him with confusion as I asked with a whisper,

“And how do you know Johnny?”

He looked down at my feet and murmured,

“itookherwatchonthebusandsawapictureofamanandchildonthebackofit.”

I scrunched my face in more confusion, causing me to grab his face and face it towards me as I questioned again,

“what?!”

He couldn’t look me in the eye still, but this time he did amswer me more clearer and simpler,

“I said I saw a picture of a family on her watch, pickpocketed it then returned it like if she dropped it. And the name ‘Benjamin’ was incarved on the band.”

‘I guess that pickpocketing cruelly paid off after all these years of him trying to master it for some god forbidden reason.’

I clapped his cheek softly and sighed,

“ok… thank you Johnny. Next time, be careful about that pickpocketing…”

He finally set his blue dumb orbs on my eyes as he smirked,

“It’s only good as long as I don’t get caught, Lt.”

I pushed his head away playfully as I ordered,

“Get some rest asshole.”

He scoffed while flipping the bird,

“Ya too Lt.”

I then started walking back to the room as I thought,

‘So she has a family? Why risk losing herself if she has them? Or maybe she doesn’t anymore..?’

Getting closer to the room I caught Graves lurking around, I whistled for his attention and he slightly jumped at my presence. He even cursed at me playfully, trying to play off what he did,

“Fucking damn, They don’t call you Ghost for nothing… didn’t even hear you-“

“shouldn’t have anyways… didn’t Cap tell ya to get your arse in bed?”

He stood still not believing that I didn’t buy his humor at the moment, and I could see his eyes change to a slight annoyance and anger. When he saw I didn’t budge, he then huffed while now brushing past me,

“yeah yeah, I know. Just was making sure the girl wasn’t doing anything weird-“

I caught his upper arm and pulled him close as I threatened,

“leave. her. alone. If not, we’ll talk long and hard.”

He yanked his arm away from my hold and stomped away before I let anything else happen.

‘The hell is his deal? Why is he so eager to get her on her own?-‘

“Ghost?”

I was brought out of my thoughts for a split second when I saw Melione in sight with a stance of a scared girl. I could see it through her, in her… the innocence she held, her eyes still even held color… though every time I saw her again, those colors got duller and duller. She was clutching the phone in her hand painfully, I could see the color of her skin turn white, and her eyes bounced between mine. I didn’t dare move from where I stood, I didn’t want to scare her more, if she was scared. So I then raised my voice enough to where she could hear me clearly ask,

“Did it go through?”

She swallowed harshly and nodded,

“Yes. His partner answered and said that I’d meet him tomorrow at his place… not at the seaport.”

‘sounds about right…’

“ok.. tomorrow Price will debrief us on the rest, I’ll inform him tonight though… did the boys show you the barracks-“

“-yeah, they did… though I’m going to umm… stay here.”

I could tell it was her untrustworthiness in us that was speaking, but that was ok… I remember it took a lot of me to trust who I trust now, and even then, I sometimes still struggle.

“that’s fine…”

She then took a seat on one of the chairs there, and checked her watch, the one Johnny mentioned to me about. I didn’t want to see like a creep or worse, so I just offered one last thing before going,

“Steal a blanket if you need. Or anything. Price is going to be behind the last door in the hall if you need him.”

She quietly nodded, giving me a short sense of peace before she asked this one last question, that caught my deepest attention,

“And where are you staying Ghost?”

‘why?’

As much as she somewhat frightened me, I replied knowing I was now going to keep a gun in hand in my sleep,

“I’m right next to him…”

“ok.. thanks.”

[skullduggeryandfilibuster]

Introductions to Writeblr From a Writer

So I never wrote one of these. Probably a good a place as any to get my foot in the door.

Who Am I?

I'm John (he/him), and I'm a 21 year old writer. I'm looking for friends, because my greatest fear is being alone in a room of a thousand people because friends are nice to have. I had the unfortunate realization that the only way I can share the stuff I make, is to actually make it? Eugh. Anywho, I'm a big fan of fantasy, mystery, comedy, mythology, folktales and urban legends, and lil guys in funny hats. I'm not here to write or read fanfiction. I respect the field, but it's not for me, apologies.

Well What Are You Here For?

Blogging about writing! Like actually! Not just thinking about it, or murmuring under my breath in the shower how cool it would be to run a blog, but like, actually doing it! I want this to be a place I can give my thoughts about storytelling and art, such as proper reviews or random ravings. I want this to be a place where I can work with other writers to hone our craft, and help each other out! Feedback, support, advice, criticism, you name it. I want this to be a place where I can share what I've written, lest the flashing cursor continue to mock me. From short stories, to tidbits of longer things, to flash fiction to everything in-between. I've been in a writing "rut," you could call it, for some time, and I'm hoping this blog will encourage me to get my fingers typing and track/show off my progress.

Huh, What Are You Writing Then?

I mostly write fantasy. My favorite type of media are stories that can make me laugh one scene and cry the next without missing a beat, so that's what I strive to write. I'm working on several things, but really I'm interested in making new things; stuff from scratch. But I'll share some tidbits of the WIPs I got:

Codename: TOaO

This is the project I've been working on the longest. It is also the one I am least comfortable sharing. Oh, not because it's my baby or my most precious project. It's cause I'm in the process of gutting it and stitching it back together to make my own Frankenstein's Monster! (did you know Frankenstein was the scientist not the--) I've been reassessing how I write and outline and reassessing this story for the last few months, and I'm kinda taking a break to work on something else right now. It's a comedy fantasy story in the vein of Discworld. The main protagonist is the world's biggest normie (that is the truth), who is an aspiring hero! ...And he can hear the narrator of the book but don't worry about that it won't lead to any problems like anxiety or depression or insanity or–– That's all I'm willing to share, because that's the only thing I know is 100% staying. Other characters, conflicts, settings, plot lines... who's to say what'll stay or what'll go? (Me. I'm to say.)

Video Essay About––

So yeah, I'm making a video essay discussing the writing of a television series. "Oh that's cool! What's the show?" Ehaha! Hahaha! Ha... sniff... ha... ugh... "Oh, this is a popular show that you think has bad writing, isn't it?" Nods Yeah... the internet. It's a scary place. And "hating" on things that people agree are bad is still gonna get you hate. But this is a passion project. I am 95% done with the script, and in the process of editing it down. It is sitting at 33k words right now. So yeah, safe to say, whatever show this is, know that I have thoughts. I'm excited to move onto the next phase of actually recording it, so that'll be fun. You'll get to see my beautiful face. (I can assure you I am very beautiful.)

Some Short Stories

These aren't actually WIPs, they're WHFs. (Work has Finished.) I have two short stories, one about a sorcerer's apprentice who murders a spell, another about a delusional overseer on a Southern plantation who is just baffled that one of the enslaved people would run away. Two very different stories, fairly different tones, and I may or may not post them here if people are interested. We'll see. Let me know.

Facts (Fun Optional) About Me

I'm neurodivergent.

I hate all conspiracy theories. Yes, even the fun ones.

I love Scooby-Doo.

I have strong opinions about a fair deal of things...

...But I'm more interested in what other people think about those things and why.

Currently Reading Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson. It's pretty good so far. Excited for Wind and Truth.

Thanks for reading. I know that was a lot. I appreciate it. If you're a writer yourself, or hell even if you're not, say hi. I want to see what other writers are up to, I've already followed a few folks, but I'm excited to follow more. Have a great day.

[direwombat]

last line tag/wip weekend/sentence sunday/whatever

tagged throughout the week by: @simplegenius042, @vampireninjabunnies-blog, @inafieldofdaisies, @g0dspeeed, @socially-awkward-skeleton, @wrathfulrook, @detectivelokis, and @cassietrn to share some wips and recent sentences (tysm everyone, it's taken me forever to get to this lmao)

tagging: @adelaidedrubman, @henbased, @sstewyhosseini, @confidentandgood, @aceghosts, @poetikat, @purplehairsecretlair, @josephslittledeputy, @euryalex, @clonesupport, @jacobsneed, @neverthesameneveranother, @trench-rot, @voidika, @madparadoxum @strangefable and a blanket tag for anyone else wanting to share something!

been working on the intro (things i always struggle with lmao) to ch 4 of katc, so here's that. it's still rough. but it's something.

Hope County, MT. September 13, 2018. Seed Ranch. 4:35pm.

Sybille should have known that the plane was heading towards John's ranch. There are only so many places in the County that have enough room to land a plane, and aside from Nick Rye’s airstrip, Seed Ranch is the only other property in the Valley that has an actual runway.  She’d seen it the one and only time she and Joey had responded to a noise complaint out there. 

Someone had reported screams coming from somewhere on the estate. They hadn’t found anything when they went to investigate, and John had even allowed them into his home to assuage any suspicion. She hadn’t been a fan of his squirrelly  eagerness — it put her on edge, made her feel like he was hiding something — but with no obvious source to the noise, they’d just written it up as a yowling cougar wandering a little too close. 

But as she drove, she couldn't ignore the ball of dread roiling in her gut that the Sheriff’s department failed to save someone that night, and missed an opportunity to stop the Cult before everything went to shit. She flexes her grip around the wheel and eases her foot down on the accelerator until she’s flooring it, speeding towards John’s ranch. 

When she had arrived at the airstrip, she’d found Nick Rye pinned down, desperately shooting from his own garage. Just one man against a slew of Peggies. She had circled around the cultists, emerging from the brush to mow them down by shooting them in their vulnerable, exposed backs. Dishonorable, to be sure, but quick at the very least. They never saw her coming, and maybe that in itself is mercy enough for her absolution. 

Nick had been grateful for her help. There’s no way he could have held them off all on his own. Not long enough for both him and his wife to escape, anyways, and with their plane in the hands of the Cult, their chances of escaping the county go from slim to zero. 

She chooses to help them. Any heavy artillery she can take from the Peggies, the better, and while she’d much rather have that artillery in her own arsenal, she’d also seen just how far along Kim was. The Ryes and their unborn child aren’t safe here, and if they can cross the county lines and call in the fucking National Guard, it just means that this shit will be over sooner.

Which is what leads her here, screeching to a halt right in front of  the garish and tacky billboard marking the private road leading to the ranch. It’s sun-worn and fading, but the image of John Seed’s placid smile is no less visible.

We love you and we will take you.

The menacing verbiage has to be intentional. She never gave it much thought driving past it before. She’s seen so many accidentally sinister welcoming signs from other churches — there is something terrifying about the concept of surrendering oneself to God’s love and embrace. But John Seed is nothing if not deliberate in his choice of words. Almost infuriatingly so.

The vein in her jaw throbs as she clenches her jaw. How many years has John had this sign up? How long has he been taunting the Sheriff’s Department — how long has he been taunting the entire fucking Community — laughing in their faces, mocking them while he all but confesses to being behind the kidnappings and disappearances plaguing the County? 

[goldenroutledge]

Hii! Could you do 3 "I'm so lucky" from the list d and 1 "taking each other’s hands during a stressful situation, instantly reliveing the pressure of the situation" from list b with jj please? Thank you 💙

sweet girl

pairing: jj maybank x female!reader

word count: 2.1k

warning(s): reader has a fear of heights, swearing

a/n: it feels like it’s been forever since i’ve posted an actual imagine. this is based on one of my favorite obx scenes. probably not what you were expecting anon but i hope you like it! 💙

jj maybank masterlist

© goldenroutledge || do not plagiarize, repost, or translate my work in any way

“I think I know how we’re gonna find out who owns that Grady-White.” John B announced to the group, pointing his finger up as he concocted his plan.

Almost in unison, you all caught onto each other’s thoughts as Kiara tossed John B the motel key. All except for Pope, who’s uneasy expression gave away his discomfort about the situation. “Are you sure? We don’t know who’s in that room.”

“We’ll never know unless we try to find out.” You advised, nudging him with your elbow as you followed Kiara and JJ down the wooden planks of the dock and back to the Pogue.

“At least you’ll only be an accomplice.” John B offered with a shrug and a wink, taking the lead of the others and hopping onto the boat.

-

“Well, this isn’t sketchy at all.” You thought out loud, the boat nearing the torn down Summer Winds Motel sign.

“This does not look like a place someone with a Grady-White would stay.” JJ added.

“This looks like a place where someone with a Grady-White would get killed.” Pope emphasized. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Just stay on the lookout for us.” John B told him. “We shouldn’t be too long, anyways.”

“We’ll keep an eye out.” You assured him, taking a seat in your normal spot on the boat and stretching your legs out in front of you.

“Nope. You’re coming with us, Y/n.” John B stated. “Someone’s gotta keep JJ under control.”

JJ muttered some words of dispute under his breath while you scoffed, not interested in having to keep JJ in line. “I’m not a babysitter, John B. JJ can handle himself.”

“I sure can.” The blond spoke up firmly in concurrence with you.

“I think that might be the first thing you two have agreed on all day.” Kiara chimed in, more so to herself.

“Come on, Y/n. You’ve always been good at pointing things out right? What if you find something that I’m overlooking? We need your help.”

“It doesn’t seem like your partner-in-crime agrees.” You remarked, though you accepted the hand John B held out for you. “But whatever. I guess someone has to be reasonable.”

“Be careful.” Kiara warned, more so in the direction of John B. “I mean it.”

“We will.” He assured.

John B and JJ took the lead up the creaky steps, which didn’t appear all that safe, as you held your breath in passing the moldy mattresses set out along the railings of the deck. The antics of your two friends in front of you caught your attention, JJ playfully massaging John B’s shoulders.

“Just be so, careful John B.” JJ mocked in a softer tone, before cutting the act as he was shoved off by his friend. “Dude, what the heck was that about?”

“I don’t know, maybe she wants us to be careful?”

“When are you gonna stop being so oblivious and swoop on that, man?”

“Why do you care? You’re the one that’s always hitting on her.” John B pointed out.

“Of course I’m always hitting on her. She’s a super hot, rich hippie chick slumming it with us. Why, I don’t know. But who cares, bro? I know that door’s locked because I’ve tried it. Have you?”

“You need help. Not just a little bit of help, you need a lot of help. Because with any girl who has a heartbeat you just turn into a zombie.” John B jeered, mimicking zombie noises while letting his arms dangle in front of him.

As JJ opened his mouth again to defend himself, you pushed past the two boys, snatched the key and began walking ahead of them. “Can we focus? I didn’t realize this was a therapy session.”

“Don’t let your jealousy get the best of you, Y/n. It’s not a good look.” The blond teased.

“And remind me, what am I jealous of again?”

“Not being the subject of my charm.”

“Oh, please. I could go my entire life without it.” You insisted sarcastically, paying more attention to the room numbers decorating the doors.

“That’s what they all say.” JJ quipped. “But there’s no need to worry, I’ll still flirt with you too.”

“Lucky me.” You responded, going to push the key into the lock before his hand paused your movements.

“Wait, Y/n. Just barge on in why don’t ya. We have to at least knock.”

You rolled your eyes and handed the key back to John B, who also seemed fed up with the banter between you and JJ. “Housekeeping!” JJ piped up in a much higher pitch than usual, knocking twice with his knuckles.

There was no response, so you all took it as your answer to go inside. JJ of course went straight for the bags and belongings in the room, rummaging through them to find something to steal, making comments about the quality of the items occasionally. You followed him into the bathroom, to which he turned around and shined his flashlight right in your face.

“So.. I can’t even take a piss alone? What’s up with that?”

You ignored him, folded your arms across your chest and leaned against the wooden doorframe. JJ could only get on your nerves if you let him. “Finding anything?” John B shouted.

“Not with Y/n breathing down my neck.” The blond responded, reaching for a deodorant he was about to pocket from the bag of toiletries.

You slapped it out of his hand just as fast as he had picked it up. “We’re not stealing anything, JJ. Don’t even think about it.”

“Too late.” He smirked in your face, dangling a watch from his fingers that he must’ve picked up on the way in.

“Guys? You’re gonna wanna come see this.” John B called out with a dumbfounded look on his face as his flashlight shined inside a safe. The two of you followed his voice, just as in awe as he was upon seeing the cash inside of it.

“Holy shit.” JJ let out barely above a whisper. “Holy shit!” He cheered this time in a much louder but gratified tone as he looked closer, snatching a wad of cash in one hand and a gun in the other.

“JJ! Put it back!” You reprimanded, trying to snatch the stolen items away from him. He pocketed the cash, but held up the gun and began posing as if he were in an action film.

“Take a picture of me, bro.”

“And make your own incriminating evidence?” You inquired. “Yeah, good fucking idea JJ. Put the gun back.”

“All I’m hearing is that you’d miss me while I’m in jail, darling. How sweet of you.” He mocked, cupping your face with one hand to top off his dramatics.

You pushed him almost immediately, the force enough to knock him back a step or two. “Will you both shut up? I think I heard something on the window.” John B scolded, looking out the blinds to see Kiara and Pope jumping and waving their arms frantically.

“What is it?” You hesitated, fearing the worst.

John B hurried to the other window and peeked through the set of blinds extra carefully, before revealing the answer in a hushed tone. “Cops.”

As the words fell from his lips, JJ threw the window open and looked over his shoulder at you. “Well?” He gestured towards the ledge.

“Well, what? You want me to stand out there?” You questioned him as if he were crazy.

“It’s our only choice, Y/n. Do you see a fucking elevator in here?” JJ retorted, motioning for you to step through the window. “We don’t have all day.”

John B climbed through first, going to the ledge on the left, leaving the ledge on the right open for you and JJ. Unless you remained stood where you were and got caught like an idiot. Your fear of heights was never something you liked to talk about amongst the pogues, though they had an idea. JJ especially. All he would do was make fun of you for it.

“Come on, I’ve got you.” He promised, helping you step out onto the ledge with your shaky legs. All you had to do was not look down.

“Fuck me.” You cursed under your breath. Normally, JJ would’ve spoken up with a remark, but he stayed silent. He inched beside you, taking your hand in his for some support. JJ was relieved to hear your breathing lighten up, as well as your hands that slowed their trembling.

“It’s okay, Y/n. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

“It’ll be your fault if something does. I should’ve never come up here to begin with.”

He shook his head, adjusting his footing as well. JJ nearly lost his balance, dropping your hand and clinging onto your waist, giving you a light squeeze as a result. The gun hanging outside of his pocket took a tumble and fell down with a few thuds on the surfaces it hit, leaving all three of you to squeeze your eyes shut in disbelief.

“You’re a fucking idiot. I told you not to take it-” You tried to admonish through a whisper.

“Can you shut the hell up for five minutes? I could push you off this ledge right now, y’know.” JJ hissed in return through gritted teeth.

You stayed silent, flush against the brick wall as your heart raced. Until pretty soon John B deemed it safe to go back in, your nerves calming down drastically. Just as he had done to help you out, JJ offered his hand to help you back inside the motel room. He didn’t drop it like you expected him too, either, but you were just happy to be back on solid grounds.

“Let’s get out of here.” John B stressed, interjecting your small moment.

At that, JJ dropped your hand, but still bothered to ask; “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” You reassured him. He wanted to pick up his pace and travel closer to John B, but the sound of your voice speaking up again stopped him. “I’m sorry for what I said to you. I was stressed out.” JJ kept walking, not once acknowledging your apology on the way back to the HMS Pogue.

“You made it!” Kiara exclaimed, embracing John B as he stepped on. “And I see you two didn’t kill each other.” She commented, looking in your direction.

“Barely.” You told her. “This one threatened to push me off the edge.”

“I was kidding, Y/n. Lighten up.” JJ appealed. “Nothing happened to you did it? As far as I’m concerned I think I held up my end of the deal pretty well.”

“What deal?” Pope queried.

“The deal where as long as she shuts her mouth then I will kinda… make sure nothing happens to her.”

“You mean protect her?” Kiara corrected him, placing a hand to her chest in awe.

“Oh, Y/n. I’ll keep you so safe.” John B taunted, mimicking his friend this time, caressing the blond boy’s cheek as the gentle words fell from his lips. “I won’t let anything happen to you, sweet girl.”

JJ squirmed away from the brunette’s touch, a displeasing look on his face as everyone broke out into laughs. “That’s not what happened. And Y/n is the opposite of sweet.”

“Are you saying I’m sour?” You quirked an eyebrow, ready to fight back with him if he wanted to insult you.

“I’m saying, I should’ve at least gotten a ‘Thank you, JJ. I appreciate you not letting me fall 40 feet to the ground.’ For someone with a terrible fear of heights I thought you’d be a little more grateful.”

You chuckled, clearing your throat before taking his cheek in your hand as he did to you earlier. “JJ. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for protecting me on that ledge. I’m so lucky to have you.” You broke the soft eye contact and ended your scene. “How was that?”

You were almost afraid JJ wouldn’t receive the joke well, judging by the deadpan he was giving. But it was JJ, jokester was his middle name. He chuckled, flashing you a shit eating grin. “It wasn’t half bad. Could use some work, though.”

John B, Pope, and Kiara broke out into laughter and a conversation of their own, not paying attention to the two of you in the slightest. You awkwardly stepped to the side to leave JJ‘s personal space, gazing out onto the marsh to avoid his stare.

You figured he was doing the same, before JJ startled you with his touch on your shoulder, the other hand hovering on top of where yours rested in the back pocket of your jean shorts. He brought his head down accordingly so you could hear him, and most likely no one else. His breath was hot on your ear, sending a wave of shivers through your body. “Oh, and I almost forgot. You’re welcome, sweet girl.”

a/n: let me know what you guys thought about this? it’s kinda growing on me lol

taglist: @ilovejjmaybank @missevi @nxsmss @cameronsrafe @msgorillagripcoochie @bibliophilewednesday @tovvaa @rudybarnes @annab-nana @babeyglo @sunsetholland @moniamaybank @outerbankspreferences @laneybobeczko-g @jjpouggues @j-j-may-bank @heartdose @eifhames @outerbankies @amourtentiaa @k-roleplay20

[taleasnewastime]

Let’s get quizzical

Summary: Thursday night pub quizzes with your friends are a must. One of those friends being your long-term friend, long-term crush, Park Jimin. At this point 99.9% of the population knows you have feelings towards him, Jimin being the 0.1% that doesn’t. But what happens when a bet goes wrong and your weekly quizzes become more complicated than fun?

Pairing: Jimin x reader

Genre: friends to lovers; fluff; angst; smut

Word count: 28.6k

Warnings: Safe sex, oral (female receiving), ANGST, a lot of feelings, drinking, bad jokes, a lot of dodgy quiz questions.

Authors Note: This has taken me a hot minute to write, but I really enjoyed it and am really proud of it. The summary was almost impossible to write without giving everything away, so I apologise if it doesn’t do the story justice. I hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Hoping you have the best day and sending you all the love :)

“Question 9: who is Chancelor Johnathan Bennett?”

“Chancellor of the exchequer?” Jin jumps in before the question has finished being asked.

“Chancelor is his name not job title,” you roll your eyes. “Could be a local MP though?”

“Bit niche for a pub quiz? And what MP is going to be called Chancelor?” Jimin chips in, eyes on you.

“You’d be surprised what some of those wanker, Eaton educated, Conservatives are called,” Jin says and immediately holds up his hands in defence, though no one scolds him.

“We must have a better answer than local MP,” Connie sighs, ever the sensible one.

“It’s Chance the Rapper,” Yoongi says before taking a sip of his beer, having already scribbled the answer down.

“See I told you Yoongi would be good,” Jin pats Yoongi on that back, which only causes the scowl on Yoongis face to deepen.

“Chancelor, chance the rapper, I guess it works. Not as clever as Flo Rida, like Florida,” you say and watch as a look washes over Connies face. “Don’t say you’ve only just realised. Next you’ll tell me you thought Elton John was his actual name.”

She tries to keeps her face neutral but you can tell that she also had no idea about that. You just roll your eyes with a small laugh.

“If anyone doesn’t deserve to be on the team, it’s obviously Connie,” Yoongi pipes up.

“Hey,” she narrows her eyes at Yoongi and he lifts an eyebrow at her, a small smile on his lips.

“And finally, question 10 - the last in the music round, and the final question tonight,” you all quieten when the quiz host starts to speak again. “What do ABBA, Spice Girls, Queen and Take That, all have in common? Clue, Take That have done it twice. We’ll have a break before doing the answers, feel free to get refreshments while you wait.”

There is a post question buzz in the pub, frantic whispers as the teams debate the answer they want to give.

“Everyone thinks they have a the in front of their names but they don’t.” Again Jin is quick to jump in with his suggestion.

“Have they all disbanded and come back together?” You ignore Jin completely.

“I think Take That have done that more than twice,” Jimin says. “What about, they were all wrongly given awards?”

“Did the Spice Girls ever get any awards?”

“If they did, it was surely a mistake,” Jimin smirks at you. “Come on then Yoongi, master of music, put us out of our misery.”

“Queen, Spice Girls and Take That aren’t really my bag,” he shrugs.

“I like that ABBA is,” you smile.

Yoongi gives a non-comital shrug and mumbles “Dancing Queen is a bop” into his beer.

“Still want to stand by your earlier statement?” Jimin mocks Jin while Yoongi shoots him an irritated look.

“I reckon we just go with a member left the band but the band carried on without them,” Connie steers the conversation back to the question. “I mean Take That have had more members leave and then re-join than people in the EastEnders cast, but we’ve got nothing better.”

“Obscure reference,” Yoongi mumbles but scribbles down the answer anyway.

“Right as that’s over, another drink?” Jimin stands up and looks expectedly around the table. You all give a nod in agreement and he’s off to join the small crowd gathering at the bar.

“I miss Joon. He is the structure of this team. The backbone. He would have known the answer to that bumble bees question in an instant. We should ban him from missing in the future,” Jin whines.

“He’s at his grandmas 80th birthday,” you laugh.

“This is more important. We could have won tonight if he was here.”

“We never win, even with him here. Anyway, I thought the team name Kim Seokjin was supposed to be the thing that brought us luck.”

“Hey, I don’t make the rules, just follow them,” he gives you a wide toothy smile that you admit makes him look handsome, though you’d never say it to him. “So how much we betting Jimin takes that bartender home tonight?” He gives a nod to the bar.

You wish your heart doesn’t drop the way it does at the words, wish your eyes don’t automatically shoot to the bar where Jimin stands, wish the ball in your throat doesn’t form when you see his relaxed lean on the bar and the girls head lolling back in a laugh at something he said. But all of these things happen without much thought.

“I’ll give you 50p,” your voice comes out thick, your humour forced and you hope no one at the table notices. “At this point isn’t it a given?”

Jin hums, eyes watching Jimin who is still easily chatting to the girl behind the bar.

“Is she new? Don’t think I’ve seen her before?”

“Why? Jealous Jimin got there first?” You ask.

“Just thinking of poor Becky. He is certainly running a one in one out system here.”

Becky was one of Jimins previous hook ups, as someone that worked most quiz nights at the pub, it was a sore topic with you. Having to witness the flirting and eventual weeks of familiarity between her and Jimin was tough. It was no secret that Jimin was a hit with pretty much everyone, and being a young and single male, he took full advantage of the attention. It was just hard to harbour a massive crush on the man and then watch his many endeavours, you not being one of them. You were friends, good friends, in a strong friendship group, you could see why he would never look at you twice. That, and compared to all the other woman he seemed to go out with, you were like a rusty 1 pence piece, while they were shiny, brand new pound coins.

You are pretty sure that 99.9% of the population knows about your crush on Jimin, that unknowing 0.1%, mercifully being Jimin. And even though you are sure everyone sat around the table with you knows about your feelings, you are glad that they at least pretended to not know. It was an unspoken fact. Something that was known but skirted around, jokes were still made about Jimin, but never so deeply that it affected you.

“I thought Becky ended it with Jimin?” Yoongi asks.

“Oh Yoongi, you have a lot of quiz history to learn,” Jin shakes his head in mock despair.

Yoongi was Jins flat mate, and though he has been friends with you all for as long as he’s lived with Jin, this was his first week joining you at the quiz. Jin had promised he had as much useful, useless quiz knowledge as Namjoon and would be a good asset to the team. Everyone really knew that Jin had been trying to convince Yoongi to join you guys at the quiz for years and Yoongi has only now caved. What Jin had to sell, bribe, sacrifice, or promise to get that to happen, you doubt you will ever find out.

“Becky only ended it with Jimin because she saw a text on his phone from an Alex asking to meet up,” Jin continues. “It was quite the spectacle. Lots of shouting, a bit of pushing, a few spilt drinks, and that was just from me trying to get a better view of the argument,” Jin lets out a squeaky laugh that no one joins him in.

“Becky broke it up with Jimin because she thought he was going behind her back with someone else. Jimin denied it, but Becky didn’t believe him. Turns out he was telling the truth; Alex is not only someone Jimin works with but is also a bloke,” Connie gets straight to the point, cutting off Jins long winded story. “Seems Becky changed her shifts around to not work on quiz nights.”

“Right,” Yoongi finishes off his drink in one last gulp, looking as if he wished he’d never asked in the first place.

“So come on then, bets in, how long until this new girl is just another notch on Jimins every growing belt,” Jin claps his hands together.

You frown at him. “Is this not a bit disrespectful to both this girl and Jimin.”

“It’s just a bit of fun,” Jin pouts.

“Well I gave my 50p bet. Like I said, it’s pretty much a sure thing at this point,” you say, your heart panging at the words.

“Sure. What number female bartender will this be now? I think he may be going for a world record attempt at this point. He’ll have to start seducing the men next. Watch out Brad,” Jin nods to the bar manager, a man in his 50s with a bald head and beer belly. The comment at least gets a smirk from Yoongi, who covers this fact with a cough and hand to his lips.

“I agree with Y/N, this seems unfair to the girl. Not everyone is as easily seduced by Jimins good looks, take me and Y/N for example,” Connie says, and when Jin opens his mouth to return a comment, presumably about how you are not immune to Jimins good looks and Connie is in a long and committed relationship, she carries on before he can speak. “But, I will be placing a bet. I’ll pay for a round of drinks for everyone, but I don’t think he’ll actually take her home with him till next week.”

“Finally, an actual bet. Thank you Connie,” Jin shoots you a look. “I will accept that bet and raise you a drink and a packet of crisps, that he takes her home tonight.”

“A packet each, or just one to share,” you ask.

“What do you take me for?” A hand goes to Jins chest as if he’s been blown a fatal hit. “Of course a packet each. I’ll even let you pick what flavour you want, though it won’t come to that as it is clear that he will be taking her home tonight.”

Another glance to the bar sees that although there has been a bit of movement, it is only so that the two can stand closer to the pumps. The girl is making light work of pouring drinks out while still laughing at whatever Jimin is saying. It makes your blood run hot in anger or more likely jealousy.

“Fine, I’ll up my 50p bet. Though it was going to be a rare peter rabbit one that could have fetched you thousands,” Jin looks unimpressed by your attempt to act like you were in on this whole thing from the start. “I’ll raise your drink and a packet of crisps and throw in a sours shot. I think he’ll only get her number tonight, but they’ll text and he’ll just happen to stumble upon her on a night out and that is when they’ll hook up.”

Jin hums at your proposal. “I like it Y/N. But, only if it’s apple sours.”

“Cherry or nothing,” you say with a straight face.

“Deal,” he replies with a nod of his head, Connie nodding along on the other side of the table. “And Yoongi, what’s your offer?”

All heads turn to the man who seems to have been paying little attention to what anybody's been saying. It surprises you when he talks.

“Yeah, sure, I’m in.”

“The point is to say what you’re betting.”

“I’ll match Y/N. But I don’t think he’s ever going to sleep with her,” his statement shocks all of you. “Or kiss her for that matter. I guess I wouldn’t rule out him taking her number, but I don’t think he’ll do it for any other reason than he doesn’t want to be rude when she offers it.”

You all sit in silence a beat digesting his words.

“Do you have some sort of inside information that we aren’t privy to?” Jin is the first to speak.

“Not that I know,” Yoongi shrugs.

“Then I will accept your generous offer Yoongi. And I cannot wait to accept all of your payments next week,” Jin beams at you all, giving Yoongi another pat on the back that causes a look to pass over his face that makes you worry for Jins safety.

“What we talking about?” A tray is placed down on the table before Jimin takes his seat.

“Jin was just giving his usual spiel about missing Joon,” you roll your eyes. “One of these days he will tell us he finally confessed his feelings.”

You look at Jin to see a playful smirk on his lips, an eyebrow raised in question and you realise how your words reflect perfectly on your own situation with Jimin. You flush with embarrassment.

“He’s a beautiful man with a beautiful mind,” Jin says casually while grabbing his fresh drink.

“Just a shame that he has a lovely long-term girlfriend,” Jimin gives a wide smile, passing you your drink. Your fingers brush against his and your heart summersaults. You wonder if Jimin will ever not affect you.

“Speaking of long-term girlfriends, who’s the new blonde barmaid?”

Jin slips it in so casually that you are caught unawares. Your face heats again and you decide to focus on your beer instead of anyone's face. You don’t want to see Jin trying to catch your eye when Jimin speaks about the girl, you don’t want to see Connies concerned looks. But most of all you don’t want to see the way Jimin will brighten as he speaks about her. He’s known her for less than 10 minutes yet you can picture the wide smile on his face, the glint in his eye, as he speaks about someone new that he’s found a spark with. You’ve witnessed it a hundred times and you don’t want to witness any more. Your beer is far more interesting than any of that. Unfortunately, your ears couldn’t vacate the story so easily.

“Ah, Izzy?” Jimin starts and you hear an interested hum from Jin. “She seemed nice. I was just asking her if she was enjoying working here.”

“It looked like a very enthralling conversation,” Jin continues to dig. You knew he wasn’t doing it out of spite, he found it funny to hear about Jimin and his many girls, it was just something your group did. Plus, there was the whole bet, you knew that he would try and encourage Jimin if it came down to it, all in the name of winning.

“Well I’m a very dazzling person, it’s hard not to laugh with me,” you can picture the almost arrogant smile on his face. Another reason you loved Jimin was his knowledge of his self-worth. It could come across that he was full of himself sometimes, but you always admired it, he just knew who he was and he loved himself. Confidence was sexy in your eyes.

“Laugh at you more like,” Jin mumbles loud enough for the table to hear.

“Answer time,” the announcer cuts through your conversation. “If you could all swap your sheets with another table I will start reading out the answers and then we will announce the winners.”

There’s some talking and rustling around the pub as tables try and get another teams answer sheet.

“I’ll take ours over there on my way to the toilet,” you stand up and reach for your answer sheet not waiting for any form of agreement from your team.

You catch Jimins eyes as you turn to leave, a concerned look in his eye, the wide smile you love no longer on his face. You wish you could stay and decipher what the look means, but you turn and continue on your journey to the toilet. Mentally filing the look under things to over analyse when alone.

Exchanging your quiz sheets with another team you head into the empty toilets. You need 5 minutes on your own, maybe a splash of cold water on your face to bring you back to reality.

You loved your quiz nights, loved the friendly banter you all shared, loved getting a little tipsy on a Thursday night knowing you still had work the next day that you had to get through. But it was always tough seeing Jimin so openly flirt with any girl that had a pulse, yet treat you as if you were Jin or Yoongi, a friend who was more like a sibling. There was one time that someone assumed the two of you were a couple and the look of disgust that fell over his face nearly broke your heart. It was made that little bit worse when he occasionally turned his charms on Connie, yet never seemed to do that to you. What was ok about her that wasn’t about you?

You’d been friends with Jimin longer than you had had a crush on him. You’d gone to the same school, though you only hold vague memories of him there, the two of you not actually friends per se. If someone was to mention his name you’d have been able to point him out of a line up, maybe recall a few funny stories, but that was it.

You’d gone to separate universities, though you stayed friends with a lot of school friends so heard stories of things he got up to. You would always listen with a mild interest, you enjoyed hearing what people were up to, how the people you went to school with were succeeding in life. But again, he was never someone you would describe as a friend.

After university you moved back to your home town, Jimin and a few others from you school doing the same. And that’s when your friendship started. All back in the same place, you found you started getting invited to parties and gatherings that Jimin also went to. A group of you formed, and you found yourself growing closer to Jimin.

You always found him good looking, he was one of those boys in school that every girl lusted after, that would be a hot topic of discussion at sleepovers. But you weren’t someone that held crushes on people just because of their looks. And then you got to know Jimin and realised that it wasn’t just his looks that made him attractive, if anything they were just an added benefit. You could finally see why everyone was so infatuated by him, because you yourself were heading that way.

He was happy and kind and generous and put everyone else before himself. He was confident and chatty and always had a funny story to tell. He was the person that people turned to in the search for a good time. But then he also knew how to chill and watch a film and order an unhealthy takeaway. He seemed like the whole package, because he was.

If anything the only thing that put you off Jimin was his lack of commitment. You knew that he had had a semi-serious girlfriend during university, but even that had lasted all of 6 months. He went through girls like they were chocolate bars and he just wanted to try them all.

But stood staring at yourself in the mirror was not helping the situation in any way. Especially when the man was on the other side of the brick wall, probably thinking about how he was going to take a pretty bartender home. You’ve lived with your crush this long, tried to push it down into the depths of your soul, you could learn to do that a bit longer.

You wash your hands under cold water, hoping it will help calm you down as well as waste a bit more time.

Ultimately you just didn’t want to ruin your friendship. The classic I’d rather be his friend than nothing at all. Plus, it wasn’t just you and Jimin’s relationship at stake, what about Jin and Yoongi and Connie and everyone else that were both your friend and Jimins friend? You would hate to think that they would have to choose sides if anything went wrong. Sure, there’s the whole, you could end on good terms and still be friends, but really how often did that happen?

Even if by some miracle Jimin did suddenly want to jump your bones, you weren’t even sure what you would do. I mean sex was great and all, but that’s not what you wanted from Jimin. Well, you wanted it, but you wanted more than just sex. Yet, Jimins reputation proved that he wanted anything but a relationship outside of sex.

You slap some of the cold water from your hands on your face. None of this even mattered because it was never going to happen.

Leaving the toilets you head back to the table. The answers are nearly finished by the time you take your seat. Jimin immediately looks at you, the concerned look from earlier still on his face. You give him a small smile that you are sure does anything to reassure whatever he is worried about.

“You’ve missed some absolute corker's Y/N,” Jin speaks up when he notices you in your seat. “Who the hell knew that Georg Solti won the most Grammys ever? Who the hell even knows who Georg Solti is? Not us. Safe to say, we’re bombing it.”

You laugh rolling your eyes.

“And finally, I asked what do ABBA, Spice Girls, Queen and Take That, all have in common? Of course, it’s that they have all had musicals made from their music.”

There’s a few groans as people hear the answer, a rippling of cheers from the ones who gave the right answer.

“Jesus, Take That have two musicals? What’s the world coming to?” Jin shakes in disbelief.

“I think the awards answer was better,” you give Jimin a smile and are rewarded with one of his full beams.

“Right that’s it folks, if you can return your answer sheets then we will announce the winner.”

More rustling as teams exchange their answer sheets, yours is given to Yoongi whose eyes flick over the page that’s been handed to him.

“Well, 35 out of 50 isn’t terrible.”

“May as well head home now,” Connie replies.

“Are we not staying for another?” Jimin lifts up his still half full pint.

Jin raises his eyebrows at you with a knowing smirk. You try to return it, but struggle. He has his bet in mind and the idea makes your stomach turn.

“I’ll stay for another,” Jin agrees and the Connie and Yoongi agree too, Jin being their lift home.

“Y/N?” Jimin looks at you expectantly.

“Sure,” you shrug. You normally stay a bit after the quiz anyway as your house is only a short walk from the pub, and really you had no excuse even if you wanted to go home.

You all settle in for another hour of drinking, Yoongi offering to get the next round. The bartender becomes forgotten at some point, Jimin makes no effort to go and talk to her again and no one brings up the fact. You all easily talk and laugh and you just fall into the easiness of your small friendship group.

You say your goodbyes at the door, Yoongi, Jin and Connie going in one direction and you and Jimin heading in the other. It was only a 10 minute walk to your house but every week Jimin insisted on walking you home. It was only a small detour for him, and the one week you had told him you’d be fine on your own had caused him to give you such a big lecture on walking home alone that you never brought it up again.

That’s why your bet was that if Jimin ever slept with Izzy, it wouldn’t be after a quiz night. Unless you weren’t there. Because you knew he would always walk you home, and you doubt he would bring his hook up for the night on the journey.

It’s only when you say goodnight to him and watch him walk under the street lights down your road that you fully remember the bet and that he left the pub alone, with seemingly no number. Opening up your group chat with Jin and Connie you add Yoongi as a member.

Y/N: I believe you owe us drinks next week.

Connie: Don’t forget the packet of crisps. I will be having mini cheddars.

Y/N: Mini cheddars is a poor choice, but thanks for the reminder.

Yoongi: Do we also get to pick the drink?

Yoongi: I’ll have their top shelf whisky.

Y/N: Do pretzels count as crisps? I’ll have a packet of those.

Jin: I’ll take orders at the quiz next week.

Y/N: Someone’s grumpy they lost.

Yoongi: He’s currently star-fishing on the living room floor staring into the abyss that is the ceiling.

Connie: I can almost hear the dramatic huffing from here.

Jin: I wish I never invited you to the quiz.

Jin: I can’t wait to accept the other losers' payments.

Yoongi: Well I can’t wait to win.

You wake up to your alarm blaring on your night stand. Blindly you pat around for it in an attempt to silence it. Once the noise finally stops you let out a groan and roll over in your bed. You wish you could lie there all day, let the covers surround you and just sleep. But you have work and the dehydration from drinking was bad enough that you feel the need to get up in search of water.

Every Friday you have this problem, the quiz is great and all, but a Thursday night? Every Friday you promise yourself that next week you will only have one alcoholic drink and call it a night. And every Thursday that follows that statement, you break it.

Your job was easy enough that you could blindly sit at your desk and rifle through the few tasks you were given and not raise too many eyes. A mere 8 hours was all you had to get through to make it to the weekend.

Dragging yourself out of bed you get ready for work, downing a pint of water in the process. By the time you walk out your door you feel slightly more human though still stop for coffee on your commute. Two shots of expresso and a toasted tea cake was only going to help this situation, right?

Your office was only small, a grand total of five people sharing the space that held a small kettle and microwave in one corner that’s described as a kitchen. It was both a blessing and a hinderance. It was nice to know everyone, to be able to talk openly about work and any troubles you had, but it was also annoying that everyone knew everything about everyone. There seemed to be no privacy, no conversation unheard in the space, office gossip became that much juicier when you actually know who Julie from accounting was and can’t talk about the affair her husband is having while stood at the printer because she is sat only 5 meters away, crying her eyes out.

“You look like hell.” Are the first words you hear when you collapse into your seat. Another reason it’s not great working in such a small office, people seem to think that they are closer to you when there are only 4 other people to talk to at work. It seems some sort of barrier disappears where people feel like they can say anything to you.

“Ignore Jon, I think you look nice,” Steph jumps in, coming to stand by your desk.

“Thanks Steph.”

“Did you finally win last night then?”

“We weren’t bottom, so that’s an improvement,” you smile at her. “Though that’s not saying much when the only people below us look like their combined ages wouldn’t add up to make them legally old enough to buy a drink. I think the question about John Prescot went right over their heads.”

“Ah, the youth,” Steph does a mock wistful look into the distance. Steph wasn’t much older than you, but she seemed a lot older purely due to her having a husband and two children. You were at different stages in life, but working together had caused you to bond over shared interests. “And how was Seagull?”

Working in such a small office and everyone listening to your conversations had caused you both to come up with a secret code when talking about particular topics. Seagull was Jimin, so called because of you recounting a story about a time when a seagull pooed on him when Steph realised you liked him as more than just a friend. Even with 99.9% of the population knowing about your crush you had sworn her to secrecy and she came up with the idea of the code name; you never know what ears are listening and even though no one knows Jimin, you worried it would somehow get back to him. You couldn’t risk anything. Steph was the only person you openly spoke to about your feelings towards the man.

“Ah, Seagull,” you sigh. “There’s a new bartender than Jin is convinced he’s going to hook up with.” You try to ignore the pang your heart gives when saying the words.

“And he can deduce that after one meeting?”

“You don’t know Jin,” you roll your eyes. “Or seagull for that matter.”

“True. I only know what you tell me, but I’d have a bit more faith in him if I was you.”

“Well, I guess it doesn’t really matter anyway. It’s his life, he’s free to do whatever or whoever he wants.”

“Just so long as it’s not in front of you?”

You scrunch up your face in displeasure. “Preferably, but I don’t think I have that sort of honour.”

“I’m still team tell him,” Steph replies. “It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture or anything, just put it down on the table and if he decides not to pick it up then that’s that. You’ll know, he’ll know, you can move on and thing’s don’t have to be weird.”

You hum. This was something that Steph always petitioned for you to do. And you would be lying if you said you didn’t see the logic. You had actually come close to taking the advice once, talked yourself up enough to have the courage and then just as you were about to say the words to him you chickened out.

“Maybe,” you give a non-comitial answer.

“I think you’re forgetting that there is also a chance that maybe he feels the same way about you.”

“If that were true then why has nothing ever happened?”

“Maybe he’s just as scared as you. Maybe you need to be the brave one in this situation.”

“Fine, next time I get the chance, I’ll say something,” you regret the words as soon as they leave your mouth, especially when you see the way Steph's face lights up.

It was a heavy chat for a Friday morning, especially when you felt a bit fragile. Your boss Betty walked into the office at that point too, so Steph gives a final sentence that is vaguely related to work to make it seem you weren’t just chatting about personal issues and then she is off.

The whole day her words ring in your head. What if she was right? What if you needed to be the one to step forward and make the first move?

But then when you think of Jimin and his confidence and the easy way he talks to woman, it seems impossible he wouldn’t be able to talk to you about his feelings. It was Jimin for Christ’s sake. It seemed impossible to imagine him feeling insecure or nervous about anything.

You couldn’t deny that she had a point, that even if it wasn’t about confidence or the fact that Jimin may or may not like you in the same way you like him, you should tell him. And you’ve already admitted that the whole world knows about you're not so little crush on the man, so how hard could it be to tell one more person? The least you could do was think on it. And maybe if the opportunity presented itself, you could tell him.

“Question eight.”

It was the next week of the pub quiz and you are already 3 pints deep, the bag of pretzels Jin had bought you not doing much to soak up the alcohol. You are feeling happy, erring on the side of tipsy, but a long way off drunk.

“Alfred Pennyworth is the butler to which superhero? Alfred Pennyworth is the butler to which superhero?”

“Pennyworth? Is that really his surname?” You ask.

“What’s wrong with Pennyworth?” Jimin shoots back defensively, while Yoongi scribbles down the answer with no help. It was turning into a one-man team.

“Isn’t that the name of that freaky clown?”

“That’s Pennywise,” Jimin laughs, light dancing in his eyes.

“Y/N has a point, they’re a bit too similar for my liking. Plus, doesn’t Alfred have access to the bat cave which must be underground, just like Pennywise’s lair,” Jin jumps in.

“See,” you point at Jin while you look at Jimin who’s face holds a fond smile.

“Alfred is just a nice old man, leave him alone,” Jimin laughs.

“Nice old man my ass,” you try to say it in a serious voice but end up laughing at the end.

“Question nine,” the quiz host’s voice booms through the chatter and it causes a rippling effect, the whole room going silent waiting for the question. “What is Zoolander's first name?”

“Zoo,” Jin jumps in.

“Zoo Zoolander?” Yoongi scrunches up his face looking displeased.

“Oh my god, I know this,” Connie excitedly taps her hands on the table, her bum jumping up and down on her seat. You all look at her waiting for her answer. “It’s Michael.”

There’s a pause while you all take in her answer and then Jimin breaks it by laughing.

“I’m sorry,” he says while trying to calm down. “It’s a good answer really.”

“What?” Connies face no longer holds excitement, instead her mouth is pouted as she looks around the table at you all.

“His name’s Derek,” Yoongi says softly before writing the answer.

Connie sighs a little oh, but doesn’t look overly embarrassed by her wrong answer.

“And last question of the round, and the quiz tonight,” the familiar voice shouts out, gaining silence once again. “What is the main pub called in Peaky Blinders where the Shelby’s meet? Again, we will have a short break before doing the answers and then announcing the winners.”

“Jesus Christ, how is anybody supposed to know this stuff,” Jimin shakes his head.

“Isn’t it the Winchester?” You suggest.

“That’s Shaun of the Dead,” Jimin instantly corrects you.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not also where the Shelby’s meet,” you throw back, gaining a Jimin smile that makes your heart flutter.

“I reckon the Crown,” Jin cuts across whatever look you and Jimin were sharing, drawing your attention to him.

“But that’s this pub?” Connie says.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not also where the Shelby’s meet,” Jin throws back your words and then casts you a cheeky smile that you only roll your eyes at.

“Yoongi? What you got?” Jimin asks.

“Peaky blinders isn’t really my thing,” he shrugs.

“He finds it too scary. All that shooting and all those nasty men,” Jin gives a fake shudder. “No, Yoongi much prefers the Teletubbies. Much more his intellect.”

Jin lets out a squeaky laugh at his own joke, while Yoongi casts him a look that, again, makes you fear for Jin’s safety. You wonder how they have managed to live together for so long.

“Let’s just go with the Chase or the Fox, some generic pub name that could be right,” you steer the conversation back to the question.

Yoongi scribbles some answer down and then slaps the pen on the table as if to signify you’re done.

“Right, my round?” Connie stands up and doesn’t even wait for confirmation before heading to the bar.

“Do you guys ever think we drink too much at the quiz? It is a Thursday night after all,” you think back to waking up dehydrated last week and struggling through the work day the next day.

“Don’t say you’re going soft on us now Y/N,” Jimin says.

“It’s a sign of getting old I’m afraid,” Jin chips in. “How old are you now Y/N?”

“My age is none of your concern,” you narrow your eyes at him. “I was merely saying, why is it only on a Thursday night we drink so much?”

“Is this an invitation for a night out?” Jimins says, sitting straighter in his chair.

“I’m busy,” Yoongi says.

“She hasn’t even given a date,” Jimin replies.

“Yes, but me and Yoongi are very busy people,” Jin says.

“You? Busy?” You laugh.

“Don’t act so surprised, I am a very popular man I’ll have you know.”

“Name one person you’re friends with.”

“Yoongi.” He says immediately after your question, crossing his arms defensively.

“Someone that isn’t sat at this table.”

“Connie,” he says just as quickly and you roll your eyes.

“Someone not in this pub,” you try again.

“Joon,” he gives you a knowing smirk, almost as bait for you to keep going.

“Fine,” you sigh, giving up. “I don’t even know why I’m trying.”

“Well, I’m not busy. When are we going?” Jimin says.

“Oh,” your attention is torn away from Jin to look at Jimin. “I didn’t actually – I was just saying – I more meant that a – I wasn’t actually asking for a night out,” you stumble over your words as you look at Jimins expecting face.

“You two should go, don’t let us stop you,” Jin says and when you turn back to him he has a smile on his face that shows there’s an alternative motive. You shoot him a look that you hope tells him to shut up.

“I wouldn’t want to go on a night out with just Jimin. I’d be abandoned as soon as we walked into the club for some tall skinny blonde.”

As soon as you say the words you know you’ve been way too harsh. Looking at Jimins face you can see he’s hurt. The words may ring true to a certain extent, but you also saw the lie, Jimin would never just leave you on your own. Sure, if you were with other people maybe he’d go off with others, but never if it was just the two of you. He still walks you home after the pub quiz to make sure you get home safe on a 10 minute walk for Christ's sake, he would never abandon you in a club.

Your eyes widen in shock at your own words and at the fact you’ve hurt Jimins feelings. It may be an insecurity you had, that he would never choose you romantically over literally anyone else, but you didn’t want him knowing that. Guilt flows through you and you open your mouth to take back the statement but Jimin beats you.

“I would never leave you alone if I was going out with you,” his words mirror your thoughts, a small crease appears on his forehead as he looks at you.

“I know, I just -”

“No one would ever make me want to not spend the night with you. I’d love to go on a night out with you, and it would be a night out with you, Y/N, not some dumb tall skinny blonde.”

You nod your head, heat coursing through you at the words, wishing they meant more than just you were friends, wanting to believe he wouldn’t say the exact same words to Jin or Yoongi or Connie, but knowing he would. You open your mouth to speak again, to try and reassure him that you didn’t mean what you said, but again you’re interrupted, this time by Connie placing a tray of drinks on the table.

“I think I got there at the perfect time,” Connie hands out the drinks, oblivious to the slight tension around the table. “I also think it helped that Izzy is working tonight. I think she recognised me as being on your team so served me quicker. Hoping I’d put in a good word I bet,” she nudges Jimins arm when she’s sat down.

“Right,” Jimin mumbles in to his beer as a reply.

You see Jin shoot Yoongi a look, raising his eyebrows in question. Connie’s statement also brings back the bet you all had. Of course, Connie had said she thought Jimin would take Izzy home tonight. The thought and how Jimin reacted to your harsh words has your heart sinking. You down the rest of your old drink and pick up the new one Connie brought over as the quiz host takes his stand at the front of the room.

“Answer time,” he shouts, stopping conversations in their tracks.

He runs through the answers and you give little attention to what he’s saying, sipping your beer instead. Jimin seems to be over your comment already, laughing at something Jin said, but you can’t help but threat over it. No matter what your feelings were towards Jimin, you knew he would never just leave you for someone he didn’t know. Hell, that’s why you had bet that if he was going to get with Izzy it would be after meeting up outside of the pub. You doubt he would leave the pub with her because he always walked you home, he wouldn’t not do that. And you doubt he would bring Izzy to your door before then going onto his, that would definitely cramp his style.

Jimin cared for you, he cared for all his friends, and you hate to think that you implied you didn’t know that.

“You know I think we’re doing alright this week,” you’re brought back at Jin words, your beer almost finished at this point. “Who needs Joon?”

“What was his excuse this week?” Connie asks.

“His girlfriend’s down for the week,” Jin shakes his head as if shamed by the information.

There’s a collective eye roll around the table at Jins lack of care for Namjoons private life.

“And finally, I asked what the pub is called in Peaky Blinders. Of course, it’s The Garrison Tavern.”

“Knew it,” Jin mutters under his breath, loud enough for the table to hear.

“Convenient you didn’t say earlier,” you shoot at him

“Right, if you could tally up the scores and give your papers back to the correct team,” the host speaks over Jins reply.

Yoongi grabs your answer sheet. “Up from last week, but I doubt enough to score that winning prize. Finally broke 40 though, just, we got 41.”

“Commisery pint?” Jimin asks.

“Ah, I can’t, got a big meeting in the morning. Gotta be fresh for it,” Jin says.

“He’s my lift,” Yoongi shrugs.

“And mine,” Connie chips in.

All eyes fall on you awaiting a response. Jimin looks hopeful, but after your earlier comment you can almost see that he expects you to decline.

“I can have another,” you say and watch as eyebrows raise around the table like dominoes. “Or we could have one at mine?” You shrug as if it’s no big deal, but your heart pounds in your chest. “Would be cheaper.”

If possible, the eyebrows raise even higher, Connies disappearing behind her full fringe, Jins mouth popping open. It makes you more nervous, but you remind yourself that it should be normal, you and Jimin hang out just the two of you all the time. He lives close to you, works just around the corner, you occasionally have lunch together, have had takeaways just the two of you. It shouldn’t be weird or out of the ordinary, yet it feels it.

“Great idea, let’s do that,” Jimin claps his hands together and it’s as if he breaks a spell, the faces around the table dropping back into their earlier, non-shocked expressions.

You all diligently finish off your drinks while the quiz host announces the winner by counting down from 50, “who has 49?”, with 41 you know you don’t stand a chance so there’s no point in hanging around. At the door you all give your usual goodbyes, shouts of “text us when you’re home”, and then you’re walking down the street.

It’s strange how it’s a weekly occurrence, Jimin and you walking side by side with the destination being your home, yet tonight it feels so different. Probably because you know he is going to walk through the front door with you and not just carry on walking. You feel instantly sober at the thought, not that you were particularly drunk before, but now your thoughts feel so much clearer. Did you remember to put your washing away? Were those dirty dishes still in the sink? You’d offered him a drink but you had no beers in, only spirits with barely any mixers, should you mention that now or would it look like you were backing out? What about that dying plant you had in the corner, you meant to dispose of it weeks ago but had just left it to continue withering in the corner, was he going to judge you for it, should you try and get rid of it now before he saw it?

“It’s been a while since I came into your house,” Jimin drags you out of your thoughts, your eyes darting to him to find his gaze already on you, a small smile on his lips.

“It’s not changed much, probably exactly as you remember,” you smile back at him, glad for the distraction from your thoughts.

“Still have that hideous painting?” His smile turns, becoming cheeky as you narrow your eyes at him.

“Yes,” you reply. Jimin seemed to take some sort of personal offense at a painting you had in your home, as soon as he saw it he made it clear how much he hated it, and then every time since he has never failed to mention it. “It’s hanging proudly in my living room. Pride of place,” you struggle to keep the smile from your lips as you look at him.

Jimin lets out a hum, looking back to the path in front of you.

“I guess I should warn you,” you draw his eyes back to you. “I wasn’t expecting visitors so the place may be a bit of a state. I know I also offered drinks, but I only have spirits in and a limited supply of mixer. Host of the year, I know,” you let out a nervous laugh. “We could stop by a shop for something, or I guess turn back to the pub? Or we don’t have to -”

“Y/N,” Jimin's hand lands on your shoulder, stopping your rambles. “I’m sure it’s fine,” his smile simultaneously lessens your nervous while also making your heart flop in your chest. “I can always run to the shop if you really have nothing. But come on, you know me, I’d be up for doing shots.”

You laugh at his words. Good God, how is it possible for someone to be so beautiful and also so nice. It’s like the Gods were playing some sort of cruel game when they made him.

“Shots on a Thursday night, now you’re just asking for trouble.”

“Don’t forget that I know you Y/N. Don’t pretend like you’re above doing it.”

Another wicked smile is thrown your way and you wonder whether he is trying to kill you or whether it is just how Jimin is. Is he aware of how dangerous his smiles are? Because he should really be made aware of it, one of these days he is going to stop someone's heart with a simple look, and you are currently very high up the list of those someone’s.

“Well,” you are glad that your house comes into view, your door and house saving you from having to come up with a comeback.

Unlocking your door you zoom into the house, kicking off your shoes and leaving the door open for Jimin. You trust him to find his way into the living room while you dash around and collect the stray items littering the room. Hands full of a couple of mugs and the bowl you had breakfast in, you head towards the kitchen, passing Jimin lingering in the living room door way. He watches you move around the room, an amused smile on his face.

“You really don’t need to clean up for me,” he says.

You ignore him as you walk into the kitchen, dumping the bowl and mugs in the sink before looking at what booze you can offer. As expected, there is slim pickings.

“There is mostly gin, which I can offer with some possibly flat lemonade, or there is a bit of rum or I’m sure I can dig out a bottle of wine from somewhere,” you shout over your shoulder so Jimin can hear.

“Gin and flat lemonade sounds great,” Jimin says the words far closer than you expect and when you turn you see him leaning on the door frame watching you.

You heat with embarrassment, though you don’t know why, it seems to just be your natural instinct when around Jimin, especially when it is clear his eyes watch your every move. Under his scrutiny, you go into the cupboard to grab some glasses, making sure they’re your nice ones, before filling them with ice.

“Single or double?” You ask him and he seems to take the question as an invitation to walk into the room.

Now stood next to you he looks down with a knowing smile. “Really? What’s the point in a single?”

You nod at him, a smile toying the edges of your lips. Picking up one of the nicer gins you start to pour them out while Jimin starts to riffle through your alcohol bottles.

“You’re holding out on me Y/N,” Jimin holds up a tequila bottle up to you in explanation.

“Oh, sorry. I don’t have anything to mix with it, though I guess lemonade wouldn’t be terrible if you want?”

“Who said anything about a mixer?” The cheeky smile is back on his face.

“You were serious? It’s a Thursday night Jimin. Some of us have work tomorrow.”

“It will be fine,” he says, starting to riffle through your cupboard for shot glasses. Looks like you had little to no say on the matter. “We’re just having one. Or maybe two. We’ll be fine. Just call in sick if you need to.”

“Some of us have jobs we can’t just call in sick for,” you shoot back, but don’t protest when Jimin starts to pour out two shots.

“Well some of us will just have to suck it up then,” Jimin holds out the full shot glass to you.

Again, you take it without any complaints. “Are we really doing this? No lemon or salt or anything?”

“You’re the host,” his lip curl at the edges showing his amusement.

Another roll of your eyes and you hold up your shot glass to him as a silent answer. He clinks his shot glass against yours and then you’re throwing the liquid back into your mouth. You scowl at the taste, you are far to sober to be doing shots, but Jimin doesn’t even seem to flinch.

“Now that’s over, come on,” you pick up the two gin and lemonades you’d poured and move past Jimin into your living room.

He follows you, plopping down into the sofa next to you and taking the drink you offer with a thanks. You watch as his eyes take in the room, you can see that he’s trying not to look too nosy, taking everything in with wide eyes, but not lingering too long on any one item. While you look around your room trying to work out what it would look like from his eyes. Probably a mess of too many items, your shelves full of weird items that you have collected over the years and can’t bear to part with.

“I like the gnome,” he nods his head to your fireplace where a stuffed gnome sits, long legs dangling off the ledge.

“Sharon,” you reply and watch as Jimins lip tweaks up in the corner. “She’s very nosy,” you explain the name, looking at said gnome whose massive nose sticks out into the room. This comment causes the edges of Jimins lips to curl further into a smile and a bubble of satisfaction swells inside you at the thought that you caused that.

“And the flowers, they’re nice. From anyone special?” You don’t miss the digging in his question and hope swells within you.

“If I’m classed as someone special, then yes, they were from someone very special.”

He hums into his glass taking a sip so you can’t read his expression. But the hope lingers. Why would he ask that if not for personal interest? Because he’s a friend and friends ask each other personal questions, you answer your own question silently. But then, you were exactly that, friends, friends who attended a weekly pub quiz together, surely if you had a significant other he would know. So maybe he is asking for himself, making sure that he isn’t stepping on anyone's toes. The thought makes you heat up.

Stephs words from the other day ring in your head. You should tell him how you feel. You said you would tell him if an opportunity ever arose, and surely this was the opportunity. But you don’t even know how to begin. How do you tell someone you like them? How do you tell a friend that you like them as more than just a friend? Do you just come out and say it? Do you try and play coy and drop hints in the hope they pick them up?

One thing was for sure, you would need a lot more alcohol to even consider the possibility of uttering any words on that topic to him.

“You know, I will never understand your obsession for Gilmore Girls,” Jimin says, eyeing up you DVD collection.

“And I will never understand your obsession for Friends,” you shoot back.

His mouth falls open in offence as his eyes dart to yours. “Take that back. It’s a modern masterpiece.”

“If a TV show has a laugh track, then it’s not funny. They shouldn’t have to tell me when I need to laugh.”

“Friends?”

You raise your eyebrows, not saying a word, but answering his question in doing so.

“Maybe I should just leave now,” he mocks.

“Anyone not a fan of Gilmore Girls isn’t welcome in this house anyway, so works for me.”

Jimin laughs while you try to remain straight faced, having to take a sip of your drink to hide your twitching lips.

“This is why we make such a good quiz team.”

Now you truly laugh. Jimin could only look at you with a fond smile as a loud laugh escapes you.

“Now I know you’re lying. As much as I hate to say it, we all know Jin carries the team.”

“Jesus, never say that to him.”

“As if. I mean now Yoongi’s finally come through at least we can say he carries the team.”

“I don’t know if that’s a better option. Why can’t we just say that I carry it?”

You give him a look that says really? And you can see he is fighting a smile.

“Fine. Well it will have to be you then because it certainly isn’t Connie,” Jimin tries again.

“I’m not sure about that.”

“Why?” Jimin looks genuinely puzzled. “You’re smart and get answers no one else does all the time. You were the one that got that question on quantum physics right.”

“It was about the planets,” you laugh, though you are surprised he remembered any of this. You wouldn’t have thought that Jimin could remember much about the quiz and what answers you gave, he always seemed to be there for a laugh, and more because of Jin and Namjoon’s (and now Yoongi’s) presence than yours. But maybe he took more notice of you than you realised. “And I only got that right because I’d seen a program Brian Cox did.”

“Smart,” Jimin replies as if he’s not listened to a word you’ve just said. “Only smart people watch shows like that.”

“Whatever you say,” you shake your head, pretending the words went straight through you and didn’t actually go straight to your heart. Jimin thinks you’re smart. It wasn’t the biggest or best compliment in the world, but it still meant so much to you.

The man you’ve had a crush on for God knows how long. Who you thought didn’t pay that much attention to you, who only hung around with you because you were friends with his friends, took more notice of you than you thought. But that didn’t really mean anything. Just because he could remember an answer you gave in a quiz doesn’t mean he’s in love with you. You attempt to push the hopeful thoughts away as you down the rest of your Gin and Lemonade.

“Want another?” You ask, though Jimin still has some of his drink left.

You watch as he throws his head back, downing the rest of his drink much like you downed your own. Watch as his Adams apple bobs in his throat. You can’t take your eyes off his neck in fact, so much so that when Jimins face comes back down to look at you, another cheeky smile appears on his lips showing he has caught you watching him.

You stand up and head to the kitchen to avoid having to acknowledging anything. This was supposed to be your opportunity to tell him everything, and yet here you are running. Steph would slap you if she were here.

“Another shot?” You hadn’t realised Jimin had followed you until he speaks.

Turning to look over your shoulder, there he stands. And maybe it’s the alcohol, or maybe you would have reacted the same way if you had had nothing to drink, but you can’t help but just stare. Leaning against the door frame you can see the strong curves of his body, showing that even though he isn’t as tall or broad as Jin, he is still as powerful. Powerful, but with delicate features, pretty but manly.

Jimin pushes off the wall to stand at his full height before slowly walking towards you. You flush, realising you haven’t even replied to him, have simply just gawked at him for God knows how long. And the small, but cocky smile on his face shows he knows exactly what you were thinking as you looked at him.

You turn away from him as he gets near, hoping hiding your face will help to conceal how flustered you are. He only stops when his arm brushes against yours.

“As much as I loved the flat lemonade, I’d prefer a shot,” his words don’t hold any malice.

You can only watch as he pours out the liquid into the shot glasses you used before. He holds the glass out for you to take, and due to its size, your fingers overlap his as you take it from him. A small touch, something you wouldn’t even think about if he was anyone else. But he wasn’t anyone else. It was Jimin, and your skin heats at every point that he touches.

You barely have the glass in your hand before you’re knocking it back and downing the liquid. A light, surprised laugh leaves Jimins lips as he watches you, before he follows suit.

“Can I ask you a question?” Jimin pauses waiting for you to answer and when you turn to look at him he is leaning on the counter staring down at you.

“Of course,” you reply.

He stays silent a beat even after you answer and you use the time to lean against the counter yourself, trying to look more casual than you feel. Every beat of silence makes your heart beat harder anticipating what he’s about to ask.

“Have you and Jin ever...” his words trail off, and if it weren’t for his casual posture and tone of voice you would say he was flustered.

Your face automatically scrunches in confusion at his words, picking apart the five words he’s said as if it will make it any clearer what he’s trying to ask.

“Ever what?” You ask.

“You know.” You most certainly don’t, and when that suddenly becomes clear to Jimin he lets out a small sigh. “Have you ever hooked up, or thought about it? You just seem really close, and I don’t know I thought maybe...” his voice drifts off again.

You and Jin. Jin and you. However you say it, it sounds wrong.

What the hell is Jimin talking about. Even though he cleared the confusion up, it seems to have made everything murkier in your mind. Maybe that second shot was a bad idea after all.

“Me and Jin?” You say the words out loud and it makes it sound even weirder. “You think me and Jin are dating?”

“Not dating,” Jimin lets out a small chuckle at the words. “It just seems like there might be something, or was something, or could be something?”

“I thought you and Jin were good friends?”

“We are.”

“So surely you’d know from him that we’re just friends?”

Jimins shoulders rise and fall lightly in a shrug, and again you have to think that if it wasn’t for everything he was outwardly projecting, you would say he was bothered by this conversation. It felt like he was suppressing and hiding something, but you felt too confused and not with it to figure it out.

“You two always seem so close at the pub quiz. I don’t know, I just wondered if you liked him like that?”

Your mind was ringing. You have to wonder where the hell this all came from. How did this conversation even start? Your brain feels like it’s scrambled.

“Did Jin get you to ask this?” It’s the only reason you can think of as to why he’d be asking this. But Jin knows that you like Jimin, and surely Jin doesn’t like you as more than a friend.

“No,” Jimin lets out a small laugh again that you now realise is him trying to hide how much this conversation it affecting him.

“Because I like you, not Jin.”

It feels like the world stops spinning on its axes. The room goes eerily quiet after your words, even the noise from outside seems to have stopped. It all makes the ringing in your head that much louder.

Of everything that has been said so far, Jimin had not reacted to any of them, or if he did there were at least cool and calculated. Now, he stands taught and stiff, as if you’ve just pulled out a gun and are now pointing it in his direction. Though he still slightly leans on the counter, it now looks like he’s having to use it to stay up right rather than to lounge on.

“What?” His voice also sounds like he had to force it to leave his throat.

Eyes wide, you search Jimins face. At least he’s not running. Though that might be more because of the shock he is currently experiencing than anything else. In mere minutes, when his brain catches up, he’ll probably be out of here like a shot.

You grapple with what to say. This was not the way that you had planned to tell him, not that you had really planned to tell him at all, but if you had, it would certainly not have been like this. You want to blame him for making you slip up, all that nonsense about Jin, you were bound to say something. And the alcohol, you were still in your right frame of mind, didn’t feel anywhere near drunk, but your tongue and brain were looser, more likely to say something you’d regret. This being case and point.

But now you have decide what to say. You could pretend that you said something else. Or say you’re more drunk than you actually are and blame it on the shots (aka him). You could pretend to forget what you even said. Or just deny all knowledge if he keeps asking. But you know that you shouldn’t do any of that. Really, you don’t even want to. It is scary and you it makes you prone to heartache, but Steph was right, you should just tell him.

“I – uh – I like you?” It comes out less sure and more like a question as nerves bubble inside you.

Theres a beat or two of silence again and you can almost see the clogs turning in Jimins head. It only stretches on a second or two, but you can’t take it, your heart beating too fast, the nerves building up within you, your brain telling you that the silence means rejection. You have to fill it, so you start rambling.

“I like you,” the words come out more certain than last time. “But that doesn’t mean I expect you to return the feelings. In fact, I know you don’t and I’m fine with that. I’ve been friends with you for a while now and I’m happy just continuing how we are, nothing has to be weird or anything. We can just pretend I never said anything.”

A small crease appears between his eyebrows as you speak and you can almost see him snapping out of the daze he is in.

“Why would I want to forget about it?” He asks. “And why would you think I don’t return the feelings?”

He says it so blasé, that it throws you off.

“Because you don’t?” You almost stutter the words out.

The confidence slowly seeps back into him. He no longer stands stiff, but tall and loose limbed. Though his face remains neutral, the ghost of a smile lingers on his lips as he looks at you. It’s like he’s a cat eyeing up a mouse, and you’re the mouse that’s about to be eaten. You almost audibly gulp as he slides an inch closer to you, leaving only a small gap of air between you.

“And why wouldn’t I? You’re smart, and funny, and beautiful. You’re my friend Y/N, but that doesn’t stop me looking at you and wishing for more.”

It’s everything you’ve ever wanted to hear him say, everything you’ve ever dreamed of. And here he is, saying it. It doesn’t feel real.

“But – you never even look at me, not like you look at all the other girls.”

“What are you on about?” He laughs, displaying his white teeth. “Of course I look at you like all those other girls. Maybe you never see because my gaze always tends to be directed at your great ass.”

You heat at the words, flustered all over again. Sensing how he is making you feel, a cheeky grin appears on Jimins face as he slides impossibly closer, while still not fully touching you. You can feel the heat coming off him, can feel the ghost of his body, but can’t full feel him.

You look everywhere but him. You can't bear to look him in the eyes. Though he is saying everything you wished, it’s only making you feel like this was a bad idea, though you don’t know why. You want to run away from this, but instead remain rooted to the spot. Maybe this is why you’d never openly admitted your feelings for him, because as scary as it was for him to tell you that he didn’t feel the same, it was also incredibly scary for him to say he did feel the same. You could comprehend heartache and getting turned down. It would have hurt, but you would have known where you stood and the journey ahead. This feels more like a step into the unknown. Where do you go from here?

Still not meeting his eyes, Jimin lifts up a hand and gently takes your chin in his fingers, forcing your head to angle up so he can look at you. His eyes search yours as yours search his. Both of you trying to find answers to questions you haven’t asked.

“You think I have a great ass?” You really can’t cope with silence.

Jimin throws his head back in a laugh, and a smile plays on your lips as you watch him. Continuing to laugh he brings his head back down and flops it onto your shoulder. Your breath catches in your throat as he turns his head into your neck.

“A great ass,” he says into the skin between your ear and shoulder, lips dancing across your skin. “A sexy brain. Beautiful eyes. Kissable lips.” His lips dance across your skin, slowly making their way north to your face, not quite kissing, but brushing against the skin in a way that gives you heart palpitations. “As if you’d ever think I’d leave you for a tall skinny blonde.”

He echoes your words from earlier when he is back at eye level, lips a breath away from yours. His words make your gut twist with guilt again. But your overriding emotion is how much you want him to kiss you. He doesn’t move any closer to you though, and as if sensing your frustration, a cocky smirk appears on his face.

It’s as if that’s the catalyst for you to lunge for him, effectively wiping the smile off his face.

His tongue easily makes its way into your mouth, swiping your teeth, then the roof of your mouth, before toying with your tongue. His hands tighten on your hips, and he works you both so that your back is against the counter, and he can put his weight on you. In mere seconds from you attaching your lips to his, you had lost control, though you are definitely not complaining.

You make out for a few minutes, without anything else happening. Your content to just do this, all night, if not forever. But then you shuffle to get more comfortable and feel him hard against you. Heat almost immediately floods to your core, and suddenly you are not content to continue just making out.

You don’t say anything straight away, you think through your options. He’s not said anything, he seems just as content to take this no further. And you have to wonder whether that’s for the best. You’re friends, and though you want more, there’s the risk that it will ruin everything. But isn’t that always the risk? There was also the fact that Jimin’s reputation shows that he probably only wants this to be a one-time thing, and you take a second to debate whether that was something you could handle. Was it better to have someone once, or not at all?

Ultimately, you realise that you’ve already crossed a line. Granted, it’s not as far across the line as having sex, but kissing (especially the way you currently are) is definitely not something friends do. Fuck it.

You pull away from Jimin, light breaths leaving your mouth as you look up at him.

“Bed?”

Light dances in his eyes before extinguishing, a small crease in his brow replacing it. His fingers lightly brush your cheek, pushing your hair behind your ear.

“Are you sure?” His voice is soft, and coupled with his previous action, you wonder whether he does this to every potential lay, or if it’s because it’s you.

You nod your head, small but sure, and then realise that maybe he’s saying it because he doesn’t want to and you become less sure. “If you want to?”

His eyes flick between yours. “Of course I want to,” he says as if it’s written across his forehead. “But – Y/N,” he pauses, searching for the words. “I don’t want you to regret anything.”

You smile at him, your heart flutter at his concern. He could so easily have not said any of that. You were the one who suggested taking this further and he could have gone along with it. But as if he could read your mind and your concerns, he stops to check you actually want to go through with it and aren’t just saying it because you think it’s what he wants. He is the sweetest man on the planet, and again, you have to wonder whether he was doing this because it was you, or whether he would do this to anyone. Knowing Jimin, you’re sure he would extend this curtesy to anyone and everyone.

Smile still on your face, you extend yourself so you can press another kiss to his lips. God, you wish you could do that every minute of every day.

“I won’t regret it,” you say into his lips, and in case he’s still unsure you carry on. “I want it. I want you.”

“Thank god,” he mumbles before breaking into a smile. Stepping away from you an inch, he takes your hand in his. “Lead the way.”

You squeeze his hand tightly in yours as you tug him to the door, as if he’ll escape if you let go. You both run up the stairs, the anticipation of what’s about to come getting too much. A small giggle escapes your lips at the absurdity of the situation you find yourself in. Never in a million years would you have thought that this would become a reality.

Your giggle only deeps when you step through your bedroom door and Jimin pulls your hand, twisting you so that you slam into his chest. He kisses the giggles away, swallowing them in his own mouth.

Theres a new urgency as you both start to pull your clothes off. Jimin inching you both backwards, until the back of your knees hit the bed. At this point you’re both stood only in your underwear. Pausing, both of you letting small pants of air out and you catch Jimin slowly drag his eyes up and down your body. You resist the urge to cover yourself and instead let him drink you in.

“Fuck,” he sighs the words.

Stepping the inch into you he recaptures your lips, hands going from your hips to your ass, kneading the skin.

“You really are an ass guy, huh?” You chuckle.

He laughs, lips travelling from your lips to your jaw to your neck, while one of his hands moves forward in between your legs. You gasp when his fingers pull your pants sideways so they can run through your folds. You’re damp, not fully wet, but Jimin still lets out a satisfied hum into your neck. His fingers only linger there a second before he’s retreating though, a groan of protest leaves your lips.

He doesn’t give you any warning as he unclasps your bra, letting it drop to the floor, before gently lowering you onto the bed. He stays looming over you for a second, looking down at you, and you gulp as you look up at him, wetness pooling in your pants at the sight of him near naked looking down at you like that.

He dips, going down onto his knees before you. His fingers clasp the band of your pants, pulling them down your legs before dumping them with your bra. You push yourself up onto your elbows so you can see what he’s doing. His fingers run along the inside of your legs, going from your ankles slowly up, pushing your legs wider open in the process. You catch on to what he plans, and start to let out a noise of protest, a small “you don’t have to” leaving you lips quickly dies in your throat when his fingers meet your centre.

Pushing himself up onto his knees, he brings his head closer to you. And when his fingers start to dip into you, his mouth attaches itself to your clit, and you let out your first real moan. And when he puts a second finger in you, curling them at just the right point, your elbows can no longer support you and you collapse back onto the bed.

It’s almost embarrassing how quickly you come undone, but neither you or Jimin comment on it. You feel his tongue sweep through your folds as you pant, looking up at the white ceiling, and then his weight is gone. You’re aware of him taking off the last piece of clothing that he wears.

“Top draw,” you say, without him saying anything.

Theres the noise of a draw being opened, of him fumbling around, and then the distinctive rip of a foil packet being opened. The bed dips under his weight, and then your view of the white ceiling is obscured by a smiling Jimin. An improvement to any view.

“Fuck you tasted so good,” he says. “If I wasn’t so hard, I’d eat you out all night.”

You laugh, wrapping your arms around his neck, pulling him down onto you so you can kiss him. Theres a lingering taste of you in his mouth.

Lips still attached to yours, he grinds down into you, his hard cock running through your folds. You both moan at the feeling. He does this a few more times, seemingly content to do just that forever, but you grow frustrated.

“Jimin,” you whine, and a cheeky smile appears on his lips as he ignores you, continuing to grind into you. “Jimin. Please.”

He takes pity on you, stopping his movements when he’s lined up with you. Your breath hitches in your throat when he starts to push into you. He goes inch by inch, only stopping when he’s fully bottomed out.

“Fuck,” you’ve never heard him curse so much as you have tonight.

He doesn’t ask you when you’re ready, instead just starts to slowly move in and out of you. It doesn’t take him long to speed up. He drags himself slowly out of you before slamming back into you, jostling you up the bed.

“Why have we waited so long to do this?” Jimin says over the top of the noise of your bodies slapping against each other.

Grabbing your knee, he pulls it up slightly, changing the angle making you both moan. Then, he starts to go rabid. His movements now anything but slow as he pounds in and out of you.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” he says.

You don’t know how he’s able to form words, your mind is completely blank. The only thing you’re aware of is the feeling of him inside you. You can hear moans, but you’re now no longer sure if it’s you, Jimin, or both of you making the noise. You at least last longer than when he ate you out, but it still feels like you come undone faster than you normally would. But you can’t hold out any more. The feeling of him inside you is enough to drive you insane.

Your mind feels like it implodes, pure whiteness fills your vision as your back arches off the bed and you let out an inhuman sound. You feel Jimin chase his own high, hips bucking into you at a faster pace, extending your pleasure.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Jimins hips stutter as he finds his own release.

He thrusts two more times before pulling out of you. Taking off his condom, he throws it in the bin before falling onto the bed next to you. You’re both sweaty and panting, but he still opens his arms as you roll into his side. You feel the light kiss of his lips on the crown of your head and when you look up at him his fingers push a few strands of hair that have stuck to sweat on your forehead.

Your eyes search his, as you grow nervous again. You’d just had sex with him, yet you’re nervous to ask what currently swims in your mind in case he rejects you. A small smile plays on his lips as he basically reads your mind.

“I’ll stay,” he says, causing your nerves to instantly disappear. “If you want me to.”

You fall back into his arms. “I want you to.”

He moved you, only so you can get under your covers, and your body instantly curls back into his. Your eyes start to feel heavy quickly, the small circles Jimin draws on your arm helping to lull into sleep.

“You’re right,” you manage to mumble out before you fall asleep. “We shouldn’t have waited so to do that.”

You feel the kiss he places on your head before sleep over takes you.

There are two distinct things that you’re aware of when you wake. One is the blaring alarm that goes off every morning to wake you up for work. The other is the hard, smooth planes of Jimins bare chest on your cheek and hands.

Rolling to your side you tap on your bed-side table until the annoying noise is silenced, and then roll back into Jimins side. Jimins arm sneaks around you, lightly squeezing your sides as you feel his lips press against the crown of your head.

“Morning,” his morning voice is croaky and husky, and you think if you aren’t already in heaven, then that noise alone might send you there.

You crane your neck so you can look at him. His hair is dishevelled, bits sticking up at odd angles, his eyes are puffy and half closed, but his mouth is pulled back into a full beamed smile. You don’t think as you lean up to press a kiss to his mouth. This is how you want to wake up every day.

“Morning,” you mumble against his lips, pressing one last kiss before pulling away. “I feel like hell.”

“You look like hell,” he says, which earns a light smack on his stomach. “Joking,” he elongates the word while his hand starts to draw circles on your side. “You always look amazing.”

“Now I know you’re lying.”

You yelp as his hands encompass your waist, and as if you weigh nothing, pulls you onto his chest so that you stare down at him.

“I’m not. You do look amazing,” he says. “Even if your hair does look like a bird's nest.”

Your laugh gets silenced as Jimin captures your lips with his, his tongue easily slipping into your mouth. His hands go from your hips to your ass, giving it a hard squeeze before starting to knead the skin. You moan loudly into his mouth before pulling away.

“I need to get ready for work,” you say as his hands continue their motions.

“I can be quick,” he says as his lips attach themselves to your jaw.

“You need to get ready for work. And I doubt you want to go in wearing the same thing as yesterday, so that means you need to go home,” you struggle to get the words out as his mouth works its way down to your neck.

“Call in sick,” he mumbles.

You stop fighting for a second, a light moan escaping you as he continues. For a second or two you forget why you’re arguing, and then for the next second you wonder if you should bother protesting, if you should just give into him. But then you snap to your senses, sitting up on him so that his lips can no longer easily attach themselves to you. He groans as he looks up at you, his lips puckering into a pout.

“I can’t call in sick,” you laugh at him.

He lets you remove your legs from his waist before you stand up. He stays lying on the bed, but his eyes follow you as you walk naked around the room.

“But now I have a problem that needs sorting out.”

You look over your shoulder at him and follow his gaze as he looks down at his now erect cock. You stifle a laugh as you shake your head, looking away from him to focus again on getting ready. You wanted to be strong, and if you focused on him looking like that in your bed too long you would easily give in. Though you have to keep wondering if that would be such a bad thing.

“The bathroom’s over there if you want to go and sort yourself out,” you say.

You don’t hear his approach, and a small squeal leaves your lips as his hands wrap around your waist.

“But that’s no fun,” he says into the skin just below your ear.

He pulls you backwards to his chest, and you feel just how big a problem he has. You can’t resist teasing him, grinding lightly back into him, and you feel proud when you hear and feel the breathy moan against your neck.

“I don’t have time,” you say as you pull away from him, a wide smile on your face.

“Babe,” he wines, hands trying to grab you back into his embrace. The nickname does something to your heart.

You spin around to face him, letting his arms drag you into his chest.  

“What do you want?” You smile up at him, failing to sound annoyed.

“It’s fine,” he huffs, but is clearly not annoyed. “I’ll sort myself out in the bathroom.”

“Don’t make me feel bad,” you smile up at him, planting a kiss on his mouth. You could really get used to this. “I can help you out if you want. It will just have to be quick. I do really need to get ready for work.”

He smiles down at you, eyes dancing across your face before he gives you another peck.

“It’s fine. It would be nice, but we have plenty of time to do it any other time,” he says, before pressing another kiss on your lips and then finally letting you go.

God, he was the best. You know plenty of guys who wouldn’t have dropped the matter so easily, hell, you’ve been with enough guys that had expectations when it came to sex, and though they never forced themselves on you, it was nice to be listened to. Not every guy was a sleaze, but enough were that this small thing from Jimin meant a lot to you.

You and Jimin do an invisible dance around each other in near silence. You choosing clothes for the day, him retrieving his clothes that got discarded last night. You wanted to stay home with him, you wanted to call in sick, you didn’t want to leave him for a second, but the guilt would weigh too heavily on you. Plus, you knew if you did it once, then you’d never stop doing it, especially if it meant being with Jimin.

You had a lingering feeling that last night may have been the only time you’d be with him, that if you didn’t take him up on the offer of a repeat now, you may never get the chance again. But it gave you confidence that he said there would be plenty more time for this. You didn’t really expect him to do a hit and run on you, especially as he had stayed the night, but this whole situation scared you. You didn’t know what it was, and didn’t want to question it in case you had different ideas about what it was and scared him off. Jimin was known for his short relationships after all.

When you’re both dressed, you head down the stairs, and before you can turn to head into the kitchen, Jimin takes your hand in his, stopping you.

“If I truly am going to work today, I really should head home to get ready,” he explains.

“You don’t want any food?”

“If I stay any longer, I won’t want to leave,” he admits, and you can see how genuine he is.

Even as your heart pangs, you still roll your eyes at him. “You’re so cheesy.”

“You love it,” he laughs, tugging your hand to pull you closer, before engulfing you in a hug. “I had a really nice night,” he mumbles into your ear.

You hum back, content to be in his arms a bit longer. You don’t want to go back to reality. It feels like you’ve been in a dream world since last night, and as soon as Jimin steps out of that door it will all be shattered. All night you’ve been thinking about where last night leaves you, and the thoughts all come back to you now.

“Can we not tell anyone about it?” The words leave your lips without much thought and when you feel Jimin stiffen in your arms you panic. “I don’t mean that,” you stutter, pulling away from him just enough to see his face. “I mean, I do. But, I just mean, can we wait a bit to tell everyone about last night?”

He has managed to school his face into a neutral stare by the time you look up at him, but his body is still stiff in yours. You wonder what you said wrong. Was it the fact he wanted to tell people about you, because surely you weren’t his normal bragging material. Or was it because he had assumed that what you had asked was obvious, and you saying the words made him realise that last night may have been a mistake because if it wasn’t obvious, what else wasn’t? You pray that it wasn’t because he’d already told people.

“You don’t want to tell people we slept together?” His eyes search yours as he looks down at you, and you swallow the lump that forms in your throat. This suddenly felt very serious.

“I just want to wait to see how things settle between us before we drag others in.” The words are clumsy because you don’t know what Jimin wants and don’t want to give away how much you want him if he doesn’t want you the same way.

“But you want me, right?” It’s the first time he’s sounded vulnerable, unsure, and you instantly pull him tighter to you. You’ve been stupid, you realise, he’s made it clear he wants you (even if only for a bit longer), you shouldn’t be so hostile to him just because he has a reputation.

“Of course,” you say it as if it’s the only thing you’re sure of, because it is. “I want this. I want you. I want to see where this goes. But I want us to see where this goes before others tell us where it should go.”

He nods his head slowly at you, as if finally understanding what you mean. The happiness from earlier starts to seep back into his face and the sight calms you. Maybe you haven’t just screwed this up after all.

“I get it,” he says.

“And we will tell them,” you assure him. “Just not straight away. I want you to myself a bit longer.”

“I know,” he smiles at you before leaning down to plant a kiss on your lips. “Now. I really do have to go.”

One last kiss, his hands roaming down to squeeze your ass, and before your arm can extend to slap him, he’s walking out the door. He gives you a cheeky smile over his shoulder as he walks down your road, and you stay leaning in your door watching him until he’s gone from sight.

The delay to your morning means that you only have time to grab a cereal bar before you have to set off for work. You wouldn’t regret it if it wasn’t for the hangover and nausea that sets in as soon as you’re out of the house. Without Jimin around distracting you, you suddenly realise how rough you feel.

Walking to work you try to take your mind off your pounding headache by pulling your phone out. Finally opening up the unread messages you have on your phone. There’s a few from the group chat with Connie, Yoongi and Jin. You wonder whether opening this will be the thing that tips you over the edge, it will probably do you more harm than good, but you open it anyway.

Connie: Do I win the bet if Jimin takes home Y/N not Izzy?

Jin: No.

Yoongi: Plus, technically, Y/N took Jimin home.

Connie: You guys are no fun.

Jin: That’s not what your mum said last night

Yoongi: What are you, 10?

Jin: Inches, yeah.

Jin has been removed from the chat by Yoongi

You smile at the stupid interaction from last night. But the messages keep on going from this morning, Jin having been re-added by Yoongi, and they turn your expression slightly sour.

Jin: Still nothing from Y/N? How much sex do we reckon they had last night?

Connie: Jesus, Jin. Read the room. None of want to be thinking about that at 8am.

Yoongi: He’s just still bitter I kicked him out of the group.

Connie: What did he offer you to get re-added?

Yoongi: He said he’d buy me a bottle of whiskey.

Jin: I had my fingers crossed behind my back, makes the promise null and void.

Jin: ANYWAY. Y/N and Jimin.

Connie: She should be up by now... I want the gossip!!  

Jin: I’ve messaged Jimin too, and no word there... I think that may be confirmation enough

Yoongi: Maybe they both just had too much to drink

Jin: Or are just too sore

Connie: You’re disgusting

Jin: Oh, come on. You’re as bad as me, you’re just too afraid to say it

Connie: Yeah, because it’s disgusting.

Jin: Details, details...

Connie: @Y/N, wake up!!

Connie: @Y/N, we want details!!

You want to turn your phone off. You want to hide away in embarrassment. You kind of want to smash your head against a wall, or better yet, smash your friends' heads against a wall.

But you’ve opened the messages now. They’ll all see the blue tick against your name, and it would look dodgier if you left them on read. No, you had to reply, and you either had to lie, or skirt the truth. Neither was ideal, but you were the one to ask Jimin not to tell anyone what had happened, you couldn’t at the earliest opportunity go back on that, and you had made that request for a reason. No, you didn’t want them finding out what happened. Not yet anyway.

Y/N: Can’t talk, feel like I might keel over and die any second, or throw up the entire contents of my insides. Whichever comes first.

Connie: Gross.

Jin: SHE’S ALIVE!!!

Y/N: Barely.

Connie: Details then! What happened?

Y/N: Exactly as was advertised. Jimin came back to mine and we had some drinks. You guys were more than welcome to join, but boring Jin had to ruin it.

Jin: I thought we agreed I’m not boring?

Jin: Sounds like you’re the boring one anyway. Just drinks?

Y/N: And chatting, believe it or not, we didn’t sit in complete silence.

Jin: There are other noises that I was imagining you making.

Y/N: Oh. And this is me stepping into work. Got to go. Have a nice day guys.

You lock your phone and put it in your pocket as you step into your small office. You knew they were all joking, but it still felt a bit too close to home. They always teased you about your crush, and you always went along with it, because it made it seem and feel less serious than it was. But now that something was or might be happening, it brought on fresh waves on panic. Which, given your current state, was not welcome.

You manage to make it to your desk before collapsing in your chair and flopping your head on the table. You don’t even put your computer on in an attempt to look like you might be trying to work. You just take a few deep breaths to steady yourself.

You try to focus on Jimin rather than your friends. It strangely settles your worries. Because, he is amazing, and last night was amazing, and any thought of that filled you with joy. It all felt a bit wild and fast, but it also felt strangely right. The way he had looked in your kitchen, the kiss on your cheek before he had left your house, and compared to the wild, passionate sex, it felt domestic.

Sitting up, you push the few buttons to get your computer up and running, if you had made it into work, you may as well try and get something done. And as you sit and watch your screen turn from black to coloured, you see Steph coming to your desk.

“You're glowing.”

“Thanks Steph. I don’t feel like I’m glowing, I actually feel like hell,” you perch your head on your arm.

“Another heavy night at the pub quiz?”  

“Something like that,” you grumble.

“Don’t tell me Jimin finally fell into your bed.”

You look up at her at those words, your face the picture of confusion, though your heart hammers in your chest. You’d asked Jimin to tell no one, and yet the first person you see guesses before you can say a word. You felt like you’d barely batted off Jin, Connie and Yoongi, and here Steph is basically reading your mind. God, if they were all like that over text, what would they be like in person if you are so obvious?

“Like I said, you’re glowing. You’ve obviously had a night of incredible sex.”

Your face burns at the words that come out so casually, but try to remain unphased. Even with the sly look Jon gives you from across the desk.

“I think that’s a myth, the whole glowing after sex thing,” you carry on, glad your voice comes out steady.

“Obviously not.”

“Maybe it’s all the alcohol I consumed.”

“A lack of vitamins can do that to a person,” the sarcasm is thick in her voice.

“That’s what they say,” you reply, knowing she was joking but hoping to drag her away from the conversation. “Now can you leave me alone. It’s nothing personal, but even the effort of trying to come up with words for a conversation is making my head pound.”

Steph smiles at you, part warm, part knowing. But you’re thankful when she places a hand on your shoulder, giving it a light squeeze.

“I’m happy for you,” she says before disappearing back to her desk.

You spend the rest of the day trying and mostly failing to focus on work. And as hard as you try, you can’t help when you mind wonders to Jimin. Especially when he messages you asking if you want to spend the weekend together. As much as you worried that it was only a one-night kind of thing, Jimin seemed to keep proving you wrong. Maybe he was in this as much as you were.

For the rest of the day, you struggle to fight the smile that keeps rising to your mouth. In the end you just give in to it.

And the rest of the weekend and the week that follows feels much the same. You spend most of your free hours with Jimin, and when you’re not together you seem to be texting. And as great as the sex is (because there is a lot, and it is amazing), it also feels more than that. You talk and have fun together. You feel happier than you have felt in years.

“Who won the Premier League in 2016?” The host’s voice booms throughout the quiet room.

“Why do they always ask football questions in sports rounds?” You complain as you watch Yoongi scribble down the answer. “They never ask netball questions, or hockey, or what about bowls? Everyone loves bowls.”

“Name one person that loves bowls,” Jimin laughs but keeps talking before you can answer him. “Because, believe it or not, football is a very popular sport that a lot of people are fans of.”

“Yeah, that is hard to believe.”

“Oh come on, even you know the answer to this one.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, even me?” You shoot him a semi-annoyed look, knowing he didn’t mean anything by the words, the smile that remains on his face only emphasises the point.

“I meant everyone. Everyone knows the answer to this one. And I know you know, because we watched them win in the pub together and you were very excited. It certainly felt like you were a fan of football that night.”

“I don’t know the answer,” Connie chips in, and Jimin shoots you a look to suggest that she wasn’t included in the everyone statement. Poor Connie.

“Fine. It was exciting because of the atmosphere. Not because bloody Leicester won. Happy?” You say, the smile on your face betraying your annoyed tone.

He doesn’t answer, but the smirk on his face tells you everything. You only widen your smile in return.

“Question 9.” Once again, the quiz host manages to quieten the room. “Who has won the most Tennis Grand Slam titles?”

“Sue Barker was pretty good back in her day,” Jin says before taking a sip of his drink.

“Nadal?” Once again everyone pretends that Jin hasn’t even spoken.

“Or Federer,” Yoongi says, tapping the pen on the table.

“I think it’s one of those, everyone thinks it’s Federer but it’s actually Nadal, answers,” Jimin replies.

“And are we not even going to consider Serena Williams?” You narrow your eyes at the boys and they both look at you slightly wide eyed. “He never specified gender. Believe it or not, women can be good at sports too.”

“I know,” Jimin replies, and you’re glad he didn’t use your response from earlier the way you used his. “Serena is a good shout.”

Both men have turned slightly pink from your jab at them, and though you don’t want to make them feel uncomfortable and know they weren’t doing it on purpose, you’re secretly a bit glad. It annoyed you that women were always over looked in sports, so even a small reminder to remember them was useful.

“I’m not saying she’s the answer, just someone to throw in the mix,” you shrug.

“No, I think it is her,” Jimin replies and Yoongi quickly scribbles it down.

You look at Jin who’s remained sat quietly watching the whole thing and he only raises his eyebrows at you, giving you a knowing smirk. You heat at the unspoken words. It was weird for Jimin to back down so easily, and here he was complimenting you. He couldn’t be making it any more obvious to them that something was going on between the two of you. It just made you feel even more guilty for not telling anyone. But you would tell them, just not until things settled and you and Jimin knew where you stood. Everything was still new. You didn’t want everyone knowing and dooming the whole thing.

“And finally,” the quiz host shouts out. “How many stages are there in the Tour de France? That’s stages in the Tour de France. Thanks for another week folks, as always go grab a drink before I start giving the answers.”

“Did Beyonce perform there one year?” Jin says and everyone frowns at him. “Stages? Like performance stages, it was meant to be a joke.”

“Well, as always, it wasn’t funny,” you reply, resisting the urge to roll your eyes.

“Harsh,” he mumbles, but still chuckles.

“Why is the last question always impossible,” Connie moans.

“I think they do it on purpose,” Jimin adds and Connie shoots him a look as if to say no shit.  

“Not impossible,” Yoongi says as he scribbles on the answer sheet.

Jin sits up straighter, looking more interested than he has the whole evening.

“Oh my God. You know the answer?”

“Believe it or not, I’m the only one who know most of the answers. I carry the team,” he shrugs but throws you a wicked grin that takes you by surprise, it was so un-Yoongi.

“But Tour de France? Who even watches that?” Jin continues.

“I never said I watch it,” Yoongi throws back. “Someone I went to school with was in it one year and when I spoke to them, they said it was 21 stages,” Yoongi explains, still as unbothered as always.

“Where do you store all this knowledge? You’re so small, and that head must only be able to contain a brain the size of a pea, yet you come out with this sort of nonsense. It shocks and appals me that you can remember that, yet can’t remember to take the bins out on a Wednesday,” Jin shakes his head as if it was really affecting him, and then abruptly stands up and says, “another round?” and doesn’t wait for a response before walking off to the bar.

“I am honestly going to kill him one day,” Yoongi fumes in the corner and you wonder whether the look on his face was the reason Jin decided to leave so quickly.

“I’m surprised you’ve managed to refrain for so long,” you laugh, though are unsure if you should provoke the matter.

“It’s only because he lets me drink his whiskey and doesn’t mind when I play my music too loudly,” again Yoongi says the words with little emotion, but you know for a fact that there is more to it than that. Yoongi had a hard outer shell, but it didn’t take much to affect him inside. He may not look it but he actually felt very deeply, and you knew that he loved Jin a lot.

Connie drags him into a conversation about sport that you only half pay attention to. Your attention is focused when a hand lightly squeezes your leg.

Turning to look at Jimin you see a concerned look in his eye. His hand remains on your leg, with seemingly no care of who can see the touch, though you doubt anyone could see or comment even if they did look.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” he says, giving your leg another soft affectionate squeeze.

“What do you mean?” You ask, hand absently falling on top of his.

“I didn’t mean to offend you about the football and then be all misogynistic,” he replies while turning his hand so it’s palm up in your lap.

“You didn’t offend me,” you say, lightly trailing patterns on his palm with your finger, because he didn’t. You just felt a bit uptight tonight, little things that wouldn’t normally get to you were annoying you more than normal.

You had felt stressed before coming tonight. You and Jimin had spent basically the whole week together, and tonight would be your first time together around others. You still hadn’t told anyone, Jimin had raised the matter, but when you asked him for a bit more time, he had easily agreed. You were stressed about not telling anyone, and then them finding out and being upset. So, even though you didn’t mean to get upset about Jimins statements, your tense state caused the unnecessary harshness.

“But I was misogynistic?” A small smile lights his lips as he glances down at your two hands. Your fingers continue their patterns and if anyone were to look over the table at you, they wouldn’t see the fumbling currently happening under the table, it was the only reason you carried on.

“A tiny bit,” you say with no malice. “But only a tiny bit. I forgive you.”

“Thank God,” Jimin says dramatically before snatching your hand in his. “Because I’d never be able to cope if you didn’t.”

You laugh at his overly dramatic words, and the laugh only deepens when he takes the hand that he holds and lifts it to his mouth, pressing a light kiss on it. Pulling your hand away from his lips reveals the full, mega-watt beaming smile on his lips that makes your heart stutter in your chest.

“Right, they were out of the You’re a Swine IPA Yoongi, so I got you a Stella like everyone else,” Jin announces his presence by putting the tray full of drinks of the table.

You take your hand out of Jimin and place it back under the table while the smile is wiped off your face, as if you suddenly remember where you are and who’s there. You don’t look to see Jimins reaction but can feel his silent stare on you. Picking up your fresh drink you take a long gulp of it and catch Yoongi’s eye when you place it back on the table. It feels like the man is all seeing and all-knowing as he raises an eyebrow at you, but you’re thankful that he doesn’t say anything. You felt nervous about tonight, and then you let Jimin be so obvious? You heated at the thought of being caught out.

You try to fall back into the easy conversation that starts up around you. With Jin’s opening statement they talk mainly about Yoongi’s new fascination with the on-tap beers from local breweries that have weird and fantastical names. Jin is convinced Yoongi only wants them because it means that Jin has to say the name when ordering, but Yoongi retorts that he genuinely enjoys the taste and if anything is helping out local businesses. You have to say that Jin makes a good point, especially when Yoongi recently requested a pale ale called Fanny Me This.

There’s no hand holding or secret conversations as the quiz host comes back out and gives the answers. Though you did pretty well on the sports round, Yoongi coming through on the Tour de France answer and your suggestion of Serena Williams being right bumping your points up, you still don’t get over 40 points. On the way home though, when you’ve said goodbye to the others, Jimin doesn’t say anything as he takes your hand in his and you don’t say anything as you lean slightly into his body. You kind of love how normal it feels when you ask him if he wants to come into your house when you reach the door, and you definitely love that he doesn’t even think twice to accept.

Even though only three pub quizzes have passed, it feels weird turning up without Jimin by your side. If he hadn’t already been at your house then he would walk your way so you could have at least 10 minutes together. But you haven’t actually seen Jimin in two days at this point. Which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn’t much, but with how much time the two of you had been spending together, it felt like a lifetime.

He’d gone on a night out with his work mates on Tuesday night for his company's annual conference. It’s a massive event where the company celebrates the previous years work, awards innovation in the company as well as hard work, and basically just uses it as an excuse to have a massive piss up.

Jimin had invited you, and even if it hadn’t been on a Tuesday (who even does that?), you still felt like it was a massive leap in your relationship. You liked where the two of you were, but you still hadn’t explicitly told anyone, though you’re sure a few have guessed. Going to Jimin’s work conference with Jimin, just felt big. Especially when the two of you hadn’t discussed what you were. You hadn’t really told Jimin the extent of your worries, merely told him that a Tuesday wasn’t ideal, what with work the next day, he’d seemed disappointed but didn’t press the matter, saying he understood but would miss you.

You hadn’t heard much from Jimin after that. The next day had basically been radio silence until it was pretty much dark, and at that point you could tell that he was suffering the effects of a heavy night. He had been slightly more talkative yesterday and this morning, but had said that he was having dinner with a friend in town tonight so it made more sense to go straight to the pub then come to yours first.

When you arrive at the pub Jimins already at the bar talking to Izzy, he looks over and gives you a small wave, which you return as you head to the table. It’s no surprise when you see Yoongi, Jin and Connie already sat at the table, they always seem to arrive before you. And before you even take your bag off and sit down, Jimin is at the table, drinks for everyone in hand.

You can’t take your eyes off him, your emotions for him bubbling to the surface as you look at him so close. Especially when he takes his seat next to you, it’s like you can’t take in enough of him, seeing him so close after so long. You want to hug him, want to kiss him, want to touch him, but you settle for a smile. The rest could wait for later when you’re both alone.

He returns the smile, but you can’t help but feel like it’s missing something. The glint in his eye isn’t as strong. The crinkles at the side of his eyes not as deep. His teeth not showing as broadly. It just doesn’t feel as genuine as it normally does. But when his hand lightly squeezes your leg before retracting, you know you’re over reacting. You’d not seen him in three days and now you’re some psychotic, overthinker. You needed to chill.

It doesn’t take long for the quiz to start, and you get lost in the easy banter and thinking of the answers you should definitely know, (what is the capital of New Zealand? Was a real bugbear until Jin shouted out Wellington, letting half the tables around you know the answer too). It feels normal, nothing off, making you decide that everything from earlier was definitely your imagination.

And then the questions finish, and Jimin offers to get another round in, the round that should be yours to buy, but he merely gives you a wink as he walks to the bar. Your heart leaps at the gesture, and then instantly falls when you look down and see the faces staring back at you. Concern is written over every feature, and your face scrunches in confusion before Jin talks.

“So, I hear that you may have won the bet,” Jin says, his voice light, but also thick with unease.

“What?”

“The Jimin and Izzy bet,” he attempts to clarify.

Your mind still can’t really compute what he’s trying to tell you. And then it hits you like a tonne of bricks.

The bet. The bet that was made weeks ago, before anything had happened between you and Jimin. You had won that bet?

Your body heats at the connotations before fully processing what was going on. You turn to look again at where Jimin is stood at the bar. Much like when you made the bet, Jimin is stood leaning against the bar talking to the beautiful barmaid, both with full beam smiles on their faces. You can almost see the flirtation coming off them in waves. And you suddenly wonder if that is why he was so keen to buy your round, to be closer to her for a few minutes. If that is why he seemed so off with you, if it is why he hasn’t been talking to you as much over the last few days.

“What do you mean I won?” You try again to clarify, because even though you fully understand, you can’t help but hope there’s been a misunderstanding somewhere.

Jin looks around the table at Yoongi and Connie, but their eyes are on you, while you just try to avoid everyone's eyes. It’s easier to try and remain like you are in control of yourself if you don’t look at them.

“Uh – well – did you not hear?” Jin stutters, and when you shake your head he carries on. “Jimin went on a night out and took Izzy home.”

Well fuck.

It was every nightmare you had come true. It was everything you had imagined happening, actually happening. You felt like you were drowning, searching for something to stay afloat, and there was nothing there.

But you had to remain calm. No one actually knew that anything had happened between the two of you, and this was exactly why. You felt humiliated as it was, they all knew how you felt towards the man, hence the sympathetic looks, but to throw in them knowing something was actually happening between the two of you? You’d die of shame on the spot.

“When?”

“Uh,” again, Jin looks at Connie and Yoongi for support, and again, they both ignore him. “Tuesday,” he says scratching the back of his neck.

His conference. The night that he had invited to you, and you had said you couldn’t go. Had he invited Izzy in your place, or simply stumbled upon her in the night? Well, it at least explains why he’d been so quiet with you over the last few days, and why he seemed a bit weird with you tonight.

Your mind starts to run away from you. Coming up with wilder and wilder theories of what happened. You have to take a visible breath in to compose yourself before you speak again. Jin, Connie and Yoongi were not the enemy here, you shouldn’t be taking it out on them. Plus, they didn’t even know about you and Jimin, though their concern at least stemmed from somewhere, probably the fact they knew you liked him, or had guessed something was happening.

“Well, I did say I know him the best, didn’t I?” You try, and almost definitely fail, to sound unmoved by the whole situation, taking a sip of your drink for something to do.

“It’s just Yoongi that has to pay up then,” Jin replies, and you’re grateful for the semi change in subject, but his eyes are still on you, as if watching for signs of distress.

You hum in reply, eyes going to Yoongi who, of course, is already looking at you. While concern swam in Jins eyes, it is less noticeable in Yoongi’s, making it easier to hold his stare.

“A drink, crisps, and a shot of sours I think it was,” Yoongi chips in. “I’ll get it in after Jimins round.”

Again, you hum, words still failing you. You’re glad when the others start talking, not expecting you to join in, but still shooting you concerned looks from time to time. You plaster on an obviously fake smile, that you’re sure does anything to reassure them. In fact, I probably looks so manic that it worries them more.

The thing is that the timeline matches, in your mind it all adds up to being plausible. Jimin had invited you on a night out the other day, saying he was going out with some work friends, but you had turned it down because you had too much work to do the next day to be hungover. He hadn’t messaged you much since, which wasn’t odd per se, but now it makes you wonder whether he was doing it to be cold, to push you away because he was moving on from you. You don’t want to believe that Jimin would do that, but part of you thinks that’s exactly how he would get rid of you.

And looking at him now only solidifies everything you’ve ever thought. Jimin wasn’t a relationship guy. He liked to have a conveyor belt of women, constantly moving.

You had wanted to believe different, had wanted to believe everything he had said to you over the last few weeks. But you now felt stupid for thinking any of it was true, felt stupid for believing that your relationship with him could be anything but physical. He had never explicitly said that it would be anything more, but his words had implied enough for you to hope. He’d taken you for the fool you clearly are. He’d played you like a fiddle.

The lump in your throat thickens the longer you sit here and think about it all. Angry tears threaten to well up and you didn’t want to add to the current shame you were feeling by letting them fall. You wanted to be out of here before Jimin got back to your table and ultimately made you feel worse than you currently feel.

“I’m actually not feeling great, I think it might be some dodgy fish I had for tea,” you cut across whatever conversation was going on around you, causing all eyes to shoot back to you.

You can tell none of them are convinced, but none of them stop you as you start packing up your bag in haste. Half your mind is at the bar, monitoring Jimin, making sure that he isn’t coming back to the table to catch your escape. It takes you mere seconds to put your purse in your bag, down the dregs of your drink, pull your coat on and stand, ready to leave, from the table.

“You’re not staying for the rest of the quiz?” Jin asks.

“I really don’t feel great. I fear if I don’t get to a bathroom soon, I may ruin everyone's night,” maybe a tad extreme, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  

Jin’s eyebrows pinch in either disgust or confusion, maybe both. But food poisoning, or whatever you are pretending to have comes on fast, you try and convince yourself, as you worm your way out of your spot at the table.

“Ok,” Jin continues to looked puzzled as he watches you leaving. “Well, text us when you get home. And call me, or come round, if you want to talk.”

“Yep,” you say in a squeaky voice as you finally free yourself, having a clear shot at the pubs door you give the table a final glance, three worried faces stare back at you and you barely make out the word “goodbye” before ducking for the door.

They could all see right through you. Jin was one of your better friends, you’d know him and been closest to him for the longest, and the look on his face told you he could see straight through your act. But Connie and Yoongi were also not stupid, and let’s face it, you didn’t do the best job at acting.

Out in the fresh air, you feel slightly better, but with the pub still close you continue to feel on edge as you half walk, half run in the direction of your home. You wouldn’t truly feel at ease until you were in your house, front door locked and even then, you doubt the feelings currently going through you would go away.

Still, you rush to your home, your mind whirling the whole way. But you push the thoughts away. You push them away until you’ve reached your door, keep pushing them as you lock the door and head upstairs, you don’t think as you get into your pyjamas, you only stop when you’re tucked up into bed. And even then you find it hard to think.

You won the bet. Jimin took Izzy home. Jimin had sex with Izzy.

You want to scream, cry, punch something. But they all feel like emotions you shouldn’t be feeling, because Jimin wasn’t really yours. You’d slept together a few times, had become more than just the friends that you were a few weeks ago, but that was it. Jimin wasn’t your boyfriend. Neither of you had discussed being exclusive. He was allowed to sleep with other people. But it still hurt like hell.

You’d expected this. You’d predicted this from the start. You had always wanted Jimin, but always worried that he was too much of a ladies' man to settle down the way that you wanted. And that night when you slept together, you had worried whether you should even sleep with him, because you knew that your heart was in it too much for it to be a one-night thing.

And yet you’d done it all. You’d slept with him, you’d given him your heart, and you felt like he returned that, if only just a small portion. But this seemed to just prove all your instincts right. You should have prepared better for this, because you knew it was coming, it wasn’t a matter of if but when. As much as you tried to convince yourself that you were wrong, Jimin never felt the same way you did. You just wish he’d at least spoken to you first, you thought he was at least that decent.

It felt like your heart was split down the middle. Like it was bleeding out, and you had no equipment or knowledge of how to stop it. You feel like you’re drowning in it as you lie in your bed, it all seeping out of you.

Your phone dings with the noise of an incoming text, and you know who it is before you look at your phone. Still, you twist to read it.

Jimin: You ok? Jin said you felt rough so left? You should have waited and I would have walked you home x

Tears prick your eyes as you read the message, as if even the sight of his name is too much. He was being sweet even now, offering to walk you home and checking if you felt ok, and you don’t know whether it pains you or makes you angry. Also, just walk you home, not take you home and look after you, the message seemed clear.

Still, you don’t want to talk to him about the real reason you left, even if it involved him, and you should definitely talk to him about it. Texting wasn’t the right way, and you didn’t feel like now was the right time. You needed to process what had happened before you ask Jimin about it. Though you are pretty sure both are just shitty excuses, so what, you could choose to be selfish in this moment.

Y/N: Dodgy tummy, haven’t felt quite right all day and all just got a bit much. Didn’t want you to miss the quiz.

You should feel guilty about lying, but you don’t. Almost immediately the message is read as if he was sat with your messages open, and then the three dots appear.

Jimin: You should have said :( Let me know if you still feel bad tomorrow and I’ll come look after you xx  

You close your eyes as you read the message, taking a deep breath to steady yourself.

Y/N: Will do, thanks.

You lock your phone and push it onto your night stand even when you hear another ding showing he’s replied.

Your heart continues to ache, your brain feels like it’s on fire, but you still close your eyes to at least attempt to get some sleep. As you could have predicted, you don’t manage to sleep much.

You wake to more messages from Jimin, messages of concern and offers to look after you. You actually do feel like shit in the morning too, a lack of sleep and a broken heart can do that to a person. So much so, that you call in sick for the day. You feel a tad guilty, but you also know that if you had gone in you would just be a mess, and more of a hinderance then a help. It would be better to take the day off, have a three day weekend and start fresh Monday.

You manage to bat away most of Jimin’s texts, excuses of being contagious and feeling like death not actually doing much to stop him, if anything they seem to worry him more. Still, you don’t let on the real reason you feel like shit. And still, he doesn’t tell you about Izzy.

It’s Sunday evening when the doorbell rings. You feel slightly better than the Thursday night. But still, you don’t think much as you walk towards the door.

Pulling open the door Jimin stands facing you. You should have expected it, but part of you is still surprised to see him. Just the sight of him makes your heart rate pick up and your fight or flight instincts start to kick in. But as if expecting you to run, Jimins hand shoots out to stop you closing the door on his face.

“Wait,” he says, eyes pleading. “I just came to talk.”

You stop, fully taking him in, and realise he looks like complete shit. Well, as complete shit as it’s possible for Jimin to look. His hair, that’s normally perfectly styled, looks slightly greasy as it falls limply around his face. His eyes look blood shot and there are dark circles under them, as if he hasn’t been sleeping. Even his clothes are creased and dishevelled. He looks awful, he looks slightly ill, he looks so unlike Jimin.

“I just want to talk. And if you still want me gone, then I’ll go, no questions asked,” he tries again when you fail to reply. “Please, Y/N. Just give us 5 minutes to talk.”

5 minutes was almost laughable. You knew that wouldn’t even get you through the awkward small talk or the deadly silence, that would surely come before you both started to open up. But you still open the door wide enough for him to walk past you. He shoots you an appreciative look as he shuffles into your house and as you close the door you inhale a breath to try and steady your nerves. You were expecting this conversation, but it was happening a lot sooner than you thought.

You follow him into your living room. The space feels so much different with him in it, and different still from when he used to come before everything blew up. It used to feel like he made the space more alive, as if he somehow completed it, but now he just feels like a looming, dark figure. But that’s probably more to do with your emotions towards him.

You both sit down on the sofa, a visible gap between your bodies, where once there would have been none. Jimin stares at it, his eyebrows pulled together as if it’s a science experiment he is struggling to understand. You look at him, hands in your lap as you try to refrain from fidgeting.

“Why have you been ignoring me?” He is the first to speak, straight to the point, no skirting the subject.

“I’ve not ignored you,” the words fall flat even to your ears and Jimin gives you a beat to carry on and when you don’t he sighs.

“I don’t know what’s happening. You need to talk to me Y/N,” his voice is pleading with you as he looks up at your face and you can barely return the stare. You know the second you do you’ll break, you are barely holding yourself together as it is. “Just tell me what I’ve done.”

“You’ve not done anything,” you whisper out.

Another sigh, and from the corner of your eye you can see him shaking his head. This isn’t fair on him, you realise, but you still couldn’t bring yourself to say it, to look him in the eyes and spill your heart out. You’d done it once before, and he’d shown you how much that meant. After all, surely he knows what he’s done.

“If this – if we, mean anything to you, then you’d talk this out with me,” he says and your head finally snaps to him.

He was guilt tripping you into telling him. He knew how much he meant to you and he was using that against you. It made you angry as hell.

“Don’t pull that shit on me,” you say, your voice coming out strong for once. “Don’t come here and tell me that we are anything, when you clearly don’t think we are.”

You can see in the way his eyes search your face that he still doesn’t know what you’re talking about. It halts you on your path, because surly he wasn’t dim enough to not put the dots together by now. Still, the anger and sadness that had been building up within you for days finally starts to spew out of you, and you find it hard to contain it now the dams are starting to fall.

“I wish I could take it all back; the kisses, the secrets I told you, the sex. Were you just laughing behind my back the whole time?” Jimin seems too shocked to reply, which only spurs you on. “I trusted you Jimin, and I really, really liked you. But you’ve made me feel like an idiot. I wish I’d listened to myself from the start, because then none of this would have happened, because I would have known that you wouldn’t stick around, that you wouldn’t change, that you’d just go for the next best thing to come along. I at least thought you’d wait a bit longer, that you’d tell me, talk to me before doing anything with someone else because -”

“You think I’ve slept with someone else?” Jimin cuts you off even though his voice is weak, and again, part of your brain starts to ring warning bells.

“Ye - Yeah,” you stumble on your words, feeling wholly unsure, but trying to convince yourself that you are sure. “Izzy. You met her, or invited her, to that work conference and took her home.”

The fact that you have to explain this to Jimin, the man that supposedly did it, is laughable. But the room is deadly silent after the words are spoken. You watch as Jimins face goes from realisation to shock and finally settles on anger. You blanch under the look he gives you, but remain as strong as you can in front of him.

“Yeah, I took Izzy home. Because she was fucking black out drunk and her friends had left her, and fuck. I took her home. To her home. Alone,” a small, humourless chuckle leaves Jimins lips as he runs a hand through his hair and it suddenly starts to catch up to you how much you have fucked up.

This is what happens when you jump to conclusions on your own and don’t talk them through. This is what happens when you assume something. This is what happens when you run away from your fears.

“But, Jin said...” your voice trails off, unsure what your point was going to be.

Another humourless laugh escapes Jimin and it makes your stomach drop to look at him like this. You thought the broken Jimin you saw at the door was bad, but this dark and angry Jimin was so much worse. Especially because you knew you were the cause of it all.

“Fucking Jin,” Jimin mumbles under his breath, and then carries on, voice back to its normal tone. “So this is why you’ve been pushing me away? Because you think I slept with someone else?”

“I - yeah,” you say, unsure what else you can say.

“After everything I said? After I told you how I felt about you? You really think I would do that to you?”

Your leg starts to bob as the words pierce through you like knives. He was being fair, but it felt mean.

“I mean, it did seem like something you’d do,” you regret the words as soon as they leave your mouth.

“What does that mean?”

You sigh. And maybe part of you was still angry with him, maybe you felt like you’d already lost it so it didn’t really matter what you said now, maybe your heart hurt so damn much that you wanted to make his hurt just a fraction of that, or maybe you were just so damn tired. Whatever it was, it didn’t really excuse what you say next.

“You’ve never been interested in me before Jimin, so why would you be now? You go through women as if they’re about to go extinct. Why wouldn’t I think it was true? Why wouldn’t I think you’d not told me when you slept with someone else?”

He looks like a wounded animal as he regards your words, fully taking in every syllable. From the look on his face, you want to wrap him up in your arms and tell him you didn’t mean it. But both of you sit in the silence and remain on your designated sides of the sofa.

Slowly, as if his body is finally catching up to his brain, Jimin shakes his head. You brace yourself for the words that he is inevitably about to shoot your way.

“Of course you think that about me. You’ve always thought that about me. I’m not an idiot Y/N,” the fact that his voice comes out soft only makes you feel worse. “You’re the one who said you didn’t want to tell anyone about us. As if I was some dirty secret. You’re the one that didn’t want to come with me to my work conference, even though I wanted you there, you acted like you couldn’t think of anything worse than being seen with me in public. You’re the one who clearly couldn’t trust me, to jump to the conclusion that of course I slept with someone else. Who flinched and acted like we were nothing whenever I touched you in public. Who couldn’t even be bothered to talk to me when you thought I’d done something wrong.”  

Hearing him list everything that you’ve done to him over the few short weeks you’d been together seems to make something click in your head. You were the one that treated him like shit. That’s why he had seemed so off with you these past few days, not because he felt guilty about sleeping with someone else, but because he was wondering about you and your feelings towards him.

“What was this Y/N? Because I was all in, I wanted to tell people, I wanted to be exclusive. And I respected you when you asked me not to tell anyone because I thought you wanted to take things slowly, not because you were scared to tell people that you were dating me.”

He says the final word as if he is something unworthy, something people would be disgusted by. And you want to tell him that he is wrong, that you didn’t think that, that what he said is untrue and you didn’t do any of it. But you don’t say anything, because he’s right. He’s right that you didn’t want to tell anyone because you worried what they’d say. He’s right that you didn’t want to be seen intimate with him in public, you had in fact flinched away from his touch just the other week when Jin came back to the table with drinks and you realised you weren’t alone when Jimin was kissing your hand. He’s right that you don’t fully trust him, because when you heard about him and Izzy you immediately thought the worst, you didn’t even ask him about it, you went straight to worst case scenario.

You weren’t the victim here, far from it, and yet that’s what you’ve been acting the past few days. And while you had been living in a Jimin bliss over the last few weeks, he must have been second guessing everything, wondering if you really liked him, or why you didn’t want to tell people you were seeing him.

“I really like you Y/N,” Jimin says when you remain silent. “But I can’t be with someone that can’t trust me, that can’t even talk to me about what’s going on inside their head.”

Tears start to form in your eyes as you realise what’s coming, but you hold them back. You could cry later, you didn’t want to do it now in front of him.

“But maybe it’s best we just leave this here?”

And just like that your heart shatters. You finally had something that you’d dreamed of for years, and within weeks you had thrown it away. Your heart pangs out in pain, but you don’t disagree with him. Even though he posed it as a question, you knew it was meant to be rhetorical. He’d made up his mind.

He must take your silence as compliance because then he’s standing up.

“See you at the pub quiz?” He says lightly, trying, and failing, to mask the pain he must be feeling.

It’s almost laughable how he can even say that, as if the last 30 minutes didn’t just happen, as if you aren’t falling apart in front of him. But when you look at him, you realise he’s hurting just as much as you are. So with all the strength you have you stand up next to him.

“Yeah,” you manage to say as you look at him, your voice unusually level.

You both walk in silence to the front door and there’s an awkwardness between the two of you that you have never felt before, and you wonder how you’ll ever recover from this. Opening the door, you watch as Jimin leaves your house and starts to walk down the road away from you.

“Jimin,” you say when he isn’t too far away, making him stop and look over his shoulder. You think you see tears glistening in his eyes, but he’s too far away for you to be sure. “I really like you too. Like really like you. And I’m so sorry, for everything.”

It doesn’t feel like enough. You want to run after him, to crash down on your knees and beg for his forgiveness. You want to leap into his arms and keep him hostage. But you just stand and stare at him from your door and watch as he nods lightly before continuing to walk away.

You have four days before you have to see him again at the pub quiz, and you don’t use that time wisely. Even though you know that everything Jimin said was true, you still wallow in self-pity. Even more so now, because you only have yourself to blame for everything.

Jimin doesn’t text you, and you refrain from texting him. Though it seems like everything that happens to you is screaming at you to contact him. A joke you hear someone say as you pass them on your walk to work that you know Jimin would find hilarious. A special offer on a jumper that was literally made for him. A new trailer for the film you had talked about wanting to see together the other week. Every time one of them occurs you naturally get your phone out and go to open your messages with him, only to realise you aren’t speaking.

Steph had also guessed something was up, but because you had never explicitly told her that anything was going on, you now didn’t explain what was wrong. But just like she had guessed that you and Jimin were in fact seeing each other, she now guesses that you depressed moods are because of him. Again, however hard you tried to hide things from her, she always knew.

She didn’t pester or hound, but merely suggested that you should talk to him and tell him how you feel. And you knew you should too, you had gotten yourself into this mess, you might be able to get yourself out. But just like before, you worry. Worry that you’ll only make things worse, that though you still want more, it might just be better to do what he said and leave things here. Maybe the two of you were only supposed to be friends.

It felt like the days both dragged and flew in anticipation for the pub quiz. It makes you feel a bit sick the thought of seeing him there. But you won’t back out of it, no, because that would be like a flag declaring that you are not ok, that your friendship is not ok and might ruin everything between you going forward. You are trying to view the pub quiz as a fresh start, and having it on neutral territory would make it ten times easier. In theory anyway.

Jimin had made it clear that he was going to the pub quiz by saying that he’d see you there when he left. If he was going, you had to go.

You wake with nerves bubbling in your stomach on Thursday morning. You try and fail to supress them all day. Can barely eat any food, all of it feeling dry and making it hard to swallow. You struggle to focus on your work, your mind constantly running over possible scenarios that might happen later. Steph silently but sincerely helps you all day, making you cups of tea and talking about nonsense to take your mind off things.

But however much you try to put it off, the time comes where you have to leave your house.

You can’t decide whether it would be better to be the first to turn up or the last. So you decide to just leave at your normal time. You semi thought about texting Jimin to ask if he wanted to walk with you to the pub, but the thought of having to come up with conversation for the short 10 minutes alone, was enough to decide that it was a bad idea. At the pub at least you’d have the others as some sort of buffer.

You walk into the pub with only 5 minutes until the quiz is about to start, that was cutting it fine even by your standards. But looking over at your normal table you see everyone but Jimin has arrived. Your nerves continue to flutter in you as you head to the table.

“The prodigal child has returned,” Jin shouts as you near the table, a few heads from other tables turn to look and you heat with embarrassment.

“I am indeed back, though I only missed the answers last week, so I’m not sure you can say I ever really left,” you say as you finally reach the table and take one of the empty seats.

Jin hums before speaking. “The answers are the best part though.”

“Right, well shall I just leave now, and come back for the answers?” You say flatly.

“Nope,” Jin pops the p, leaning back in his seat. “You better stay. As little as you bring to the team, I think we may do worse with just three people.”

You ignore the insult and do the maths. If you left there would only be three people? Not four? So that meant...

“Jimins not coming?” Your voice comes out flat, but you’re glad there is at least no emotion to betray you.

“People are dropping like flies from this quiz. First Joon, then you, now Jimin,” Jin carries on.

“I’m here,” you say weakly.

“It’s called getting your priorities straight Y/N. This quiz should be top of our priorities. At least me, Connie and Yoongi seem to know that.”

“I was ill,” your voice is once again weak and you know you’re not convincing anyone.

“Just like Jimin is this week,” Jin gives you a knowing look that has you withdrawing back into your seat.

“I – well – I,” you stutter.

“I’m joking Y/N,” Jin says letting out a small squeaky laugh that you don’t react to. “It’s nice to have you back. And I’m sure Jimin isn’t gone for good, only a week or two.” He says the words more sincerely and you give him a small smile even though your heart aches.

You can’t concentrate throughout the whole quiz, you had expected you’d be like this, but you thought it would be due to Jimin's presence not his absence. You manage to at least pretend to be involved, giving the occasional answer to the obvious questions you know, giving half-hearted laughs when everyone else does, getting in the round of drinks. But you truly just want to leave, go home and get into bed. You wish you hadn’t come at all.

You really hadn’t thought twice that Jimin wouldn’t be here, not just because he had said so when he had left your house that night, but also because surely you hadn’t hurt him this badly? Sure, you had been wallowing in self-pity for the last few days, if not the last week since thinking Jimin slept with Izzy, but you had come to the pub quiz even when you hadn’t wanted to. You didn’t know for sure that he wasn’t actually just ill, but you were pretty sure that was bullshit. He wasn’t here because of you.

Even Jin had implied it, Jimin would only be gone for a week or two, who says that when they think that person isn’t here because of illness? What illness lingers that long if not something serious that you would have heard about? You were sure that everyone around the table knew about what you and Jimin were up to, if not for the awkwardness when they told you about Izzy, then for the concerned looks they keep shooting you tonight. Yep, Jimin definitely wasn’t here tonight because of you, because of what you had done to him, because you had broken his heart.

And even after he had said as much the other day when he turned up at your door, it only feels like it hits you now. Jimin had been as all in as you, if not more, because he had wanted to tell people, he had wanted to flaunt you around, he didn’t care what people thought because he was with you and that’s all that matters. That’s all that should have mattered. All this time you had thought it was just you that held all the feelings, that you were falling too quickly and too deeply and that Jimin would break your heart. And all this time it had been the complete opposite.

You’re only vaguely aware that the quiz has ended and you’re now in the break before the answers are read out. You may as well have not come for all the help you’d been. You’d not even added anything to the social side of the night, if anything you’d probably taken away some of the fun.

“Jimin’s really upset about what happened.”

You look up to Yoongi sat opposite you, Connie had excused herself for the toilet and Jin was currently stood at the bar waiting to be served, leaving just you and Yoongi at the table. Something must have shown on your face as he lightly curses before carrying on.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that he really likes you,” he tries to amend.

“I think you mean liked,” you don’t mean the words to be such a jab, but you blame your foul mood. Yoongi just rolls his eyes.

“Have you spoken to him?”

“He came to mine on the weekend,” you shrug and swallow the emotions that rise in your throat. You really didn’t want to cry right now, but just the thought of Jimin stood on your door step brought the emotion up within you.

“Yeah, I meant since then,” Yoongi says.

“Why would we?”

“Oh, I don’t know, to talk about whatever is going on? To get your feelings out in the open? To stop being such idiots?” The sarcasm drips off every word.

“Jimin made his feelings towards me perfectly clear when he last spoke to me.” You don’t question how Yoongi seems to know so much about the situation you found yourself in, and even though you aren’t exactly asking for help (if anything you’re almost pushing him away), you want to know what he thinks on the matter.

“Did I mention the idiots part?”

“Once or twice.”

Yoongi lets out a small sigh as he regards you. You merely hold his stare as he leans into the table, getting an inch or two closer to you.

“Do you want to know why I bet that Jimin would never take Izzy home?”

His comment throws you off guard, confusion sweeping across your face as your mind tries to catch up. By the time you finally realise that he’s talk about the bet from weeks ago (again), the one where everyone bet when Jimin would bed Izzy, the one which you supposedly won which led you into your current mess, Yoongi is already talking again.

“It’s because I knew he, or at least expected, that he would never take her home, because of how he felt about you. You may look at him with heart eyes Y/N, but he looks at you the same way. The respect and pure adoration in his eyes if clear to everyone but you, and that’s only because you’re an idiot that doesn’t think she’s good enough for anyone.”

“Do you want to call me an idiot one more time?” A small gummy smile breaks out on Yoongis face at the fact that you’re back to joking, but your mind only seems to pound more with the new and confusing information.

“Jimin likes you Y/N, not liked.”

“But, Becky,” are the only words that manage to escape your mouth. The barmaid that he had gone out with a few months ago, the one who had changed her shifts so that she didn’t have to see Jimin at the pub quiz.

“I don’t know enough about that, but that was months before you, and maybe he felt the same way as you; that you were out his reach and would never be an option.”

You nod your head at his words, it was months ago, and it didn’t really bother you. Even if Jimin had held a flame for you back then, you wouldn’t have expected him to be celibate while waiting for you. You certainly hadn’t been for him. It had started before Yoongi started talking, had started when you realised Jimin wasn’t here because of you, but the more Yoongi talks the more it feels like the puzzle pieces start to click into place.

“You should talk to Jimin,” Yoongi almost eggs you on, as if seeing into your mind.

Your eyes are wide as you look at him. As if the words are the epiphany you needed. And as you push your chair back and leap to your feet, you see Yoongi jump in surprise. Maybe he hadn’t meant you need to speak to Jimin literally now, but you couldn’t wait any longer.

Jin comes back to the table at this moment, placing the drinks down on the table he looks at you with a confused but concerned look.

“I have to go,” you say to him in explanation, looking down at Yoongi hoping you convey that you wanted him to explain what was going on, and also that you were thankful to him. The wink he gives you is enough for you to grab your bag and bolt out of the pub.

“Are you not staying for the answers again?” Is the last thing you hear Jin shout as the door closes behind you. You don’t even look back. You almost run to Jimins door. It's further than your house, but not by much, especially when you don’t take the detour past yours like he always does.

You don’t think as you head towards his door. You don’t consider what you’re going to say to him, you don’t come up with a speech or think of a list of all the ways you’ve fucked up. You just think about getting to his door, and the rhythm of your feet stepping one in front of the other, and before you know it, his door looms before you. Even then, you don’t stop, don’t give yourself time to catch your breath or your wits as you knock on his door.

It almost exactly reflects what happened on the weekend, but now you’re the one knocking on Jimins door, and you’re pretty sure that while you almost definitely look as shit as he did, you probably also look a bit deranged. The way you fidget waiting for the door to open, your nerves causing a craziness to glint in your eyes, your hair a mess from the windy walk; you definitely don’t look as good as Jimin does when in distress.

All of this starts to deflate, as you try knocking again, this time a bit harder, but still after a few seconds no one answers.

He knows it’s you, and he’s choosing to ignore it, you think as you stand looking at the outside of his door. The egg green paint on the door almost laughs in your face as you stare at it. It feels like it’s mocking you for being so stupid to think that he would give you the time of day. You had a chance to try and fight for him when he was at your door and you’d thrown it away by saying nothing. What made you think he’d give you a chance now?

Your fidgeting stops, shoulders sag, the hope from walking here dissipates into the air. You shouldn’t have left it so long. You’d thrown your chance away when you didn’t run to him that night you watched him walk away from your house.

Deflated, you turn and start the seemingly long commute back to your own house. But as you walk down his front path and reach his gate, you hear the noise of a lock turning. Pausing at the end of his drive, you turn back to the door, a new hope sparking within you.

Slowly, as if building for a dramatic unveiling, Jimins front door opens. And stood behind it, as if by magic, the man himself stands. Again, you have to wonder how someone can look so good while also looking so utterly shit. He’s in some light grey sweats, his hair a fluffy mess, his eyes slightly puffy as if he’s recently cried. You want to run and sweep him into a massive hug and beg for his forgiveness, but you both stay still like statues, eyes boring into each other.

“You didn’t come to the quiz,” you aren’t sure he can hear the words as he stands around 5 meters away, and your voice comes out soft. You hope he doesn’t hear the stupid words that slip out of your mouth, this is why you should have planned a speech on your walk here.

“Didn’t feel like it,” he shrugs.

Tentatively, you take a step back past his gate. It doesn’t close the distance between the two of you by much, but it feels like you’re universes closer.

“Jimin,” his name comes out like a sigh as emotion rises within you. You push it all down, you needed to get all of this out before you got too emotional to speak. “I’m so, so sorry.”

He continues to stare at you in silence, as if waiting for you to continue, to explain. So you do.

“I’m an idiot. You once said I’m smart, but I’m not, I’m the most stupid, idiotic, brainless, moronic person to ever exist. Because I had you, I had you, and I threw it all away like the foolish person I am,” you take a breath to steady yourself, and you think you see a small smile playing on Jimins lips, but your too far away to be sure, and you don’t allow yourself to hope. “Because I meant it when I said I like you Jimin, like really like you. In fact, I think I might love you,” you don’t stop as you say the words, don’t even think about how much of a declaration they are, because you realise they’re true and you’re no longer afraid to admit it.

Your confidence grows as the words continue, and as you talk you start to slowly walk towards Jimin. “I’m not saying this to get your forgiveness, I don’t deserve that. I’m saying it so you know the truth, because that’s what you deserve. I was so scared, scared that you’d break my heart, scared that I wasn’t good enough for you, scared that I was falling for you too deeply. And that made me do some stupid things without thinking. I should have talked to you rather than taken all this on on my own, I should have told you how I felt, because as scary as that felt, at least then you would have known.”

By the time you finish you’re stood back on his doorstep. There’s still a good half a meter between the two of you, but you can at least see his face more clearly now. He gives nothing away as he looks at you, face emotionless as his hand rests on the door, ready to close it on your face at any given second.

A few seconds pass in silence, and you wonder if he’ll ever talk. You meant it when you said you didn’t come here for forgiveness. You didn’t expect it and you didn’t deserve it.

“You were wrong,” you said, and his eyebrows flinch upwards, the first sign of any emotion. “It wasn’t because I didn’t trust you or because I thought you were capable of doing it. It was because I thought you were too good for me, that I didn’t deserve someone as amazing as you.”

His eyes flick across your face, eyebrows pinched together.

“Why would you think that?” His voice is gravelly, as if he hasn’t spoken in days.

You laugh at him. “Have you looked in the mirror?”

“I could say the same to you,” he replies. “I thought I made it clear what I thought of you, what I thought of your body.”

You flush at the memories of just how he had shown you how much he had liked your body. You don’t know how to reply, but are saved of coming up with an answer when Jimin speaks.

“You really hurt me,” his throat bobs as he swallows, and your heart aches for him.

“I was shit,” you agree.

“And I’m not sure I can forgive you.”

“I don’t expect you to,” you whisper.

“But, I’m willing to try.”

Your eyes widen, heart speeding up as if it’s trying to escape your chest.

“What?”

“You love me?” The smile you thought you saw earlier starts to show on his face again. “And you’re moronic?”

“I – I – I was really dumb,” you stumble on your words.

This time he’s the one that closes the gap. Leaving the door open, he steps away from it towards you. You have to look up to keep looking into his eyes.

“But, you love me?” He repeats, his teeth now showing as he smiles.

“I love you,” you say it with everything you have, with every fibre of your being. “I love you so fucking much.”

His hands come out to grab your waist, and as he leans down, his hands pull you into him. The gap is finally closed, his lips press against yours, hot and fast.

“You have a lot of making up to do,” he says against your lips before kissing you again and you can only hum against his lips.

“What do you suggest?” You say when he lets you breathe.

“I have a few suggestions,” he says, before again reconnecting your lips.

“I’m ready to start when you are,” you say.

He laughs, grabbing your hand and tugging you towards his door.

“I’ll be happy to show you what I want,” he says as he pulls you through his door.

“Question 8.”

It’s been 3 weeks since the night you told Jimin you loved him. It took him a few days, but he finally returned the words. As promised, he made you work for his forgiveness, but he said you had finally achieved it. You weren’t convinced, you would never be able to forgive yourself for any of it and you were willing to work forever to make it up to him and to show him just how much you trust and love him.

You finally told everyone too. Straight after you had your first round of making it up to him, you text the group chat (the one with Jimin in), and shared the news. Unsurprisingly, everyone already knew, but they still feigned surprise, and were ultimately happy for you.

Nothing much has really changed. You don’t know why you were so scared, because life with Jimin was bliss, but life with Jimin and everyone knowing you’re together was heaven. Even sat at the pub quiz, his hand linked with yours on the table, felt so small, yet it felt natural and like home.

“Question 8,” the quiz host repeats as everyone quietens down. “Cher saved what lonely animal from a zoo in Pakistan?”

“Was it you Yoongi?” Jin says, struggling to keep a straight face as he looks at the man.

You let out a small chuckle at the words, but instantly go quiet from the look Yoongi shoots you. You think Jimins hand might even tighten around yours protectively.

“I’m going to pretend that that was one of your silly jokes, and you weren’t either comparing me to a caged animal, or worse, comparing me to a lonely elephant,” Yoongi says the words remarkably calmly to Jin.

“Oh, I was definitely comparing you to an elephant,” Jin says deadly serious.

You think Yoongi might punch Jin, but instead he looks down at the answer sheet and scribbles something down. Jin picks up his drink and gives you a wink. You will forever question how their relationship works.

“Question 9. Joe Exotic became famous as the Tiger King in a Netflix original show, but who made a documentary on him years before in 2011? That’s, who interviewed Joe Exotic years before Netflix?”

“Dave Attenborough? Tiger King is pretty close to Blue Planet, and Attenborough is pretty ahead of his time,” Jin says.

“Somehow I can’t see David Attenborough interviewing Joe Exotic,” you say.

“Shame, it would have made one hell of a show,” Jin replies and you can’t disagree.

“Come on, name some famous interviewers or documentary makers,” Yoongi taps the pencil on the table.

“Stacey Dooley?” You suggest gaining your own eye roll from Yoongi.

“Ross Kemp? Now that would have been a great show,” Jimin says.

“Simon Reeves?” You try again.

“Are you even trying Y/N,” Yoongi deadpans.

“Hey, I’m trying. And I don’t see Jimins suggestion getting this treatment,” you snap at him.

“It’s because Ross Kemp was a banging answer,” Jimin says, squeezing the hand again to show he’s joking.

“Are you guys serious?” Connie cuts across your talk, causing all eyes to go to her. “You really don’t know the answer?”

You can almost see the excitement in her eyes at the prospect of knowing something that no one else does. You just hope this isn’t a repeat of a few weeks prior, when she in fact did not know the answer.

“I seriously don’t know the answer,” Yoongi prompts, while everyone else remains silent, waiting for Connie to speak.

“But it’s so obvious. Like, it’s so famous and they did a revisit to it because of how popular the Netflix show was. I can’t believe you guys don’t know.”

“Well you better believe it, because I also have no inkling,” Jin chips in.

“God, I just can’t get over that I’m the only one that knows this,” Connie carries on.

“This better be right,” Yoongi sighs, but you can see the ghost of a smile on his lips as he watches Connies excitement.

“Louis Theroux,” Connie finally says and you all groan with realisation. It seemed so obvious when it was spelt out. “God, I’m never going to forget this,” Connie beams at you all.

“The day you catch Jin not knowing an answer is a day to mark indeed,” Jin says before taking a swig of his drink. You’re unsure why he’s talking in third person, or why he’s acting like it’s not a weekly occurrence that he doesn’t know any answer, but you feel so happy that you can’t help but also beam at him.

“And finally, question 10,” the quiz master booms. “How many letter tiles are in a game of scrabble? That’s letter tiles in a game of scrabble. Another great week guys, don’t forget drinks and snacks before the answers.”

“Is it not 26?” Connie says.

“No, it’s not how many letters in the alphabet, but how many tiles,” Jin says, and Connie lets out an ah, though still doesn’t look convinced about what the question is. Back to the old Connie so soon. “I have no idea though,” Jin admits.

“Well, you’ve probably never played anything as intellectual as scrabble Jin, so we won’t expect you to know,” you say.

“Oh, burn,” Jin laughs. “I thought we gathered I’m fun, so scrabble is definitely not on my agenda.”

“Touche,” you smile at him.

“Well now I feel lame for knowing the answer,” Jimin says.

“You know the answer?” You say with wide eyes and realise how that doesn’t help the situation. “I just mean, that’s not lame. In fact, it’s super-hot.”

“Gross,” Jin comments.

“Super-hot?” Jimin smirks at you.

“Yeah, being smart is hot,” you say.

“Well in that case,” Jimin looks at Yoongi. “It’s 100.”

“Yeah, already wrote it down,” Yoongi replies, holding up the answer sheet as evidence, and you nearly die of laughter at the face that Jimin pulls.

You lean into his ear. “Don’t worry, I still think you’re super-hot,” you whisper.

“Gross,” Jin repeats, this time slightly louder.

Pulling away from Jimin you plant a kiss on his cheek, before sitting back in your chair.

You are so undeniably happy in this moment. Surrounded by all the people you love, that you can’t help the smile that falls across your face. Things couldn’t have worked out any better. You will never be so stupid to guess what Jimin is thinking without talking to him first. You will always trust him, and always love him with your whole heart. You can’t wait to spend the rest of your life with him.

“You know, I think we have smashed it this week,” Jin says. “Who needs Joon on their team after all?”

[its-deputy-caleb]

Hiii, could i have a request for how the gang members would react to meeting a historian or explorer in the wild?? thank you! I love your blogs sm!!

anon ily <3333 i went wayy overboard with these but i regret nothing bc this was soo cute and fun to write. I hope u enjoy and i made it gn for everyone. I only did the VDL boys for this but if enough ppl like it i might do the girls with something similar idk yet?

Dutch Van Der Linde

Dutch first laid eyes on you when you were hanging off the edge of a cliff after slipping when you got too close to the edge. He immediately ran over to you, helping you off the cliff and getting you settled back on your feet.

He seemed genuinely concerned and agreed to help you safely record the rock carving that was on the side of the cliff face, keeping you from falling.

You were a historian and had been studying these mysterious rock carvings after meeting an equally mysterious man, Francis Sinclair.

You didn’t see much of Dutch Van Der Linde after that until you ran into him again in Saint Denis in the saloon. He remembered who you were instantly and started up a conversation about your work where you chatted away for hours.

You became very close after that and he often accompanied you to Museums and fancy fundraisers that you were invited to.

He’d always get dressed up and complimented your finer outfits which was such a difference to the field gear you’d have on. You’d spend all night chatting away over nice champagne and dancing together before actually engaging with other guests but you didn’t have a care in the world with Dutch in your life.

Arthur Morgan

Arthur finds you standing in the middle of a field, flipping over rocks and staring numbly at what appeared to be a map in your hands.

When he approached you he soon learnt you were a young amateur explorer about to get your big break with a treasure hunt but you couldn’t find the gold bars for the life of you.

Arthur gave you a heart warming smile and held up a gold bar after retrieving it from his satchel having felt a little bad that he’d discovered it not a week before you.

The two of you laughed about it, calling yourself a fool for trying to find it for so long when it was clearly missing— the thought that someone took it clearly never crossed your mind.

Arthur was always a gentleman however and promised to make it up to you. After taking you to dinner and getting to know him better, you spent the next few days camping out and finding a new treasure together.

You travelled through caves and through valleys of flowers to find this treasure. Sometimes it was so beautiful that the two of you just stopped by a stream to let your horses rest and enjoy the scenery.

When you finally found the treasure you gave Arthur a big hug in excitement which caught him by surprised but he happily returned. He let you keep the treasure and wished you luck with more exploring but of course that wasn’t the last time you saw Arthur again.

Charles Smith

Charles meets you one day while you’re out surveying wildlife. You specialised in conservation, wanting to study and protect animal species.

Fresh out of the university from Saint Denis you’d been dying to get out of the confining city and explore the heartlands. That’s where a kind gentleman named Charles Smith had offered to protect you and show you around the herds of bison you’d taken to studying.

You spent days together riding the over the hills and following the herd as they travelled. While you were Charles told you all about his family and the respect and love they have for the beautiful creatures.

It was amazing the array of knowledge Charles knew about bison and you couldn’t stop the smile on your face as he told you about the characteristics of the bison. You rushed to take notes in your journal, knowing that all that he told you would help you study and protect these animals.

“Do you think it’ll actually do any good? The work you’re doing?”

“One can only hope Mr.Smith but I will do everything in my ability to protect such beautiful creatures.”

Even when you had to return to the city for study you constantly wrote to Charles, staying in touch and keeping him updated with all your work. It was hard to say goodbye to someone you’d grown close to but you made regular visits to each other long after that.

John Marston

You first found John in the saloon after a long day at work, in desperate need of a drink. Being a zoologist you instantly noticed the scars on his face and would’ve guessed a wolf was the animal that caused the damage.

The two of you instantly started up a conversation and shared all kinds of stories. He told you about being up on the mountain while you showed him the scar on your arm from your run in with a cougar.

You were collecting a compendium of all the animals across the heartlands and during the months you worked on it, you ran into John more than once.

He was always curious about your work and you often spent time together in the afternoon sun, showing him the animals you’d found so far.

“What about the stray dogs in town or do you only deal with cougars and wolves?”

“Well they’re animals too aren’t they not?”

Even though you couldn’t see John all the time, he often came along with you to see the wildlife and covered you when you were around particularly dangerous animals and you enjoyed every second you had with him.

Micah Bell

When Micah met you he had absolutely no idea what you were on about. In his mind the whole idea of a palaeontologist is ridiculous and made up, much less the fact that you chose to read books and study in your spare time.

At first he doesn’t do anything but mock your work but after running into you time and time again he finally started to come around.

He grew more and more curious when he saw the drawings in your sketch books of dinosaurs and even more so when he laid eyes on the fossils. But knowing Micah, he’s still incredibly stubborn.

“Ain’t no way that thing is real.”

“One needs an open mind to comprehend what’s prehistoric Mr.Bell. It requires a certain practice.”

Every so often on your work you’d run into Micah who’d be riding around on his horse, just passing by. By now you’d consider him a friend and your face lit up as he pulled a small ammonite fossil from his bag.

It wasn’t really your area of expertise but you could tell he wanted to impress you and seemed almost nervous as you examined the fossil. Nonetheless you could tell it was real and you let him keep the small fossil as a reminder of you until the next time you saw him.

Javier Escuella

Javier meets you when you’re down my the docks, trying to capture the sunlight and noticed him fishing.

Not wanting to disturb him you kept out of his hair until you heard him cheer loudly at a catch he managed to pull in. In your particular interest in animals, you couldn’t help but ask if you could take a photo of the fish he’d caught.

From then on the two of you became friends, often running into each other as you tried to capture landscapes and wildlife.

You’d always spend the day together and you’d show him how to use a camera while he showed you how to fish and play the guitar.

When you spent time apart you’d often write to each other to fill the gap. You’d always send pictures with little writing on the back of them while he sent you poems and songs that he wrote for you, promising to play them for you next time you’d meet.

In your personal journal you have the first picture you ever took of Javier, kept safe between the pages. He’s standing along the docks, facing the away from the water as he holds up a large sturgeon and a large smile.

You and Javier always stay in touch and after he told you of his chaotic and dangerous time in guarma he made light of it by telling you about all the different wildlife he saw while he was there.

Bill Williamson

Bill stumbles upon you in the wild by accident. He’s out scouting a lead when he ended up getting lost through the shrubbery and found you examining flowers closely.

When you told him you were a botanist he looked as if you’d just spoken a different language to him because he didn’t have a clue as to what that meant. Bill always made you laugh fondly at the confused look when you told him all the scientific names of flowers.

In Bill’s mind, a flower was a flower. There was purple flowers and blue flowers and even red ones but they didn’t have their own names.

The next time Bill ran into you he brought you what he thought was a bouquet of white flowers. Instead they were actually a species of weed that was poisonous when eaten but it didn’t stop you from smiling and hugging him which was the intended purpose.

In light of that incident Bill was actually curious about some plants, trying to learn about them more. When Bill went exploring with you he pointed out some of his favourites and you picked a few to put them in the brim of his hat for him to take him back to camp.

When you run into him again Bill tries to give you another flower, this time actually understanding the plant he’d picked was a Vanilla Flower Orchid or the Vanilla planifolia but he never learnt how to pronounce it unlike you.

With a high blush Bill placed the flower behind your ear and you pulled him into a hug, being careful not to crush the beautiful flower.

[bensolosbluesaber]

Returning a Favor (Zemo x Reader fic)

TFATWS Ep. 4 Spoilers!!

Summary: When your old friend, Sam Wilson, needs your help in Riga you drop everything and go. You knew they broke Baron Helmut Zemo out of jail, but you didn't expect to bond with the villain. (AKA: I thought getting hit in the face by the Shield would at least leave a bruise. Here's how that would go down with a fourth person.)

CW: Blood, wounds, some creepy behavior (not from Zemo), a few Y/N inserts

No smut yet, just cute cuddles and taking care of each other. Maybe smut in the future though! Let me know if you want a Part 2 or added to a tag list for potential future fics! I think the reader can be any gender; I tried to write it that way and be inclusive, but please tell me if I messed up!

If you know me in real life, no you don't:) I write most of my fics on @aurora521 and write on AO3 and fanfiction.net under the same name. Please don't come for me about finding Zemo attractive.

Hope you enjoy!

---

Returning a Favor

Meet me in Riga. -S

That was the text you received from Sam Wilson, your old military friend, yesterday. And now here you are, outside the Riga airport walking toward Sam in traditional undercover superhero attire- a baseball hat and sunglasses.

“Thanks for coming,” he greeted. “We have a little problem.”

“Is his name Baron Helmut Zemo by chance?” You asked, following him to a jet black sports car.

You were very aware of just what type of trouble Sam was getting himself into since you, a SWORD agent, still had access to all kinds of classified information.

“See for yourself,” Sam muttered, gesturing to the back door of the car and climbing in the driver's seat himself.

You hesitated for a moment, then opened the door and slid into the back. And yes, Zemo was there, lounging back with legs spread. He’s wearing a long coat with fur lining, a deep purple shirt, black pants, and shiny leather shoes. He nods to you and smirks ever so slightly. Bucky Barnes, who you had only heard about but recognized immediately, turns from his spot in the front seat and smiles at you.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Y/N,” he says.

“And I you,” you respond.

Sam pulls out of the parking lot with a screech of tires. The ride is mostly silent, Sam and Bucky bickering occasionally. That made you smile, knowing that as much as Bucky annoyed Sam, this was the type of relationship he craved. Zemo watched you the entire drive, sizing you up.

The home they’re staying at is obviously the Baron's. He’s comfortable there, leaning against the counters, rifling through cabinets, lounging on the couch.

“So what am I doing here?” You finally asked.

The three men interact easily, and either Sam or Bucky is always watching Zemo. There’s no real need for a fourth person to get involved, at least not in your mind.

“Someone needs to babysit the Baron,” Sam explained with an annoyed sigh.

Zemo shrugged with a smirk so innocent it’s sinister. He’s still wearing that ridiculous coat.

“The two Avengers can’t handle him?”

“I believe your friends find it challenging to be around me,” Zemo answered for Sam.

“You shot a man in the head yesterday!” Sam snapped. “You antagonize Bucky at every turn. Forgive us for needing a break from whatever is happening in your fucked up head.”

Zemo tilts his head as if agreeing with everything Sam had just said.

“Anyway,” Bucky interrupted. “We have a lead on Karli. You can sleep off some jet lag while we’re gone, but starting tonight it’s your turn to keep track of him.”

You settled into a small bedroom. The moment your head hit the pillow, you fell asleep. At home it’s nearly ten at night; here it’s midday.

The trio is back all too soon, heralded by a slam of a door, and you force yourself to wake up to adjust to the time change as rapidly and effectively as possible. As you open the door to the living room, Bucky is stalking toward Zemo. He grabs the teacup from Zemo’s hand and hurls it against the wall.

“You wanna see what someone can do with leverage?” Bucky growled, staring at Zemo with an unnerving glint in his eyes.

“Take it easy. Don’t engage him,” Sam jumped up and grabbed Bucky’s arm. “He’s just gonna extort you and do that stupid head tilt thing.”

Bucky’s face softened slightly. Zemo stops tilting his head.

“Let me make a call,” Sam says and walks away.

“You want some cherry blossom tea?” Zemo offers Bucky with a mocking tone.

“No. You go ahead,” Bucky hissed, and after a moment of staring, he followed Sam out of the room.

You had watched Zemo for that entire exchange, noticed the slightest flinch and hint of fear when Bucky had grabbed that cup. The moment the other two men are gone and Zemo thinks he’s alone, he pours himself another cup. His hand is steady, but he draws a sharp, unsteady breath.

You move out of the room, and Zemo looks up at you from his spot on the couch. Without a word, you walk into the kitchen, taking a roll of paper towels and carefully picking up the shattered glass.

“I can do that,” Zemo says, speaking directly to you for the first time.

His voice is calm, accent thick.

“It’s alright,” you answer, then gasp sharply as a piece slices your pointer finger from tip to palm. “Fuck.”

You set the bloody piece with the pile of glass and hold a paper towel to your hand. You used the other hand to wipe tea off the wall and floor before picking up the glass piled on a paper towel and placing it in the trash, carefully tucked in other garbage.

“Let me.”

Zemo’s voice behind you makes you jump. You eye him for a moment wondering if there is some ulterior motive, some way he could hurt you or hold you hostage. Nothing comes to mind, not with Sam and Bucky so close, so you hold out your bleeding hand. He clicks his tongue at the wound.

When he takes your hand in his, his fingers are soft and warm. He moves your wound under a faucet and lets water run, rinsing the blood down the sink. He squeezes the wound a bit, and you wince as it begins to bleed more.

“We bleed to clean our wounds. It is the body’s way of protecting itself,” he says and presses a towel to your finger as he shuts off the water. “Ironic isn’t it. The very thing meant to protect us from future danger, often kills us first.”

“I’m not here to debate the ethics of superheroes with you.”

“Hold that,” he lets go of your hand and opens another cabinet. “I know how I feel about enhanced humans. There is nothing for me to debate.”

Zemo takes your hand back in his. You watch his face as he works. He uses his mouth to remove the wrapping from a butterfly bandage. The bleeding has slowed, and he uses the bandage to pull your torn skin back together. The cut isn’t terrible, certainly not the worst injury you’ve ever had, but it will scar. He adds two more strips, then places an absorbent pad over it and wraps it all in gauze.

“When we get back, I’ll change that for you.”

“I’ll hope you don’t get killed then,” you offer with a grateful smile.

He doesn’t respond but gestures to you to join on the couch. You do, keeping what you feel is a safe distance between the two of you. Zemo hands you a cup of warm tea, but as you grab it, he doesn’t let go. Your undamaged fingers brush his for a long moment and he chuckles.

“Promise not to take after your friend James? I quite like this tea set.”

Your eyebrows knit together as he smiles at his own joke and finally surrenders the cup to you. That’s the last words you two exchange, and when Bucky and Sam return ready for the next part of the mission, they find the two of you sitting in silence sharing a pot of tea.

___

When the three men returned, Sam and Bucky held an unconscious Zemo between them. You jumped off the couch, the book you had been reading discarded, and let them lay Zemo down.

“What happened?”

“John Walker,” the two men answered in the same disgusted tone.

You leaned over Zemo, finally seeing the blood and bruise on his right temple.

“This one disappeared for a few minutes, shot Karli-”

“Didn’t kill her,” Sam interrupted, sounding relieved.

Much like Sam, you sympathized with Karli’s motives if not her methods. And much like Sam, you were glad she hadn’t died.

“Then Walker knocked him out with the shield,” Bucky finished.

There was no jab at Sam this time for which you were grateful.

“Which is the only useful thing he did,” Sam added. “Zemo destroyed the rest of the serum, so right now he’s above Walker in my book.”

You looked down at Zemo, blood had dripped down his face and neck, though most of it was dried now. His eyelids twitched as he slept.

“Are you two okay?” You asked as you walked toward the bathroom.

“Fine. We ditched Walker, but we’ll need to get out of here as soon as we figure out what to do with Karli,” Sam answered, collapsing on the couch with a heavy sigh.

You dampened a washcloth in the bathroom and on your way back to the living room, grabbed the first aid kit Zemo had used on you earlier.

“What are you doing? He’ll be fine,” Bucky muttered.

He was sitting next to Sam now.

“Returning a favor,” you answered as you knelt at Zemo’s side.

You dabbed at the drying blood with the cloth, wiping it off his cheek, out of his hair. Somehow the coat came out unscathed. Sam and Bucky were talking about something behind you, but you were entirely focused on the unconscious man.

Zemo had a handsome, aristocratic face, and he walked like royalty, like he was untouchable. This was evidence he wasn’t.

You moved to the actual wound next. The cloth was soft, unreasonably so. A large hand wrapped around your wrist, squeezing tightly. You inhale sharply and shift your gaze to Zemo’s hand then his eyes. When your eyes met his, he seemed to relax, releasing you and letting his hand fall at his side.

“Apologies,” he grunted, mouth twitching with pain.

“It’s alright,” you answer calmly, very aware that the other men had stopped talking and were fixated on a potential threat. “Turn your head please.”

You put a hand on his cheek and turned him to face you to get a better look at the wound that was still seeping slowly.

“The new Captain America might force me to reconsider my stance on superheroes. I would enjoy seeing Sam and James have a go at him,” Zemo said as you prod the wound.

You wiped the cut with antiseptic, and Zemo hissed a bit at that but said nothing. Then, just like he had done to you, you placed three butterfly bandages on the cut. It wasn’t deep, just long and jagged.

“You’re my new favorite,” he joked with a little grin.

You laughed and walked to the kitchen for some ice. There were no packs, so you grabbed a bag of frozen peas, wrapped them in a towel and set it gently on Zemo’s temple.

“I can’t have you dying when I need this changed tonight,” you said, holding up a finger.

When you turned around, Sam and Bucky had both stretched out on the couch. They both wore annoyed expressions that Zemo got a whole couch and they got one to share. Bucky bumped Sam’s foot with his own, much to your amusement and Sam’s annoyance. He kicked his partner back, and you decided not to interrupt their little couples spat. Instead, you move to sit on the ground.

Zemo grabbed your wrist again, this time gently. He tucked his legs up, folding them into a V, and motioned you to share his couch. And you did, sitting in the same spot you had earlier, this time near his feet still clad in shiny black leather shoes.

“Hey, you two,” Sam called. “What’s this cozy little couch situation going on here?”

“You two could have a cozy little couch situation too if you’d just talk to each other,” Zemo shot back.

He didn’t even look at Sam, just held the frozen vegetables to his face, eyes closed.

“Y/N?” Zemo asked after a moment. “Can you get me an Advil? Or better yet, some sort of alcoholic beverage?”

“I’m not your servant, Zemo,” you sighed but stood and poured him a glass of some expensive alcohol from a bottle with Sokovian writing.

He sipped it, setting it on his chest between sips as he lounged on the couch with you. Bucky was watching you out the corner of his eye, and you were watching Zemo. Every few sips he would grimace, his lips pressing together and chest catching. Then he’d relax, exhale softly and shift the peas back into place. Eventually you picked up your book and began to read again.

Sam left the room to take a phone call a few hours later and came back shaking.

“Karli threatened Sarah, my nephews. I have to meet with her. Alone.”

“I’m coming with you,” Bucky jumped in, already on his feet. “Walker will be there, and you can’t handle the Super Soldiers and Captain Propaganda on your own.”

Zemo was either asleep or doing a good job pretending beside you. The pea bag had been returned to the freezer. He’d discarded his coat and was now wearing only his black pants and a deep purple shirt with shoulder holsters.

“You got him?” Sam pointed to the sleeping man.

“That’s what I’m here for,” you answered, setting the book aside and watching them prepare to leave.

Both men donned their costumes, Sam strapping his wings on, Bucky ripping the sleeve off of yet another jacket so his metal arm could move freely.

“Call me- us if you need backup,” you shouted after them, knowing full well they would do no such thing.

“If we aren’t back in two hours, take his ass back to jail,” Bucky called back.

Baron Zemo woke up the minute the door slammed shut, which made you doubt he’d been sleeping at all.

“And now it is only us,” he said in that thick Sokovian accent. “I will cook us something for dinner.”

He moved into the kitchen, boiling a pot of water while you watched. You perched yourself on the counter near him as he searched through cabinets. When he noticed you, he paused and chuckled before returning to the cooking. You watched in silence, keeping a close eye on him when he picked up a knife and began chopping tomatoes from a can.

He handed you a bowl of thin noodles with a thick red sauce. It smelled delicious.

“A traditional and simple Sokovian dish, a comfort food you might say,” he explained and joined you on the counter. “I made enough for Sam and James. Call me an optimist.”

Zemo didn’t talk much, you realized, as you enjoyed the food in silence. It was delicious, a bit like pasta. Suddenly, the back door clicked open. You glance around nervously, realizing just how wrong this felt.

“They shouldn’t be back yet,” you say quietly. “And they wouldn’t come in the back.”

“My old associates must have found me,” Zemo jumps off the table, and you notice the same nervousness as when Bucky threw the cup. He cannot know about James or Sam.”

You can hear a single person strolling toward the kitchen in heavy boots.

“I’m going to kiss you,” Zemo whispered, and before you could even process the words, he was standing between your legs and pressing his lips to yours.

His movements are slow and careful, trying not to be invasive as he moves his hands to your back, sliding one up to the back of your head. You wrap an arm around his waist and slide the other hand up the front of his purple shirt, splaying your fingers across his chest. His lips are soft and warm as they move against yours. His hand keeps you from pulling away, not that you’d want to.

“I heard you were back in Riga,” a new voice chuckled. “I had to see for myself.”

Zemo pulls back, feigning surprise, but kept an arm protectively around you.

“And as you have undoubtedly noticed, I am quite busy,” he replied. “Perhaps you could come back tomorrow? I’d prefer not to discuss our business in front of…”

Zemo nods to you. You were staring at the man who you recognized from work files. He was a former Shield agent. When Shield fell, he used the chaos for his own advantage, working for neither Shield nor Hydra and killing anyone who stood in his way. You suspected, but couldn’t be sure, that some of your best friends had been killed by him. Fortunately, you had enough self-control not to shoot him. His mere presence made you tense and uncomfortable.

“Of course, Baron,” he grinned and look at you in a way that made you shift closer to Zemo. “I’ll see you tomorrow, noon. The usual place.”

He gave the two of you one last look and left with a wink to Zemo. Even when the other man had gone, Zemo’s hands were still holding you against him.

“We will have to be gone before noon tomorrow,” he said looking down at you.

For some reason, you were both still wrapped around each other.

“You know who he is?” Zemo said, a statement masquerading as a question. “I am sorry.”

Your face was only inches from him, and you could smell his cologne. Zemo used the hand on your head to pull you against his shoulder. You set your head there, face turned into his neck, and inhaled deeply. And there he sat and you stood, hugging tightly for no real reason except that no one else was there.

Zemo pressed a soft kiss to your head, and rather than protest you let his lips linger. Finally, his head fell on your shoulder. After a moment, he slid you off the counter, took your hand, and led you back to the couch. Without asking, the two of you settled together on the couch, so close your sides pressed against each other. He pulled a gun out of his shoulder holster, and you froze until he set it down on the table, smirking a little.

“I don’t make a habit of shooting people I’ve just kissed,” he chuckled and raised an arm for you to lean against him.

You raised an eyebrow at him, surprised at the forwardness. You shouldn’t be, after all, he had just kissed you and held you on the counter of his kitchen. Helmut Zemo made no sense to you, but in the end, you curled against him. He shifted to lay on his back, head propped on the pillows he was laying on earlier while you tucked yourself beside him, head on his chest.

Zemo wrapped an arm around you. You put a hand on his chest, fingering the purple shirt. He was warm and soft, and you had to remind yourself that you could not fall asleep while you are supposed to be watching him.

“Why are we doing this?” You whisper. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why are you?” Zemo turns his head toward you.

“I haven’t had someone to do this with in a long time,” you answer slowly, cautiously, knowing full well this was a man who could turn on you on an instant or hold onto information until the moment it was advantageous to him.

“Neither have I,” He replied. “German prisons don’t allow much physical contact. Besides, I hope that with enough time perhaps I may kiss you again.”

You tilted your head up to see a grin tugging at the side of his lips, lips that had been on yours a few minutes ago.

“Maybe with enough time,” you answer and brush a lose strand of hair out of his eyes, letting your hand trail over the bruise on his face.

He caged your hand in his, bringing your joined hands back to his chest and holding them there. You felt the rise and fall of his breaths and it soothed you. When they grew deep and steady and the tension seemed to fall from his body, you realized he was truly asleep, not faking like earlier. Soon and against your better judgment, you were dozing off in his arms tossing a leg over his so your limbs tangled together.

Your last thought before you fell asleep was how warm and comfortable you felt with Helmut Zemo, and how completely ludicrous such a thought was.

It wasn’t long before the door opening woke you, still secure in Zemo’s arms. You tried to move, sit up so Sam and Bucky wouldn’t see this little arrangement. You failed. Bucky came in first, stopping in his tracks as he saw the scene on the couch.

“What are you doing? Keep walk- what?” Sam ran right into Bucky’s back then froze.

Their eyes were wide as they stared. Zemo shifted awake beneath you, and you could imagine the smirk on his face. Bucky’s metal fist clenched, and Sam, ever the peacemaker grabbed his arm and opted for a more amicable approach.

“One of you better start talking.”

[londonalozzy]

Stop Pretending (TFATWS)

Fandom: Marvel

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Genre: Romance, Angst

Summary: The reader thinks she's doing a stellar job of keeping her feelings for a certain soldier buried deep inside. Turns out, all it takes is an observant new friend to begin the unraveling of her most precious secret (Spoilers for TFATWS)

Masterlist

Word: Pretence

Definition: A way of acting that is intended to deceive people.

Example: Saying that he's just a friend when he's really the love of your life.

Your POV

Being caught in the midst of war is something that I, (Y/N) (Y/L/N)  know all too well. As a war vet, former shield agent, and now Avenger I'm used to being centered amongst conflict. When the fight begins within me though, a battle between what I want and what I think is right, how will I react? Will I listen to my heart, my head, or will the winner be chosen for me?

Delacroix, Louisiana.....

I love my sleep, always have, always will. It's not necessarily the comfort of the bed, the quiet or even the rest. It's the fact that I'm at peace when I sleep. My life has a tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, so anything that will put that off for as long as possible I savor.

I wish it were the same for a certain super soldier in my life. I look forward to going to bed, everything calms down then, and for most people it's the same. For Bucky however, it's when everything starts, the nightmares, the terrors, the seemingly unending darkness. If only I could take his pain away like he has with mine.

For the last few weeks, my life had, for want of a better word, been hectic. Hectic to say the least.

After the eventual defeat of Thanos and the loses we endured as a result, I thought naively that life might calm down a bit, that I'd have time to breathe, to live. How wrong I was.

It all began with John Walker being announced to the world as the new Captain America.

I was baking cookies with Morgan in the Stark family kitchen when it came over the radio. As that latest turn of events sunk in, my first thoughts were of Bucky, what that would do to him. Not even an hour later I had said my goodbyes and was on my way to help him get the shield back.

Since then even more had happened. We'd regrouped with Sam, busted Zemo out of prison which in turn ruffled the feathers of Ayo and the Dora Milaje. We came face to face with Morgenthou and the Flag Smashers, and finally witnessed the man who thought he could even compete with Steve, make himself judge, jury and most significantly executioner.

After that went around the world we knew we had to end it sooner rather than later. It couldn't get much worse than Captain America becoming a murderer. We got the shield back, which was a fight all in itself. Handed Zemo over to Ayo, to try and recompense for the distrust we'd instilled in the people who'd helped us so much. Then we travelled to stay with Sam and his family in Louisiana whilst we waited for Karli's next move.

This is where we found ourselves now, in the eye of it, the calm before the storm.

Waking up in the Wilson households guest room, I was greeted to the golden hue of the rising sun penetrating through the single glaze windows, and the melodic sounds of gulls on the hunt for their morning meal down by the docks.

Actually, no that's not right. What I could hear was most certainly not birds, and it was definitely not melodic. What were those boys doing?

Quickly and quietly I threw on the first clothes I could get my hands on and made my way downstairs towards the noise. What caught my attention when I discovered the source, was not the two youngest Wilson boys playing with our newly reacquired shield in the living room, but the super solider who was blissfully ignorant to it all, sleeping peacefully on the couch in front of them. I don't think I'd ever been so happy.

"Right you two, if you're determined to play Avengers all morning then I suggest you re-assemble in the back yard. You're gonna wake Bucky up," I whispered out in one breath, stepping between the boys, then placing my hands on their backs and tip toeing them towards the door.

"So what if we wake him up? It's gone 10am," Cass questioned in protest, pulling on his sneakers and jacket.

"Exactly! Which is why if you do as I say, I will make you the biggest plate of waffles for breakfast that you've ever seen."

The boys eyes lit up. "Can we have ice cream with it? Mum never lets us have ice cream for breakfast, and I'm sure there's a tub of Stark raving hazelnuts in the freezer," AJ clapped in muted excitement. "Oh, for God's sake.....Yes. You can have whatever you want if you get out of this house now and keep the noise down."

Once the boys were outside, I made my way over to the kitchen, stopping on the way to lean over my favourite senior citizen and make sure that he was still peaceful in his slumber. He'd never looked so relaxed, so at ease. It was a brand new Bucky I'd never seen before, a Bucky that had my heart pounding for him even more than it normally did. Not that he knew any of that.

Half an hour later and up to my elbows in waffle mix, I failed to notice my new friend and host Sarah making her way to my side at the counter, the huge smile on my face not going unnoticed. "What's got you grinning like the Cheshire cat, like I need to ask?"

"Bucky's sleeping. Isn't it amazing?" I spoke softly, bouncing up and down on my feet as I did so.

"And why is that?" She couldn't looked more confused if she tried.

"In all the years I've known him, I don't think I've ever woken up before he has. If his nightmares don't keep him awake all night, they normally have him up before the crack of dawn. I don't think I've ever seen him so still."

"Good answer," Sarah nodded in a hush, understanding why this meant so much to me, but not done yet with her morning interrogations, "Now on to my next question......"

"I'm already not liking the sound of this."

"Sleeping Beauty over there follows you around like a little puppy dog. He hangs on your every word, looks at you like you hung the stars or something. It's pretty obvious how crazy he is about you, so when are you gonna stop pretending that you're not head over heels in love with him?"

"I don't know what you're talking about Wilson," I smiled forcefully, making out like the waffle maker deserved my attention way more than the conversation I was being made to have.

This was all Sam's doing, without a shadow of a doubt. He'd tried to have this conversation with me on multiple occasions and I shut him down every time. He obviously hadn't given up like I thought he did, and decided to draft in his sister. He is seriously gonna regret it when I find him.

"Sure you know what I'm talking about. Sam sees it, I don't even know you that well and I see it. The only reason Bucky doesn't, is because he doesn't believe he could ever be that lucky. You're a smitten kitten." These Wilson's are all as annoying as each other.

Knowing I wasn't getting out of this one, I grabbed Sarah by the arm and pulled her right into the corner of the room, trying my best to keep this convo as private as possible. "Look, I'm not pretending.....I'm ignoring. There's a difference."

"Care to explain what that difference is?" Sarah spoke softly, but with a sarcastic air.

Turning to look over my shoulder at the subject of our conversation, making sure he was still safely in the land of nod, I decided to just be honest. Sarah was much like her brother. Once she wanted to get to the bottom of something she wasn't about to give up.

"I love Bucky, more than I've ever loved anyone...and that terrifies me," the rawness of finally being honest making my voice shake, and tears come to my eyes. "Nat was like my sister, and she's dead. Tony was the closest I've ever gotten to having a Dad...and he's dead too. Then there's Steve, Vision, God knows where Wanda is....Everyone I love, either leaves or dies. If I admit my feelings for Buck then I face the risk of losing him too."

"Do you have any idea how crazy you sound right now? He's not going to die because you love him (Y/N)."

Silent tears were falling now. I was revealing my deepest fears to a woman I'd only known a few days, and I'm not underplaying it when I say it was like a colossal weight off my chest, a release I didn't know I needed. "Believe me...I know, but I can't take that risk. I can't lose anyone else, especially not him."

"Let's just say for a second that you're right, that there is some higher power somewhere, set on destroying everyone you love. Do you really think ignoring your feelings is going to make them disappear?" I didn't know what to say to that. "Natasha and Stark died so that everyone could continue living, and (Y/N) you're not living as long as you keep this to yourself. They wouldn't want that for you."

"But what if I lose him?" I whispered with a choked sigh.

"Then at least he'll die knowing how you felt about him. After everything he's been through don't you think he deserves to know there's someone out there who loves him like you do?"

"Of course..."

Sarah's lips pulled upwards in a satisfied smirk, wrapping her arm around my shoulder and giving it a comforting squeeze, "then you owe it to yourself, and to him, to tell him the truth."

"Why do all you Wilson's have to be so clever?" I voiced in mock irritation, pushing her away from me and acting like I was annoyed she had gotten one up on me.

"I don't know," she thought aloud and with a cheeky grin, grabbing a plate to start piling on the long forgotten waffles, "I think it might be the sea air or something."

"Nah, it's in the genes," I chuckled quietly, grabbing my jacket and deciding it was time to get this conversation wrapped up. "I'll go find Sam and the boys for breakfast. Clear my head a little bit."

"You promise you're gonna tell him?" Sarah stopped me as I went to push the door open.

"I'll think about it."

3rd person POV

Once (Y/N) was out of ear shot, Sarah couldn't help but start jumping up and down in excitement, clapping her hands loudly as she did so. That went even better than she thought it would, and she was so proud of herself. Sarah Wilson could now add matchmaker to her resume.

"Coast is clear Barnes. You can open your eyes now."

(Y/N) had no idea what she had metaphorically walked into just minutes earlier, entering that very revealing conversation with her overly inquisitive host.

What drew Sarah to come down that morning was the sounds of both the front porch door opening and the smell of homemade waffles wafting up the stairs. As she entered the kitchen she was met with two sights. One being (Y/N), facing the counter and looking very smiley, the other being a wide awake super soldier who was just laying on the couch and staring at her, the sole object of his affection. Sarah could work with this.

Every time (Y/N) turned back in his direction, Bucky would close his eyes and pretend to be asleep again. He had never slept so soundly, so peacefully, thoughts of (Y/N) and his new friends filling his nightmare free dreams.

He'd initially woken to (Y/N) ushering the boys outside because she was afraid they would wake him up. He didn't want to disappoint her by proving her right. Besides, he liked just watching her move around the kitchen, completely unaware he was observing her the whole time. He had no idea about the conversation that was just about to happen.

After (Y/N) had left and Sarah had confirmed so, Bucky sat himself up, his body shaking with adrenaline and a look of complete shock fixed on his face. Had he definitely woken up, or had the whole thing been a part of his dream? Did (Y/N) seriously just admit that she was in love with him?

Bucky didn't know how to react, didn't know what to say as he looked up at a smug Sarah from his spot. All he'd ever wanted was for (Y/N) to feel the same way about him as he did about her. Now he knew that she did.

"You're welcome by the way."

[johnsamericano]

𝓓𝓪𝔂 12:

ℓєє мαяк

23 days of NCT masterlist.

taglist: @notbeforelong @mrcarbonatedmilk @unknown5tar @whathamelon @ajhdr @curieouscapt @silent-potato @gjheaaa

warnings: baby daddy mark, hidden pregnancy (?, tooth rotting.

“Dude, isn't that y/n?” Mark’s old friend, John, pointed at you.

Yeah, that was most definitely his ex. You were holding a small girl between your arms, helping her reach for a box of lucky charms. You looked just as beautiful as three years ago, even more, he daresay.

“Go talk to her.” His friend elbowed him. “I’ll go get the meat, maybe you can invite her to our barbecue.”

“We haven't seen each other in a while, don't you think it'll be a little too weird?”

“Go for it, I know you're still hung up on her.”

“How...?”

“I heard your last girl complaining about how you called y/n’s name while having sex with her, it was hilarious, to be honest.” Mark punched him in the arm, earning a small groan from the tall man. “But seriously, though, you broke up with her to focus on your career. Now that you have a stable job, what's stopping you from getting her back?”

“I don't know, man...”

“Give it a try, I'll be with the butcher if you need me.” He winked at the Canadian boy, making his way to another aisle.

Mark took a deep breath before his feet finally started moving. You were placing the small girl in the shopping cart’s seat, tickling her tummy while at it.

“Y/n?” Your eyes almost came out of their caves as you heard his voice.

“Mark...” You stared at him with wide eyes, looking back and forth between the little girl and him. “I thought you’d moved back to Canada.”

“I came back a year ago.” He fiddled uncomfortably with the rings adorning his fingers. “I really wanted to contact you, but since things between us were a little complicated when I left...” By complicated he meant breaking your heart and leaving a day after ending things between you.

“It’s really okay, Mark. No hard feelings.” You smiled sweetly at him, your pretty eyes turning into half moons.

“And who’s this little one? Your niece?” He caressed the top of the girl’s head, who wasn’t even aware of his presence, too focused on getting rid of the wrapping around the chocolate you’d just bought her.

“Actually-”

“Mommy, I need help!” Mark froze.

“Oh, sure sweetie.” You tone completely changed when addressing her. “Mark, this is my daughter, EunHee. Say hi, baby.”

“Hi, Mark.” She extended her hand as you tore the wrapping of the chocolate bar open. His surprised expression turned into a big smile, covering her small hand with his significantly bigger one. “Look, mom. His cheeks are just like mine!” She poked Mark’s cheekbones.

You could almost feel a drop of sweat rolling down your forehead.

“Wait, you're right.” The Canadian man pointed out as your daughter smiled at him. “That's crazy.” Thank God Mark was so naive. “So where’s the father of this little bean?”

‘Right in front of me.’ You thought.

“She doesn't...”

“Oh, sorry. It must've been hard raising her on your own.” He reassuringly placed a hand on your arm. “How old is she?”

“Uhm, s-she’s-”

“I’m this old.” EunHee interrupted, showing her three small fingers.

You hoped Mark’s brain capacity wouldn't be enough to connect the dots. But you had to admit, it was pretty obvious.

“Wow, you're so big.” It was heart-warming watching your daughter interact with her father for the first time, even if they didn't know the truth about each other. “So, we're having a barbecue at my place today. There’s always room for someone else, and you can bring EunHee if you’d like. My address is still the same.”

“I’ll think about it.” You handed the chocolate bar back to your daughter, who didn’t even take a second to eat up the whole thing.

“Alright, I guess I’ll see you then, maybe.”

(...)

“Mark’s hitting on a mom!” Yuta mocked him, causing the whole garden to erupt into laughter.

“And what’s wrong with that? She isn’t married.”

“Mark, you literally just met with her again after three years, slow down.” Jaehyun interceded, eyes stuck to his phone.

“Guys, stop messing with Mark. He's always loved y/n, so let him be.” Johnny spoke from the grill, turning around a steak. “Besides, I saw the little girl. She looks a lot like Mark, so I bet no one would be able to tell they're not actually related.”

“How old did you say she was?”

“Three.”

“Okay, don’t be mad at me, but did you ever have sex with her without protection?”

“What are you trying to say, Haechan?” Taeil asked bitterly.

“Just think about it, guys. It makes sense.” While his friends discussed the possibility of him being a dad, Mark’s head was rather busy trying to remember every little detail from the last time he was intimate with you.

But as much as he tried, he couldn't remember having worn a condom. And as far as he knew, you weren't on the pill.

The doorbell cut his string of thoughts, snapping him back into reality.

“I’ll get the door.” He didn't expect you to be behind it, holding your -and possibly his- daughter’s hand tightly. “Oh, hey.”

He seemed uncomfortable, had you made a mistake in accepting his offer?

“Hi, I couldn't find someone to look after this little monster. I hope your friends won't mind.”

“Not at all, they love kids.” He stared intensely at your daughter, finally noticing those similarities Johnny mentioned before. “Come in.”

He guided you all the way to the backyard, everyone greeting you with a big hug.

“Nice to see you again, y/n.” Johnny murmured, patting your back.

“She’s like a little doll!” Jaehyun squeaked excitedly, sitting your daughter on his lap. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“I’m EunHee.” He cooed at her high-pitched voice tone. “Your dimples are pretty.”

“Thank you.”

The boys seemed completely comfortable with your daughter, fighting with Jaehyun, who wouldn't let go of her.

“Can I have a word with you?” Mark came from behind you, making you jolt at his sudden presence.

“Sure.”

He walked you to the kitchen, away from the noisy men outside. He anxiously twisted his hands, trying to find the correct words to demand for the truth.

“What’s wrong?” You asked worriedly, taking a step closer to him.

“Is EunHee mine?” Well, you were definitely not expecting that. You thought that after meeting him at the supermarket, your secret was safe. Apparently, it wasn’t. “By the look on your face, I’m guessing she is.”

He groaned in frustration, rubbing his face with the palms of his hands.

“I’m sorry for keeping it a secret all this years. I won’t force you to step in and take responsibility for her, we can just leave and pretend this never-”

“What are you even talking about? Why wouldn’t I want to take care of my own daughter?” The frown on his face deepened. “Did you know you were pregnant when we broke up?”

Should you tell him the truth?

“I...” He looked at you expectantly.

Of course you should tell him the truth, he deserves it.

“Yes.” His heart dropped, guilt filling every inch of his body. “I didn’t want to hold you back. It would’ve been unfair for me to use that as an excuse to stop you from leaving.”

“So you’re saying I missed three years of my daughter’s childhood because you didn’t want to be selfish?” With every word his voice grew louder, shouting by the end of the sentence and catching the other guests' attention.

“Mark, we should talk about this another day, when we’re alone.” You tried leaving, but his hand clutched your wrist tightly.

“No.” You could admire tears sparkling in his eyes. “I don't want to miss another second of her.”

“Mommy?” Just then, EunHee walked into the kitchen, holding Yuta’s hand. “I heard screaming, are you okay?” Mark nodded at his friend, as if signaling him he could leave.

“Yes, I’m alright, sweetie.” You swung her up in your arms, coming closer to Mark who had the sudden urge to hold his baby. “Are you sure about this? There’s no backing out.” You mouthed, feeling a pinch of relief as he nodded. “Baby, I’d like you to meet someone very special.”

“Who?”

“This is Mark...” She looked at you with her small eyebrows furrowed, she’d already met Mark. “Your dad.”

Mark honestly felt like crying, your daughter smiling excitedly as she urged you to put her down, letting her father hold her close to his chest.

“Mommy said you were lost.” He felt so warm inside.

“I promise not to get lost again, alright?” His lips pressed a kiss into her forehead, already enamored by the cheerful giggles erupting from EunHee.

You observed them with regret. If you'd told Mark you were pregnant before he left, perhaps he wouldn't be on the verge of tears right now, perhaps your daughter wouldn't have had to deal with her classmates’ non-stopping questions about her father.

“Y/n?” Mark called out for you. “C-can we have a family hug?” He moved his hand invitingly, making space for you to join.

You walked into his arms, every negative feeling vanishing as Mark embraced you, both of you trying not to sob.

“What do you want to do now?” He let go of you, using both of his arms to embrace EunHee.

“Make up for the lost time.”