#i don’t know. i’m tired and rambly. it’s half past one and i can’t sleep. my thoughts feel like slime

[dagasinfilo]

[antvnger]

I can’t decide between friendly letter and heartbreaking letter for Tony. You choose

((How about both?))

Scott’s therapist suggested that instead of painting every time he needed a catalyst to release thoughts and emotions, he should try something different. Like writing letters. He didn’t necessarily have to send them. That was his choice.

This is one that’s addressed and even has a stamp on the envelope. But it’s been in the drawer of Scott’s desk at home off and on since he wrote it. It’s not bad or anything. Maybe just a little too…personal. And it’s kinda embarrassing. 

His therapist had him talking about his childhood lately. She said it was good to explore the hurt that lays in different parts of the past. And it got Scott thinking. And before he knew it, writing.

Tony, This will really be out of the blue, I know it will but this is stuff I really feel the need to get out of my mind and put down somewhere. It’s gotta be said here because as much as I love to talk, I don’t know how to say this stuff otherwise.

You are literally one of the best friends I’ve ever had. Ever. Like I have some good friends that I love to death, but you are your own category. I know that part I’ve said before but what I haven’t really said is you don’t know how long I’ve waited for a brother.

All. My. Life.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my sister, and I appreciate her. We have a good relationship and we had good times growing up. But at the same time, my childhood was so…lonely.

When you move about half a dozen times in just as many years, it can get pretty lonely. Attachments aren’t made because you’ve come to expect to lose them as quickly as you made them. And for that to happen in your preteen and teenage years, well that really does suck.

By the time I actually established roots in San Francisco, I was sixteen years old with no friends, desperate for some, and very hesitant to actually make them.

That’s why I wanted a brother so badly. I wanted a built in friend so I didn’t feel so lonely.

I was mad at my mom for a long time for not giving me a brother. Now be being older now and fully understanding what my mom had to put up with with my dad, well I’m just glad Sadie and I came around before things got that bad or we wouldn’t be here. And understanding all that now, I’d never wish my mom to go through any more shit than she already had to deal with.

But I can’t tell you how many times I cried myself to sleep over being so lonely and so sick and tired of being lonely.

I think I lost track of the point of this letter in my rambling, but the point is I wanted a brother/best friend for as long as I can remember. If you had told me back then I’d get one down the road, I’d have laughed.

But you’re worth the wait, big brother. You’re worth the wait. Thanks for being my big brother.

Love, Math Bro #2

Written letter meme

@stxrksarc

[wafflesinthe504]

Falling All in You (Cloak and Dagger Fanfic)

Rating: T (for mentions of canon typical case)

_____________________________________________________________

It’s late and Tyrone and Tandy are lying in bed, both exhausted from the past two days of investigating a list of employees who might have a link to the deaths and the bodies that continue to show up at the beach. Tyrone was already half asleep by the time his head hit the pillows on their bed, but Tandy found herself unable to sleep. Even though her body was tired her mind was wired with one single thought that had been in her brain for a few months; Tandy was falling in love with Ty and it terrified her. When she first realized her feelings for her boyfriend were developing into something more she had to fight every instinct that told her to run before she ruined the only truly good thing in her life. For what felt like the first times in her life Tandy decided to stay and confront her feelings, but of course that’s easier said than done. Tandy had planned on telling Tyrone that she was in love with him after they officially moved into their apartment, but then they had gotten their first lead on their investigation on the bodies at the beach. She decided that her proclamation of love could wait until they solved who and what was responsible for the dead bodies at the beach, but it was taking longer than predicted to find out who was responsible for the deaths so Tandy continued to put off telling Ty her true feelings for him.

“Tandy is everything ok?” Tyrone asked his voice slightly muffled by the pillow. He had managed to open his eyes to look at Tandy who was laying on her back with one hand laying over her stomach and the other behind her head.

“Yeah, of course. Why?” Tandy responds.

“ ‘Cause I can practically hear the gears in your head turning T. We’re linked remember,” And of course he’s right ever since the night when they met at the party they’ve been able to tell when the other is distressed or in some kind of trouble. “Something’s obviously bothering you. What’s going on?” Tyrone props his head up with one arm to get a better look at his girlfriend’s face.

Tandy looks into Tyrone’s dark brown eyes that are full of love and concern. It’s then that Tandy makes up her mind to finally admit her feelings.

“I’m falling in love with you, Ty,” Tandy says it in one breath and feels like a weight has been taken off her chest. That is until she’s met with stunned silence and the air feels about ten times thicker than before. Tandy starts to ramble on her nerves getting the better of her. “I mean you don’t have to say it back or anything. I just wanted to let you know you asked me wh-“

Tyrone cuts her off by kissing her slowly and passionately. Tandy eagerly returns the kiss. When they pull apart for air Ty tucks a stray piece of hair behind Tandy’s ear. When Tyrone breaks the silence his voice is barely above a whisper. “Tandy, do you know what you are to me?”

Tandy, for once, doesn’t trust her voice and shakes her head. Tyrone gently cups the apple of her cheek and runs his thumb in a circle. “You are the person that I am madly in love with.”

“Madly?”

“Yeah, I can’t imagine my life without you.” Tyrone kisses Tandy on her nose. Tandy closes her eyes enjoying the sensation of loving and being loved. She curls into Tyrone’s side and places her head on his chest, her arm wrapping around his waist. Tyrone wraps both of his arms around her. This is how they finally fall asleep wrapped up in each other’s arms and the warm sensation and comfort of knowing that they are loved.

[heart-songs]

I'm a Buzzkill

It’s me, the one in the floral dress, adhering to the wall that’s closest to the exit sign. My feet may be currently rooted to the floor, keys already in hand, but my eyes have been glued to you for the past eighty-eight minutes. That is to say, you’re welcome to come over and chat, but I realize I’ll probably lose you at “no thanks, I don’t drink”. If you’re curious about the reason, it’s simple: I just never acquired the taste. (The glass is half empty anyway.)

Are you still with me? Or have my friends Anxiety and Depression lulled you to sleep? Lucky you, if they have! Most of the time, they conspire to keep me up all night. Listen, I know I’m not easy. I’m pretty much a contradiction in terms. You see, I wanted to come here, but as soon as I walked through the door, I was just about ready to go home. That’s right, tonight, while everyone else is counting down the hours ‘til spring, I’ve been thinking that I’d be much more comfortable where I was—in the dead of winter. At least then, I had an excuse to stay in and cook elaborate meals I have no desire to eat. After all these years of choking down word vomit, you’d think I could swallow the fear of gaining a couple of pounds. But I haven’t so far, and quite frankly, I’m afraid I never will.

Speaking of fear, I should also mention, I’m terrified of being the center of attention. (A lifetime of being the brunt of everyone’s jokes will do that to you.) So…you probably shouldn’t ask me to dance. I mean, I want to, especially with you. This music is just my vibe, and I’m so glad that you’re still here, listening to me ramble. But most people’s idea of fun isn’t getting trampled on the dance floor by an awkward petite with a back injury and two clumsy left feet.

The upside is, I haven’t lost my sense of humor. The downside is that it’s 98% self-deprecating. So, if given a compliment, I literally don’t know what to do. I’ll most likely deflect or say something absurd—which I will thoroughly over-analyze later, over a bowl of regret. (That I can swallow. No calories. No problem.)

One last thing before you go. Please, save yourself the trouble someday of saying you love me. I won’t say it back. Instead, I’ll sincerely ask: Why?  You can say it again—if you mean it, but chances are, I will cry. Move in for a hug, and I may just implode. I know. I know. It’s not the reaction you were hoping for, and it will probably shock you—how much I feel it too, how much I want to say it back, how much I ache to be held by you. But I can’t shake the dread that it’s not going to last. And I need it to. Just this once—I need it to last. I’m tired of being the rebound, the steppingstone to the real deal, the girl who was asked and then un-asked to prom. Yes, even in high school it must have been obvious. I’m a buzzkill.

- Cora Finch

[emeraldiis]

Pillow Talk

A/N: i will never apologize for being horny on main

AO3 Link

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Word Count: 3.4k

Summary: After an entire day of staring at you in that bikini, Loki is left utterly desperate for release. Good thing he sleeps with a lot of pillows.

Tags: masturbation, phone sex, pillow humping, needy!Loki, pining

Loki shifted on the bed, mashing his face roughly into the satin pillow case. It was nearly dawn, and he hadn’t slept. Even the tiniest hint of sleep had evaded him, and he’d tossed and turned enough to make his muscles ache in protest. With a frustrated growl, he rolled onto his back and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars. This was never going to work.

He had no one to blame but himself for his insomnia. Really, it was pathetic, the way his mind had latched onto one silly little human and made her the object of his obsession. You with your silky hair and soft eyes, keeping him up until the morning hours. Your melodic voice rang in his eardrums, and every time he closed his eyes, he’d see that perfect skin of yours and wish it was pressed up against--

With a gasp, Loki swiftly brought his hands down to grasp the sheets in agony. He wished he could blame it on the fact that he hadn’t bed anyone in at least a decade, but he knew himself. Celibacy had never been an issue for him in the past; he wasn’t a teenage boy, he could control his needs. But you had him feeling like one all over again. The way he gawked at you like it was his first time seeing a pair of breasts nearly spill out of a way-too-tight tank top, it was downright shameful. You were just so innocent, so pure, and he longed to see that smile collapse into a pout as you whimpered against his lips.

Despite his best efforts, Loki could feel his cock throb in renewed need. It had been begging for release nearly all night, and Loki had successfully ignored it so far. He held steady in his determination in not giving in, but his resolve was slipping. Today has been especially tortuous. Tony and his goddamn insistence that Loki participate in team bonding. A day at the beach, one which Loki spent lounging in the hot sand shielding his eyes from the blinding sun. You had splashed around in the waves with Natasha and bounced around in a bikini that seemed specifically designed to torture Loki. The bottoms had shifted themselves to ride up quite a few times, and Loki had taken pleasure in watching you reach back with slippery fingers to pull them out of your ass.

Loki’s cock throbbed again, almost violently this time. He moaned softly into the open air. The sound was pained, and Loki felt his hand begin to drift towards the string of his pajama bottoms. They were silk, and because Loki had chosen to forgo underwear, the soft material felt like heaven against his swollen erection. Before his fingers could slip inside to where he needed them most, Loki ripped them away in defiance and turned onto his side, tangling the blanket between his legs as he rolled. The pressure of the thick comforter into his crotch made Loki suck in a surprised breath. His hips twitched upward of their own accord and Loki’s eyes fluttered in pleasure.

Loki could feel his will dissolving with every jolt of pleasure that swam up his spin. His mind spun with images of you: you curled up against him, reaching back with your dainty hand to pull him closer to you, encouraging him to grind against your backside. As if he was in a daze, Loki grabbed one of the many pillows adorning his bed and shoved it between his legs. The firmness of the pillow was so much more satisfying than the blanket, and Loki groaned.

It was over, he had accepted defeat. Loki was about to hump his pillow like an animal and it was all your fault. He thought of that wet bikini sticking to your skin, your breasts bouncing as you jogged back up the beach to him and breathed out a “what’s up” like he wasn’t about to cum in his swim trunks just from watching you. As the memories danced through his head, Loki’s hips began to roll in more deliberate motions. With every thrust, his cock pressed up against the soft material of his pants. Loki could feel the pre-cum wetting the silk, but it only served to amplify his pleasure as the damp fabric clung to his skin.

The buzzing of his phone startled Loki out of his fantasies, and he nearly wanted to throw the thing against the wall. Tony would get him a new one, as he always did no matter how many times that Loki had insisted they were unnecessary devices. As much as he wanted to let it ring, Loki had learned that calls at this hour usually meant an unexpected mission, and he’d be back on house arrest if he didn’t answer. Loki reluctantly leaned over to his bedside table to grab the vibrating object, keeping the pillow between his legs. His heart came to a near stop as he saw your name illuminated on the screen.

A few moments passed as Loki stared dry-mouthed at the caller ID, wondering when he had fallen asleep. Because the only explanation for you calling him in the middle of the night was that he was dreaming. Sure, you had texted him the occasional internet video that you thought he’d enjoy, but had never called him. And certainly not at five in the morning. With a hard swallow, Loki hit the “accept call” button and waited.

“Hey, Loki?” Came your tired-sounding voice. It wasn’t as gorgeous when muffled by the phone static, but it gave Loki shivers nonetheless.

“What is this about?” Loki tried to sound as irritated as possible, figuring that would be the proper reaction to receiving a call this early. The truth was that he was elated to hear your voice, and was disgusted by himself. A mortal, making him this weak in the knees, it was absolutely pathetic.

You were silent for a moment. “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t sleep. I-I’m not really sure why I called you, I’m sorry for waking you up. I’ll just--”

“Wait!” Loki burst out before you could end the call. His loud voice echoed back at him in the silent room and he cringed, hoping that no one had heard him. Loki bit his lip anxiously, uncertain of what to say to keep you on the line. “Um, I was awake. I couldn’t sleep either.”

“Oh, I guess that’s good. Well, not really good that you can’t sleep, I mean good that I didn’t wake you.”

Loki chuckled at your awkward ramblings. Norns, you were so cute. “Don’t worry, pet, I know what you meant.” As the words left his lips, Loki’s eyes widened as he realized what he’d just called you. Pet. It had been a slip of the tongue, but it brought forth a whole new round of fantasies. He couldn’t help but imagine about what it would be like to own you, to grab you by your pretty face and push his cock between your lips over and over. Absent-mindedly, Loki began to move his hips against the pillow again. He had to bite down on his tongue to keep from gasping. As quietly as he could manage, he put the call on speaker and set the phone down beside him so he could lie back on his side and resume his earlier activities. Loki knew it was so, so wrong to do this while you were none-the-wiser, but he couldn’t help it. He had been so worked up for so long and now it was like his body had taken over, hell bent on getting the relief it needed.

“So, why couldn’t you sleep?”

“Oh, just lost in my thoughts, I suppose,” Loki said as his eyes fell shut. His voice was the slightest bit strained, the soft drag of his pants against his cock making it hard to focus.

“Yeah, same here.” You sighed into the phone, and Loki heard a bit of rustling as you presumably got more comfortable. “I have trouble sleeping a lot, actually. I guess I just get lonely.”

A heavy weight of guilt sank into Loki’s chest. Here you were, opening yourself up to him, and he was trying to get off to the sound of your voice. He was truly depraved, that was for sure. But fuck, the tired rasp to your voice and the small sighs you let out were sending him sky high. His mind was running wild with fantasies of you under him, you in his lap, you up against the wall as he fucked you into it. Loki fought to sound normal as he responded to you. “I understand. Most beings are very social creatures, we need company to--ah!” A particularly rough thrust of his hips had caught Loki off guard as the mind-numbing pleasure rocketed through his body.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, pet,” Loki said, panting as he forced his hips to still. “Just stretching.” It was a lame excuse, but Loki was too far gone to come up with anything better. His body quaked as he tried to keep still, like his own muscles were attempting to disobey his brain. Everything in him was screaming out for more. Cum, you need to cum. Once again, Loki was forced to give in as his hips resumed their grinding. The pillow itself was now damp with how much he was leaking, and it felt amazing.

The phone was quiet, and Loki could almost hear how hard you were thinking on the other end. And then: “Loki, are you...masturbating?” Your voice trailed off as you said that word. The sheer embarrassment was evident in your tone, and Loki was almost astounded at how bold you were. Not many humans had the nerve to just up and ask something like that.

Even through the shock of being caught, Loki could not find it in him to be surprised that you had caught on. You had always come across as intelligent to him, it was foolish to think he could fool you with a half-hearted excuse. Still, it was beyond humiliating to have been called out so brazenly. Loki saw no point in denying it; you would not have asked if you weren't sure. “Yes,” he replied, voice cracking as he froze in place for the second time. Despite the embarrassment, Loki’s erection did not not falter. In fact, it seemed that he only got harder. This mortal would be the death of him.

“O-oh!” You seemed surprised, like you hadn’t expected him to come right out with it. “I’m so sorry, I guess I interrupted you, huh? Shit, I’m sorry.” How absurd. Loki was the one shamelessly rubbing himself against a pillow while talking to you, and you were the one apologizing.

Loki found it intriguing that you hadn’t hung up immediately upon learning of his actions. You hadn’t seemed disgusted at all, just apologetic for interrupting his activities. Loki wasn’t sure if your lack of repulsion was what caused it, or if it was simply his need clouding his judgement, but his mouth began to move before he could stop it. “It’s excellent for sleep. I highly recommend it for nights like these.”

There was no sugar coating it; that was a proposition, no matter how poorly disguised it was as simple advice. “Um,” came your faint reply. Loki’s face burned as he pictured the look of horror you were probably wearing at the moment. And then he nearly swallowed his tongue as you spoke again. “Yeah, I tried earlier. Wasn’t really...working.”

A new gush of blood found its way into Loki’s cock at your admission. He couldn’t help but imagine you writhing on your bed, soaked in sweat and your own slick as you tried desperately to get to that crescendo of pleasure. His blush had somehow grown even stronger, and he couldn’t recall the last time he had even blushed at all. This mortal was killing him, you were his executioner and he was begging for you to pull the trigger.

“That’s quite unfortunate,” Loki managed through his reverie. He was still frozen, almost scared to begin his motions again for fear of cumming on the spot. His cock twitched in time with his racing heart, occasionally dripping precum into his pants. Loki was a mess, but he could not bring himself to care in the slightest. All that mattered was the arousal screaming under his skin and your intoxicating voice in his ears.

“Yeah. Sorry, should I go? And let you, y’know, finish?”

Loki racked his brain for an excuse to get you to stay. It was maddening, how quickly you had ruined him. Seduction was one of his many talents, as was manipulation. In the past, he would have had no trouble at all talking someone into his bed and onto his cock, but you were different. Every flirtation died on his lips the moment he was in your presence, and it was all he could do to form complete sentences as you turned his knees to jelly.

After an excruciating period of silence as Loki thought, he finally spoke. “It would be unfair of me to abandon you in favor of pleasuring myself when you cannot do the same.”

This time it was your turn to stay quiet. Loki waited anxiously, half-expecting you to just leave anyway. He had already come to terms with your disinterest in him, you were probably just being polite. But...you had called him. There must have been at least a slight attraction for Loki to have been on your mind after attempting to get yourself off.

“Maybe we could…” There was a tremble to your voice as you trailed off, and Loki held his breath as he waited for you to finish. Whatever your suggestion ended up being, he was ready to enthusiastically agree. Anything that involved you and pleasure was incredibly enticing. “Maybe we don’t have to hang up, then.”

Loki’s eyes went wide. Did you mean…? An involuntary moan fell from his lips as he shivered at the thought. “I would, mm, not be opposed to that idea.” Loki’s body had won over for the final time that night and his hips began to move again. After restraining himself for so long, feeling that delicious friction once again nearly overwhelmed him.

“I don’t really know how to do this,” you said. “I can’t really believe I actually asked you that.”

“Would you like instruction, pet?”

“That might help, yeah.”

Loki began to wonder if he was dead, and this was his version of Valhalla. Whatever the case, he was going to ride this high for as long as he could. Everything else seemed to fade into the distance: the chirping of birds outside as the sun rose, the hum of the traffic down below, all of it meant nothing. It meant nothing because you were on the other side of the phone asking for Loki to tell you how to touch yourself. Loki took a deep breath and tried to get a hold of himself; he needed to let you catch up before he could allow himself to lose control.

“I want you to get undressed, and get comfortable.” That was a simple enough command, Loki figured. If he started slow, maybe he could reign in his pathetic neediness and focus solely on your pleasure.

“Okay, I can do that.” The speaker went quiet as you presumably settled onto your bed and slipped out of your pajamas. “Now what?”

“Touch your breasts,” Loki said. His breathing was heavy, but even as he settled into the role of your instructor. “Rub your fingers across them, tell me how it feels.”

You sighed happily. “It feels really nice. Can you tell me what you’re doing?”

Loki was a bit ashamed to admit that he was currently grinding into a pillow, but figured there was no point in lying. “I’m, uh, I have a pillow between my legs, and I’m rubbing against it.”

A whimper burst from your lips. “Oh, that’s so hot.”

“Is it?” Loki asked hesitantly. He didn’t feel very attractive; slick trousers and sweat coated skin, fighting hard to hold it together.

“Yeah, fuck. Can I touch myself, please?”

Loki wanted to drag it out a bit longer, to tease you, but he couldn’t find it in himself to say no to that pretty voice. Especially when you asked so nicely. “Go ahead, pet. You’re such a good girl.”

There was a faint slick sound, then a drawn out moan. Loki groaned in response, the sound extracting a full body shiver from the god. He had never heard such alluring sounds of pleasure, you were just so far above any other being he had ever met. “That’s it,” he murmured in encouragement.

“Feels so good,” you said, voice growing high pitched. “Shit, I’m not gonna last too long. Ah, fuck. Been needing this all night.”

Loki sucked in a breath and began to thrust with more fervor. His eyes nearly rolled back at the pressure and his thighs squeezed around the pillow. “That’s okay, darling. I, oh--” Loki cut himself off with a strangled moan as his pleasure mounted. “I need to cum, too.”

For a moment, panting and whimpered moans were the only thing coming through the speaker. Loki prayed that you were as close as he was, because the coil tightening in his stomach threatened to snap at any moment. It was all he could do to keep from allowing his release to overtake him before you got yours. “Please, pet. I want to hear you cum,” he ground out as his eyes fell shut.

“So close,” you whined. “Loki, I’m gonna cum.”

He couldn’t help it. Loki’s control disintegrated as he began rutting into the pillow like a wild animal. His hips moved in sharp, quick thrusts, and quiet moans left his lips with every movement. ‘Cum--fuck, mm--cum for me, love.” He was going to cum, he couldn’t stop. He just needed you to finish first.

The phone crackled as you let out a sharp cry of pleasure. Loki listened in a trance, trying to memorize every noise that left your lips as you climaxed. Your sounds spurred him on, and he found himself tipping over the edge, cumming harder than he had in a long time. Pleasure whited out his vision, and Loki could faintly hear himself whining your name in a broken voice. He didn’t get the chance to be embarrassed about the noise; his cock pulsed in dizzying waves of euphoria, spurting out rope after rope of hot cum. It shot into his pants, soaking them all the way through and seeping into the pillow. It wasn’t until the last drop had left his body that he was finally able to stop the groans that had been bubbling up from his throat.

As the pleasure subsided, Loki sagged against the bed and took in the mess he had made. His pants were ruined, no doubt about that. And the pillow? Well, it would most likely need a few good washes. But he felt sated, too relaxed to even care about the cum drying to his thighs.

“Are you still there?”

Fuck, he had almost forgotten that you were still on the phone. “Yes,” he croaked out. “That was…”

“Amazing,” you finished for him. Though you couldn’t see him, Loki nodded in agreement.

The bed suddenly felt very large and very empty after the daze of Loki’s orgasm faded. He found himself wishing that you were here, so he could wrap his arms around that perfect waist and bury his nose in your hair. It was an incredibly foreign feeling; Loki had never been one to cuddle after sex. But then again, everything about you was different. You were special. Loki opened his mouth, ready to invite you to his room, but something stopped him. What if this had been just a spur of the moment thing for you? What if you only saw him as a tool to get yourself off?

“Would it be weird if I came down there?” You asked, startling Loki out of his thoughts. There you went again, calming his anxieties before he even had the chance to feel them.

A relieved grin broke out on his face, and his heart sped up again in excitement. “No, I would very much enjoy that.” And for the first time in a very long time, Loki felt wanted.

[sickficsies-and-whumpsies]

I wonder if you don't mind to write sick Suna where he was feeling unwell since the night before but go to school and practice anyway and ends up passing out when they're go for running or something. Thank you!

This took me way too long, I’m so sorry. Hope you enjoy! CW in tags

一

He sits at the dinner table, poking at his food unenthusiastically as his sister rambles about something he’s not bothering to listen to. It’s rather unusual, actually, but his parents are too involved with what she’s saying to notice their son’s pallor.

“Rin, don’t play with your food, it’s gross.” his mom says, scolding him, and he doesn’t even have the strength to reply. Instead, Rintarō nods and takes a few shy bites, silent as the conversation goes on. 

After a while he gets up, setting his plate and glass in the dishwasher and thanking his parents for the food, before he heads to his bedroom. His body feels heavy, legs shaky under him, stomach twisting uncomfortably一 he knows he should have just skipped dinner, he doesn’t know why he hasn’t done that instead.

The thought of sleep is tempting, he’d love nothing more now, but he’s got social studies homework due tomorrow and he can’t turn it in late, not again. It’s been a couple of weeks since Rintarō has actually had a free day, or at least enough time to sit and do his homework before dinner. Between practice, insomnia, assignments, chores and having to care for his sister, since their parents have been assigned shifts that overlap and prevent any of them to care for the 8 year-old, the young middle blocker hasn’t had any time to rest properly. It’s exhausting, but it’s his only option.

So he sits at his desk, curved on his textbook as he writes in shaky characters, squinting at the paper before him. His vision’s fuzzy, head heavy and clouded, but it’s barely 8PM, he still has enough time before it’s officially too late for bed. His sister comes and asks him help with some homework一 Rintarō doesn’t have the heart to tell her to go ask their parents, he knows they’re probably far more tired than him一 so he spends a good hour and a half helping his little sister with her Japanese homework. 

By the time he’s done with that, he’s shaking with exhaustion. It’s a scary feeling, panic-inducing, almost, but it’s a familiar one, sadly. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and Rintarō jolts on his chair, almost losing his balance. The Inarizaki VBC group chat is blowing up with messages, but he scrolls unenthusiastically, not really focusing on the most recent fight between the Miya’s. The boy sends a couple of texts to prove that he’s paying attention when the captain starts to talk about tomorrow’s training, but he’s quick to set his phone down and pick up his pen again. 

It’s three pages of open-ended questions and a couple of pages to learn, but if he puts his mind to it, Rintarō’s sure he can finish by 1AM and finally get a good night of sleep. So he adjusts the desk lamp and straightens his back, eyes on the paper.

He gets through half a question before he falls asleep.

一

Rintarō wakes up to the sound of someone screaming. He barely has enough time to grasp his surroundings before his sister’s face comes into view, screaming and yelling at him because he’s late to help her get ready for school and actually take her there一 her peers go to school alone, but the Suna’s don’t trust their youngest daughter with that yet. And only at that moment he realises that it’s past seven in the morning. 

He rapidly flings himself to the kitchen to make her breakfast and lunch while he tells her to go wash and pack her own bag, ignoring how his own stomach growling, head swimming with hunger and tiredness. 

Rintarō is quick to boil some water and cook some rice, making his sister some tea and eggs for breakfast, while he packs her a bentō with rice, heated leftover broccoli, carrots and octopus sausages. He adds an onigiri, a milkbox and 500¥ to her tiny bag before he yells at her to get downstairs.

The boy barely has enough time to pack his own bags, throw his creased uniform on and wash his face before he heads out, practically dragging his sister with him, apologising profusely while she bites his head off for not hearing his alarm. 

一

“This is the third time in a week, Suna. I give you homework for a reason.”

“I’m sorry, sensei. It won’t happen again.”

The man sighs, taking his glasses off as he stares at the boy standing, the whole class looking at the student. He’s far too exhausted and hungry to decipher their expressions and murmured words.

“Stay behind after class, I need to speak with you.”

“Yes, sensei.”

The rest of the lesson goes by without Rintarō paying any attention to a single word that’s being said, nor to the curious looks casted in his direction. 

一

“This isn’t like you, Suna,” the professor hums, staring at the boy sitting in front of him, “coming to school looking absolutely dishevelled, not doing your homework… Maybe you should consider dropping out of the Volleyball Club, since it’s obviously taking a toll on your health and, consequently, on the quality of your education.” he pauses, waiting for a reaction that doesn’t come. 

Another sigh. “You’re a brilliant student, or rather, you used to be, but your grades are getting lower by the week. I’m sure that if you focused more on school and less on sports, you’d have an amazing academic career. You’d have no trouble accessing top-tier universities, all things considered.”

The boy opens his mouth to speak, but closes it immediately after. He’s not sure of what he should say. Rintarō knows that his current condition has nothing to do with his afterschool activity, but he doesn’t feel like explaining it to a man who knows little to nothing about him. 

“I’ll talk about it with my parents.” he lies, getting up from his chair and bowing slightly, “I’m sorry for causing you trouble, sensei. I’ll turn my missing assignments in as soon as possible.”

He leaves, not even bothering to hurry for lunch, and uses those last twenty minutes of lunch break to try and get some work done. Since he doesn’t have anything to put under his teeth nor money to buy it, he has to settle for tap water.

The remainder of today’s classes go by uneventfully.

一

Evening practice is gruelling. 

Rintarō can barely see, blinded by exhaustion, hunger, and the bright lights in the gym. He’s somehow managed to stay upright during the nine laps, far behind everyone else, only one more lap to go一 the boy doesn’t complain, he’s aware it would be the same as crying wolf, considering that everyone on the team knows how reluctant he is to warm up properly, especially since it includes repetitive, draining exercises. 

Ojiro tries to engage with him, chatting about something that was being discussed in the groupchat yesterday, but he barely hums and nods as Ojiro rants, with the obvious intent to make Rintarō feel less excluded, less alone.

“I mean, how did you miss that? Tsumu wouldn’t shut up, and you know how he gets when Samu mentions he won’t be playing volleyball after high school, right? I swear, he sent something like a hundred texts in the span of, like, four minutes. Unbelievable, right?” Ojiro says, elbowing his teammate delicately.

He barely hums in responde.

While he may not be aware of it, no, while he isn’t aware of it, everyone can tell just how bad the middle blocker looks right now. Rintarō’s back is far more arched than normal, which is worrying per se. His face looks gaunt, skin ashen and damp. A faint, dark red glow covers his cheeks and ears, and every time he moves to put one foot down in front of the other, it seems like his knees will buckle under his weight. He’s sweaty and visibly fanned, chest heaving uncomfortably as he tries to clear the dark spots in his vision with deep breaths.

But again, he’s always looked pale, and they’ve been practising for a while now, so it’s quite hard to tell if there’s something that’s actually wrong with their Suna or not. Maybe he’s not just as talkative today一 he rarely is, unless gossip is involved一 so Ojiro doesn’t insist and keeps running, leaving his teammate slightly behind, not on purpose either. It’s just hard to run any slower than that.

And that’s when it happens.

Rintarō isn’t really sure how or when. All he knows is that one moment he’s jumping in place, trying to warm up his knees’ joints and muscles, and the other he’s in mid-air, barely thirty centimetres from the ground, all sense of direction lost. The boy doesn’t even have enough time to panic, mind hazy, ears shrilling, heart racing. 

He doesn’t feel himself hitting the floor.

一

There’s a loud, insistent, piercing noise in his ears. He doesn’t seem to be able to get rid of it, he doesn’t know where it’s coming from either. He opens his eyes, only to be welcomed by absolute darkness. He gasps, but doesn’t hear himself doing so, which only contributes to making him panic more. 

Something pushes him back down一 consequently making him realise that he’s laying on his back on some kind of hard surface一 and Rintarō simultaneously realises that there’s something keeping his legs up, gripping at his numb ankles. He tries to kick the presence off, but he’s too weak, too dazed to succeed.

The boy groans, automatically raising his hands to his face.

Slowly, some light finally starts to filter through his vision along with morphing silhouettes that, however, gradually start to look like something more tangible, more real. He squeezes his eyes shut immediately.

“Suna!?”

“Give him some space!”

“I’ll go get his water bottle from the benches一”

“He doesn’t have it today, didn’t see him put it there.” 

“I’ll warn the nurse!”

“She’s not here, it’s late.”

“His parents then?”

“I’ll go check if their contacts are in the register!”

“Let me open the windows, maybe some fresh air will help.”

There’s multiple pairs of footsteps getting farther, the linoleum floor under him bouncing slightly at the people’s movements.

The voices are familiar, but associating voices to people sounds way too hard right now. He groans. He hears something shuffling beside him, and soon a hand starts to tap his cheek lightly, but at a steady rhythm. He opens one eye, not past a slit.

“Suna, are you back with us?” the captain asks. He elicits no response, so he turns to say something, but it’s barely a whisper that the middle blocker can’t decipher. 

“Uhm, Hitoshi just texted me, said Sunarin’s parents won’t be in town until Monday, and they took their daughter with them. Said he already knows.” Atsumu explains, glancing at his phone.

When Rintarō mumbles something unintelligible, but that seems to be enough to satisfy the people in the room. 

“Can you talk?” Ojiro chimes in, crouching on his other side.

A nod. “M’kay.”

He tries to sit up, but once again he’s pushed down. Besides, now that he recalls it, his legs are still up in the air, and a quick glance confirms that that’s definitely Osamu who’s holding his ankles now.

“Wh’ happ’nd…?” he slurs, blinking sheepishly as he slowly, painfully tries to regain full consciousness. He’s still half asleep, dazed, his thoughts incoherent and loud.

“You’re warm, probably running a fever,” Kita says, collected as ever, “although, I’m not sure this is the reason why you passed out, Suna.”

“He’s been looking like death warmed over since yesterday’s afternoon classes.” Osamu chimes in, eyebrows scrunched up in worry, “I wasn’t here this morning, but I’ve heard some classmates gossipping about him looking like crap and forgetting to get his homework done, or something…”

Kita nods. Atsumu then crouches beside Ojiro, eyeing Rintarō worriedly. “Have you been sleeping enough, Sunarin?”

A moment passes. “Mhm…”

“That really doesn’t sound convincing, dude.” “What about eating? Are you eating?” Osamu asks from above. “Ren said you don’t even have a water bottle with you today. Did you have lunch today? Or a big breakfast, at least?”

“Didn’t have time to make anythin’... Didn’t have breakfast… Forgot money…” Rintarō says, words coming out slow, slurred, heavy with disorientation. “Had t’make food fo’ my sister… T’was late…”

“So you didn’t have breakfast nor lunch today?” Kita hums, pensive, “That’s really dangerous for your health.”

“Why didn’t you tell us before practice? We would’ve lent you some money, man! Besides, now that I think about it, I’m something like 1500¥ in debt with you.” 

Atsumu exclaims, visibly distraught.

“And 850¥ with me.” Ojiro murmurs.

“And 1000¥ with me, too.” Kita nods.

“With me, as well.” 

“Shut up, Samu, I don’t owe you shit!”

“I saw you rummaging through my wallet yesterday, pig!”

“Wha一 you lying bastard! Do you know how low of you it is to accuse me of stealing your money?”

“Well, I know what I saw and一”

Kita clears his throat, and that’s enough to quiet down the twins instantly. Rintarō’s grateful for that, his head already hurts as it is. 

“I’ll make a run for the vending machines, don’t move!” Atsumu yells, already moving and disappearing outside the gym.

The captain spares him one last glance before he takes off his jersey and folds it carefully, “Luckily, you didn’t hit your head when you fell.” he says, gently lifting his teammate’s head and putting the makeshift pillow under it. “The floor can’t be too comfortable, hm?”

Rintarō smiles, weak. “Thanks, capt’n…”

Ojiro places his jacket on his torso instead, “To keep you warm.”

Another smile. Only then, Osamu lowers the boy’s legs, letting him be fully horizontal at last. He stays like that for barely a minute, because as soon as the other twin enters the gym, Ojiro’s quick to gently guide Rintarō in a sitting position, making sure that the jacket won’t fall off of him, keeping him upright.

“Okay, I got you water, strawberry milk, and two different protein bars. It should be enough to get you back on your feet until you get back home and have a proper meal.” Atsumu smiles, rapidly unscrewing the cap of the strawberry drink and guiding it to his teammate’s chapped lips. “Careful, it’s cold.”

It takes about ten minutes for him to swallow a few sips of strawberry milk and one protein bar, but by the time he’s done, stomach still adjusting, his nausea and headache have lessened a bit. He feels less distant, more present, more awake. Still tired, though, beat, drained.

That’s his teammates’ chance to assault him with questions. “So, uhm, why haven’t you been able to function normally?”

“Aran!”

“Sorry, Samu, just asking the real question here.” he deadpans.

Rintarō fiddles with the bottle in his hands. “I…” he pauses, swallowing the lump in his throat, “I’ve been busy. With school, practice, my family…”

“Oh, I remember you mentioning that your parents wanted to take different shifts?” Kita asks.

A nod, “Two weeks ago, they started with their new shifts, but they overlap so I’m in charge of my sister when it comes to, like, school stuff, so her breakfast, lunch, and homework. Plus having to take her to school in the morning, while my parents pick her up afterwards.”

He sighs, shaky. After a sip of water一 and a struggle to unscrew the cap一 he continues. “I’m falling behind ‘cause by the end of the day I’m too tired to study, and I have to help her first, anyway. I’m just… just tired.”

“So, when you said ‘It was late’, you meant you didn’t have time to take care of yourself this morning ‘cause you were late?” Ojiro asks, unsure.

“I fell asleep tryin’ to do my homework yesterday, a-and I did sleep, but it was awful. Then, I didn’t set my alarm, so I woke up, like, twenty minutes bef-before we needed t’ leave. I didn’t want her to be late, and it- it doesn’t look good if a kid comes to school on an empty stomach and without their bentō...!” he rubs at his face with more strength than needed, and Osamu tries to run a hand up and down his back for comfort一 something he always does when his twin has a breakdown.

They’re all eerily silent for a few minutes, letting Rintarō rant and vent. Once he’s clearly more exhausted than he was before, getting slower with his responses, they decide to move. 

“Here’s what we’ll do. I have a big house, and my parents will be out for the weekend as well, so how about we all camp there until Sunarin gets better?” Ojiro says, flashing a bright smile. 

“School t’morrow…”

“There’s no way you’re coming to school tomorrow.” Kita says, “I can afford to skip for a day and stay with you at Ojiro’s, since I’ve collected a total of zero absences in the past two years. It won’t be a problem.” 

“I could, too! I mean, I’ve been absent for a few days, since this dumbass…” Osamu growls, elbowing Atsumu, “always catches every single disease on Earth and brings it home as a souvenir, but I don’t have any tests tomorrow, and my academic career isn’t as promising as yours, Captain.”

“I can skip, too! Volleyball leagues don’t really care if you graduate high school with full 100s, and I don’t plan on going to uni, like, ever.” Atsumu says.

“I can skip too, since it’s my house it would be rude of me to leave you guys alone there, I wouldn’t want you to feel forced.”

“You guys don’t need t’ do that…” He feels overwhelmed, and he’s not sure if it’s the fever, the exhaustion, or just the general fact that his friends care for him that much. “M’fine, really, I jus’ need to get in my bed and sleep…”

“Oh, right, why don’t we go to Sunarin’s house instead? He’d feel more comfortable. I mean, it’s a billion times better to rest in a familiar place!” Atsumu chirps, and Osamu nods, agreeing. 

“Are you okay with us coming to your house for a few days, Suna?” Kita asks, “You don’t have to say yes.”

He’s taken aback by the kindness. It’s not that he didn’t think his teammates could be capable of it, but he’s just never expected anyone to show that much kindness to him. 

He nods, shy, wary, but at peace. As soon as he’s propped on Ojiro’s back, Rintarō falls asleep.

[remingtonisleithal]

Caught in the Storm

pairing: female!reader x Remington Leith

summary: two besties, being friends, sharing a bed because of a storm, definitely not going to lead to anything more.

warnings: smut, mentions of loneliness, no use of protection (don't be silly, wrap your willy), thigh riding? If you squint sub!remington

author note: if you like this please reblog! also, editing fics in the same room as family is bloody hard. Thank you @bidet-and-legolas for reading it first :)

oh gosh, that smile. He told himself he'd never fall but the moment he spoke to you, it was too late. Remington had fallen for Y/N. Years later, no one knew, but he couldn't keep it to himself for much longer.

You'd just spent the last few hours on his make shift bed on the tour bus, watching movies together. After hours had pasted, he was laying on his back, you were lying on him, back against his chest, and he was wishing that he could just kiss your head, your mouth, all of you. If he was going to make a move, now would be the right time, the guys had gone out for drinks hours ago so you had the bus to yourselves. This way no one would witness the rejection. No, no, he can't think like that. He needs you in his life.

You rolled over to face him more and mumbled a little 'I'm so tired Remi.' You looked at the computer in front of you both and saw it was 11:30pm. The sound of rain thundered down on the bus, as a violent storm began. "Shit, that weather's sounding bad." You were worried to go out into the pouring night. Remington was thinking the same things and said, much more softly than he intended, "Stay?". He coughed a bit and you pushed away the thought that he cared about you more than just a friend. It's just an offer after all, he's not asking you to kiss him... no matter how much you wanted to.

It was then that you realised you were still staring into his beautiful eyes. You wriggled gently to get up, claiming that nature calls and then turning red and regretting saying it instantly. In the small bathroom you hid for a moment, and wondered what to do. Maybe another movie? But you were exhausted and needed to go to sleep. Maybe he wouldn't mind you going to sleep?

"hey Remi?" you asked

"what's up Y/N/N?"

"Do you mind if I have a nap or something? i didn't sleep last night an-"

"Sure, I mean you can stay over if you want. It doesn't look like this storm is leaving." He cut you off.

Moments later, you had stripped into your undies (because no way are you trying to sleep in skinny jeans. Nope) and put on a baggy top Remington handed you, and he had changed into some shorts. And you were squished into his bed, Remington against the wall, you against him, no mattress to spare. It was going to be a long, long night of false unrequited love.

By the 2 am mark, the guys were not back, thunder jolted you awake. A groan.

"I can't fucking sleep with this storm" He groaned, and you agreed.

A moment passed. Silence except the storm.

"So. How's life?" Remington asked with a playful smile and you giggled.

"To be honest? Pretty bad." For once you answered the question with truth. Remington tried to wiggle around onto his back, but it failed. You shuffled over so you were facing each other.

"What's wrong?" his eyes and voice portrayed equal concern

"Nothing is right. To quote a very handsome man, I'm so sick and tired of being alone." he let out a half laugh as you called him handsome. "There's this guy. I love him so much and he will never know. I can't tell him."

"Well that's just dumb. You should tell him, no matter what happens, you have to be honest with yourself." He mentally punched himself for his hypocrisy, but he couldn't think of any other advice. What would he say, 'that's rough buddy'?

"It's not that easy. It's all just so hard. You know my track record with guys and girls, I never pick the right ones, I always get hurt and not in the fun way."

"The fun way? Oh so you like that?" He teased you with a laugh, without realising just how he was teasing you.

"Fuck off Remi. I know you have no rights to judge. My point is no one ever loves me, or seems to know how."

"Are we talking physical or emotional?"

"Both."

Conversations were always easy between you, and you saw no point in ignoring topics like sex.

You had both been looking away from each other for fear that the other might read their eyes and see the love in their souls. You were the first to look back.

"I just wish someone would kiss me. At this point, I'll take anyone! I'm just so fucking lonely. I know he'd never love me back, and-"

"Then he's a coward. He's not worthy for your love or of you if you feel you can't tell him this." He got so mad with jealousy, but overall he just felt horrible, as he believed he'd never be worthy of you. "You're perfect, do you know that?" He mumbled. He lent in, eyes pulling you closer, until the thunder boomed and you jolted apart.

You rolled over, scared, and there wasn't anywhere for Remington to put his arms besides around you. Slowly, you shuffled back into his warm arms and breathed a sigh. He moved around to get comfortable. You moved a little more, moving your hips a bit. You felt something hard against your butt and you let out a silent sigh. Neither of you were comfortable, and it was clear why when you moved your hips again and Remington couldn't hold it in. He let out the sexiest moan you'd ever heard.

"... Ah, Remi?"

"Shit, I'm sorry I didn't mean to I..." He rambled on, mortified and you moved your hips again. That made him shut up.

Turning around you looked into his eyes. They were pleading with you not to leave, not to freak. To just stay with him forever. Before he could stop himself, he lifted a hand to brush some hair away from your face, and, unable to form words, you let out a light whimper.

Neither of you could form coherent sentences, the conversation was held by your eyes. His, full of surprise, asking, 'do you like me?', biting your lip your eyes said yes. He smiled. Your hearts were beating so fast, but he moved slow towards you, gently placing an open mouthed kiss on your lips. A sea of emotions erupted in you as electricity flooded your body. He pulled away to look you in the eyes.

"Y/N, I have loved you since the moment I met you. I'm sorry I've been so scared to tell you, i can't handle the though of losing you."

"I- you- ah-" you couldn't form the words back, but you pulled him closer and kissed him with all the fire you felt in your heart. he responded with a groan and licked your lips, asking for entrance into your mouth.

You didn't hold back, and you explored each others mouths in a moment of excitement, bodies pressed against each other. You pulled away, needing oxygen, but he pulled you back, needing you more than air. Soon your were against each other, moaning, desperate for more.

"Remington?"

"Yes?"

"Take my shirt off?"

His response was immediate, tugging it off you, and claiming your mouth once again. Your hand wandered down his chest to his boxers. He released your mouth for a loud moan and you felt yourself instantly get wetter.

After muttering 'fuck' he kissed down your chest to your boobs, taking one nipple in his mouths and gently pinching the other, until your back was arched in pleasure. You nudged him back up, so you could reach down into his boxers.

He was painfully hard, and he was groaning in a mixture of pleasure and pain, as he had been hard for an hour trying to ignore your beauty.

"Please." he mumbled in your ear. Immediately, you moved your hand and put your leg in between his, starting to rub yourself onto his thigh as he did to yours. You were both a mess, sweaty and begging each other for more, more, more, until eventually you stopped humping him. You kissed down his chest but he stopped you.

"No. Please, I just need you now." So you both searched for a condom. You couldn't find one. He couldn't find one. You were dripping for him and he was painfully hard, you surrendered to your instincts.

You asked "are you good without?"

"I hope so."

You giggled a little but stopped when he took his undies off. He was perfect, enough to stretch you but not to hurt, and you felt your chest constrict without meaning to.

"How do you want me?" You asked

"However you want. I just need you." he said with a sigh

"Fuck" you moaned and climbed onto him.

You fell gently, both crying out in pleasure as you felt in all the way in you. You clenched and he moaned a high pitched moan that only turned you on more. Soon you were a mess, riding him, him thrusting into you in perfect timing, getting closer, closer, closer. Without saying a word he started to rub your clit gently. You screamed in pleasure and asked for him to go harder, faster. You cupped his balls and he groaned.

"I'm not gonna last much longer." he grunted into you, and you lay on top of him, boobs pressed to his chest, turning you on like nothing else. You ran a hand through his spiky, sweat-dampened hair and whispered:

"come into me, then"

You clenched and he was done, and seeing the face he made of pure ecstasy sent you over the edge, coming undone harder than ever before. Hands on your hips he helped you ride it out, and breathing heavy, you stayed like that for a long time.

"wow" was all Remington said and you laughed, rolling over. He climbed across you to find a wet wash cloth and clean you both up, taking time to kiss you softly and he cleaned you, only making you wet again.

"I love you Remington."

"I lov-" the doors to the bus suddenly opened, Sebastian screeched and shut it immediately, not wanting any more of a visual than he got. Neither of you realised the rain had stopped.

[tommyspeakycap]

again, your new john stones fic blew me away!!! Amazing. Please feel free to write about him all day every day!! <3

thank you again!! here’s another sweet one inspired by my own 1am experience tonight :) i wish I had a john stones

My hero

Your heart is quite literally thundering in your chest. There’s no feeling like it, this kind of fear that sticks you to the ground beneath your feet. You honestly feel like you can’t catch your breath, tears streaking down over your flushed cheeks as you hold your phone in your right hand with trembling fingers, one thumb finally letting go of the little microphone shaped drawing in your iMessages app. Even the whooshing sound of the message you knew was about to send to your best friend catches you off guard, making your shoulders clench and raise in fright.

“Are you seriously alright??”

She texts back, her confusion and teasing is something you know is laced into those letters across the screen creating a glow in the dim room. You roll your eyes at her, trying to keep your vision up while sending another voice note back; “No, seriously. Why does this only ever happen when I’m alone??”

“Probably because you live alone?” She replies back, and you curse yourself for a choice of friends who clearly have no empathy for what you consider to be a very serious situation. You know you won’t hear the end of this teasing once it’s all over. But the fear to you is all too real.

“(Y/n) I got your text! Came right here, are you alright?”

The sudden voice makes you literally clench your entire body, nearly shooting off the floor in fright and making one of those internalised fear noises that sounds like you just been attacked with a taser. You hear keys dropping down by the door and then a pause of his footsteps as you try to catch your breath. Your heart swells a little at the thought of him being here.

“John!” You yelp, your voice coming out something more like a strangled cry. The tall defender hears that sound and finds himself in panic, those long legs carrying him quickly and easily up the stairs of your small home until he spots you standing now in the doorway of your bedroom. He rushes towards you, seemingly checking you over for potential injuries the best he can in the darkness only broken by the lowest setting of flashlight on your phone. The first thing he notices when checking over your face with his hands is the wetness still making its way over your cheeks.

“Are you alright? what happened? Is there someone in there? Are you okay? Did someone hurt-“

You cut off his rambling with a finger over his lips, creating even more confusion for the fluffy haired brunette who had very clearly rolled himself out of bed to hurry over here. He was wearing shoes without socks, dirty shorts from training that he’d thrown off before going to bed only to pull back in to come to your, and an old sweater that usually sat somewhere downstairs in the closet closest to the door. It was obvious he had come in a wild rush the second he got your erratic message.

“It’s a wasp, John!” You whisper, as if the little creature that sitting on your lightbulb unwilling to move from the place you couldn’t reach and wouldn’t dare to even if you could, was able to hear you.

“A wasp?” John repeats incredulously. “Seriously?”

You nod vigorously, and and as much as the exhausted footballer wants to complain or even sigh at you, he doesn’t. Maybe he can’t. Because he’s got his arms around you and he definitely can feel you quivering against him. He had expected something more along the lines of a one night stand gone wrong or even someone breaking it, but as his consciousness began to catch back up with his previously very sleepy self, it made a lot more sense. In the event of a break in, you would probably have been bloody calmer than you are now to be honest. John had seen you after a pretty dangerous car crash completely still and relatively calm as you gave statements to police officers with blood still trickling down your face. But put an insect in your path and you scaled the closest thing to you for protection.

It just so happened that closest thing was often John Stones, and he was happy to be that person really.

It has become a norm between the two of you in the years you had been friends. Winter was the worst for spiders, but he generally didn’t mind the mildly irritating insects. He just got rid of them one way or another while you hid as far as you could get and then he’d come get you when the coast was clean. But you hated summer for this particular reason.

Wasps.

They fly in, fly into things and somehow never make it back on the window on their own despite it being the most easy thing one could ever imagine. Then, they try and sting you as if they aren’t in your house. They just creep you out, even the sight of them with their nasty little bodies. Bees aren’t a problem, they’re fuzzy looking and don’t intrude in your home nearly half as much. Also, they don’t try to sting you all the damn time.

“Where abouts?” He asks, his voice showing no hint of any destain or irritation he may harbour. “On the light,” you tell him shakily, following close to him back as you both enter the room. “Right up there- careful!”

John sniggers a little to himself, much to your dismay. He kicks off his shoes by your bedside table and climbs up onto the bed with ease on those ridiculously long legs. By luck, chance or both, he has some toilet paper in his hoodie pocket that he’d probably used to wipe his nose or something like that earlier, he can’t remember. He holds it out at arms length, only inches away form the unsuspecting black and yellow insect. “Where?” He asks again, “I can’t see anything.”

“There!” You insist, pointing up with a shaking finger. “I don’t see anything (y/n).” He repeats, making you whimper slightly, more tears suddenly appearing as you try to come to terms with the fact it might’ve moved while you were outside the room. The thought of having to sleep in your house while not knowing where it was would send you absolutely mental. “It was there I swear, look-“

“Ahhh, I got it. Stand back.”

He leans forward with relative ease, careful with the force he used so close to a live electric source and grips the buzzing creature in his tissue. “There we go,” he hums, stepping down from the bed. “All go-“

As if on cue, it flies out of the paper and you let loose a literal shriek as you dive backwards, crashing into the wall and then jumping forward in fright at that. “Woah!” John calls, “it’s alright, it’s right there. Calm, calm. Take a deep breath. Look,” he tries to calm you. That deep accent with his fatigue coating each word seeps into you, carefully calming your firing heart as he grabs it tighter from the floor, making sure he squashed it this time and immediately takes it to flush it down the toilet. John doesn’t know if you’re supposed to kill them or not, but at this moment in time he genuinely does not care. Was he fuck going to chase a wasp out of a window at half past one in the morning. Not a chance.

When he returns from the bathroom now empty handed, you still seem upset.

“That was scary.” You announce.

John smiles, pearly whites all on display. “I noticed.” He teases, making you scowl tiredly at him.

That scowl falters when his smile breaks into a light, soft laugh and he moves to stand in front of you. You absolutely don’t mind the fact that he’s babying you a little, using the sleeves of his sweater to wipe your cheeks before pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead and taking you into his strong arms. In fact, it’s very much welcomed. His arms are the safest place in the world to you and even the residual discomforted shivers from the concept of a wasp in your bedroom couldn’t get through that defender. He looks after a lot more than just the Manchester City goal line. No, he’s the sole defender of something much more precious that he doesn’t even realise.

Your heart.

“You okay now?” He asks softly, his tired voice rumbling through you. You nod against him, “Feeling a bit better. Thank you Stonesy.” You mumble, words muffled by the muscled chest that your face his resting against. “Anything for you, lovely.” He responds easily, pulling back from you in a way that aches his heart. The sudden lack of your warmth and presence against him is utterly brutal. He loves holding you, but hates it in the same breath. He would love to hold you if it was something he got to do freely instead of fleetingly.

His eyes are stuck watching you sit down on the edge of your bed to grab your phone and check the time with an element of shock rolling through your eyes when you realise it’s nearly two.

“You got training tomorrow?” You ask sweetly, a yawn following the tail end of your words adorable in a way that makes John’s heart flutter like a teenage boy. He nods, “Not till after dinner though, around 5.”

It’s your turn to nod, seeming to be chewing over something in thought as you lie down in the middle of your bed.

“Wanna stay then?”

John has to pretend to think about it at least a little bit so he doesn’t look like he’s jumping right up at the opportunity, which is exactly what he wants to do. “Why not,” he shrugs, chucking off his hoodie to the foot of your bed, “Scoot over.”

He clambers in, long limbs moving nowhere near as coordinated as they are on the pitch as he lays down by your right. It’s like a familiar dance, one you both know so well as you shuffle around so you can lay against his chest, one leg hooked over him as his arm wraps around you to pull you even closer. A silence falls between you as he feels your eyelashes fluttering shut, tickling his chest. He can’t find that same relaxation, can’t seem to shut his eyes for the thoughts flying through his mind all at once.

“I should teach you how to catch them.” John states, rumbling voice interrupting the peaceful quiet in which you had nearly found sleep. “You know, for the future.” He adds almost flippantly. Almost.

“Why?” You hum groggily, sleep croaking your voice ever so slightly. “I got you.”

John has to pretend your half asleep admission doesn’t send his heart flying into his throat. You do always have him, right there in the palm of your hand. Always.

“I don’t think other guys would appreciate me barging into their house in the middle of the night.” He suggests, making you quirk an eyebrow in question, but you still don’t look up at him and he isn’t even sure if you’ve got your eyes fully open. “No other guys here,” you state, “Single, living all alone.” You add lazily. The words almost make John wonder if he has fallen asleep, each one spoke playing straight into the dream he’s had for years for you to be his.

“Yeah, I know but…but there will be, at some point.” He suggests. You give no response for a moment and he briefly thinks you’ve fallen asleep at some point in this conversation.

“Bet those other guys wouldn’t come get rid of wasps for me in the middle of the night like you do.”

“Maybe,” John shrugs, “but I think there’s plenty of guys like that, especially for you.”

He feels you shake your head against him, your words decisive as you speak;

“There are no guys like you, John Stones.”

His words and his breath are caught on his throat, his heart erupting in his chest as he replays those words in his mind, trying to figure out if he had actually just heard them or if his tired mind was playing tricks on him because it was so late and he hadn’t had enough sleep.

But then you look up at him with tired eyes and a sweet smile. You know what you’ve just done, know the bomb you’ve just dropped and you’re hoping with everything crossed that he feels the same way.

“You’re my hero, Stonesy.” You say softly, your voice now a little sheepish and he can barely just make out the flush of your cheeks in the dim room lighting. “And I love you with everything I have.”

He doesn’t know what to say, his eyes wide as his heart beats as erratically as he had felt yours beating when he first arrived with fear coursing through his veins thinking you were in some kind of mortal peril.

“John?” You ask timidly, voice sheepish as you sit up in fear.

“Sorry,” he rumbles, pushing himself to a seated position, allowing him to lean forward and slide his hand around the back of your head to pull you into him, your lips crashing down onto his.

It’s just about everything he’s ever wanted.

“God I love you.” He says against your lips, a groan leaving his throat from pure satisfaction, pure relief of finally getting those words off of his chest. You giggle, resting back against his chest. “Can we sleep now, please?”

He nods, both of you shuffling so you can resume the position you had been in before a life changing confession that had spun you and the Barnsley brunette into the kiss that had been years in waiting. This was the happiest either of you had probably ever been.

“Guess we have the wasps to thank for this eh?” John lulls just as sleep is about to encompass you. He feels you shiver against him, the hairs on your arms immediately raising to attention at the mention of that which you hate so much.

“Don’t say that! That’s basically an invitation for them to invade my house!” You hiss, giving his chest a gentle swat as he pulls you closer to his side.

“Let them come,” he says almost triumphantly, “You got me now, always.”

You cosy yourself against him, a soft sigh of complete content and comfort tickling his chest as it dances across him. He feels that gentle smile that settles onto your gestures as your heavy eyes allow sleep to truly begin to take you.

“Always,” you mumble, words diluted by sleep “My hero.”

[ticketstomydaydreams]

5:3666

(All We Have: Part Two)

Part One

Colson x Female Reader

Summary: You and Colson fall into a night time studio routine when he starts keeping you company through your insomnia and you decide to work though some past demons

Word count: 3,200 (ish, I lost count editing)

Feels: Fluff with a dash of past trauma

Warnings: Drug & alcohol consumption, domestic violence, cursing, Colson being so sweet it almost makes your teeth hurt

Companion playlist:

Machine Gun Kelly - 5:3666

Warren Zevon - I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

The Vamps - All Night

Halsey - You Should Be Sad

A/N: If you've been affected by anything in this story, please know you're not alone. My inbox is always open and I'm all ears 🖤

______

During the first couple of weeks of moving in, you’d been partying A LOT. The guys wanted to show you just how mad it got, breaking you into their chaotic household, blending the days together. Everyone was hyper and the house was buzzing with energy. You'd been so exhausted from all of it that you'd been all but passing out each night, but you couldn’t lie, it was great fun.

You’d tried to pass on a few nights but Colson would never hear of it, often forcing you out of your room to get involved as the house was filled with people, jam sessions taking place in between drinking games. It was a far cry from your usual homelife, your last housemate mainly kept to themselves so your place was normally pretty chilled. Colson had used your place as a quiet escape over the years, but it seemed you wouldn’t have the same set up extended to you here with this lot.

With the pandemic unfolding, the house had started getting quieter, less people in and out every night and everyone was settling into a lazier way of life. The gang were mooching around the house throughout the day and while the house was still lively at night, it wasn’t quite the party central you’d almost started getting used to. Your normal working routine went out the window as everyone had started working from home mainly and without your daily routine, followed by nights out partying, your insomnia was back with full force.

______

You were lying in your bed, trying to force sleep on yourself but after trying to nod off for a couple of hours, you accepted defeat and got back up. Throwing some sweats on and one of Colson’s huge hoodies (you’d been slowly sneaking them out of his closet, finding that the masses of material drowning your small frame were super comforting), you headed down to the kitchen, turned the stove on and filled the kettle up. You were scrolling through your phone when you heard footsteps on the tiled floor. Colson strolled into the kitchen looking disheveled in a white tank top and boxer shorts, hair ruffled and looking sleepy

“Dude, it’s 3am how come you’re up?”

“Couldn’t sleep, living that oh so fun insomnia life again” you sighed “Did I wake you?”

“Nah, I was already awake. Couldn’t sleep either and heard someone moving about so thought I’d come down” He replied, climbing onto one of the breakfast stools

“Yeah, I think it’s not having much of a routine. Hate lying in bed staring at the ceiling so just got up. You want a cup?” you offered, pointing to the chamomile tea you were brewing

“Sure, thanks” he says, taking the steaming mug from you

You sit down at the breakfast bar with him and start chatting, scrolling through instagram as you do. After about an hour, as you’re talking about an article you’re reading, you notice Colson doesn’t respond and you look to your right and see he’s fallen asleep, leaning on his hand, his mouth slightly ajar.

“Hey, sleeping beauty” you whisper, rubbing his back with your hand “Go to bed”

He slightly jolts at your touch, opening his eyes “Nah man, I’m keeping you company”

“Some company” you laugh softly “pretty sure you just slept through all my rambling there”

He leans against your shoulder, closing his eyes again “Hey, at least you’re not sitting here alone. That’s something right?”

“That’s true” you smile, leaning your head against his “You’re very appreciated, do you know that”

You gently push him upright and stand up “Come on, let’s go to bed. I’m pretty tired myself, so you’ve definitely helped”

He’s laid his head down on his arm on the counter, his breathing getting heavy immediately so you pull his other hand making him stand up. He stands up and puts his arm around your shoulder as you walk towards the stairs, your legs feeling heavy as you climb each step, carrying some of Colson’s weight as he sleepily walks with you

Once you’re standing outside your bedroom doors, he pulls you in for a hug

“Night kid, don’t be wandering around bored if you can’t sleep yeah? Just come get me. Nothing worse than sitting up alone at night…”

“Will do. Thanks Col” You squeeze him a bit tighter as he kisses the top of your head

“Night” you smile, as he let’s you go and turns and heads into his room, waving his hand up behind him

Undressing and crawling into bed, your eyes feel heavy as your head hits the pillow. Colson was right, insomnia was a much less lonely experience with a friend.

______

Of course, as is always the way after your sleepless nights, you sleep in super late the following day meaning the cycle continues and you find yourself wide awake as the witching hour approaches. Feeling restless in your bedroom, you get up, and decide to head downstairs and out into the studio because you figure you might as well put this time to good use. You settle into a chair with your acoustic guitar and started playing, stopping and starting as you figure out a melody, working your latest lyrics in with it

“I wanna start this out and say, I gotta get it off my chest. Got no anger, got no malice…”

“I thought I told you to come get me if you couldn’t sleep”

You almost drop your guitar as you hear Colson’s voice behind you, “Jesus, how are you such an enormous human but you still manage to creep up on me all the time?”

“Just a stealthy motherfucker I guess” He laughs, flopping into the chair next to you

“Whatcha working on? That sounded sweet, keep playing…”

Colson knows you sometimes get a bit self-conscious with people watching you sing, so he lights his joint, rests his head on his hand and closes his eyes. You smile as you see what he's doing, thankful he always understands what you're like.

You turn back to your notepad, reading over your lyric outline quickly before repositioning the guitar in your lap and resetting the metronome

___

‘I wanna start this out and say, I gotta get it off my chest

Got no anger, got no malice, Just a little bit of regret

No, nobody else will tell you, so there's some things I gotta say

Gonna jot it down and then get it out and then I'll be on my way

No, you're not half the man you think that you are

And you can't fill the hole inside of you with money, drugs, and cars

I'm so glad I never ever had a baby with you

'Cause you can't love nothing unless there's something in it for you

Oh, I feel so sorry, I feel so sad

I tried to help you, it just made you mad

And I had no warning about who you are

I'm just glad I made it out without breaking down

And then ran so fuckin' far, that you would never ever touch me again

Won't see your alligator tears

'Cause, no, I've had enough of them’

___

“Man, that was beautiful Y/N. I got some chills right there…You just wrote that?”

“Nah, it’s something I dug up from ‘back then’. Been going through some old lyrics and samples while we’ve got all this time on our hands. It’s kinda cathartic to go over some of that stuff now there’s a bit more distance you know”

______

A couple of years ago, you’d been stuck in a really toxic relationship with your ex, Stevie. Your time with him had been a tornado of arguments, drugs and the constant heartache of him cheating on you. Every time you’d get close to having the strength to leave, you’d always cave in and the mess would continue with you losing a bit of yourself each time you stayed. You’d become pretty used to his violent outbursts, he had always been controlling and short tempered, often pushing you and throwing stuff around your apartment. Despite his own frequent infidelity, he flew into a jealous rage with you constantly.

He’d always hated Colson, despite him being one of your best friends, and while he’d play nice to his face you’d always get it in the neck once you were alone about how you and Colson were ‘too close’ and he ‘didn’t trust him’. Before that final night you’d spent with him, things had been pretty good with the two of you for a few weeks, there hadn’t been much drama and so you hadn’t thought too much of inviting him out with you and the gang for a night out clubbing. Your good run had clearly come to an end, when you felt his hand grab your arm tightly and drag you off the dancefloor where you’d been dancing with Colson. You’d been bundled into an uber so quickly, you hadn’t even managed to get your handbag from inside. You saw Colson running out of the club, followed by Rook and Slim who was holding your bag, as the cab pulled away.

Once you were back at the apartment, he flew into a rage. You’d never seen him this bad before, his eyes were dark and when you tried to argue back, calling his jealousy ‘pathetic’ he snapped. He’d grabbed you by the throat and slammed you against the wall, “Don’t you ever disrespect me like that again” he’d spat in your face, before striking you so hard with his fist that the skin across your cheek split open. It was as if his actions had knocked him back to reality, he’d let go of you and you ran to your bedroom, locked the door behind you and started packing a bag. He hammered on the door, begging you to open it and you could hear that he was crying. You looked around for your phone before you remembered you’d left it at the club. Desperate to get away, you opened your laptop and brought up instagram, managing to send Colson a message asking him to send you an uber to his house straight away. You’d thrown your laptop and a few more bits in your bag, the battery dying before you had a chance to wait for a reply, before pulling the bedroom door open and barging past Stevie. He’d tried to grab you, but you’d finally had enough “Never fucking touch me again” you spat, pushing him off you. The hatred in your voice rooted him to the spot and he said nothing as you walked out, the door slamming behind you.

Once you were outside the apartment building, the reality of what had just happened and the situation you were in started to wash over you. You had no phone, no wallet, your laptop was dead. Just as you were starting to seriously panic, an uber pulled up and Colson had leapt out of the backseat. You’d been in total shock and had just let Colson guide you into the cab and then out into his house, up to his room. He didn’t say anything as he led you to his bathroom and lifted you up onto the counter. He grabbed a flannel and soaked it with warm water, rinsing it out before pressing it softly against the cut on your cheek, gently wiping away the blood that had mixed with your mascara laced tears. The tenderness of his actions was almost too much and you started to sob again.

“Hey, hey. Y/N, look at me” he said softly, lifting your chin so you looked at him, his blue eyes misty themselves “It’s okay, you’re safe here. Don’t move, I’ll be back in a sec”

He left the bathroom and returned with a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. Putting them on the counter next to you, he crouched down and undid the straps on your heels, slipping them off your feet and then helping you down from the counter. “I’ll leave you to change”

When you came out of the bathroom, Colson was lying in his bed “Come here” he said, holding his arm and beckoning into his side. You crawled under the covers next to him and snuggled into him, his long arms wrapping around you.

“Col…” you said quietly

“Yeah?” he whispered back, stroking your hair off your forehead

“Thank you…”

“You don’t need to thank me. I’ve always got you Y/N”

______

“I hated that fucking guy. That night...I wanted to kill him after what he’d done to you”

You see him tense up at the memory and you lean over and squeeze his knee “You’re such an amazing friend, do you know that. I don’t know what I would’ve done that night without you”

"You're a fucking warrior Y/N, you'd have handled your shit. I was just happy you trusted me enough to let me be there for you. You deserve so much better than that" he says, covering the hand you'd placed on his knee with his, staring you in the eyes and returning the smile that's crept across your face

"You know there's been a few punches I've wanted to dole out on behalf of you over the years, but you've never let me" you tell him

"Too right I'd never let you. I never want you in the drama, you're too good for getting caught up in that shit" he replies, pointing at you with mock sternness

"Hey" he says, seeing your expression wash over with a tint of sadness "At least the sleepless nights aren't what they were then…

… If we're gonna work through some old demons this lockdown, I'm sure I've got some songs and lyrics that have never seen the light of day" He reaches over the desk and pulls his laptop towards him "You've inspired me… "

"Oh no, are we gonna fuck our heads up with this?" you joke nervously, worrying that Colson's going to delve into something that's going to upset him

"Nah, I got you covered and you got me, right?"

"True dat" you say, as he holds his fist out so you can fistbump, his eyes now focused on his laptop screen

______

You felt kinda bad, having kept Colson up all night with you the last two nights, especially as you'd got him reminiscing about some tough memories, so tonight you tried to sneak past his room when your restlessness got the better of you.

"Nice try kid!" Colson says as he throws his bedroom door open, causing you to yelp in fright. standing there topless with his sweatpants hung low in his hips, he lights the joint hanging from his mouth "I told you we were in this together now"

"I felt bad, making you stay up with me"

"You didn't make me do shit…Wait a sec, let me find a hoodie. If I have any left in here…" he says, giving a pointed look towards the huge blue hoodie you were wrapped in before walking back into his room and rummaging through his drawers

"Oh shush, you have like a hundred…"

"Right come on" he says, pulling a pink hoodie over his head and flipping the hood up over his messy hair "Let's see what we get into tonight…"

______

And so the nights went on like this, the two of you falling into an easygoing studio routine. If there wasn't anything else going on in the house, you'd eat dinner together then head to the studio and work through the night into the small hours, skipping out the pretense of trying to sleep. You were both pretty productive at this time it seemed, both being proclaimed night owls, and keeping busy during these uncertain times was keeping your minds off the unfolding pandemic.

Considering he’d referred to his home studio in the past as the ‘rage cage’ (and it certainly could still be party central when the entire crew got involved), it was actually a place you drifted towards to relax these days. You’d always worked well together in a studio, but over the weeks spending so much time just the two of you, you became more in tune with each other, noticing when one of you had hit a wall and it was time for bed. Sometimes you'd work in comfortable silence, side by side, engrossed in your own seperate tasks. Sometimes barely any work would get done as you put the world to rights talking about anything and everything in a late night impromptu therapy session.

This evening, you'd been sitting cross legged in your chair for hours now, focusing so hard on editing a song which was driving you mad, you hadn't realised your feet had gone numb. As you try to move, your knees crack and pins and needles shoot through your legs. Colson looks up from the screen he'd been engrossed in after hearing you groan and sees you rubbing your feet trying to bring back the feeling to them

‘C’mere’ he said, before turning his chair towards you and leaning down to grab your legs, bringing your feet up onto his lap. He pulls your socks off and begins massaging your feet. You lean your head back, eyes closed and let out a long ‘hmmm’. You don’t see Colson glancing over at you and shifting in his seat as he lets out slow breath before turning back to his screen

“Now this is the kind of work session I could get used to”, you sighed "You being my studio bitch on hand for foot rubs. Although, I imagine this enjoyment goes both ways Mr Foot Lover” you tease, throwing him an exaggerated wink

Colson throws his head back with a hearty chuckle, and light heartedly slaps your calf

"Keep it in your pants Y/N"

You laugh and wiggle your toes, Colson letting out a dramatic, throaty groan in response. "Those are some sexy little toes though" he states, sticking his tongue out.

Still laughing, you put your hand to your chest, and gasp as you feign prudishness and try to pull your feet away. He grabs both your feet in one of his hands, keeping them in place then leans over the desk and pulls your laptop towards you

"Get on with some work you, this is supposed to be keeping you motivated, not distracted"

He scolds affectionately, with a smile on his face

“Okay, okay, spoilsport” you grumble as you pull your computer onto your lap

Half an hour passes, your legs still on Colson’s lap with him still massaging your feet absentmindedly with one hand while he works, and your eyes begin to feel heavy. You don’t realise you’ve fallen asleep, until you’re awoken by a “woah” from Colson as he catches your laptop which is about to fall. Taking it from your lap, he states “Right, time for bed you”

You check your phone and see it’s already 5:36am.

You stand up and stretch then walk over behind Colson, putting your arms around his shoulders, and resting your chin on his head. Looking at his screen, you yawn “You got much left to do?”

He leans back into you, bringing his hand up to rest on your arm, “Making some good progress so just gonna finish a couple of bits”

“Okay dude” you gently kiss the top of his head and squeeze the back of his neck a couple of times as you turn to leave “Try and get some rest, we’ve got a long day of sweet fuck all to do tomorrow” you say through another big yawn

“Heh yeah, Night Kid” he says softly, letting out a yawn himself. Colson turns and watches you head out of the studio and lets out a big sigh. Feeling the back of his neck still tingle from where you’d squeezed it, he’s suddenly aware of how empty the room feels without you in it....

______

Taglist: @triplexdoublex @thisshitisfuckingdifficult @brightblaqkkheaven

Lace Up! ❌❌

[reidyoulikeabook]

Sometimes You Just Don’t Know the Answer

4 times you don’t know the answer, and the 1 time you do

This is the 2nd part to Personal Google! (You don’t have to read it to understand this, but it exists if you want to).

Ship: BAU!reader x Spencer Reid

Summary: You’d call yourself a pretty educated individual, and most people wouldn’t argue with that, given that you’re a member of the BAU at Quantico. There’s just something about your best friend Spencer Reid that gets you all tongue tied.

Warnings: Mentions of cases and case-typical violence, mentions of alcohol, Spencer and Reader being idiots again.

Word count: 3k

A/N: The feedback (in asks and the tag reblogs) for Personal Google was so lovely and encouraging and I am very grateful for it! I only made this account a few days ago and I’m already so glad I did :) I hope this is a satisfactory second part and, requests are open!

(This is the Reid I’m imagining here)

“What is up with you and Reid?” Emily’s volume is unmoderated at the best of times but right now it’s like she’s trying to alert the entirety of Virginia to your dating woes.

Dating woes might be a stretch, actually. Somehow, just her implication that something is happening between you and Spencer (even though it isn’t, unless you count two exhausted idiots falling asleep on each other and being too bashful to ever mention it again), is enough to get you feeling uncharacteristically shy.

“Nothing,” you shrug, “Well. I don’t know, honestly, nothing I guess? We haven’t spoken about that night.”

Emily’s eyes rake over you, and you can tell she’s waiting for you to continue.

“There’s nothing!” you object, “We just, it was accidental, we fell asleep because we were watching a documentary and we were tired and neither of us fell asleep on purpose.”

She laughs, dry and amused, “At this rate, you’ll be lucky to have sorted things out before you’re 50.”

You scowl, but it’s only because you know she’s right.

***

You don’t have much time to think about your situation with Spencer for a few weeks, considering the rate at which the cases come rolling in. This newest one arrives within about two days of the last one you’d just wrapped up. It’s actually kind of rude, you’ve decided, that the serial killers of America have decided to deny you two weekends in a row.

You’re briefed on the case quickly: four women have gone missing over the past 7 months from a small town in Ohio. There’s no distinct pattern that can be discerned among the victims, the oldest is 60 and white, the youngest is 23 and Asian-American. However, the first three have been found dead in the past two weeks, all within a mile of each other and all killed with the same MO: ligature strangulation.

“So we have no idea how he’s choosing them,” you say.

“No,” Hotch replies, with a sigh.

Meaning that this is probably going to take a while. Spencer senses the way you tense up a little as you absorb that fact. So he goes out of his way to sit next to you on the plane. Once the discussion about the case is done, he nudges you gently, “Did you bring a book?”

You shake your head, “I finished the one in my go-bag. Didn’t have a chance to replace it.”

“Would you like to read this with me?”

You place your hand on his wrist, gently turning it so you can see the cover, “Spencer this is written in Greek.”

“I can translate,” he says.

You move closer to him then, your head resting just against his plane seat and your chin almost jutting against his shoulder.

“Is this okay?”

He nods. The remaining 45 minutes of the flight are spent with him reading to you softly, adding in his own thoughts as he translates and sometimes going off on little tangents. By the time you land you’ve entirely forgotten about your ire with the case. You’re focused only on the characters he introduces you to, who are clearly in love even if they’re too stupid to see it, and the way his nose crinkles a little when he reaches a word with no direct English translation.

Whhat you don’t realise, is that you end up folding into him: head pressed against his chest. Somehow, neither of you notice how you naturally gravitate towards each other. Some pair of profilers.

--

Hotch sends you in different cars to the precinct, and you’re soon reminded of your frustration as you’re caught up in the hub-a-bub of the case. It’s not until you’re leaving the station, after a long and relatively fruitless briefing with the medical examiners and local PD, that you even have time to acknowledge Spencer properly again.

And even then, it’s only when Hotch says.

"You'll be sharing a room with Reid, alright?"

He’s only really asking as a formality. Nobody questions Hotch’s assignments for them. So why, then, do you feel yourself flush a little.

Why then, do you feel so embarassed replying, “Alright.”

***

There was nothing much to be nervous about with sharing a room, as it so happened. The past day and a half had been a whirlwind since the unsub had snatched a fifth victim. You’d been sleeping in shifts, making sure that some of you were awake at all times to keep working.

You were working on the geographical profile with Spencer, and had taken to driving around to look for landmarks at night, when there was nothing much else to do. There were maps but sometimes it helped just to get things embedded in your brain. And now, at 4am, you’re bursting into the conference room occupied by Spencer and Rossi, because you might just have got something.

"I have an idea,” you say, and before anybody can even respond you’re scribbling hurriedly on the whiteboard.

“Slow down kiddo,” Rossi laughs.

“Sorry I’m just,” you cut yourself off, slightly flustered and tapping your foot with frustration as you try to put the last pieces of it together, “Diana Matthews.”

“Yeah?” Spencer responds.

“She was the one who lived on Lakefield right?” Rossi asks.

Annoyingly, you can’t remember off rote. Spencer sees the pinch of frustration in your brow. He senses that you’re heading for the case file.

So, he answers, “Yeah 38 Lakefield Drive.”

Smiling gratefully at him, you breathe a sigh of relief, “There’s three different stores in the area for this local electronic repair company, Gladston Digital, in this area. Two of them aren’t accounted for on the maps because these are from last year, and one of the ones on Google is pinned to the wrong street, there are two Minister Avenues and one’s on the complete opposite side of town.”

Denoting the map with annotations as you go, you continue, “All of the victims had residences within a mile of one of the three stores. And we interviewed the area manager, Paul something, he manages all three stores. He came to speak to me and Hotch while we were scoping the area.”

“Inserting himself into the investigation,” Rossi notes, “Fits the profile. A stalker like that would want to remain an illusion of control.”

“I just need to get Garcia on the phone to see if it checks out.”

Spencer just watches, slightly in awe, as you make the phone call to Garcia. She manages to cross-reference bank statements and emails, showing that all five of the victims had taken something of theirs in for repair sometime in the year before their disappearance. And he feels something in his gut. Pride? Maybe. That’s certainly a part of it.

But there’s something else in there too. Your eyes meet his, with a flicker of recognition. He realises what it is then: marvel. Your brain works so fast, and that’s not novel to him, he knows you’re intelligent but there’s just something about how fast you manage to put it all together. You conjure something out of nothing, a link that he’d missed. And he’s reminded, again, that he has to try and keep up with you sometimes. He wonders if you know that.

Probably not, he thinks. You’re rambling down the phone and gesturing with your hands, in a way you may or may not have picked up from him, and all he can think is how you look so in your element. And beautiful.

He’s a little embarassed about how normal it feels for that last observation to pop into his head.

***

“To _____!” Prentiss cheers.

8pm has rolled around. Since your revelation 16 hours earlier, you managed to confirm your thinking, apprehend Paul Bader, and save the fifth victim. All in all, a pretty good days work. It’s not just down to you, but everyone’s singing your praises so loudly it’s making you a little embarassed.

Even Hotch sets a drink down in front of you, squeezing your shoulder, “Really good work today ____.”

Fair to say you’ve probably peaked there.

Spencer is sat to your left, sipping at a Mai Tai that you know is going to have him giggly in about an hours time.

“I wasn’t trying to keep you out before,” you tell him, “I was going to come and wake you up when I got back but you were in the conference room.”

He smiles, “I know. It was my shift to sleep.”

“Bet you’re paying for that now.”

“A little,” he chuckles, “It’s worth it.”

"I just didn’t want you to think I was hanging you out to dry. You know, to make myself look good,” you decide to press further: mostly just because the team has sung your praises and that kind of attention makes you shirk at the best of times. Let alone when you’re sat with the guy responsible for creating half the damn profile.

His eyebrows furrow. You worry for a minute about what he’s going to say, but then, “I would never think that about you. We’re a team.”

He squeezes your hand. Maybe that’s your favourite thing about Spencer, really. More than the fact he remembers to get your caffeine just how you like it, more than how gentle he is with just about everybody he encounters, more than his relentless enthusiasm for your questions about whatever pops into your mind. No, it’s his modesty. The way he doesn’t even think for a moment to be prideful or arrogant about his intelligence. He genuinely roots for you in every moment, you think.

“Are you okay?” he asks, “You seem a little..quiet.”

It wasn’t until he mentioned it that you realise you’d let your thoughts run away with you, “No. I’m good. Just thinking about how good of a teacher you are.”

“You think so?”

“Of course I think so. You’ve taught me. I didn’t know the first thing about geographical profiling when I got here two years ago. I could barely read a map,” you laugh, keeping your tone sincere, “You’re a really good teacher Spence. I feel like I learn so much from just being around you.”

“I often don’t give you much choice.”

You smile, “I wouldn’t want you to. Really. I’m always interested in everything you have to say. I think you know that. But I wanted to tell you anyway. So you’re sure.”

He’s incredibly grateful you get pulled into a conversation by Morgan, giving him a moment to process.

A lifetime of being insecure. Of feeling like nobody was interested in what he had to say but not being able to really control whether he said it anyway. All this time being insecure in himself, and you liked it. Complimented him on it, even. Considered him a teacher. He doesn’t think he could articulate, in any of the languages he speaks, the sense of peace that brings him.

-----

The Mai Tai’s do make him sleepy. Buzzed, but sleepy. After being bought rounds by Hotch, Morgan, and Spencer, you’re feeling exactly the same. It’s only 10:30pm by the time you decide to make your departure for the night. This is much to the chagrin of Emily, who lolls against Rossi’s side demanding that you stay.

“Some of us have been up since 4 this morning, breaking their backs to keep this country safe,” You tease, putting on a melodramatic air just for affect, “Besides, you’re going to regret this when you have to be up and back on the jet in the morning.”

“You will, especially since you still owe me that report,” Hotch teases, with a smile.

Emily rolls her eyes, “You two are no fun.”

She’s joking, goading you, but unfortunately for her you have a sleepy Spencer nuzzling against you which is a far more pressing matter to deal with.

“Come on Spence, let’s get you to bed,” You say, gently wiggling out from under him and offering him your hand.

He pouts at the momentary loss of contact. It’s subtle. You catch it though. He links his fingers through your own, holding your hand properly, and you try not to read into it too much. He’s tipsy. He’s tired.

Ignoring the deliberately obvious eyebrow-wiggling from Morgan, you make for the lift.

“You didn’t have to come to bed just for me,” Spencer says, “I feel bad for taking you away from the others. I’m not that drunk, I could get myself to bed.”

You shake your head, “I wanted to go to bed with you.”

His eyes snap to you, a grin playing on his lips.

“I mean, I wanted to go to bed. And we’re sharing a room. So I’m going to bed with you. As in we’re going to the place where bed is, together.”

He’s just enough tipsy to be confident enough to jest, “Sure.”

You roll your eyes, “You sound like Morgan.”

“What did Morgan say?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know exactly what Morgan always says whenever anybody goes off together.”

“That they’re having sex,” He giggles, tipsiness shining through again.

“Yes, Spence, that they’re having sex.”

“But we’re not.”

The elevator dings as you arrive at your floor, saving your brain from delving into the implications of what he’s just said. And whether that was a disappointed or netural tone.

He hasn’t let go of your hand. He walks to the door with you, still keeping your hand in his. It’s hard not to let yourself read into it now. How holding hands with him could be such a casual thing. Hard not to imagine walking through bookshops with him, one hand in yours and the other picking books off the shelf he thought you’d like. The domesticity of it sickens you.

Then he lets go to cross to the bed.

“Aren’t you gonna put your pyjama’s on?” You ask.

“I wasn’t gonna sleep yet,” he says, “I was gonna...”

He looks bashful, suddenly, self-consciously licking his lower lip, “I was gonna ask if maybe you wanted to watch something with me. You can pick. I always pick.”

“This an excuse to get me in bed with you again, Spence?” You tease, just past tipsy enough not to care that this is the first time you’ve even acknowledged that night.

"Yeah, the Pearl Harbour ruse doesn’t work twice,” he jokes.

You wish you could find the courage to tease him more. Unfortunately, the liquid courage seems to have run out, and the topic somehow feels too delicate to touch.. Instead, you change quickly into your pyjama’s. Together, you pick something to watch, settling down. You’re suddenly thankful for the single bed, the necessity to be cozied up against him as you watch. To feel his chest, every beat of his heart. You swear it’s beating fast. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

***

Just like last time, you wake up huddled against Spencer. Unlike last time, there’s no Emily banging the door down to drag you to the police station. No, it’s quiet.

You can’t see what time it is because there’s a Spencer between you and the clock. Your phone is in your back pocket but it’s hard to find any motivation whatsoever to move when you’re like this: face pressed into his chest, his head resting atop of yours so a single curl of his hair tickles your nose, his hand on your hip holding you against him.  

His eyelashes flutter, “Are you awake?”

“Yeah. I just woke up.”

He smiles, “Me too.”

“Looks like we did it again.”

“Looks like we did,” his voice is quiet.

“Do you want me to move? If I’m...I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

His free hand comes up to your chin, tipping it so you’re looking him directly in the eyes. His pupils are dilated. In the dim light it’s hard to place the look on his face exactly. But it’s soft.

"C-Can I kiss you?” the question spills quickly from his lips, like he’s afraid he’ll change his mind if he doesn’t get it out fast, “I just. I don’t know if that’s what you want too, I’ve just really-”

"Kiss me, Spence. Please kiss me.”

The smile on his face would have made you fall in love with him, if you weren’t already. And then he kisses you. Barely. Your lips are just grazing against one anothers. You tilt yourself upwards, towards him, giving him a better angle. Then he really kisses you, capturing your lips in his. It’s sweet, it’s soft, it’s...it’s everything. It’s everything, how his hands tangle themselves tentatively in your hair, how he kisses you so deeply, drinking you in.

His hand cups your cheek, then he’s pulling back, just a tiny bit, to mumble against your lips, “I’ve wanted to do this for so long.”

The only appropriate way you can think to verbalise your agreement, is closing the gap between your lips again. There’s an urgency to it this time. Your lips move quickly, passionately. He swipes his tongue across your lower lip and you let him in, your tongues delicately dancing together. He’s good. He’s good and you don’t even notice the morning breath or faint taste of rum, it’s just Spencer.

When you finally come apart, you’re out of breath.

“I didn’t think you’d ever do that,” you say, “I was worried I was reading this whole thing wrong.”

He frowns then, that little nose crinkle appearing again, “I thought I was too obvious.”

“So did I. Maybe it’s best if we don’t tell Hotch how bad we are at profiling each other. He might rethink his decision to take us on.”

He laughs, “Not being able to profile when somebody’s in love with you might be a cause for concern. There are several obvious phyical signs of love, including dilation of pupils when looking at the object of your affection, heart rate synchronisation.”

“How am I supposed to know if our heart rates have synchronised?”

He smiles. Pressing a finger to your lips, he dips his head in the small chasm between your two chests. In the silence, in the early morning quiet, in the absence of all distraction you can hear it. The steady thrum of your hearts, pounding away at identical paces. The sound that told you that some part of you had always known.

--------------

Tagslist: @takeyourleap-of-faith​​ @sassiest-politician​​ (let me know if you’d like to be added/removed from this list)

[sevendeadlymorons]

Double penetration from Satan and Levi. You get me? 👀

I get you 👀

I cannot think of one possible way how I can make this GN so it’ll be for a F!MC. Hope you don’t mind :)

Stuffed Full

Pairings: Leviathan x Satan x F!MC

Words: 2,380

NSFW // Smut // Threesome

—————————————————

You were staring at your D.D.D in the dark, the bright light from the screen shining down onto you as you played a game Levi had requested you try out earlier. Hours had gone by, and when you turned to look at the clock besides you, it was well past midnight. You stretched, letting out a yawn, contemplating putting your phone down and going to sleep, or playing for a couple more hours. You knew you had RAD tomorrow and had to be up early, so you put the device down, since you knew you weren’t going to be able to get up in the morning if you didn’t.

A few minutes later, the sound of an incoming text buzzed on your side table, startling you awake. You pinched the bridge of your nose, squinting at the screen, carefully reading the words on your D.D.D with drowsy eyes.

“Any of you awake?”

It was from Levi in a group you were in with him and Satan. You rolled your eyes and let out a small laugh, not surprised he’d still be up. I wonder if Satan’s up too... You texted back a quick yes and sat up properly, watching your message show the ‘seen’ icon within seconds of sending it. He began typing and another message was sent.

“I’m so bored. Can I come over? I got some new anime we can watch”

You shook your head, knowing if he came over, you’d be up until the early hours of the morning, and you aren’t prepared for that. You were about to let him down lightly until someone else in the chat started typing.

“Can I join? I just woke up abruptly and can’t get back to sleep”

Levi sent a yes, sir devilmoji, to which the two of them then started discussing how they’d both be over in 5. Great.

You stare down at your bare legs. Maybe you should put some shorts on... Last time you didn’t wear anything, Levi had passed out and you had to drag him by his leg to Lucifer. You cringe at the thought and swing your legs out of the covers and jump out of bed to grab some shorts from the drawer, rummaging through the seemingly endless amount of booty shorts that you own. You find a nice pair and slip them on, checking yourself out in the mirror until you hear a sharp knock on the door followed by the familiar voice of Levi.

You open the door with a smile to see Satan and Levi standing in the doorway, flashing you a grin with piles of books and anime’s in their arms. How long do they plan on staying exactly... you step aside and let them in, watching Satan pull over a chair to sit and Levi casually dive onto your bed like he usually does. You roll your eyes and sit next to him on the bed, watching his cheeks glow a faint shade of pink as he attempts to hide it by laying out multiple movies in front of you.

“Ok! So we’ve got this one, my personal favourite. Or there’s this one. It’s not the best but the opening song is amazing. Ooh this ones great too, it’s about-“ Levi’s words droned out as you nodded as if you’re listening. You were just too tired for his rambles really and was actually really tempted to go to sleep. Sure they wouldn’t mind. You felt your eyes droop and your head jolt forward sleepily. You were nearly about to fall asleep when you felt someone place a hand on your shoulder. You turn your head to see Satan looking at you, concerned. He supports you by your shoulder, leaning you back so your back is against the head board. You give him a weak smile as he squeezes up next to you, placing his hand around your waist. followed by Levi who shyly rests his head on your shoulder. You feel nice and warm between them and you couldn’t help but begin to doze off.

Between tired blinks, you hear them murmuring to each other, but you couldn’t hear them very well. It was like the world around you had began to go silent. All you heard was your name and you felt occasional glances your way. You couldn’t ignore it though, as much as you wanted to. You were so curious.

Seconds pass and you feel a hand place on your thigh. You trace up the arm to find out the owner of the hand was Levi, his heart practically hammering in his chest from the simple gesture he gave you, his eyes filled with curiosity as he gives your leg a quick squeeze, staring at you, as if waiting for you to push him off. You weren’t going to, of course, because it’s not every day he shows you affection in front of his brothers. You hum onto his shoulder and enjoy the warmth of his palm as he squeezes it comfortingly.

At first, you could only feel Levi’s hand squeezing at your thighs, but soon after, you realize Satan was palming at the other, his fingers slowly trailing up to the hem of your shorts, listening intently to the way your breathing hitches from his sudden touched. You sighed his name but he shushed you, slipping his fingers under until he reached your pelvis line. You gasped and felt him squeeze harder on you. Levi retaliated as you found his hand was closer towards your pelvis as well. You looked at them in confusion, but you definitely weren’t going to complain. You’d always had a thing for the boys so you were enjoying yourself. A bit too much...

You leant your head back against the board and felt them go in for your exposed neck, sucking and nibbling wherever they could as they both breathed heavily into your ears. The hand around your waist tightened as he moved closer, slipping his hand into your shirt and fingering your clit through your underwear. You let out a short moan from the sudden touch, feeling yourself getting wetter every time he moved his finger. Levi suddenly let out a huff and bit down on the sensitive part of your neck, making you gasp and a moan squeak out when he begins licking and trailing his tongue up and down your neck until he reaches your ear.

They kept going for what felt like hours, teasing you with their fingers and tongue, until the hand that was in your shorts slipped out and went to your chin, pulling you into a deep kiss. You moaned on Satan’s lips but pushed forward into him, savouring the taste of his tongue as you move your hand to cup the side of his face. You begin to eye to the other side of you, watching Levi pull a jealous face and grab hold of your thigh tightly. You move your other hand to the cheek and rub it, just as you were doing with Satan, feeling him lean into your touch as his face burns up onto your palm. He’d momentarily stopped squeezing your thigh too, but not until he started back up, slipping his hand straight into your pants, and sliding a finger into your pussy. You jolt forward, moaning loudly onto Satan’s lips as you grind onto Levi’s hand.

He pulls away from the kiss and leans forward, taking off his shirt as he motions to his partner to stop and do the same. He takes his hand out and you whine, begging him with your eyes to continue while the two men stare at you shirtless, eyeing closely at your breasts. Oh yeah, you hadn’t put on a bra so your nipples were pretty visible right now. You could feel their eyes burning into you, and you begin to take the hint as you slowly remove your shirt, watching them lick their lips hungrily as you reveal your tits for them to see. Levi was the first to lunge forward, straddling you while he clamps his lips around one of your nipples and sucks harshly, your head swinging back as you involuntarily grab a chunk of his hair and pull.

Satan eventually joins. He begins to pull down your shorts, watching you bite your lip lewdly, staring down at your lacy panties that were soaked with your own fluids. He leans back and let’s Levi pull you forward, still firmly attached to your tit. He gets in behind you and pulls you against his crotch, his erection rubbing against your ass as he slowly grinds into you. You lay your head on his shoulder and stare up at him lustfully as the two men caressed and suckled on your body.

Levi’s hand attached itself to the lining of your panties, slowly pulling them down confidently, but still looking up at you, begging for an answer. You nod frantically and moan his name, tugging his hair. He quickly pulls down your underwear, and connects his tongue with your clit, causing you to gasp and groan into Satan’s neck in pleasure. He pulls your leg onto his shoulder and lips his tongue deep inside of you while the demon behind you curls his fingers around your nipple, giving them a pinch. You were such a mess and they could see that. You were crying out both of their names, grabbing onto whatever part of their body that you could get to.

“I think she’s ready, Levi” Satan mentioned to Levi, who nodded and hastily shuffled between your spread legs, staring into your eyes with this lewd look, a bright blush covering his entire face while he slipped out his cock for you to see. Your eyes widened at the length of him. It twitched as he neared closer towards your pussy, placing his tip near your entrance and adjusting himself, ready to thrust inwards. Satan’s hand were placed on the inside of your thighs, keeping them spread for his brother to enter inside of you. You both let out loud moans when he quickly slips inside of you. Not even half way onto his cock and you already feel full, clenching your walls around him and watching him groan and continue to go deeper. He quickly pushes inside of you and you cry out in pleasure, feeling him thrust in and out of your weeping hole.

You were too preoccupied by Levi that you didn’t notice you were sitting on Satan’s lap, his exposed cock dangerously close to your ass. You whimper his name in fear but he doesn’t respond, instead just continues to focus on your hole as he pushes his cock against you. You couldn’t think straight to focus on both. In front of you, Levi was pounding into you, his hand on your shoulder as he presses his nails into you, a focused look on his face while he seductively pushes his hair back with his free hand. And on the back, Satan was placing his length against you, threatening to enter inside your ass. The overstimulation was driving you insane. You couldn’t help yourself, you wrapped an arm around his neck and hoisted yourself up slightly, then without hesitation, slammed yourself down onto his cock, making him gasp into your ear and bite down on your neck.

“Was kitty desperate?” He teased into your ear as he continued to bite down on your neck while you rode his cock, both holes filled from the two boys. “Perhaps I should punish you...” You pant from the excessive pleasure and nod your head slowly, his hands wrapped around both your tits until he slowly moves them down your body towards your hips, grabbing them firmly and slamming you down to stop you from riding him. “Be patient, MC” You nod your head obediently, awaiting his next move.

You feel both boys suddenly stop, disappointing arousing inside of you as you thought this was your punishment. You pout at the demon in front of you. But he returns your face with a smirk. You look at him, shocked, since you’ve never seen him make that face before. Your thoughts were cut short when both boys started to thrust into you, fucking you hard until all your thoughts were jumbled. You were bouncing on top of Satan’s cock, your hands reaching behind you to wrap into his hair while you were getting your shit rocked by Levi in the front, his hand wrapped around your waist for extra impact.

The room was filled with moans and screams from both you and the boys as you felt an overwhelming amount of pleasure, the most you’ve ever felt in the life. You felt so full with their dicks that your orgasm came quicker than expected. You cried out their names when you met your climax, soaking Levi with some of your juices as your body went weak into Satan’s chest. The two brothers kept going at your limp body until they both ejaculated inside of you, feeling too good to pull out. Their cum leaks out of you and dribbles down your leg, from your ass and onto the sheets, leaving a pool of their semen soiled into the cloth.

Levi leans forward and gives you a shy kiss on the cheek, the blush returning back onto his cheeks as he see what a mess he’s made of you. You feel Satan’s arms wrap around your waist and you lean into his embrace, Levi then comes in to cuddle your arm, huffing that he isn’t the one holding you in his arms. He couldn’t stay awake for much longer. They’d drained every last bit of energy out of you. You didn’t even have the energy to clean yourself up.

Satan stroked your head and rocked you to sleep while Levi was already fast asleep on your shoulder. You sighed and connected your arm with Levi’s, a smile creeping onto his lips subconsciously, then you proceeded to lean into both their embraces and gently fall asleep, the sound of Satan’s soothing humming quickly causing you to give into your urges. And soon, you were asleep, dreaming about the intimacy the 3 of you shared that night, cuddled safely in the two men’s arms.

[fruitcoops]

I'm not the anon that asked about Remus and subspace/aftercare but I'd love to see more of it if/whenever you would like/have time💜 The way you write these things is so respectful, loving, and comforting and I love it so much!

Thank you so much, anon! I hope everyone who requested this enjoys it <3 Coops credit goes to @lumosinlove!

TW for implied smut (not super explicit), nudity, aftercare, subdrop/ subspace, restraint, tears (the good kind)

“Easy,” Sirius murmured into the sweaty skin of Remus’ neck, holding him close as he splayed his hand over Remus’ belly. The muscles jumped under his palm and a shudder ran through him as he scrambled for a clumsy hold on Sirius’ arm and shoulders. “Re, easy.”

A hoarse whine slipped out beside his heaving breaths and he let out a low moan when Sirius adjusted his grip to keep him upright. “More,” Remus begged, grinding his hips back even as he shook through the aftershocks. “More, more, more—“

“You’re done,” Sirius interrupted gently, pressing a kiss to the junction of his neck and shoulder.

Remus shook his head frantically. “No, no, I can do it, I gotta, no, please.”

“You’re done.” Sirius leaned back to take more of his weight despite the fact that he was practically holding Remus already. He slid the arm locked across Remus’ chest up to brush the damp hair from his eyes and guided his head to lay back against Sirius’ shoulder. “Deep breaths for me, just like that. In and out.”

“I can’t,” Remus panted, swallowing hard as he gripped Sirius’ thighs weakly. “Baby, please, just—just let me—one more time, just one more.”

“Remus.”

“I’m sorry.” A tear squeezed from the corner of his eye, following the path of many from the throes of pleasure that had left him gasping in the way Sirius loved. “Fuck, it’s always so much. ‘m tired, and ‘m horny.”

Sirius kissed his cheek and ran slow fingers through his curls until Remus went boneless into his chest with a punched-out sound; he closed his eyes and snuggled into Sirius, rubbing his cheek along his collarbone. “There you go,” he praised quietly. Slipping into subspace wasn’t super common for either of them, but when it did happen, Sirius was only too happy to help him through it.

If his memory served, Remus’ adrenaline would finally be draining and the steady slide into the land of the living was beginning. His own drop was a little different, but he recognized the signs well enough. “Love you,” Remus managed, watching him with hooded, adoring eyes. “Love you. Y’know I love you, yeah?”

“I do,” he assured him, laying back to pull Remus onto his chest—they were entangled almost instantly as Remus mouthed aimlessly along his chest and shoulders. Teeth sank into the ridge of his collarbone. “Ouch.”

“Sorry,” Remus mumbled, snuggling closer. His hair was a mess from both their hands and his lips were swollen red, sure to be chapped when the shine faded. Sirius felt guilty for half a second before remembering that Remus was the one who bit his own lips when he got close. And, fuck, had he been close.

“How are you feeling?” He inspected the light scratch marks on his forearms as Remus’ heartbeat went from rabbit-quick to just-worked-out. Maybe we should have chosen a different position for the end, he thought, then shook his head. Marks on his forearms would be less likely to get chirped than ones on his back.

“Alright.”

“How can I help you?”

Remus made a face, but didn’t open his eyes. His thigh was slick and tacky where it rested on Sirius’ hip. “Warm. Uncomfy. Don’t wanna go.”

That was the hardest part of aftercare, in Sirius’ opinion. Remus’ accent was pretty mild most of the time, but it came out full force after something intense and the small fragments of words rarely connected with Sirius’ limited English as his own brain came back online. Still, it was the least he could do after Remus worked him through five straight minutes of rambling French each time he dropped.

“Water,” Remus sighed, toying at the sheets with a trembling hand. “Sticky.”

“I’ll get a washcloth when you’re ready.”

“Take m’ with you.”

Sirius laughed softly and kissed his forehead, pushing the heel of his hand along Remus’ spine to work out any knots or stiffness. His knees ached, and he wasn’t even sure if he could carry his own weight before a few moments of rest. “I can’t carry you yet, mon coeur.”

“Sexy nickname. Sexy times.” Remus hitched his leg up over Sirius’ hip with great effort. “More?”

“Not right now, sweetheart.” A dopey smile spread over his face and Sirius felt a well of affection bloom in his chest. Remus hummed, running his thumbs over the middle of Sirius’ ribs. “Good job. Are you coming down a little more?”

“Mhmm.”

“I’m going to keep holding you, then get a washcloth, then some water, okay? But I’m not going anywhere right now.”

“Sticky.”

“I know. We’ll fix that in a minute or so. Was that good?”

Remus squirmed around until his front was pressed against Sirius side, sharing their radiating warmth. “Real good.”

He traced the outline of his mouth with the pad of his thumb and smiled when Remus nipped at it. “Your lips look sore.”

“Hmmm.”

“Next time, we should remember to use a gag if I’m not keeping an eye on you.”

Remus looked up at him eagerly, his gaze clearing of some of its fogginess. “Yeah, yeah, for sure.”

“How’s the rest of you?” Sirius watched him carefully as he straightened all his limbs with a heavy sigh, making faces here and there. “Nothing too bad?”

“Knees hurt, but I like it. Fingers are a little sore.” Mischief flickered over his face. “Ass hurts.”

“Color me shocked,” Sirius deadpanned, drawing a snort from him. “It wasn’t too much?”

Remus shook his head and stretched; his back arched, then popped, and he flopped back down with a contented noise. “Nope.”

“You look better now.”

He raised an eyebrow and rolled to face Sirius, bringing him closer with a hand on his cheek. “I needed that.”

Sirius nuzzled their noses together. “Any time, mon loup.”

They had moved well past adrenaline, latent arousal, and dizziness, and he was willing to bet Remus would be okay in bed alone for longer than a minute or two soon. The stress of a week of back-to-back interviews from people questioning every aspect of Remus’ life as the new rookie had just built and built and built until he had snapped over dinner, his rare temper flaring up before he looked Sirius dead in the eyes and all but demanded to be fucked until he couldn’t think about anything else.

“Way-it,” Remus said into the skin of his shoulder. Sirius hummed in question and felt a hand pull at his waist. “Weight, please.”

Sirius gathered him close and maneuvered until he could press down on Remus without making him feel trapped—my own personal weighted blanket, Remus teased. “Better?”

He felt the steady rise and fall under him and the buzz of a happy sound in his neck. Remus always got cuddly once he was done with the desperation and the confusion; that was the part that stuck around longest, and if Sirius was being honest, his favorite part of the whole process. For someone who was usually so ambiguous about physical contact, he could be wonderfully tactile.

There was a fine art to making sure the transition was as smooth as it could be—it was a team effort, despite the fact that Remus was fairly out of it for the first half. Sirius rubbed his back to get his attention and rested their foreheads together. “I’m going to get a washcloth and water, d’accord?”

Remus held him tighter.

“Re.” He trailed his finger along the slope of his nose, then tilted his chin up. “I need you to trust me. I’ll be right back for snuggles, but you’re sticky and we’re both dehydrated.”

Rebellion and familiar stubbornness sparked up. “No.”

“Three minutes. You can time me.” God, I hope that’s enough time.

“Stay with me.”

“You were just telling me you were uncomfortable and sticky.”

“Take me with you.”

“My legs are tired.” He combed both hands through Remus’ hair and watched his eyes, still a little red from tears and exertion, flutter slightly closed from the feeling. “Three minutes, and then I promise I’ll be right here. Do you trust me?”

Slowly, Remus nodded, and his hold released.

“Thank you.” Pull it together, Sirius reminded himself as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, using the edge as a crutch for a brief moment. His muscles begged to be left alone on the bed with Remus, but they both needed to get cleaned up before sleeping and Sirius really had to pee. Who knew holding a 180-pound hockey player in place as he shook and writhed would take so much effort?

Sirius. Sirius knew. And it had absolutely been worth it.

He rinsed his face in the sink and ran the damp washcloth over his arms—the scratches didn’t sting, but they were fading to a nice pinkish crosshatch with small lilac bruises where Remus’ fingertips dug in as he finally came, clinging to the forearm that held his back to Sirius’ chest. Without Sirius’ other arm applying pressure to his hips while his hand moved tight over his shaft, Remus would probably have slid right down onto the duvet in a puddle of endorphins.

“Stay awake,” Sirius reminded him as he entered their bedroom once again and settled into his old spot to lean Remus against his ribs so he could drink.

“I’m—” He cleared his throat and took a sip. Remus wasn’t much of a howler or moaner, not like Sirius, but his babbling and breathless sobs of overwhelming pleasure had certainly done a number on his throat. “I’m awake.”

“You sound stronger and look more like you.” Sirius stabilized his chin between his thumb and pointer, carefully wiping Remus’ face clean with the small towel; some of the frazzled edges smoothed out, and soon he just looked tired. Settled. Sated.

Those were all good things in Sirius’ book as he washed away some of the mess along Remus’ thighs once the tear tracks were gone. They would need to shower later, but he didn’t think either of them could stand long enough at the moment, and a bath would quickly turn into a nap. “You’re so good to me,” Remus whispered.

“Because I love you and you deserve good things.” He set his supplies aside and relaxed into the pillows, pulling Remus down with him. “Are you okay with not seeing my face at the end?”

“Yeah. It’s nice to change up sometimes.” His thumb moved in curling patterns over the light, mouth-shaped bruises littering Sirius’ skin. “You’ll tell me if I go too far, right?”

Sirius smiled and turned so they were face-to-face. “That’s my line.”

“You’re always bruised.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I really like it.”

“Kinky motherfucker,” Remus teased, poking his sternum. Sirius didn’t protest, just admired the grounded look on his face and the happy post-orgasm glow that rose high on his cheeks. “You’re staring again.”

“I stare at you all the time. You’re too pretty not to be looked at.”

Remus smiled, slinging a leg over Sirius’ hip and drawing him closer with an arm around his ribs; callused fingers tapped in random rhythms between his shoulder blades, and Sirius let the tension flow from his whole body. This is what people mean when they say ‘warm and fuzzy’, he thought sleepily, sinking into a gentle kiss from plush lips. The drop could be difficult to navigate sometimes, but it was always, always worth it to melt together at the end.

[wonjaekook]

One Minus One Plus One

Pairing: college student!Mark x college student!reader

Description: In all of the years you’ve known Jungwoo, you should have figured out to not take his words at face value because, though you haven’t even met, Mark Lee seems to hate your guts.

Word Count: 9.9k

Genre: kind-of-enemies to lovers! fluff? angst? humor? I honestly don’t know how to categorize this

Warnings: vaguely suggestive ending, some minor swearing

A/N: This is my (late) holiday gift for a friend and to you all, I suppose. It’s an enemies-to-lovers but not really, as they’re not really enemies and it’s more passive-aggressive!Mark and very confused!Y/N. To the intended - I love and appreciate you so much; thank you for always supporting me and listening to me ramble about even the most ridiculous ideas <3 If you ever need anything, I hope you know that you can always shoot me a text or DM! Please enjoy c:

Mark Lee is always sweet. It’s the kind of sweetness that’s warm and fulfilling, leaving a pleasant feeling in the pit of the stomach, like a steaming up of hot chocolate rather than a strikingly sweet popsicle. His nature isn’t something he particularly prides himself on, as it’s partially unintentional, driven by awkwardness and politeness at times, or by the compulsion to simply make people happy. Jungwoo has told him that he’s allowed to be a little more selfish once in a while, he’s allowed to say no and take breaks sometimes. Except, he’s ever the people pleaser, ever the hard worker, ever the yes-man. Mark Lee is always sweet.

Except when he isn’t.

You’re fairly certain that Mark Lee has hated you since before you even met him. When you decide to transfer to the same university that your high school best friend Jungwoo attends, he talks your ear off about all of his great friends and all of the places he is going to take you and all of the fun you’ll have. He’s always been the descriptive type, telling you far too much about his good pals Mark, Donghyuck, Johnny, Taeil, Jaehyun, Kun, Lucas… and countless others, whose names you sometimes have a hard time keeping track of. Jungwoo has a lot of friends, something which has remained true since high school. Whenever you catch up with him, he speaks particularly fondly about Mark, who is one of his roommates and someone he considers to be one of his closest friends.

“You’ll love him,” he says, “but not too much, I hope. That would be super weird, you and Mark.” He wrinkles his nose at that and doesn’t make any more abnormal comments. You don’t think much of it.

In short, you let Jungwoo decide your opinion on Mark Lee before you ever met him. With everything else about moving to a completely different university occupying the majority of your thoughts, it’s easy enough to accept that Mark will be awkward and painfully sweet and that you will become fast friends. That’s your first mistake.

Before you even finish moving in, Jungwoo drags you over to his place to meet some of his friends, who he insists will become your own. It’s just past noon and he claims that everyone will be awake and ready to greet you once you get there. He’s half right, in the sense that only half of the apartment is awake. The early-risers, who Jungwoo didn’t even have to shake before he came over to get you, are at the table in their common area, sipping on various caffeinated beverages. These consist of Mark and Jaehyun. Donghyuck is presumably still curled up in his bed, asleep after a late night of playing games, and Johnny, who had stayed overnight and doesn’t actually live with them, is passed out on their couch, an arm slung over his face to block the light. Your friend has shown you enough pictures for you to recognize them.

Jungwoo practically deflates as soon as he walks in to see only two members of the current household conscious. “This is why we can’t have nice things,” he grumbles before striding over to Johnny and yanking off the blanket covering his long torso.

The elder groans, clearly having only been dozing and not deeply asleep, and moves his arm so he can glare at Jungwoo. “Your disrespect for my sleep schedule is why we can’t have nice things.”

“You don’t have a sleep schedule,” Jungwoo says back, glaring at his friend with the blanket in his hand. “Plus, Y/N’s here.”

Johnny lazily looks over and sees you in the entranceway, to which his response is to roll slightly so that he’s propped up against the back of the couch with one leg crossed over the other rather than just lying down. “Sup. Name’s Johnny.”

“Ew, don’t use your flirting voice!” Jungwoo whines at his friend, kicking him in the shin. In all honesty, you’re both amused and slightly flattered that Johnny is attempting to flirt with you when he’s just woken up. The messy hair is kind of a look. “Y/N’s a friend.”

“Yeah, we’ll be good friends, alright,” Johnny says, looking directly at you and wiggling his eyebrows in the most ridiculous way. That gets a giggle out of you while Jungwoo gawks, kicking Johnny again for good measure, slightly harder this time.

Jungwoo looks like he’s about to start arguing again when Jaehyun kindly interrupts, shifting the conversation. He gives you a small smile, perfectly polite and handsome, his hair straight and soft over his forehead. “It’s nice to meet you, Y/N. I’m Jaehyun.”

You lower your head to acknowledge him. “It’s nice to meet you, too.” You look towards the other boy at the table, who you now realize hasn’t glanced up at you once. Jaehyun had been at least half watching the mock fight between Jungwoo and Johnny, but Mark had just been staring at his cup from behind circular glasses, not even drinking it. His own hair is slightly damp, curling at the ends, making him appear somewhat young. “You’re Mark, right?”

Finally, he looks at you, but looks away quickly. “Yeah.”

That’s… that’s not right.

You try again, smiling as brightly as you can, even though he won’t glance in your direction again. His side profile is full of both soft shapes and hard angles, afternoon sunlight coming in through the window falls as highlights on his cheeks and nose and chin. He appears exactly as your friend had described him to you, but his attitude proves him to be a walking contradiction. You shift on your feet, grasping for the right words to say. “Jungwoo has told me a lot about you.”

“Uh… yeah. He’s told me about you, too.”

You almost outright frown at that. Isn’t he supposed to be super nice and friendly? Instead, it sounds like Jungwoo has been spreading all sorts of nasty stories about you. Hypothetical stories that, apparently, only Mark has been listening to. Neither Jaehyun nor Johnny are acting strangely towards you at all.

All three of the other boys do seem to notice the change in behavior for Mark, though. There are a few moments of tense silence before Johnny elbows Jungwoo. The latter speaks up. “Hey, Mark, can you go resurrect Donghyuck? I think he might be dead.”

The switch is instant and very startling to you. His face loses all of its tension as he looks at Jungwoo, nodding. “Yeah, sure. If I don’t come back in ten minutes, I’m the one who’s dead.” He pushes himself up out of his chair and exits the common area.

After he’s gone, you look at Jungwoo. He stares back. You make a motion with your head towards the front door, where you retreat to and he follows. You stand somewhat stiffly, hands linked behind your back. “Did you say something to him? About me?”

Jungwoo puts his hands up defensively. “Nothing bad, I swear!” He looks back towards the common area. “He must just be having a bad day or something…”

That doesn’t explain the sudden warmth when someone else spoke to him, though. You frown. “Okay… I guess I’ll just have to try harder to get him to like me.”

Your friend seems to perk up at that. “That’s the spirit!” He proceeds to grab you by the shoulders and steer you back to the common area.

You have an amiable enough time chatting with the boys who had remained there. Eventually, Donghyuck emerges from his room, looking even more ruffled than Johnny had, and Mark shuffles out with him. Once again, he doesn’t even spare you a glance. Every so often, as you’re talking to the others or just listening to their strange, all-over-the-place conversations, your eyes flicker over to him. He contributes to the chatter, but it’s like he’s purposefully avoiding you, even though you’re literally in the room with him. It kind of hurts.

Still, you try not to let it bother you too much. An hour passes, which you realize with a start, and you remember that you’re not even nearly done unpacking. As you’re rising from your seat on the edge of the couch, Jungwoo throws a comment out to you. “You’re welcome to bust in here any time!”

He’s met with a chorus of agreement from the others, except one.

The next day, Jungwoo makes a point to introduce you to the rest of his circle. Not long after, you’re added to a group chat with a whole phonebook of unfamiliar numbers. Most of them, minus several who your friend had told you in the past do a poor job of checking their messages, send their names pretty quickly. Jungwoo tells you who the others are. With a pang of disappointment, you realize one of the missing numbers was Mark.

On your first day of classes, you’re pleasantly surprised to find that you share an economics lecture with Donghyuck, who acts both very tired and also full of energy, chatting your ear off before and after class, but looking as if he’s about to pass out when the professor gives her introduction and starts to go over course material. That day, you also learn that you have an ethics class with Jungwoo’s friend Doyoung, stoic and serious and exactly the opposite of Donghyuck, but still smiling at your lame jokes and carefully making sure you get the homework down.

The second day starts out much more slowly. You settle down for your third class, a curriculum development course, and it takes you about a solid minute to realize that Mark Lee is sitting in the room with you. He had come in while you were busily typing out a text to a friend from your previous university. The classroom is not particularly large and you had taken a seat near the middle, so there aren’t many places for him to hide. When he walks in, he takes a seat by the wall closest to the windows. You consider greeting him, walking to his desk to try and talk to see if he had a change of attitude from the last time you saw him, but then your professor enters the scene. As he passes by the far side of the room, Mark looks up from his own phone and smiles, mouth instantly opening to greet him. You stay in your seat and try to look busy as you listen to them chat amiably. Mark laughs in disbelief at something your professor says about his vacation.

At the end of the lecture, you pack up your things quickly and make the effort to take a few small, light steps to catch up to Mark, who’s already leaving. “Hi, Mark! I didn’t realize we had a class together.”

He gives you a sort of half-shrug, keeping his head pointed straight ahead. Almost imperceptibly, his pace increases. “I guess we do.”

He opens a door to a stairwell, not making any particular effort to hold the door for you. Reflexively, you grab the door and slip through after him. You try again as the two of you head down. “Are you going to be home tonight? Jungwoo invited me to have dinner with you guys.”

“No,” he says, voice edged with irritation. He reaches into his pocket, fishing out his phone and a pair of earbuds. “I’ll be out.”

“Oh.” You slow down slightly. “Well, we should hang out sometime. My next class is this way, so… see you.” By the time you’re done talking, he’s slipped both earbuds into his ears and is pushing the doors at the bottom of the stairs open. You hold back a heavy sigh and shrug your backpack higher onto your shoulders.

As he told you, he’s not in his apartment that evening. Though Jungwoo had invited you to help cook dinner, he shirks his responsibilities, slipping away to play games with Donghyuck and leaving you and Jaehyun to cook, with relatively unhelpful commentary from Johnny, who was once again on the couch when you arrived. At some point, their friend Yuta slips in, steals some noodles, and leaves.

After the cooking is done, you and Jaehyun celebrate with a firm high-five, and Jungwoo and Donghyuck un-disappear, coming out of the younger boy’s dark bedroom. The lot of you are halfway through eating when Donghyuck perks up. “Wait, where’s Mark? He said he would do calc homework with me.”

You bite the inside of your cheek and hold back from saying that he told you he wouldn’t be home.

Thankfully, most of Jungwoo’s friends are nice to you and it’s easy enough for you to make friends of your own. You ease yourself into a routine of classes, homework, and hanging out with your new social circles. Mark doesn’t hide that he tries to avoid you about half of the time. At the same time, you try to split yourself between friend groups, as to not force him either to be around you or to not hang out with his own friends. There are the occasional large scale events that both of you are invited to, but there are enough people that you usually aren’t forced to interact. After a month of classes, you stop trying to start conversations, but you still greet him. He greets you back with the indifference of an overworked, tired stranger. During your class, he firmly ignores you. He does more than ignore you - he speaks to virtually every other person in your class except you. All of your friends carefully avoid the topic of his blatant dislike for you, though you know they all think it’s odd.

Finally, one of those large events comes to pass via the boy known as Zhong Chenle. He doesn’t go to your school, but is still somehow acquainted with all of Jungwoo’s friends, so he became acquainted with you as well. He’s eccentric and sarcastic and sometimes you see him playing basketball with Mark and Jaehyun in the school recreation center. So, when he rents out the local ice skating rink and invites you, you’re excited to go. It’s not often that you get onto the ice - it’s always a thrill after you re-learn how to skate, and you enjoy the feeling of the smooth gliding and wide, curving turns on the blades. You imagine that you’re painting with your feet.

Things go down smoothly, like you envisioned. After just twenty minutes, you’ve confidently found your ice legs and you’re racing around the rink with Donghyuck, playfully tipping each other off-balance with carefully or sometimes not-so-carefully timed pushes. A few minutes later, a new player enters the arena. Maybe if this new person weren’t Mark Lee, you wouldn’t have noticed their entrance, but your eyes are instinctively drawn to him.

The boy in question is clinging to one Lee Jeno, another friend of Jungwoo and Donghyuck and all the rest of them, as they both try to find their balance. Jeno seems to be having somewhat of an easier time with the skates on his feet, making slow pushes so that he glides short distances with Mark holding onto him. Mark is adorably flushed, in a way you haven’t seen before, his cheeks aflame with cold and embarrassment. His body is swallowed by an overly large hoodie, completing the cozy and cute look.

Your racing buddy has also slowed down to watch with you, staring at the scene. He suddenly nudges you with an elbow. “You should help him.”

“Jeno? I think he’s gotten the hang of it. Plus, I don’t know him that well.” It’s now a game of who can dodge implications rather than who can dodge physical pushes.

Donghyuck rolls his eyes, skating lazily alongside you. “You know I’m talking about Mark. This would be a great opportunity to get on his good side.”

“Why don’t you help him? He’s your boyfriend, after all.” If you weren’t focusing on turning your skates and keeping your balance because you’ve reached the short end of the rink, you would cross your arms and huff at him more dramatically.

He clicks his tongue sharply, something you know by now that he does when he’s irritated. “Mark isn’t my boyfriend. Doyoung and Taeyong are boyfriends. Mark and I are soulmates. And he’s still painfully single.”

“So are you!” As you protest, you realize that Mark and Jeno are getting closer. Donghyuck fires something back indignantly, but you’re just thinking about what he said before. The offer to help lies in front of you as a real possibility, but how would you feel if someone you hated came up and asked if you wanted help skating? If you really hated them that much, you would just think they were being condescending. The last thing you want to do is give Mark a reason to think you’re acting that way towards him. So, as you skate closer, you pick up your pace and speed on by, not even glancing at the two boys with their arms interlinked. Luckily for you, Jungwoo is just ahead, so you hook arms with him and jerk him forward with your momentum, making him yell out in surprise.

As you’re gliding along, laughing at your friend’s reaction and attempts to push you, Mark stares at you from behind with a small frown on his face.

“Mark?” Jeno’s voice snaps him out of it and he looks towards the younger boy. “Do you need me to slow down?”

“No,” he says rather grimly, “let’s go faster.”

You don’t speak to each other at all for the entire night.

The next month and a half passes unremarkably. Then, suddenly, midterms are rolling up and you find yourself swamped with work, especially in the class you share with Mark and your new friend Yuqi. At the current moment, you’re at your place with your head buried in your arms, groaning dramatically. “I can’t do this.”

Yuqi nods, looking somewhat dead inside. “Professor Lim hates us.”

“I don’t know what chapters we even covered half of the material in. Did he just make it up?” You lift your hand to paw through the textbook in front of you lazily, so much of it seeming foreign. “It doesn’t help that the Instructional Systems Design Model is such a big part of the project.”

“Maybe that’s in Chapter 1?”

You flip through her suggestion before slamming your book shut. “Nope.”

“I know!” You perk up at your friend’s revelation, looking at her from across the table. “We can just ask Mark! He’s good at this class, he probably knows.”

You stiffen at her suggestion. There was only one time you dared to ask him for help, in which he just brushed you off and said he was busy. Since then, you’ve resigned yourself to only asking Yuqi for help, no matter how clueless she is in this class sometimes. A brief moment of panic sends your heart racing as she whips out her cellphone. “Don’t mention me.”

She turns to look at you, finger poised to press call over her phone. “What?”

You put your head back down, muffling your words. “Don’t say my name when you talk to him.” She gives you a weird look, but shrugs, pressing the call button. “Wait! And put it on speaker so I can hear the answer. Please.”

Wordlessly, she rolls her eyes, but pulls the phone away from her face, setting it on the table in front of her. The call connects after two rings and you hear Mark’s voice with the staticky phone call filter over it. “Hello?”

“Hey, Mark! It’s Yuqi.”

“Oh, hi, what’s up?” He seems to brighten up, showing a pleasantness that you rarely hear from him these days.

“I just had a question about our curriculum development class. Do you know what chapter goes over the Instructional Systems Design Model? I can’t find it.”

“Oh, sure. Hold on, let me grab my notes.” From the other end, you can hear the distorted shuffling of clothes and paper for a moment. “It’s Chapter 4, I think. We didn’t really go over that chapter in class, but Prof. Lim told me when I went to his office hours.”

“Oh my god, thank you so much, Mark! You’re a literal life saver,” Yuqi gushes, about to practically kiss the phone in joy.

You press your hands together in front of you in a silent thank you. Mark laughs lightly into the phone. “No problem! If you ever need anything, let me know. I’m always happy to help.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you! Bye, Mark!” After receiving a goodbye from him, Yuqi presses the hang up button. She claps her hands twice in excitement. “That makes things so much easier!”

You’re stuck thinking about what Mark said before hanging up. It’s exactly in line with how Jungwoo used to talk about him - polite, helpful, friendly. An ugly part of you has to wonder what you did wrong once again. What part of you is undeserving of his kindness? An even uglier part feels the green flash of envy. “How do you have Mark’s number?”

“We had a class together like a year ago and he’s a pretty cool guy. Also useful to have around.” The image of them studying together, chatting like close friends, heads bent closely over shared notes, makes the parasite of jealousy dig deeper in your belly. The logical side of your brain knows you shouldn’t be feeling like this, but the two sides of Mark Lee make you want to throw an uncharacteristic fit. She tosses her phone to the side before flipping open her textbook to Chapter 4. “Why?”

“Were you guys ever… like…” You bite the inside of your cheek, not wanting to say it out loud.

“Me? Mark? No, we just worked on a project together. I have no idea what gave you that idea.” She wrinkles her nose at you.

“You just talk to each other so casually,” you huff, trying to expel the negativity from your system, “I don’t know.”

“He’s like that with everyone,” she says easily, leaning back in her chair. “Except you, I guess.”

“Except me. I guess.” You parrot, not feeling any better about the situation. When you proceed to ask her if you did anything weird on your first day of class that would have put him off, she denies it, telling you that you were completely normal. Resigned to forget the mystery for the night, you open up your textbook.

Midterms pass with relative success. At least, with more success than you had at your old university. You’re excited for a break, a reprieve from the pain of studying. Johnny arranges a potluck and movie night at his place, assigning everyone a dish and putting you on dessert.

In your class with Doyoung, who is often assigned as the chef of the group, you pressure him for everyone’s favorites. “Something fruity? Chocolatey?”

“We’re split there. There’s not much you can do that would appease everyone, honestly. Some of them are the pickiest guys I’ve ever met.” He continues to scribble notes as you grill him for info, not even looking up.

“What if I did something different? Like matcha cookies?” You tap your chin in thought and Doyoung lifts a hand to point at you after the suggestion leaves your mouth.

“Yes, do that one. Basically everyone likes green tea.”

“Basically everyone?”

“Not Mark.” Doyoung shakes his head disapprovingly. “He’s not arriving until after we eat, though, so I’m sure it’s fine.”

You’re not sure what to say to that. That night, you work hard making your matcha cookies, setting aside a bit of time for a side project. When you arrive at Johnny’s apartment with two dishes, one quite a bit smaller than the others and labeled with Mark’s name, safely hidden in the pantry until everyone has stepped out of the kitchen area and you can put it somewhere you hope he’ll see it. You can only hope that he at least appreciates your effort. When he arrives a bit later into the night, non-gifting you his usual non-existent glance, you can’t help but impatiently squirm a bit. Before you leave, you make a pass by the kitchen and, disappointingly, but not surprisingly, the container is in the same place as you left it, your note still affixed to the top.

The mystery continues, however, when you approach Johnny a few days later to ask about retrieving your containers.

“There was more than one? I only have that big rectangular one that you brought the matcha cookies in. They were really good, by the way - I can only wish the cookies I make turned out like that…” He scratches his head and you feel like the gesture perfectly represents how you’re feeling as well. If he doesn't have the box… who does?

A small part of you holds onto the hope that the intended person retrieved them after you weren’t looking.

The class you share with Mark is not nearly the most interesting one you have, nor is it one that is particularly memorable most of the time. There’s something so terribly tedious about it that makes you suffer a disproportionate amount whenever you do a chapter of the reading, though you think that you’re usually quite good about your work. Still, though you’re not exactly the most studious of your classmates, you can’t stand resounding silences in the classroom. So, when your professor asks a question and no one volunteers, you try to at least say something somewhat intelligent. Today is one of those days. Except, as you speak, you realize with dawning dread that your words aren’t making any sense of all, are barely related to the question, and are progressively spiraling into completely different subject matter. Still, you find it hard to stop, eventually coming to a stuttering stop with your answer. Even Professor Lim can’t hold back something of a put-off expression. You sink lower into your seat and, as your professor says something along the lines of your comments being “not quite relevant,” your cheeks burn.

You spare a glance to the side, looking for some sort of pity or reassurance from Yuqi, but you end up looking past her at Mark. You half expect him to smirking at your failure, like a villain in a high school drama, but, instead, his eyes meet yours. He offers you the barest twitch of an encouraging smile before looking away, his face neutral again. You’re almost unsure about how to interpret the look - it’s the closest thing to a positive emotion he’s ever shown you. Confused, you fix your eyes on your open notebook and keep them there, scratching random notes and doodles into the margins for the remainder of the lecture.

When you think about Mark Lee, you feel like you’re going insane. It would honestly be pretty easy for you to make one of those crazy conspiracy theorist maps with the red strings and thumbtacks attempting to connect a bunch of pictures with all the strange, fragmented experiences you’ve had with the boy. At one position, you could put all the information you supposedly knew about him before even meeting him, all of the things Jungwoo told you, all the smiling pictures from before you arrived. Somewhere else, you could put all of the times Mark has brushed you off or outright refused to acknowledge your existence. In a third location, you could put all the things you’ve actively seen or heard him do that align with the person you thought he was. Finally, you could put the most recent developments of him subtly starting to not ignore you together. The whole diagram would be circled with giant question marks all over it and one question written in capital letters: WHY?

You’re trying to do your damn curriculum development homework and all you can think about is Mark Lee and the first smile he ever gave you. And, from the way your heart is beating, pushing heat into your face and ears, making you wistful and longing to see his smile again, you think you know the direction your feelings have headed.

The next few times you head over to Jungwoo’s place, it’s hit or miss as to whether Mark appears to be actively avoiding you. Finally, one day, you’re pressed shoulder to shoulder with Jungwoo, your eyes fixed on the small screen of your phone as you show him a funny video you found. You don’t notice Mark until he opens his bedroom door loudly enough that you look up and you meet his cold gaze. He’s in casual clothes, a hoodie and jeans, with earbuds hanging from his ears, his hair slightly tousled from the wind outside. The eye contact lasts for only a moment before his door acts as a barrier to your vision. You blink hard.

“Just when I thought we were getting somewhere…” You sulk, speaking lowly as to not be overheard by him.

“You and Mark?” Jungwoo asks, not even looking up. The video ends and your friend puts down your phone, folds his hands in front of him, and turns to look at you. “Did you ever figure it out?”

“Did I? How could I figure it out when he won’t even talk to me? Did you?” You lean away from him, crossing your arms. “Should we even be having this conversation over here? He’s just in his room.”

Jungwoo shrugs. “He has his headphones in, he can’t hear anything. To answer your question,” he pauses, leaning in closer to whisper like he’s telling you a secret, “I have no idea.”

“You must have some ideas at least?”

“I have many ideas, many theories, and quite a few formulas. Most of which don’t particularly apply to this situation.” You grumble something under your breath about engineering majors as he continues. “For Mark? He might be letting all the negativity he’s ever felt out on you, honestly. Maybe because you’re the same major?”

You sit up slightly straighter. “We’re the same major?”

“Yeah?” Jungwoo replies, giving you a look. “He’s trying to be music education instead of history education, though.”

“I never knew the specifics,” you mumble, letting your posture fall back into a slouch. In reality, it’s more than just not knowing the specifics - there’s very little you’ve managed to learn about Mark that you haven’t actively had to pry out of your shared friends. You know about some of the foods he likes, some of his hobbies, and a bit of general information. It’s awfully hard to get to know someone when they refuse to acknowledge you.

That notion makes your developing crush feel even stupider.

You attempt to turn the subject back to where it began. “Why me, though? Why not literally anyone else?”

“You’re a pretty cool person and you’re good at a lot of things. Mark’s developing an inferiority complex?” Jungwoo taps his chin as though he’s pretending to be some great thinker.

“I’m not going to lower myself to help some man’s ego,” you huff, your nails digging into your palms as you make tight fists. “Plus, there’s nothing I’m particularly good at that he’s not also good at, if not better.”

“It’s not really about ego, I think…” Jungwoo says, trailing off. “I dunno. He’s not like that with anyone but you.”

“No one but me, huh.” Honestly, you’re kind of getting sick of that expression. This isn’t the kind of exceptional you want to be to him. Not at all. You’re honestly not sure when it stopped being a simple need to be on pleasant terms with Jungwoo’s friends and started to get romantic. Your lips press into a thin line for a moment before you exhale sharply from your nose. “Everything is a big ‘I don’t know’ and I hate it. If it’s not an ‘I don’t know,’ it’s still stuck in the ‘why?’ stage.” You lay your head down and you have to resist the urge to scream into your arms. “I’m going to lose my mind.”

“You really make no sense at all.”

“It really makes no sense that I-” You bite your tongue to stop yourself to stop yourself from admitting out loud to the feelings you’ve just recently realized. Jungwoo just gives you a sly, knowing smile that you don’t like the look of one bit.

Before you know it, finals are around the corner and, with it, one of the last organized events you’ll have with your friends until testing is over. This time, it’s a group dinner where people can come and go as they please, and a few of you have taken it upon yourselves to do all the cooking. Namely, you, Doyoung, Jaehyun, Kun, and, surprisingly, Donghyuck. Suffice to say, the kitchen is not enough space for all of you. Still, you manage to pull it off, completing a hearty Korean-style dinner that slowly disappears from their dishes as all of the others eat. By the end, you’re worn out from the sweltering heat of the stove, the occasional bickering with the other chefs (‘Donghyuck, stop eating all the radish!’), and chatting with nearly every single one of your friends. Names and faces scroll through your head and you’re honestly not sure who you’ve seen and not seen by the end of it. Except for one person.

Mark Lee is, once again, nowhere to be found.

You make sure to smack away hands going for seconds in order to wrap up a moderately sized portion of food for him anyways. When all of the food, save for what you’ve set aside for Mark, is gone, Taeyong offers himself and some of the others up to clean, which you and the rest of the cooking boys eagerly accept. Most of them have headed out by now, but the few remaining begrudgingly agree to the job at Taeyong’s call.

You lean against the wall idly, watching the work being done and listening to the rhythmic sound of the water running and the sponge scraping against metal. Finally, Jungwoo happens upon the wrapped plate you had prepared for your missing guest.

“Who’s this for?” He asks to the room, almost salivating at the sight of the food. Damn, that boy can eat.

“It’s for Mark. You can give it to him when he gets back.” Your words are half informative, half threatening. Jungwoo takes the hint and carefully replaces the foil covering the food.

It takes another minute for him to look back over at you, seeing you looking bleary-eyed, close to swaying onto the floor from fatigue. He steps over, patting you on the head. “Y/N, you can go rest on the couch if you want. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I might just do that,” you respond, not clarifying which part of his sentence you’re talking about. At his behest, you shuffle over to the couch. It only takes a moment for your eyes to flutter closed. The music of washing dishes lulls you quickly to sleep.

You’re not sure how long has passed by the time you stir to the sound of the front door closing. You recognize that water is no longer running and that there are only two voices left in the kitchen area. Lying there for a moment, unsure of if you should make your presence known yet, you determine that the voices belong to Jungwoo and Mark.

“Oh, Y/N made sure to grab this for you,” you hear Jungwoo say, followed by the faint crinkling of the foil covering the plate.

“She did?” Mark’s voice is surprisingly soft, warm, everything you’re not used to from him.

The voices drift closer towards you, accompanying the slip of socks against the wood floor. “Don’t act surprised. Also, she’s on the couch sleeping right now. I’ll probably wake her up in a minute so she can go home.”

“Oh.” You’re listening as hard as you can, trying to determine whatever Mark is feeling just by his tone. “Is she okay?”

Your heart beats faster and you want to squirm, ask questions, anything. You remain still.

“Just tired.” A beat of silence. “Why are you looking at her like that?”

“Dude, I just…” Mark has some sort of lightness to his voice that you’ve never heard.  “Nothing.”

“Do you think I can’t tell? Come on, I’ve known you long enough.” Jungwoo would normally be teasing saying something like that, but right now you just hear a kind of weariness that you’re entirely familiar with.

“Not as long you’ve known her.” The sentence comes out bitter, the first negativity you’ve heard from Mark all night, and Jungwoo sighs in response.

“Do what you need to do and then I’ll wake her up.”

They walk farther away. The telltale sound of the microwave opening and shutting after the foil crinkles again, followed by the beeping of the buttons and the hum of the machine, tells you that someone is heating up the food. Under the microwave ambiance, you hear what you think is plastic against plastic. The machine is stopped before it can beep shrilly. The smell of warm, reheated food fills the air briefly. There’s shuffling as Mark presumably walks.

“Night.” Jungwoo echoes Mark’s sentiment and you hear more shuffling towards you. A touch on your shoulder. You keep your eyes closed, trying to control your breathing for a moment longer. Your friend shakes you slightly. “Y/N, wake up.”

You try your best to play up your awakening act, like you hadn’t been listening to the entirety of the last conversation. Rubbing your eyes and blinking, you look up at Jungwoo. “What time is it?”

“Almost midnight. Everyone went home to sleep and study.” You get up slowly, rolling your shoulders once you’ve sat up. “I can walk you back, if you want.”

“That’s okay, it’s not a long walk.” You get to your feet, padding to the kitchen area. There, on the table, is the plastic container you’d brought Mark’s cookies in weeks ago. “Oh, that’s my container. Did Johnny find it?”

Jungwoo reaches up to ruffle his hair, looking between you and the container. “Mark did, actually.” “Huh.” Shrugging, you pick it up and make your way to the door. “Tell him thanks for me.”

“You could tell him yourself?” Jungwoo offers, looking vaguely hopeful.

You smile, but cringe at the same time. “Yeah… you know.”

He shakes his head, seeming disappointed once more. “Fine. Text me when you get back?”

“Will do.”

As you walk home, your container clutched in your arms, you think about how more pieces are being unveiled, but nothing is really making that much more sense at all.

Finals pass as they always do. You study with Yuqi for your curriculum development class. The situation from midterms repeats itself almost exactly at one point, with her calling Mark for help and you staying quiet as he talks, and the test is no harder than any of the others you had previously in the semester. You force yourself to keep your eyes on your exam and to not glance over at Mark except when you’re walking out of the classroom at the end. All you can see of him is the back of his head, his hair slightly disheveled. Idly, you wonder if you’ll get over your baseless crush if you aren’t able to look at him and mull over the problem during class anymore. You think that’s the last you’ll see of him before you run into him at an event next semester.

On the last day of finals, your group chat receives two messages from Jungwoo.

JW: END OF THE SEMESTER PARTY TOMORROW NIGHT TO CELEBRATE FINALS BEING DONE BEFORE EVERYONE LEAVES. ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY.

JW: I don’t care if you planned a “date” with your “girlfriend,” I expect to see all of you there :))

A minute later, your phone buzzes again with an individual message from the same boy.

JW: Y/N, my lovely best friend, you’re part of the planning committee and you’re going to help me set up. Be there an hour early xoxo

You know there’s no use fighting it so, the next day, you show up to his place as expected. Jungwoo, Lucas, Yuta, and Johnny are all milling about, trying to seem busy but, honestly, there doesn’t look like there’s much to do. Some of the furniture has been moved to the side, there’s a giant mysterious tub that is partly filled with a reddish liquid that Lucas and Yuta are leaning over, and Johnny is affixing colorful lights to a wall. As soon as your shoes are off, Jungwoo is steering you to the common area.

“Y/N, you’re late!”

“I’m like ten minutes early-” You start.

“No, no, no excuses. I have an important job for you!” It takes you a moment to realize that he’s not leading you to the kitchen, but towards someone’s bedroom. “You like crafts, right?”

“I mean, I guess? I-”

“Great!” He pushes open the bedroom door, Mark’s bedroom door, and pushes you not-so-gently inside. Mark is sitting at his desk, bent over something with a look of surprise on his face. He looks cozy, dressed in a simple red t-shirt and gray sweats with circle glasses perched on his nose. “I want to hang about one hundred paper cranes around the apartment to add a little flare to the party. You can’t leave until you’re done, Mark has the paper, bye!”

He shuts the door behind him.

You and Mark stare at each other in bewilderment as you process whatever just happened. You’re in Mark’s bedroom for the first time. You’re also being actively forced to interact with him one on one for the first time. None of your friends had ever forced you to try and work out your issues until now and you’re certain that Jungwoo’s implication was that you’re not allowed to leave until you’ve talked it through. Some part of you knew he would eventually snap and force you to interact, but you always ignored that possibility. Until now.

“Um,” you start, twisting your fingers together in front of you, “he said you have the paper?”

“Yeah…” he looks back at his desk, grabbing some of the myriad of square sheets and holding them out to you. “Here.”

“Thanks.” You carefully make sure to prevent your fingers from brushing against his as you take them from him. Stepping back, you settle cross-legged on an empty spot on his floor. After you sit, you take a moment to look around. His walls have the occasional band poster plastered on them, there’s a hoodie on the floor across the room, and some of his drawers are partly open, illustrating a pretty typical college boy’s room. A couple of books are pushed to the side on his desk as he works on folding the cranes. Remembering that’s what you’re supposed to be doing, you get to work, making careful creases. Your first crane comes to life on yellow paper slightly lopsided. Good enough, you figure.

You’re in the middle of your second crane when Mark’s chair screeches quietly against the floor and he stands up, gathering his paper. To your great surprise, he sits down a few away from you and mirrors your pose. When you meet eyes with him briefly, you look away as fast as you can, returning to your crane before you can even try and read what he’s feeling. The next three cranes pass quickly with your eyes locked firmly on your work. When you dare to look up again, you find that Mark is intently watching your hands. He startles when you see him. Realizing he’s been caught, he speaks of softly. “Do you… know how to do it?”

Even when he’s the one talking quietly, looking embarrassed, you feel so small. You look down at his own paper pile, which has a few crumpled sheets surrounding it. “I can show you.” He nods and you cautiously scoot closer so that you’re side by side. As gently as you can, you explain each fold and he copies your movements. Soon, you have a relatively even green crane and he has a somewhat lopsided pink crane, very similar to your first.

“Thanks,” he says, staring at his creation, “all of the tutorials I googled weren’t making any sense, but I think I got it now.”

“No problem.” You nod, moving back to your spot across from him. Not wanting the experience to end quite yet, you think about what Jungwoo said last weekend. “Thanks for returning my container.”

He instantly knows what you’re talking about. “Thanks for-”

Before he can say any more, he stops and his expression hardens. He proceeds to look back down at his hands, making slow, purposeful folds in the paper in front of him. You frown, but do the same. A few cranes later, you can’t stop it anymore. After months, months, of him treating you like this, you can’t go one more crane without finding the truth. You throw a half-completed crane to the floor and, though the noise isn’t loud, he looks up. “Mark, what did I do?”

He seems entirely too surprised by the question, which sparks a kind of anger that you didn’t even realize you were holding in. “What?”

“What did I do! What made you act like this to me? Did I do something? Do you just hate my face? What did I do wrong?” You squeeze your knees brutally, trying to resist doing something like tearing up the few pieces of origami you had completed.

“Nothing.” His simple, one word answer only serves to make you more upset. Though he appears initially dismissive, he sees that you’re about to start shouting and quickly continues. “You really didn’t do anything!”

“Then, why? Mark, you’re making me lose my mind!” Now, you feel like you’re on the verge of crying out of frustration. So far, you’ve managed to not cry at all about this stupid boy who has largely chosen to ignore your existence, but you can feel the telltale warming of your cheeks and the pout in your lips.

“It’s not something you did! Not really.” He takes a shaky breath, appearing almost as upset as you, though there are no tears in his eyes. “It’s about Jungwoo. Please, don’t cry.”

The initial confusion helps you swallow your building tears. “If you’re upset at him, why do you have to take it out on me? I really wanted to be friends with you, Mark. I really did.”

“I wanted to be different.” Now, he’s quiet, refusing to look at you for the months of shame he’s feeling rise to the surface.

“From Jungwoo?” You’re not quite following still. You just know that, even though he’s subtly broken your heart and led you in circles over and over for the past few months, you want to know why he’s hurting and you want to stop it. Even if he hasn’t been full of kindness to you, he has been to everyone else. And you know almost for a fact that this isn’t something he’s told anyone else.

“From you.”

Pushing aside papers, crumpled partial cranes, complete cranes, you move closer to him. You’re not sure if you’re overstepping your boundaries and you still kind of feel like one wrong move will make you cry, but the yelling has left your system and your instincts say proximity will help you understand. “Will you explain it to me?”

“There was a you-shaped hole in Jungwoo’s heart ever since he had to go to college and stop spending so much time with you.” Mark’s resignation is quiet, soft-spoken, like the boy you’d heard so much about but only now had gotten to truly meet. “Whenever he came back from breaks, he would talk about you so much and about how similar you and I are and it just made me feel… it made me feel… like… I don’t know. Like I’m just replacing you while you’re not here.”

“Mark…” You’re not sure quite what to say that he hasn’t logically figured out for himself already. Maybe it would help to say the obvious anyways? “You’re not a replacement. You’re you and I’m me and he has different places for both of us.”

He lets out a puff of air. “I know that. It’s just the type of feeling that you can’t really get to go away, even when you try really hard to believe the opposite.”

“I get the feeling.” And you do. It’s like the nagging feeling that you’ve had that you did something unforgivable to upset Mark even though you were almost certain you didn’t.

“I was mean to you because at least that would make me different enough to not be replaced, I guess. It worked because you never stooped to my level to be mean back.” Though he hasn’t quite apologized, he sounds genuinely sorry.

“It worked because you couldn’t have been replaced in the first place,” you say back. You look over and he has a small smile on his face.

“That too. Also-” He stops himself, seeming conflicted. “No, it’s a bad time. A really bad time.”

That piques your curiosity. “Huh?” He’s not smiling anymore, instead looking awkwardly to his side, away from you, and drumming his fingers on the bed. “Mark, you might as well say it. Whatever it is.”

“Okay, after a few months, I realized that you weren’t going to replace me and things were fine. But, you know that thing that kids do?” You’re confused and he’s growing red, practically steaming at the ears in embarrassment, which you can see even in the dim light of the room. “So, I kept being mean because then you kept looking at me even though whenever I thought about what I said to you later, I always felt really bad-” “Mark, you’re rambling. What are you talking about?” You ungracefully interrupt him, touching his arm to get his full attention. He seems to grow even redder at your touch and suddenly exclaims his next words.

“You’re really cute!”

Slowly, his words make more sense. You try to piece them together out loud to make sure you’re understanding him correctly. “So… the thing kids do… where they’re mean to the person they like?”

He moves his head up and down in a tiny nod. Now, your face is heating up, too. Even more than it was when you were on the verge of crying. After a moment, he groans and presses his face into his hands. “Damn, I’m such an idiot. I know this is, like, what middle schoolers do, but since the beginning of the semester I’ve just been so confused, except you’ve probably been way, way more confused than me, and I didn’t even think about it, but all of our friends are probably confused, too, and-” As he jabbers, when your thoughts and feelings had been processing slowly previously, you now feel like your whole reality is crumbling. You spent the last while beating down your feelings when he’s become a pile of mush in front of you about the same problem? At this rate, he’s never going to stop rambling either. Not that you particularly want him to. It’s the most he’s directly said to you ever. And it’s adorable. What else would be adorable? You wonder, teasing him a bit before you tell him the truth. For how long he kept you hanging, you deserve to create at least some tension of your own, you figure. Just for a moment.

“- you’re probably thinking about how dumb this is and I don’t know how you’ll ever forgive me-”

You sit up straight and cross your arms over your chest. “Mark.”

He stops talking and looks at you, more panic seeming to rise in his face at the serious expression you wear. “Oh shit, I never let you talk. Y/N-”

“Mark.” He finally stops, staring at you. “I don’t forgive you.” The panic turns into sheer terror. He clearly hadn’t expected you to put it so forwardly. However, before he can say anything truly depressing, you continue. “I don’t forgive you because you haven’t actually apologized yet.”

His eyes are like tiny suns, round and bright and holding all the feeling in the universe. “I- I thought…” He looks to the side, thinking about everything he had said, and realizes that you’re right. “You’re right. Y/N…” He presses his hands together in front of him. “I’m so sorry.”

It’s probably the most succinct and straightforward he’s ever been with you, but you don’t have much time to think about that before he’s leaning forward in a full bow, pressing his forehead to the ground.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m-”

“Mark, stop!” As soon as you realize what he’s doing, you shuffle forward, putting both hands on his shoulders so you can attempt to yank him back upright. “I was joking, please stop!” He remains upraised, once again looking confused. Slowly, you move backwards about two feet to put some breathing room between you. “You don’t need to do that. I like you, too.”

One slow heartbeat passes. Then a second. You’re not sure how long the thick silence hangs between you, but the tension is so heavy that you don’t even hear any outside noise from the other boys who are supposedly getting ready for a party.

“You… what… wait, no, really?” Mark’s baffled face as he stutters back to you paired with the anxiety of the entire situation makes a laugh bubble out of your chest. He seems to be entirely at a loss. He continues to just stare at you wide-eyed, like he’s witnessing some incredible event instead of just ogling you in the dim light of his bedroom.

“Don’t look at me like that…” You can’t help but reflect some of his flustered behavior, eye contact becoming almost painful. He’s never met your eyes with such enormous positivity and cuteness before and it makes you want to run laps around the building or something. “Mark, I’m serious!”

“How could you like me back? When I was so mean to you? For months?” He begins to twist in place, trying to lean over and look at your head from multiple directions. “Did you fall down the stairs on the way over here and hit your head or something?”

“Mark!” You uncross your legs and shuffle closer on your knees, reaching out to still his movement by grasping his shoulders once again. “Please stop.” When you touch him, he freezes, still moon-eyed. After he stops moving, your hands slide down so that you can hold his. His hands are warm and stiff, just like the rest of his body.

He finally breaks eye contact, looking at where your hands are connected. “I just really don’t get it. There’s no way you like me.”

“You almost sound like you’re upset about it.” You tilt your head, smiling at him softly.

“I am!” He’s insistant, his hands holding onto yours firmly now. Though his grip is tighter, he visibly deflates, his shoulders sinking. “It’s so unfair to you. I was such an ass.”

“But you’re not. One ass-like behavior does not an ass make.” You almost confuse yourself saying it, but you continue. “It’s not about the times you were weird to me. It’s about the times you were nice to everyone else. Like when you helped Yuqi with our class. Or when you helped Donghyuck with his calc even though you aren’t even taking it with him. It sounds kind of dumb, but because of that, I knew you weren’t a bad person. Even if you were trying to be one to me sometimes.” Your thumbs run over his idly, making soothing strokes over his skin as you speak. “Still, you weren’t really all that mean to me, per se. More cold, if anything. Then, when you stopped doing so much of that, it got really confusing. I do have a question, though.”

“I’ll try to answer it, I guess.”

“Did Jungwoo really say we were that similar?”

He blinks. “Maybe once or twice? It just really stuck out to me, for some reason.”

“You’re cute.” He blushes furiously at that. Carefully, you untangle one of your hands from his and bring it up to his cheek, cupping his blazing face. “Do you want to try this? The being together thing?”

“I want to, but-” He presses his lips together, making his cheeks puff out slightly as he thinks. “I don’t know. I feel like I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve a chance with you.”

Silence sits between you for a moment. Your hand moves back down so you’re holding both of his again. “I know what you can do to make it up to me.”

His eager eyes on your face prompts you to continue. Slowly, a grin threatens to split your face in half.

“I guess you’ll have to kiss me at least once for every time you were mean to me. Maybe more than once.” Your brilliant smile changes form in the air between you and reappears as the stars in his eyes.

“Practice round? Just to make sure I get it right.” The subtle flirtatiousness of the idea that leaves his mouth absolutely appeals to you and you agree. You move as close as you possibly can, your knees pressed together, your breath on his lips and his on yours, his soft bangs grazing your forehead. The touch of his lips against yours is awkward at first, but transforms into something sweeter with a little time. Once you both pull away, it seems you have the same idea when you both go back in for a few quick pecks afterwards. Finally, when you’re content for the moment, he leans forward quickly to press a kiss to your cheek.

You figure that a return to the work of folding cranes will help calm down your rapid heart rate, but every time you steal a glance at Mark, the butterflies return. You know for a fact that he keeps looking at you, too. By the time the noise level outside of the room increases and music is being blasted through the apartment, you’re nowhere near being done with all one hundred cranes, but both of you are sure your mutual friend doesn’t actually care about that. Together, you emerge from his room. You don’t answer any prodding questions from your friends for most of the time you’re mingling, though you’re pretty sure that a good number of them see him sneaking kisses at least once or twice.

Some of them definitely see when you sneak off to his room again before the clock has even turned to midnight. At the same time, you could be damned if you really care.

[ranhaitanisgf]

;; 𝖘𝖈𝖆𝖗𝖆𝖒𝖔𝖚𝖈𝖍𝖊

otherwise read as: scaramouche is stupidly soft for you

--

❧ masterlist

As it would seem, being acquainted with Harbingers from the Fatui always brought about interesting events, and more times than naught, these events would come about to ruin whatever plans you had for the rest of the day, not that you exactly minded most of the time.

"What a bold subordinate you are, I wonder what exactly your intentions are..." You pondered thoughtfully.

"Just shut up and be quiet, your constant mumbling is givin' me a damn headache!" Typical Fatui Skirmishers, and especially typical of those gifted Cryo suits by the Tsaritsa. They all looked and acted exactly the same; you found it quite interesting how they seemed all be so similar.

"Oh~? And eating an entire Sweet Madame in two bites doesn't give a headache or at least a stomachache?" You answered back. (If you guys don't know one of the Cryo skirmishers idle's is literally eating like an entire sweet madame or something like pls sir what are you doing-)

He grumbled something under his breath and tightened the rope around your arms and neck, trying to constrict your breath.

"Wow, kinky~ I didn't know the Fatui were like- oh fuck..." A sharp pain to the side of your head promptly shut you up, and you clenched your eye as blood started to drip down from where the Skirmisher had hit you with his heavy armor.

"God, your mouth almost makes this not worth it, your stupid friend better show up so I can become a Harbinger already!" You rolled your eyes at his words, instead quite pissed off now that you had a pounding headache.

"And your stupidity almost makes up for the headache you've given me. You're not the sharpest tool in the shed, are you?" Before he could respond, you froze the rope on your hands and easily broke it off, along with the rope around your neck. In a flash, the Skirmisher was pinned on the ground, your foot on his neck.

"One would think that you would research somebody and study them before kidnapping them, wouldn't you think? Research is one of the most important things when studying a target, but you wouldn't know anything about that." The terrified look on his face made you think twice; while you did enjoy researching and studying people, this man would serve no use to you, although it would be a little enjoyable to scare him.

A deadly aura suddenly surrounded you, malice in your eyes as you stared at him.

"̸̡̹̻͉͕̈́͂̆ͅĮ̷̠̺̥̠͎̦̭̿̉́̄l̴͓̮̲͈͔̻̜͉̙̠̋͘͠l̶̛͍͙̍͗̍̿̏̒͋̑̕ ̴̈́̋̓̅̋͊l̶̥̳͓͔̣̪͆͆͌̚ë̷͒̽̍̍̃͝t̶͈͇̫̘̮̀̽̎ ̷̙̺̺͎̮̳͉̅̅ͅy̶̢̧̹͓̺̬̹͔̤̽̉̋̊͗ͅo̷̧̭̞͑̈́u̴͈̜̻̯̦̓͆̈͗̉̏̈́̂̊̚ ̵̝̟͕̬̟̍̎̚ǵ̶̫͚̮̣̭̥̣̯̎͆̎̀ô̵͓͎̓͊̈́̈́͗̽͘͝ ̶̛͚̼̤̲̙̑͑̔̀͑t̵̙̦̻̔̽ḩ̸̪̟̽̑̋͝i̵͖̗̠̭̓̃̃̇̐s̷̨̮̞͓͕̦̭͓̘̓̏̉͑̈́̚ ̵̧̛̤̮̭̫͖̹͖̖̗̃̓̓̉̅̏̌̕͝ẗ̷̡͈̜̯̗͙̘͕̐̈́͗̑̔̀̾̀̄ͅḯ̵̱̝̰̽ͅm̷̢̮͉͔̞͖͕̦̅́̃͐͘ẽ̴̼̣̄̓̔͒͑̾͜,̴͈̲͎͍̹̏̇̀̀̔͌̍́͑͝ ̶̨̛͔̞̳̞̝̞̈́͗́͗̄ͅb̷̼̤͍̖͎̗̭̎́û̴̦͚̹̞͎̜̰̿̅͌t̸̼̪̍̀͆͌̿̏̇̀̚ ̶̡̨͚͙̞͓̯̞̰̌̾̏́͐͑̓͛̄̕n̴̡͖͎̐̈́e̸̖̹̯͂x̴͈̀̄̊̓̽̉̆̚͘t̶̝̺̠̺̲̗̽̃͂̅̉͑̆͘ ̶̥̮̝̿͘͜ͅt̷̤̯͎͚̍i̵̩̬͇̱͓̫̇̽̃́͐͂͊́͜͜͝ͅm̷̩͕̦͒ę̸̧̡̺̤̥̯̗͈͌͆͝ ̷̧̼̜͈̭̂̏̋ý̷̨͎̪͙͚̫̘̳̳͌̃͌̾͝ͅȏ̴̫̟͍́͐̉͘͝u̴̡͔̳̿͋ͅ ̵͔̥̮̤͗̾ͅm̵̪̟̳̞̯̭͖̿͗̀́ę̷̢̛͇̫͈̦́̇̌̕s̷̨̬̘͈͓͓̫̺͔̀͗̽̍̕s̷͓̤̦̮̗͊̚ ̷̢̡͇͓̙̞̪̟͗̌̃̌̍̅̓̐͑͠w̶̡͈͚̺̩̘̬̲̼̙̐͛͋̚i̷̫͐̉͋̿̐̈͒͐̉̚ẗ̴͓͛̔̓̌̽̀̓͆͝h̸̢̡͍̝͈͉̝͂̈́̍ ̵̰̲̰̞͕͚̿̊͌͗͐͑̿̓̕̚m̸̛̺͔͕̣̰͐̈́̄̑̚ͅë̴͇̀̍͝͝͠ ̶̺͚̹̳̈̃̑̑͑͐́̆͘ͅi̸̫̤̤͓͖̹͐̇̿̾̆̅͛̔̕͝ͅš̷̺̠̟̭̹͋̚ ̵̣̊̀͐͊t̷̛̬͚͊̿͆́̑͆̒̚h̷͍͎̜̖̗̫̉̓̈́̈͐͊̈̔͘ͅe̸̠̔͆̇͌̐̾̿͊̓͝ ̶̛̪̣̠̬̹͈̉͌̆͝͝ͅl̸̖͉̩͉̤̰̞̗̋̀̏̊̑̄a̴̛͍̫̎͂̊̈́̒͗̇͠s̵̛̛̜͉̰̼̼̦̙̈́̑̍͌͐͝ͅţ̸͙̩́̍̑̾̍͋͊͘͝ ̶̡͕̯̙̬͗̈͛̔̕͝t̴̬͍͚̦͍͈͇͇̂̆̓̕i̸͍̥̫̝͔̘̅̿̉͜m̴̥͕̗̗̼͔͇̒́͒̃ĕ̷̘͛̚͝.̶̢̖̩͚͍̈́̆̔̍̾̕͝ ̵͙͓̣̝̔̌̏͘̕L̴̡̛̹̼̜̰̝͚̳͛̿͊̆̈̈́͜ë̶̪̋̉́̋̓̄̆͜͝a̵̟̙̎́̍̃̓̋͐̃̈́͠v̸̡̬̻̪̺͂̄̊̏͛͒̕͝͝ę̶̟̈́̽̃̈́̈́̂̾̄͝.̶̧̧̜̦̻͖̯̫̈́̿̐͒͊̇̐͋͗͜"̴̺̳͓̱̞̅̔͒͆̀̐̃

("I'll let you go this time, but next time you mess with me is the last time. Leave.")

A strangled scream left the man's throat as you lifted your foot off of him. He immediately started running as fast he could, and you watched until he had run off into the distance.

Sighing, you wiped off some of the blood on your head with your sleeve, wincing from the pounding that was a lot more prominent now.

"Goodness gracious, I'm so fuckin tired...haven't slept in six goddamn days, 'Can you do my commission for me?' 'Can you do this for me?' Holy fuck..." You walked over to a nearby tree and slumped against it, fatigue taking over your body. The sky was a nice blue, so at least there wasn't going to rain anytime soon.

"Blegh...still have to go meet up with Childe...go all the way to Liyue..."

"Didn't think I would find you in the middle of this dump of a camp."

"Huh? Oh..." As you looked up, you saw Scaramouche looking around the camp with a disgusted look on his face, before rolling his eyes and looking back at you.

"Is that really all you have to say to me?"

"Yes."

"..."

"..."

"Wait, why are you here? Thought you were supposed to be doing the fandango somewhe-"

"Do not finish that sentence." You looked up at Scaramouche, who had an extremely irritated face.

"Meh, you deserve it. After all, it was one of your subordinates who slowed down my day." Scaramouche scoffed at you, taking another glance at the now-abandoned Fatui camp.

You closed your eyes, determined to get some sleep before your meetup with Childe.

"What happened here? I thought my subordinates were cleaner than this,"

"Say that to your Cryo guys who eat an entire Sweet Madame in one bite, and also like to randomly knock out people when they're doing important things." You huffed, getting up and stretching your arms over your head, wincing again from the pounding in your head.

"Anyways, I better get going now, I have to go all the way to Liyue and meet up with Childe and whatnot, and also-"

"What happened to your head?" You glanced at Scaramouche, whose eyebrows were furrowed as he locked his eyes onto the slight bleeding on your temple.

"Huh? Oh, just a thing that happened when I was here, no biggie." Scaramouche didn't say anything in return, but instead walked over and turned your head to the side so he could get a better look. Your heart skipped a beat as you felt his fingers on your chin; it felt like electro was triggered when his skin touched yours.

"Er, Scara-"

"Shut up." His hand gently moved your hair, trying to get a better look at the wound.

"Seriously, I need to-"

"Didn't I say to shut up?" You bit your lip, nervous about his next moves, yet also slightly excited. After a moment of looking at the wound, he took a small square of gauze and taped it to your temple.

The alcohol burned, making you wince a bit, but what was more interesting was Scaramouche's sudden behavior, but you were too tired to look into it further.

The feeling of his fingers slightly in your hair caused you to close your eyes for a brief moment from your fatigue, though you quickly opened them once you realized what you were doing.

"Are you tired?" You moved your head back to look at him, not realizing he was so close; close enough in fact that you were just under his hat, the brim bumping the crown of your head. His purple eyes pierced yours, telling you to answer the question. A slight flush filled your cheeks, but he didn't seem to be moving anytime soon.

"I guess so, I've been really busy for the past week, but I still need to get to Liyue by tonight because I'm meeting up with Childe and Zhongli for dinner to discuss some stuff about the Rite of Parting and the Qixing, and apart of the whole Qixing talk I bet the adepti will be brought up, as well as some research about starconches and cor lapis, oh and also- ah, nevermind, I'm rambling." You awkwardly smiled at him as he stared at you, his eyebrows slightly furrowed.

"You really are an idiot. I can tell you haven't slept for a couple of days, have you been doing other people's commissions, or perhaps it's more research? You're too nice sometimes." He stepped back, his hand pressing to his forehead in a frustrated manner before looking back at you with a slightly annoyed look on his face.

"You even let that scum go, even though he betrayed direct orders from me. Archons...you're so dumb," He sighed, looking at you with a softer look.

"Okay cool, is that all? I kind of need to leave now." You stared blankly at him, struggling to keep your eyes open, and barely managing to keep them half-open, although your other struggle was trying to get away so you could relax and not have your heart beating so quickly.

"(Y/N), you're so fatigued you can't even keep your eyes open, I can see it from here. Just- ugh, just stop doing so many things for other people at the cost of your own health."

"Mhm..." You leaned back against the tree, your eyes closed as you tried to listen to the rest of his words.

He suddenly stopped talking, which made you curious, but not curious enough to open your eyes; the relief from closing them felt amazing.

Yet all of a sudden, you felt a presence in front of you, and a hand behind your head, which suddenly pushed your head forward onto something warm.

"You're such an idiot." You felt a bright blush fill your cheeks, and your heart started beating extremely fast, though when you listened closely, you could hear another heart beating just as fast. His chin rested on the top of your head, holding you close to him as his other arm slid around your waist.

"Stop calling me an idiot."

"Whatever, just...sleep. You don't have to go and meet with Childe." You raised your head slightly to look at him, but he pushed your head back down into his chest, (possibly because he didn't want you to see him blushing 0///0)

"Why not?"

"I told him you couldn't make it,"

"Why?"

"It doesn't matter why,"

"Yes, it does-"

"Stop asking questions, I'm taking you back,"

"Back where?"

"Goth Grand Hotel,"

"Mm..." After a moment or two, Scaramouche pulled away, and you huffed from the sunlight that was now in your eyes.

"Scaramouche..." Before you knew it, his hands slid under your legs and under your back, and he was carrying you.

"Huh-!?"

"Shut up! Just sleep!" He scoffed, turning his head to the side. An idea popped into your head, and before you could really think it over...

"Scaramouche,"

"What." He slightly turned his head to look at you, a furious blush all over his face.

Your hand went behind his neck, just under where his hat started to cover the back of his head and pushed him towards you, but stopped right before your lips touched.

"Your turn~" You sleepily said, a lazy smile on your face. Without hesitating, Scaramouche pushed his lips onto yours, locking your lips in a firm kiss.

The electro between your lips was dazzling, and your heart was on overdrive at this point, although it sadly ended after a few moments when you pulled away.

You immediately passed out, your fatigue winning you over.

"What an idiot."

~~

[thexanwillshine]

a;lskfjdk

Author: thexanwillshine (twitter, ao3) Pairings: Levi x Hange Cross-Postings: AO3 Notes: made for Day 2: Confessions of Levihan Week 2021

“But Levi,” Hange whines as she slumps her head on the back of her sofa and closes her eyes. “Kissing scenes are so tricky to write.”

Perhaps it’s the fact that it’s almost 5:30 in the morning. It could also be because he's tired from lack of sleep. Whatever the case, Levi Ackerman’s filter completely disappears when he asks, “Do you need a demonstration?”

Levi Ackerman can argue that every writer he’s met is always a little bit more eccentric than the average person, but no one proves his theory more than Hange Zoë.

Hange wakes him up in the middle of the night, voice screeching on the phone in her excitement. He responds groggily—as one does when their sleep is disturbed at an ungodly hour by an overly-excited author who acts as if they’ve just found out the answers to the universe—and tries to keep himself sober enough to understand what in the goddamn fuck Hange was talking about this time.

“Levaaiiii,” she says, drawling out his name in a manner that was both annoying and endearing, “I’ve figured it out!”

He can almost imagine the look on her face: starry-eyed in her joy, mouth stretched wide into a grin, fingers shaking as she bounces in glee, shifting her weight from the heels of her feet to the tips of her toes . . .

And Levi exhales in both relief and the tiniest hint of delight, because this is exactly how he wants Hange to be: happy .

Nevertheless, he replies “Figured what out?” snarkily.

Hange’s response comes out quickly, as if she needed to say everything that had to be said in the span of five seconds or less. “So you know how I’ve been trying to write a fiction novel because I wanted to get out of my comfort zone?”

Levi hums in acknowledgement as he fixes the covers over his legs before turning on his bedside lamp. He leans back on the bed frame and closes his eyes to listen to her ramble.

“So I was thinking, I wanted to write a romance novel, because you know how people fall in love and stuff?”

“No Hange, I’ve never heard of that concept in my entire life,” Levi says in a deadpan voice.

Hange laughs, because of course she would know that’s his pathetic attempt at lighthearted conversation. Levi is glad that she knows him better than most people, and it is this sense of familiarity that made him feel particularly comfortable when graced with her presence.

“Just because you’ve never fallen in love before doesn’t mean it’s not real, Levi!” Hange tells him in jest.

Wrong, Levi thinks.

“After all, you’ve probably never wanted to kiss someone your entire life!”

Wrong, Levi thinks.

“Sure, Hange.”

He rolls his eyes at her teasing, because yes, Levi has fallen in love—and maybe, just maybe, he’s still on the road to understanding what it meant to treasure someone far more than just a regular friend.

He shakes off such thoughts before maneuvering Hange back to the initial reason why she had called. “So, what did you want to tell me?”

“I finished,” she proclaims on the phone, her voice proud, “I finished writing the first ten chapters.”

Levi blinks in confusion before sitting straight up, the information processing in his mind that was still a bit drunk with sleep. “You what?” “I couldn’t stop writing,” Hange told him sheepishly, detecting the slightest hint of concern in her editor’s voice, “I’ve been writing for the past 24 or so hours. Maybe more.”

Levi grunts in annoyance, pulling the covers away from his body and jumping out of his unmade bed. He runs a hand through his dark locks, sighing. “Four-eyes, you need to get some sleep.”

“But Levi,” Hange says in protest, “I need you to read my draft. There are some parts I just don’t think are super natural.”

“And I was sleeping like a regular human being,” Levi retorted as he shrugged off his shorts. After that, he put on jeans that he had recently washed before patting down the shirt he was wearing in a pathetic attempt to get rid of the wrinkles that had accumulated while he tossed and turned in bed.

“Oh my gosh, Levi, I didn’t realize the time!” Hange replies, and he can almost feel her guilt starting to set in. “You should go back to sleep,” she immediately adds. “Take care of yourself!”

Levi slips on his rubber shoes and grabs his umbrella before answering. “Coming from you? Not that credible.”

Hange laughs light-heartedly, and his heart flutters just a tiny bit. Levi pushes the feeling away almost as quickly as it had come.

“Have you eaten?” he asks, almost dreading the reply.

There was none.

“Hange,” he calls, but there’s still no response. “Hange. Answer me,” he says firmly, prodding her on. “Have you eaten?”

The laughter that comes out from the other end is nervous. “Woops.”

Levi sighs. He opens his car door and slips inside smoothly, grabbing his keys from his pocket and starting the engine. “Hange, you’re supposed to eat.”

“Sorry,” she tells him honestly. “I really didn’t want to ruin my momentum. I can’t believe I forgot.” She mumbles her second sentence, sounding almost deep in thought. “I’ll go find food now! Want me to email you the working draft? You can look at it in the morning when you wake up.”

“No need,” Levi tells her, placing his phone on his dashboard and accelerating his car. “I’m on the way.”

“Levi!” Hange exclaimed excitedly as she heard her doorbell ring at around four in the morning.

She rushes to the door in delight, opening it to reveal Levi standing in front of her, a paper bag in his hand and a jacket half-heartedly slung over his shoulder.

“Hi,” he greets calmly, before walking inside and letting himself in.

Inwardly, Hange thanks whatever god is out there for her foresight. Her unit was relatively clean since she hadn’t really done anything since Levi’s last visit. The place seemed to pass Levi’s health protocols, since he sat on her couch and placed the paper bag on the table right across from him.

“Eat,” he tells her, crossing his arms over his chest.

Hange grins, before plopping down beside him and opening the paper bag. “What did you get me?”

“You’ll see.”

She raises an eyebrow at his ambiguity, before taking a glimpse inside the paper bag.

The smell of quesadillas immediately fills the room, and Hange lets out a soft squeal, taking out the food from the bag quickly.

“Oh my gosh,” Hange says as she nudges him on the shoulder. “You also got me onion rings! You know me too well, Levi.”

“Unfortunately,” Levi responds sarcastically, and Hange laughs almost automatically.

As Hange hums in glee, picking apart the paper wrapped around the food items, Levi maintains his silence. They stay like that as Hange eats. Every so often, she would comment about how the amount of cheese was perfect and how the onion rings just about melted in her mouth. Levi alternates between watching her eat and scrolls through his phone placidly.

Soon, he chooses to break the silence. “So where’s your draft?”

Hange is munching on her last piece of quesadilla when she glances in his direction. “Oh, it’s on my laptop! I can’t believe I forgot to tell you, this food was just so good.”

Levi stands up and heads on over to Hange’s room, gently pushing the door open and scanning the area for her laptop. On top of her unmade bed was a half open Macbook Pro, which he gently took before returning to his seat beside Hange.

Without hesitation, Levi opens the laptop and inputs the password. For some reason, Hange made it his birthday—1225—because she claimed that no one would guess such a random date. He is greeted with a blaring Google Docs document entitled “a;lskfjdk.”

“Nice title you got there,” he comments, and Hange chuckles.

“I didn’t want to think of a title yet, okay!” Hange pouts, and Levi nudges her foot gently in an attempt to comfort her from his own teasing.

He scans the document first before reading it. Hange is a good writer, but fiction is an entirely new genre for her. Immediately, he notices common habits from writing research papers leak into her new work: overexplaining, using words that are too formal for her target audience, sentences a little bit void from emotion.

He takes note of these comments on her notes app before going over her draft again, this time more meticulously than he had done previously. During this time, Hange finishes eating, wraps her trash and tosses them all inside the paper bag before standing up and dumping the entire thing inside her garbage bin.

“Levi,” she calls as she washes her hands through the sink faucet. Levi gives her the smallest hint that he’s listening by raising his eyebrow, but he doesn’t take his gaze away from her laptop. “I’m going to take a shower,” she announces, and he waves his hand dismissively.

Hange smiles to herself. Levi is always nagging her whenever she would accidentally hyperfixate on her writing, but he acts the same way when reading her works.

When Hange stepped inside the shower, Levi was already conducting a deep dive in her third chapter. The gears in his head slowly begin to turn as he begins to analyze her work.

The story revolved around the tales of the people who went to the clinic. The first chapter was a brief introduction on who the main characters were: There’s Janelle, a bright-eyed psychologist whose passion influenced the people around her. Together with El and Bea, her trusted assistants studying under her guidance, they would aid the people who went to the Hopiatria Clinic seeking care.

Meanwhile, the second chapter featured a child who felt as if she was being blamed for the death of her mother by her father. Her mother had died in a plane crash shortly after the young girl wished that her mom could go home on her sixth birthday. Janelle talks to the child gently while El and Bea provide emotional support, offering the child toys and biscuits whenever the need arises.

The third chapter was trickier, and it was there that Levi noticed a twist in Hange’s writing. The story revolved around a boy busy getting her doctorate, and a young girl who had been in love with him ever since they were in college. It’s the young girl who comes to Janelle’s office, and she relays the tale of her unrequited childhood romance to the psychologist.

The young girl is passionate, and wanted to take a step forward in order to guide her towards falling out of love with her best friend. Janelle presents two suggestions: (1) confession, while being fully-open to the possibility of rejection, and (2) accepting rejection without confession. The young girl decides to go with the first option, but to her surprise, the boy returns her feelings.

Everything seemed well-written up until the end of the chapter, where Hange had written,

And then they kissed.

Levi scrolled down the page, tilting his head to the side in slight confusion. That’s it? He thought, trying to find the rest.

Everything had been so well-described; from the girl’s internal turmoil—caused by her fear of destroying their friendship and the pain that came with unrequited love—to the boy confessing his own emotions for her.

The ending was anticlimactic, to say the least.

As he blinked at the google document in confusion, already typing out his comment on her notes app, Hange emerged from the bathroom. Her hair was loose on her shoulders, wet from her shower. Wrapped around her waist is his bathrobe, which she had borrowed from him long ago and never bothered to return it.

Levi scoffs as he glances in her direction. Here she was, parading with the cloth on and rubbing that specific fact in his face.

“Hey,” Hange greeted, smiling as she ran a hand through her brown locks, “How’s the reading going?”

“It was okay until the third chapter,” Levi says honestly, pointing the laptop screen in her direction. “The ending’s anticlimactic.”

Hange hummed, pursing her lips together. “Yeah. I didn’t really know how to end it,” she tells him as she opens her cabinet and grabs a few pieces of clothing. “Give me a bit, I’m going to change.”

She disappears into her room and Levi focuses on her story, trying to think of a way to spur Hange on and perhaps actively improve the ending’s writing.

Hange emerges in a loose t-shirt (which was, once again, his) and shorts. She sits down right beside him, leaning over his shoulder to glance at her laptop and read the specific line that particularly irked Levi.

“It’s that one, right?” Hange asks, pointing at the last sentence. “And then they kissed.”

“Yeah,” Levi responds, shaking his head. “Everything was so well-written up ‘till that point. You were able to describe the emotions perfectly, and the narration’s not that bad . . save for a few paragraphs that maybe should’ve stayed in your research papers.”

Hange chuckles. “Old habits die hard,” she responds, before taking her Macbook from his lap and transferring it to hers. “So what should I write?”

Levi shrugs. “I’m just your editor. You’re the writer.”

Hange pouts. “Yeah, but I don’t know how to make this better.”

“Maybe describe the scene more,” Levi suggests. “Everything ended so abruptly. Every emotion you’ve created and built disappeared in that one line.”

She nods in agreement. “But Levi,” Hange whines as she slumps her head on the back of her sofa and closes her eyes. “Kissing scenes are so tricky to write.”

Perhaps it’s the fact that it’s almost 5:30 in the morning. It could also be because he's tired from lack of sleep. Whatever the case, Levi Ackerman’s filter completely disappears when he asks, “Do you need a demonstration?”

Hange’s eyes shoot open immediately, and Levi’s face turns red just as quickly.

“F-Forget it,” he says, interrupting her just when he saw Hange open her mouth to speak. Any semblance of calm in his body disappears immediately, and his heart starts pounding against his chest in a rhythm that reminds him too much of a beating drum.

Hange, however, looks elated.

“You want to kiss me?” she tells him in excitement, blinking at him. “I’d like that. It could help me write this scene, you know.”

Levi looks away. “It was just a spur of the moment question.”

“So, you’re not going to kiss me?”

He actively avoids her gaze because he can already see from his peripheral vision that she looks sad, disappointed even. He grunts in response, closing his eyes and focusing his attention on a random spot on the wall.

“Oh,” Hange replies, “Well, I thought it was a good idea.”

Contrary to popular belief, Levi does want to kiss Hange. More than anything.

There were many reasons why: Because she looks so handsome and beautiful at the same time, and her very smile could light up any room she’d walk into. Because she says his name in the most endearing way. Because she understands his flaws. Because she has one of the kindest hearts he’s ever seen. Because she welcomes him with open arms, not a single thread of hesitation in her mind.

Most of all, it was simply because she was Hange.

He steals a glance in her direction, and she’s slightly fiddling with the hem of his shirt, her head downcast. Her sad expression tugs at hi

Levi thinks he’s already in this too deep, so he decides to speak.

“Did you want me to kiss you?”

From his periphery, he sees her look up at him so quickly he thought her neck would break. “What would you do if I said yes?”

He doesn’t dare turn his head in her direction when he replies quietly, “What do you think?”

“Would you kiss me?” Hange asks inquisitively, tilting her head to the side.

Levi’s heart skips a beat.

“Maybe,” he says in a voice barely above a whisper. “If you’d let me.”

Hange is silent for a moment, and Levi thinks this is it, I’m going to be rejected, but he feels a gentle finger touch his chin and turn his head in Hange’s direction.

He is met with her brown orbs, shining just a bit in what seemed like hidden glee. He cocks an eyebrow at her then, confused.

“I’m letting you,” Hange says, laughing. “Kiss me, I mean.” Her face is already slowly nearing his, and he can almost see the way her thick lashes brushed against her skin.

Slowly, Levi raises his head just a tiny bit and responds against her lips, “Okay.”

Hange smiles and closes the distance between them, wrapping her arms around his neck as he does the same around her waist. She tastes like the peppermint of her toothpaste, smells like his shampoo (which he had kept in her apartment since he always found himself staying over), and felt warm as her skin made contact with his. Hange's lips are gentle, slow, and a little shy—so different from how she usually is. Levi knows it’s because she doesn’t want to scare him off, so he makes the first move and nips at her lower lip, taking it between his teeth and sucking it gently.

She lets out a moan, and Levi takes this as a sign to continue. He slides his hand over her back, and she shudders and deepens the kiss at the same time. Her tongue meets his, and they battle for dominance. Hange’s hand sweeps over his undercut and pushes him towards him, and it is then that he lets out a sound that vaguely resembles pleasure.

After a few minutes, Hange whispers “Levi,” as her lips make contact with his. He hums in response, pulling his lips away from her and connecting his forehead with hers.

“Hange,” he says, breathless.

“Is this you telling me you like me?” Hange asks, closing her eyes.

He doesn’t form a reply through words, but he nods and closes his eyes as well.

“Great,” Hange tells him, pecking his lips with her own. “Because I like you too. Ever since I met you, I’ve liked you. Even though you were so rude to me on the first day of college.”

He chuckles silently in relief, pulling her closer to him before placing his chin on her shoulder. “Think you’ll be able to write the ending now that you know what a kiss feels like?”

Hange laughs, and it vibrates against his shoulder as she hugs him tighter. “It’s exhilarating. I probably wouldn’t be able to put into words how good I feel that you like me back.”

“Try,” Levi teases.

“Well . . . you know that alternative title I wrote for the fictional novel?”

Levi’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “The keyboard smash?”

Hange nods. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I feel like right now.”

a;lskfjdk.

[cuddles-and-kisses]

So The Cat's Out Of The Bag,,,

Another fanfic for Agapito (an OC that belongs to @yandereaffections) The story starts under the cut. Hope you enjoy!

Word count: 1,908 Trigger Warnings: Subtle yandereness, I can't think of any others

It’s 11 pm. I’ve been avoiding schoolwork all day and I’m in no rush to fix it. I've been writing fanfiction, of sorts, for the past 3 hours. On the bright side, the first draft is done! My back hurts from sitting so long while my butt hurts because I’ve sat on a wooden stool this long. I need to take a break but what to do? Oh, what to do? My weekly planner is wide open on a bookstand to my right. I could be productive, or I could keep avoiding them... So the planner is closed now. I’ve reorganized pens in a pen cup for the seventh time. Is there a limit to how many times a person can adjust a desk lamp before going insane? There has to be something else to do but what? As if on cue, my phone lights up with a text from my Baby. We’ve been official for 6 months so our dates are a lot more casual nowadays.

“Angel, I want attention. Unlock the back door” I’m aware it doesn’t seem like it but this is how he asks to come over. He won’t come over until I respond giving the green light. “Bold of you to assume I’m home and not partying at a random frat house” We both know I’m not doing jack at 11 pm on a Friday. Nonetheless, it’s fun to pretend I have a flourishing social life. “That’s cute. Back door please” Alright, now to get up and- ow, fuck, ouchie, ok, hold on. *POP* There we go!

I should probably pick my room up real quick. I made my bed earlier today so that’s not a problem. The svallerup rug from Ikea collects dirt a lot faster than I expected. Although would he really notice? It’s not bright in here. My dresser by the door looks fine. The futon is in couch mode, so there’s not much left I don’t have to clean up for him. In reality, I’m not cleaning for him, I just like having a clean room. The last thing I do is turn on the fairy lights above my head then light a vanilla candle. I know he’s coming over to cuddle or really do anything involving him getting affection. I might as well make my bedroom reflect that, right?

I half-jog upstairs to unlock our back door. Why the back door? It’s not because I love Jesus. Let me explain. The living room floor creaks way too loud. Also, my parent’s bedroom is right next to that door. The side door alerts our dogs to start pitching a fit. How can they hear it from the opposite side of our house? I may never be able to understand. Moonlight drifts halfway across the backroom. Sparse nightlights cover the remaining needed light. I flick on the backdoor lights followed by opening a few blinds to let more light in. Their orange glow overpowers the moonlight near the backdoor.

For whatever reason, the moon is far brighter tonight. Or my pupils are hella dilated because I’m thinking about my Baby. Either way, moonlight dusts over parts of the backroom and kitchen ahead of me. One last light to turn on. An LED light above our kitchen sink smashes through most surrounding darkness, making it almost impossible to see into the living room. White cabinets outline our kitchen. None of the cabinets match each other in this house. It’s as if this house was built in parts instead of planned out from the start. The counter is occupied with things you’d expect; a bread box, knife set, fruit basket, coffee pot, and an air fryer. Yet, there's evidence real people live here. Crumbs from a snack, mail by the fruit basket, half-empty coffee pot, as well as children’s toys forgotten all about

Everyone else is snuggled up in warm beds, sleeping. I can pick out each person’s snoring pattern when they poke through tonight’s ambiance. There are moments where quiet feels like serenity, others where it feels like emptiness. I can’t decide which one I’m feeling because I realize I’m about to have a visitor. A cup of coffee sounds like the perfect way to waste a few minutes while waiting for my lover.

Coffee cup out of the overhead cabinet. A coffee spoon from beside the coffee pot. Fake sugar off the shelves. Room temperature coffee in the pot from this morning. French vanilla coffee creamer out of the fridge. And just like that, a proper cup of coffee is served. Light reflects off the glossy coating painted over our pale coffee cups. Mom considers it a priority to have everything match or look cohesive. Appearing put together is a source of pride for her. A cup is a cup however matching cups make her happy. My ears perk up at hearing his tires pulling into the driveway. My coffee creamer swirls in the cup as he walks up the driveway. The coffee spoon clings against the inside of my coffee cup simultaneously with the creak of our back gate. All that’s left is to wash off this week’s coffee spoon then put it back. I have only a few more seconds until my Love is with me again. I’m a sappy and hopeful romantic for him, get off my back. He’s learned how to silently open the back door and if I didn’t have good peripheral vision, I would’ve yelped.

Intimate hands snake around my hips as a tender kiss is pressed against my neck. I can feel the tender smile tugging at his lips after the kiss, he had a really good day? His body is pressed against mine as he murmurs “Honey, I’m home~” behind my ear; earning a soft chuckle from me. I turn to face him, wrap my arms around his neck, and greet him with a deep kiss. This time on the lips. “Welcome home, my Love.” He’s so close to me, I can smell the cigarette he had on his way over here. The absence of alcohol or weed stench affirms he didn’t have a bad day at work. I can’t wait until these interactions become a daily occurrence. This man is breathtaking under normal circumstances; but, under the glimmer of moonlight,,, I can’t form a single thought while looking at him. The raw admiration and love this man holds in his eyes? Who could stand a chance against him? Not me. Wrong choice.

His hands linger along the sides of my hips. I hold his arms in an attempt to keep him close to me, just a little longer. “I brought you a few things. I’ll go set them on your desk.” He knows gifts aren’t my thing in spite of that he claims I deserve the entire universe. I breathed out, “Ok, I’ll be down in a minute,” then started moving to get my coffee cup, as well as a few snacks to bring downstairs. He starts heading downstairs content with how flustered I am. WAIT A FLUFFING MINUTE THE FANFICTION IS ABOUT HIM!! I whisper yell ‘Baby’ until his head pops back around the corner. I threaten him to not touch or look at my laptop. It was a pathetic attempt considering what he does for a living. In my defense, I tried. I forgot he’s in essence an overgrown teenager who will do the exact opposite of what he’s told. Wanna know what he does? Grin. I’m so fucked.

Agapito dashes downstairs and leaves me in unadulterated fear. I’m frozen in place, trying to come to terms with my fate as his footsteps fade. It’s not smut or anything, just a simple night and morning routine imagining that we lived together. This is going to be so embarrassing. Please spare me this treacherous fate and undying embarrassment. Deep breaths, just take deep breaths. Get your coffee then snacks then, simply, accept what’s just happened.

With arms full of snacks, I shut my bedroom door as gingerly as I can. Setting the cup on the dresser right by the door to make this a little easier. He’s standing at my computer, reading through the last page. Oh hey, he brought me Rolo’s as well as 3 Musketeers. Nice! Oh wait, he’s done reading. His shoulders aren’t tense; his breathing hasn’t changed; all the same, he’s just standing there. “Why did you write this out instead of doing it?” That’s a good question tbh. My Baby’s voice sounds hurt, despite that, he’s trying to hide it. Ok, he needs a hug. Now to throw the snack on the bed. He needs a rib-crushing hug and you bet your butt I’ll be the one to deliver. I tug at his elbow so he’ll face me then pull him into me. His shoulders are right under my chin when we’re facing each other. I bury my face in his neck while my arms hug him as tight as I can. Except why is he upset about this?

His love for me is nothing to scoff at. He loves me the same way he wanted to be loved when he was younger. We’ve figured out he’s catching up from his pre-teen years and onward. So about 13 years without a stable romantic relationship. When he was trying to court me I had to call him out all the time for manipulation. I know he’s terrified I’ll think he’s not good enough. He has episodes of frantic attempts to meet all of my needs, even if it’s not asked for or needed. What is going through his head? Does he feel like he’s not good enough? That he’s not loving me enough so I have to turn to a fictional version of him? Does he think he’s not good enough for me to do this stuff with him? None of those are true, obviously. I explicitly stated that in the story he just read. It doesn’t mean he won’t get stuck inside his head. I need to tell him the truth. Even if I wanted to lie, I couldn’t, he’s a finely-tuned human lie detector. One more deep breath. Squeeze him a little tighter. Look him in his eyes and come clean.

“The reason I didn’t just act these out is because, I didn’t know how to ask for it.” His expression shifts from confused hurt to understanding. I start rambling, “I want to have these experiences with you. I’d give anything to have that life with you but we've only been dating for 6 months and I just, wasn’t sure, how to phrase it.” I’m choking on my own pulse from emotions. I realize I was shifting my weight left to right when he pulls me in for another hug and kisses my forehead. We stand there in each other’s embrace for a few moments before he suggests I come to his house tomorrow night. We both know what he’s suggesting. I can’t help but adamantly agree. Excitement zips through my body thinking about tomorrow night. A smile pulls at my lips as I ask, “Do you mind if I wear this shirt tomorrow night?”

Tonight is about Netflix, snacks, and rediscovering the curves and contours of each other’s bodies. Though, not before I mess up his hair while calling him a butthead. It’s evident his insecurities are still tugging at him. Funny enough, his insecurities forgot they’re fighting against me for his attention.