#i know a couple of you followed me for this story

[faeriekit]

Health and Hybrids (XXVIII)👽👻💚

[I can't remember the original prompt posters  for the life of me but here's a mashup between a cryptid!Danny, presumed-alien!Danny, dp x dc, and the prompt made the one body horror meat grinder fic.]

🖤Chapter navigation can be found here🖤 Click to browse previous updates.

💚 Ao3 Is here for all parts 💚 (now featuring mediocre mouseover translations, only available on a computer)

Where we last left off... Danny has another hashtag breakdown! Man, we've got a lot of these, huh? It's YJ's fault this time; whoopsie doodles! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Trigger warnings for this story:  body horror | gore | post-dissection fic | dehumanization (probably) |  my nonexistent attempts at following DC canon. On with the show.

💚👻👽👻💚

“Danny,” Diana says from the door.

Danny looks up from his place in the book. It’s definitely aimed at younger kids, but it’s a pretty wordy picture book; there are a couple paragraphs he can’t quite parse, but he’s making pretty good progress on the words he can’t recognize.

It’s a story about a cat who misses its mother. Danny tries not to relate to it too much.

“Hm?” he asks, flipping the front flap of the dust cover over his current pages to mark his place. The book goes back onto the nightstand, beside his space shuttle; Danny uses the railing beside his bed to support himself stepping up and out of his wheelchair, leaning on the railing until he can figure out…wait, where’d he leave his old people walker?

“This walk is long. You will want your chair.”

Well, then. Couldn’t she have said that before Danny did all that pulling? Danny falls back into his chair, kinda peeved. “Fine.”

Diana smiles. She doesn’t have to wear the mask around him anymore— Danny’s pretty sure that his injuries have been declared as clotted, or sealed, or whatever at this rate. They for sure swabbed his ectoplasm and came to some kind of conclusion, anyway, which means he only looks gross, but isn’t, like…actively leaking fluids.

On the one hand, gross! But, well, you know. Nothing for it but bandaids and time.

And her face looks nice. Danny hadn’t known what she’d looked like, before. She smiles when she sees him. Her light eyes crinkle, and her lips turn up… She’s nice. Danny’s sure that she’s only there to be in charge of him in case he gets scary, but she’s in charge of him and she’s nice. She doesn’t have to be nice; lots of people have been in charge of him and been mean about it. There was that one guy who kept holding him—with the taser—

(Time slips away from him, a little. When he gets back to the world in front of him, Diana is carefully looking at his face, the back of her hand stroking the back of his.)

Danny’s in his chair. He’s not…there. He’s in his chair, on a big space station (????) with a bunch of really colorful fighters on it, and Diana is touching his hand (that’s so much weaker and slower than it used to be) and he’s not hungry and he’s only scared because of memories. He’s safe. He’s not being pinned down by the neck so that they can strap down his wrists and hips to the table—they’re not shocking him—he can move his fingers, he’s not stuck in his core—

His core throbs. Danny bites into his bisected lip, and tries not to cry.

“Are you alright?” Diana asks, voice gentled. The soft touch of her hand doesn’t stop. “We can wait. There is no—“

Danny shakes his head, and takes his hand away so he could wipe at his eyes. It’s fine. Bad memories are everywhere: in the walls, in the floor, in the ceiling, in the hands of people taking care of him. That’s not… There’s nothing Danny can do about that. That just. Takes time.

…He think he might have that time. Now. He thought he would die for good in that five by five box, waiting for something that would finally end him instead of just keeping him in a cycle of injuries he never fully healed from.

But now he’s not. He’s here.

He wants to keep going.

“Alright,” Diana says, slow and careful. “Hold on.”

Danny doesn’t hold on—or, well, you know, he engages his core muscles and all that, but he doesn’t cling to his arm rests or to the frame of his chair because he knows that Diana is really, really strong, but she also really, really doesn’t want to hurt him.

She rolls him out of the medical wing and into the space station proper. Danny feels like he’s been here before, but he doesn’t remember it super well. Maybe it was when he was sick or something? Either way, a lot of different people wave at him as they go by—or just straight up stare, if they’re rude—and Danny generally just watches people rush by, carrying all kinds of equipment, and a potted plant, and a…starfish in a jar…?

Oh, the starfish waves at him???? Danny waves back because?? What??

Danny rolls to a stop at a smooth, cylindrical elevator. It looks like a giant test tube.

…Oh boy. Danny takes a deep breath, and holds it. Reflexively. Sure, this elevator probably isn’t like being dunked into water to see if his body absorbs ambient oxygen from the atmosphere or if his biology is truly not oxygen-based, but the memory is. Bad.

They go upwards. Nothing happens but Diana’s pushed button.

Danny exhales.

They get off at a section of the base Danny’s never been to, and it's essentially just a long, somewhat narrow hallway. The walls are actually painted a creamy off-white here, and there’s…like…decorative panels towards the base of his wheels trailing down the hallway? An orange ceiling, too?

Huh??

The rooms are numbered, but they’re not plain steel like in other areas downstairs; some of them have stickers, or drawings, or marker written straight onto the door itself. They look...cozy...? Danny thinks so, anyway, compared to the rest of the ultra high tech space base.

They roll to a stop in front of a door. It’s got a number on it, same as all the others, but there’s a box cutout taped to the front of it. The—

—The print is of the same style of space shuttle Danny keeps next to his bed, inked onto glorious cardboard medium.

Danny stares.

“Gegrapa,” Diana urges, so gentle. Too bad that, uh, Danny doesn’t know that one. He looks at her. She mimes touching the door— Oh. Got it.

Danny leans forward just enough to touch the door with his fingertips.

The door says something in a robotic voice, but the synthesizer is too mangled for Danny to make out the words. The door slides open horizontally into the wall, instead of the way the other doors open like portals or from below, and it’s kind of cool?

Inside is a bedroom. Danny stares.

…No, it’s actually a bedroom. Not a medical wing, not a cot, not a repurposed conference room or—it’s actually got a bed in it. Like. A real one. There’s a wooden headboard and it’s got a mattress on it that’s thicker than a VCR.

There’s constellation sheets on a bed big enough to curl up on.

There’s a nightstand, a small desk on the far wall—there’s a little lip where the bedroom dips into a tiny sitting room, a small television on a table and a small table and chair. It’s kind of…it’s kind of like a little hotel suite.

Danny’s mouth goes dry.

He doesn’t move, and Diana doesn’t wheel him in. “It’s okay,” Diana says, and—Danny almost flinches when she touches his hair, but it’s only Diana, who’s never hit him, and they’re fine. He’s…safe. It’s safe. He’s safe here. “Do you want to go in?”

Danny doesn’t move. His hands don’t touch the wheels. They’re shaking; he puts his hands in his lap and he tries to breathe. “…What?” he asks hoarsely.

“A rum for my Danny,” Diana murmurs, quietly. Danny’s heart throbs at the possessive. “You are healthier now. You do not need doctors every hour, but only sum hours. You cuðe spenda more time here, all ana.”

Words go by so fast even at Diana's smooth, unhurried pace— and Danny licks dry, split lips. He looks around the room—and the room is small, sure, but they're in space. Space will always be a premium. Even in this small room, though, the furniture is sparse and placed distant from each other…distant enough that Danny can wheel around freely in his chair.

There’s a Moon clock display hung on the wall over the doorway, and Danny can faintly see the outline of what he assumes is the current lunar phase as seen from Earth.

Having the lamp isn’t exactly the same as glow-in-the-dark-stars, and thank goodness for that. If it had been, Danny might have cried.

(Or, he realizes, something burning in his eyes that isn’t ectoplasm, maybe he is crying.)

“...Me?” Danny asks, terrified to know the answer. Is this room for him?? Is he getting a room here? Is he supposed to stay here? On the moon?! Is he supposed to stay with everyone here, in a tiny room, where there’s nowhere to go and nowhere to escape?

…It’s a bedroom. It’s already so much more than the stupid guys in white ever gave him.

“Yes,” Diana says, and lets go of his hair. “Use it, or do not. Sitta here, or sitta in the medical bay, but now you have two choices.”

Okay. So Danny has choices. He swallows his feelings—they taste a lot like snot—and rolls himself inside to inspect the room.

There’s another little fridge inside the sitting area. It’s not right next to the bed like it is beside Danny’s cot, but it is the same style of fridge. When Danny pops the door open, it has the same styles of snacks. Fig Einsteins. Peanut butter squeezies and applesauce squeezies and yogurt squeezies. Protein shakes in bottles. Pedialight. Hummus packs.

Danny might still need someone to open the snack packs for him. That’s kind of a high dexterity food, if he thinks about it.

“If you wish to sitta here, we will visit you all you like. There is a belle at your bed,” Diana says, and walks in with all her purple scrubs and tied-up hair to point to a little button on his nightstand. It’s red. It’s got a little smiley face sticker next to it, and Danny thinks he recognizes the style from one of his nurse’s bestickered name tags. Belle is probably a direct cognate for bell. He’ll be able to get everyone to come up here if he needs help.

…Okay, that’s kind of nice. To have personal space. He hasn’t had that since… Danny’s eyes squint as he thinks; he rubs an eye. Wait, when had he been squatting under a conference table? Was that a real memory??

Diana is very tall, even in the little space, but when she ducks her head, the gesture makes her a little smaller, a little more manageable for Danny’s lower-than-usual-gaze. Now that he can see her expression, she looks soft, and even uncertain, even though she looks stone and strong on the television when she goes out to fight. “Do you like it?” she asks.

Danny fidgets.

He—does. He likes it a lot. The room doesn’t have any windows, but if Danny moved all his things in here, got used to being able to come and go, and people coming in and out…this space could be just another space. It’s quieter than the medical ward. More peaceful.

…The room is utterly devoid of other people.

(Danny thinks of The Box. Danny thinks of being in The Box.)

(Danny doesn’t like remembering The Box.)

“I am scared,” Danny admits to his twitching thumbs, his fingers itching for a fidget toy or one of his physical therapy tools. Diana’s face immediately drops.

“Why are you scared?”

I’ll be alone Danny wants to say, but he doesn’t know the word for alone and he struggled with phrasing. “No…people here.”

“That is triewe. You would have more dīegolnes here,” Diana agrees, and straightens out of her crouch. “Is that good, or bad?”

It isn’t good and it isn’t bad…? Danny isn’t sure how to phrase it. It’s neither. Being alone is just scary.

“You not hurt me,” Danny tries, knowing he’s missing some connecting word in the middle. He ignores how Diana comes back to kneel beside him, because if he looks at her, he won’t say anything. “Do not.”

“No,” Diana says, from beside and below him, gentle, careful. “We do not.”

No. They don’t. Danny swallows. “Bad…hurt me.” He doesn’t know the word for Earth or planet or even downstairs, so he just meekly points downwards.

Diana stills. It’s like watching Vlad’s Maddie cat spot a bird to hunt down. Danny tries not to feel pinned. “On eorþegearde?” she asks, still light, still gentle. Danny can hear a shadow of steel, though, and he counts himself lucky that she’s never treated him like an enemy. Danny quickly nods. His eyes squeeze shut.

“Who?” Diana asks feather-light.

Danny doesn’t want to tell them what he is. Admitting the name of the agency hunting him itself would be given in.

…But maybe if he doesn’t say the name…and they...and they promised they'd help hide him...

He wants to be right. Danny wants to be right that they're nice, and that they want to help him. Danny wants to be right that they want to protect him. As long as he never, nevernotevernever tells them he's a ghost...

Maybe someone will help him. This time.

“Bad,” Danny repeats, because he genuinely has no idea how to translate?? “Wants…hurts me? For…” WHAT WORDS DOES HE KNOW? Danny gives up and just draws a y-shaped autopsy incision on his chest. It goes down from his collarbones to his belly button.

Diana watches. Her eyes are sharp.

“Do you feel safe with the staff dunstæger in medical?” Diana is quick on the ball with the question and Danny nods quickly—he’s never alone there, and no one’s ever hurt him, and people whose job it is to help people are always coming in and out, and Medical helps them too.

“Good,” Danny whispers. “Talk…talks to me.”

“Ealne weg,” Diana affirms firmly. Whatever that means. “We will cepa you safe.”

You safe and we is all Danny needs to hear. He could probably cry by himself, but Danny wants the comfort anyway; Diana lets Danny take her hands into his, and he lets tears fall into someone else’s grip instead of his own.

*

Bruce is halfway to the monitor room before he feels himself be picked up from underneath the armpits.

Usually finding himself at inappropriate heights involves horseplay from Clark. No one else would be so bold as to actually put their hands on him within the professional setting of the Watchtower—and Bruce has worked very, very hard on maintaining a reputation that keeps the handsier of his fellows at bay.

The culprit is not Clark this time. Bruce finds himself looking downward at Diana’s tearstained face, fury and resignation warring in her expression.

Bruce is careful not to sigh. “Wonder Woman. What is the matter?”

“Someone,” Diana grits out, voice carefully modulated to cut out her own pain, “Hurt my charge.”

On the one hand, the situation with their patient is exactly as Bruce had expected. The circumstance is tragic. The circumstance was predictable.

On the other, Diana's new upset means that Bruce now has more information to work with than ever before.

Bruce can work with this.

“Tell me everything.” Bruce’s voice is just as firm—even held midair like a cat. “I will help you in every way I can.”

[alphajocklover]

InstaJock: Going Viral

**Hey! This is my entry for @occamstfs Viral Transformation Challenge. Congrats on getting 2,000 followers, and thank you for beta reading this and helping me edit it. I hope I can get to 2,000 followers myself one day! For those who are new to my stories, this does connect to the plot established in my blog, but the concept is simple enough you should be able to follow along even if you don't usually read my stuff! I hope you all enjoy!**

When I talk about the InstaJock App Phenomenon – which I seem to do a lot. What is this, the 17th InstaJock related post? I need to diversify more – I usually talk about the transformation aspects and not the app itself. That’s partially because the transformation is the most interesting and hottest part, but it’s also because I haven’t been able to take a good look at the app. Even with all the protective spells and equipment I have, I can’t use a phone with InstaJock on it for very long without getting an urge to set up an account. 

Until now.

With some help from the devilishly handsome (and literally devilish) Nick, I’ve been able to get my hands on some better equipment and better explore the app. I was able to spend a couple hours on it before I needed to quit, and actually got some very interesting information, mainly about how the app works post-transformation. I had always assumed that once a user got transformed into a jock, they’d ignore the app from then on unless they wanted to change someone. I was very, very wrong, not just about that but about the purpose of the app itself. It’s not just for making people into jocks: it’s for finding the best ones.

The app generally works like any other social media app, with its members posting about their interests. It’s set up is a lot like Instagram, where pictures and videos are the main format used for posting, but what really makes it different from other social media apps is the content. You can probably guess what an app full of buff cocky jocks looks like, but I’ll confirm it for you: the app is a thirst trap paradise.

The entire app is stuffed with half naked –  and sometimes fully naked – photos of buff jocks, ones of all different kinds. If you can think up a jock related stereotype, they have a full hashtag dedicated to it. Just buff jocks playing sports, flexing and making out with other hot people, for as far. I know that doesn’t sound too different from normal social media apps, as most have a healthy NSFW side, but the posts have more in common then just showing jocks. Each and every post, every one that I saw, mentioned a Master. Some were talking about how they were getting pumped up at the gym for Master, some were talking about how they loved being jocks and were so glad Master had found them, and some were literally begging for Master to notice them, often wantonly describing how they’d debase themselves and be the sluttiest jock ever, all for him. Everyone on the app would post at least once a day about this mysterious Master. It doesn’t seem to matter if the jock is a dom, a sub, a top, a bottom, in a relationship, single, gay or even straight, all of them wanted this mysterious unnamed master – so much so they seemed to completely change personalities whenever he is mentioned. It seems instaJock has an additional side effect I didn’t know about till now: complete and utter devotion to their Master.

It took me a while, and some covert interviewing of a number of jocks in their DMs, but I think I figured out what's happening. The Jocks aren’t just posting for fun, they’re competing with each other. InstaJock isn’t really a social media app, it’s a sort of ranking app. Every day the jocks log on, post a picture of themselves with a caption somehow related to their Master, and leave likes on some of the other posts, usually the ones they find hot. If a jock’s post gets enough likes though, they get what every jock wants, what all of them are trying to get. They get to Go Viral.

Going Viral on IntsaJock isn’t like going viral on a regular app. It essentially means you’ve gotten enough likes, been reposted enough times, and have become popular enough on the site… that Master has noticed you. That's what the social media part of the app is really for. It’s just a way for Master’s jocks to organize themselves so only the hottest ones show up on his feed. If he really likes you, he’ll do more than just look too. Soon that Jock will disappear from his regular life, never to be seen again, whisked away to become a part of Master’s personal harem. This entire time the app has been about one thing: creating lovestruck sex slaves for the man who created InstaJock.

Like most actual social media apps, InstaJock jumps from one thing to another, and what's viral is always changing. But there are two tags that are always trending on InstaJock. The first, and most popular, is #JockMaster, which is only ever used by this mysterious Master when he makes a post. I’ve seen his account. He never shows his face on it, but from what little of his body that makes it into the photos, he’s… enchanting. As much as I hate to admit it, seeing just a bit of that creep almost made me drool. He usually only posts a couple times a week, as opposed to the jock who posts daily, but everything he posts goes viral on the app in moments. I’ll admit, there's something about his posts that is just… hypnotic. I almost set up an account after seeing one myself, and probably would have if Nick wasn’t there to stop me.

The other tag that's always trending is… more interesting, at least to me. It’s #MastersBoyfriend. It’s another tag used only by Master, and one he uses whenever he posts a picture of one particular member of his harem. 

Whenever he posts pictures… of my Uncle John.

I finally know who took my Uncle. I know who this Master is. I suspected it was him for a while, but now I’m sure. The man who made InstaJock and the man who turned my Uncle into a slutty buff himbo are one in the same. I finally have proof.

So now what?

**The identity of the person behind InstaJock AND the person behind my Uncle's transformation and kidnapping has finally been revealed! Been working up to this for a long time, and I'm glad to keep this story moving forward! Hope you liked it as much as I do! Thank you to @occamstfs once again for being absolutely awesome and inspiring!**

[hungermakesmonsters]

Devotion & Desire

Chapter Four

Plot summary : When you, a lone omega, move in across the hall from alpha Bucky Barnes, he knows that his life is about to get a lot more complicated, but he has no idea just how much you’re going to turn his life upside down. You’re both devoted to fixing your past mistakes, but will desire for something more get the better of you?

Pairing : Alpha!Bucky Barnes x Omega!Reader

Story Rating : R 

Warnings : [This is a fic for 18+ only, minors DNI] Explicit smut and omega heat stuff. All chapters will contain the usual omegaverse and A/B/O tropes, and explicit smut. Please check the warnings on each chapter if you choose to follow this story. 

Word Count : 6.2k

A/N : 😅 still trying to walk the fine line between plot and smut

CHAPTER ONE | CHAPTER TWO | CHAPTER THREE

MASTER LIST

Chapter Four

It felt like a fever dream, like some terrible nightmare that started to fade from memory the moment your eyes opened. Only, it wasn’t. It had happened.

Bucky had -

No.

No. 

You didn’t even want to think about it. Regardless of how much it had helped, and how much you might have needed it at the time, you felt nothing but regret. Closing your eyes, you were assaulted by vivid memories of the way he’d touched you, the way you’d moaned for him, and perhaps worst of all, the way you’d kissed him.

Hours later, his scent still lingered in the room, mixed with yours, making you feel dizzy, giddy.

Somehow, you managed to pull yourself from the crude little nest you’d throw together with little more than sheets, sofa cushions and a couple of towels.

Everything ached and just the exertion of standing up and pulling on your leggings had your skin coated in a layer of sweat. You felt awful. And, as you took a step away from the bed, you felt like you were going to fall down. But you couldn’t stop. You needed to find Bucky. You needed him to know that it had been a mistake.

Staggering, you made your way to the door, weakly pulling it open and almost falling through it. But then another scent assaulted your senses; another alpha, someone you didn’t recognise.

He looked up at you, an easy smile pulling on his lips and, for a second, there was a faint hint of recognition. You thought you recognised him. But you couldn’t place how or where from. Your mind was a haze, the fog of your heat making it difficult for you to think straight.

“Hey, I’m Sam,” he said, clearly noticing your confusion. “I’m a friend of Bucky’s.”

“Where is he?” You asked, gripping the doorframe for support.

“He needed to go out, didn’t tell me where. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but he’s not exactly an open book,” Sam answered, letting out a warm sort of laugh that told you he and Bucky were close. “He asked me to keep an eye on you, in case you needed anything.”

Your eyes widened, thoughts heading in an unsettling direction. He’d asked another alpha to take care of you?

“Not like that,” Sam quickly clarified, holding up his hands, wanting to make sure there was no confusion. “I brought you some things.”

He gave a nod of his head towards two bags on the floor, a backpack, and a shopping bag filled with womens clothes.

“There’s some of my sister's clothes in there, she’s a beta and a bit bigger than you, but they should be alright,” he explained and you offered a muttered thank you.

You decided to keep your distance, clinging to the door frame while your legs trembled beneath you. Your eyes dropped for a moment, struggling with a strange mixture of feelings welling up inside you.

You felt abandoned by Bucky, even though you didn’t want him around in the first place. And you longed for him, despite hating him. Shaking your head, you tried to clear your mind and stop all the racing thoughts and unsettling feelings. It was just your heat making you feel things that you knew weren’t real, your biology trying to make you into a good omega for an alpha you had the misfortune of craving.

Looking at Sam again, you realised he was watching you, and recognition finally sparked within you.

“Wait... you’re the Falcon... or is it Captain America now?” The confusion was clear in your voice, only sounding half convinced that he was who you believed him to be.

“Just Sam is fine,” he replied with that easy smile.

You weren’t sure what it was about him, but he felt safe, like he was the sort of guy to wear his heart on his sleeve, unlike Bucky who was gruff and guarded. How the two of them could be friends, you couldn’t even begin to understand. So, you asked.

“Why is Captain America helping the Winter Soldier?” 

“Because Bucky isn’t the Winter Soldier anymore,” Sam answered. Clearly the look on your face gave away that you didn’t believe him so, a moment later, Sam continued; “he told me what happened to you - to your brother - but you have to understand that while it might have been him, it wasn’t Bucky.”

“You think just because he was under mind control that he’s any less to blame?” You answered back, unintentionally allowing some of your anger to slip into your tone.

“Do you maybe want to take a second to think about what you just said?” Sam asked, his voice still calm and friendly. Your gaze dropped, hating that some part of you knew he was right to call you out. “I know it doesn’t change how you feel and it won’t bring your brother back, but if you think for a moment that it doesn’t hurt him almost as much as it hurts you, then -”

The sound of the door had him falling quiet. For whatever reason, he didn’t want Bucky to know that he’d just been defending him to you.

Stepping into the apartment, Bucky looked at Sam before noticing you standing in the doorway to the bedroom.

“Are you okay?” He asked. “Should you be up?”

“We were just getting to know each other,” Sam decided to answer before you got the chance.

Bucky grimaced. “What did you tell her?”

For a moment he looked at you, seeming so genuinely concerned that his friend might have told you something terrible, and you wondered if that was just how their friendship was or if Bucky was so unsure of himself that all he could do was jump to the worst conclusion.

“He didn’t say anything I don’t already know,” you answered.

It earned a surprised look from Sam, and it was as close as you’d ever get to actually agreeing with what he’d told you. But agreement and acceptance were two different things, and you still hated the Winter Soldier and, by extension, Bucky.

“Where have you been?” You dared to ask Bucky, realising that he was carrying a familiar looking box in his hands.

“I was in the neighbourhood, so I stopped at Gracie’s for a pie,” Bucky said, finally stepping further into the apartment.

“You’ve got ex-Hydra agents looking for you and you stopped for a pie?” Sam asked, like it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.

“It’s - it’s really good pie,” you said, your grip tightening on the doorframe, as a wave of cramping hit.

“Did you ask her about Rumlow yet?” Sam asked, seemingly from nowhere. 

Your legs almost gave in beneath you at the sound of his name. Pressing yourself against the doorframe was the only thing that stopped you from falling. 

Bucky was in front of you in an instant, before Sam was even half out of his seat. He reached for you to steady you, but you did everything you could to pull away and remain standing under your own steam. 

“How do you know about Rumlow?” You asked, eyes moving between the two alphas.

“The guys that tried to take you, they used to work with him. We thought Rumlow died in Lagos years ago, but -” Sam explained, stopping when you shook your head.

“No... he’s alive,” you said.

“How does Rumlow fit into any of this?” Sam asked. “How do you know him?”

Your eyes drifted to Bucky, an uncomfortable feeling twisting your guts.

“He promised to help me track down and kill the Winter Soldier but he - he lied to me,” you explained without explaining, not wanting to say anything more than that.

“Why would he be after you now?” Bucky asked.

“I don’t -” a sudden surge of pain cut you off and almost had you doubling over.

Before you could even think to try and stop him, Bucky had hold of you, sweeping you off your feet with ease and carrying you back to bed. Moments later, he was gently placing you back down in your nest.

“You need to rest,” he told you softly, his fingers tenderly brushing your hair away from your face.

You struggled to keep your eyes open and Bucky took that as a sign to leave you. But, when he started to turn, you reached for him, weakly grasping his sleeve.

“We need to talk,” you told him, and watched as he glanced to the door making sure Sam wasn’t listening in. When you were both satisfied that you wouldn’t be overheard, you spoke. “Don’t go getting any ideas about last night. It - it shouldn’t’ve happened, it was just -”

“I get it,” he cut in. “I’m an alpha, you’re an omega. It’s just biology. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Good ‘cause it can't happen again,” you said, barely able to even look him in the eye as you spoke.

His jaw clenched and, for a moment it almost seemed like he was angry - or maybe he was disappointed. It was hard to tell. Either way, it seemed like your words had more of an effect than you’d anticipated.

“Fair enough,” he said, his tone quickly becoming more distant, somehow colder. “I was just trying to help.”

“I don’t need your help.”

It was a stupid thing to say because you both knew it was entirely untrue but, at that exact moment, you believed your own bullshit.

“Clearly,” he remarked sarcastically, “you seem to be doing great on your own.”

When you didn’t seem to have a witty response for him, Bucky pulled away from you, breaking your hold on him, and you watched as he left the room, pulling the door shut behind him. All you could do for a few minutes was stare at the door, wondering if you’d somehow managed to hurt his feelings. “She seems -”

“She’s a pain in the ass,” Bucky finished the thought for Sam, stalking away from the closed door. Sam just watched Bucky for a moment as he grabbed the box with the pie and headed towards the kitchen. He waited a beat before following after, watching Bucky as he removed the pie from the box and cut himself a large slice without offering any to Sam.

“Okay, this is passive aggressive even for you,” Sam remarked, nodding at the pie, indicating he wanted a slice.

Bucky huffed before cutting his friend a slice significantly smaller than his own and stalking back into the den, taking a seat on the sofa to eat.

“Listen, if this is getting to you, I can watch her and you can go do... whatever it is you do when you go off on your own,” Sam offered cautiously as he took a seat.

Sam was too busy breaking off his first bite of pie with his fork to notice the way Bucky was glaring at him but, the moment he looked up, he had his answer.

“Okay,” Sam said, deciding it wasn’t worth starting an argument over, so he changed the subject. “Torres got back to me, he says he still hasn’t found any trace of her or who he really is, but he found out about Berlin...”

The statement was allowed to hang in the air between them, not speaking until Bucky gave some indication that he wanted to hear it and, even when he received that slight nod, Sam hesitated for a moment more.

He pulled out his phone and opened the file that Torres had sent him.

“It was in February, 2009. There was a tech conference in Berlin - but not for your run-of-the-mill iPhones and games consoles. It was all military grade tech,” Sam explained, watching Bucky for any negative reactions or flickers of recollection. “We’re talking big like Stark Tech, Hammer Industries, A.I.M. -”

“I get the picture,” Bucky interrupted.

“Well, there were rumours about some new satellite tech, something that would have allowed whoever had control of it to spy on anyone, to break into any system, to watch anyone they wanted. It was years ahead of its time. From what we can tell it was the sort of thing that a group like Hydra wouldn’t want falling into the wrong hands.”

“So they sent me,” Bucky sighed. “What else did you find out?”

Again, Sam hesitated for a few seconds.

“The crime scene report from the hotel; it says her brother checked in under a false name, assumed to be travelling alone, and the crime scene photos... they show that he put up a fight...” Instead of explaining it, Sam handed his phone to Bucky, watching as he took in the crime scene photos and the evidence list before going very quiet and very still. He let a minute pass in silent contemplation before he spoke again.

“He was hiding something,” he sighed, his eyes closing for a moment and his head hanging forward, the memories flooding back to him. “I was sent to get everything he had. I got the drive with the schematics but I - I thought he was holding something back. And he was. He was protecting his sister while she hid. I tortured him and he refused to give her up...”

Putting Sam’s phone down, he stood, his slice of pie forgotten and abandoned. 

Sam didn’t say anything as Bucky walked towards the window, putting his back to his friend, not wanting Sam to see the pain and self-loathing on his face. But Sam wasn’t prepared to let him wallow.

“So, what now?” Sam asked.

“What do you mean ‘what now’?” 

“What comes next, Buck? You know why she tried to kill you, now how are you going to make amends?”

“Don’t start with the therapy-talk, Sam. I’m not in the mood,” Bucky snapped.

“Well you better get in the mood, because there’s a person in that room who needs your help, and if you’re not willing to look after her -” 

“I never said that.” Bucky turned back to face Sam, conviction clear in his voice. “Of course I’ll look after her.

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

You lost track of time the moment you were placed back in bed. You thought that you could hear their voices through the door but maybe it was just delirium from the fever playing tricks on you. Everything hurt. Your muscles ached and your joints felt stiff, and your temperature continued to climb.

Turning this way and that, you tried to get comfortable, tried to find just the right angle to lay at to make the pain stop. 

It wasn’t long before there was something else beneath the pain, that desperate longing that you couldn’t control, that need that had your hand pawing at your thighs, desperate to touch yourself but knowing that, once you started, you wouldn’t be able to stop.

The more you denied yourself, the more it hurt, until it felt like your insides were burning.

You reached for the water bottle on the nightstand, only to clumsily knock it onto the floor and, when you leaned down to try and retrieve it, your vision started to swim. 

The next thing you knew, you were on the floor. There was no telling if it was the sound of the bottle falling or your knees hitting the floor that alerted Bucky, but he was at your side in seconds, swearing and placing his hand on your forehead to feel how hot your fever was running.

“You should’ve told me it had gotten this bad,” he muttered as he scooped you off the floor and started to carry you through the apartment.

“Where are you taking me?” You asked, the words feeling heavy on your tongue.

Bucky didn’t answer, but it soon became clear. 

He took you into the bathroom, carrying you into the shower and quickly started up the cold water.

A relieved gasp left your lips at the feel of the cold water on your skin, soaking into your sweat-drenched clothes. Your head dropped onto his shoulder, letting him hold you under the water for what felt like hours. You tried to mutter something, an awkward thank you, but the words came out as little more than incomprehensible babble. Bucky simply shushed you, his arms holding you a little tighter.

It didn’t even cross your mind that you were both still dressed or that the cold must have been uncomfortable for Bucky. It finally felt like you could breathe again, like you weren’t being smothered by the fever. Your eyes closed and you relaxed in his arms, coming to the uncomfortable realisation that moments like this were why omegas needed alphas.

You shifted, moving your head, barely even noticing that you were doing it until your nose was pressed to his gland and every breath you took was him.

Somehow you managed to fall asleep in his arms, and you had no idea how long he held you under the water before drying you off as best he could and returning you to bed.

But you didn’t sleep for long and, when your eyes opened again, you found him sitting on the floor beside your bed, glancing over his shoulder at you as you reached for the fresh, cold bottle of water he’d left on the nightstand for you.

“I remember,” he told you cryptically, looking forward again, facing away from you.

“What?”

“Your brother. That night in Berlin… everything I did...”

There was something in his voice, in the slump of his shoulders, that had you remembering Sam’s words to you, and it made your stomach twist uncomfortably.

“I’m sorry,” he added a moment later. “I understand why you hate me so much now.”

It sounded genuine, it sounded like he really was sorry, like the memory of what he’d done was causing him as much pain as it did you. And you didn’t want to hear it. You weren’t prepared for any of this; after years of seeing him as a monster, having your brother’s brutal murder as your only frame of reference, you found that this contrite, apologetic Bucky didn’t fit the role of the man you wanted to blame.

And it left you annoyed. It left you feeling like all the time you’d spent, the years of your life you’d wasted and the terrible things you’d endured to get to him, to make him suffer, had all been for nothing.

How could you hurt this man who seemed so pained by his own existence?

An awkward, uncomfortable sound escaped you as you laid back, your frustration bubbling over and leaving you at a total loss.

Bucky had no idea what was going through your head, he could only assume that you were still in pain.

“It’s going to get worse, isn’t it?” He asked with a noticeable hesitation. “It gets worse after the halfway point, right?”

“Have you been Googling heats?” At any other time you would have taken a mocking tone, but you were too exhausted and overwhelmed to even think about it.

With Bucky so close, you found it harder to control your baser desires, the omega part of you that craved an alpha, that craved him. But Bucky didn’t even seem to notice.

“Yeah, I -” he let out an awkward sigh, “- I’ve never had to deal with anything like this before and I know last night wasn’t... I mean, I know you didn’t...”

Not wanting to watch him struggle, you decided to put him out of his misery and move the conversation along, if only because talking was better than thinking and you needed something to keep your mind from straying too far.

“You’ve never had an omega before?” You asked.

“Not... not like this,” he said but didn’t go into any detail about what that meant. “In the decades that I was with Hydra, they mostly kept me on ice, and I didn’t exactly get to meet anyone.”

Silence fell and he moved, lifting himself onto his knees and turning to face you. Before you could ask what he was doing, you saw him reaching for the bowl of water and the washcloth. He gently pressed it to your burning cheeks and, for a few minutes he seemed content to remain silent, but it didn’t last.

“It’s because of the suppressants, isn’t it? That’s why it’s so bad,” he asked, and you confirmed his suspicions with little more than a glance. “Why did you take them for so long?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“Because being an omega fucking sucks,” you said with a sigh. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to feel weak and helpless all the time? To have people look at you like you only exist for a single purpose?”

He took an awkward breath, then answered. “More than you know.”

For a moment you considered his words, considered the implications. He’d been a killer, Hydra’s attack dog, only ever let off-leash when he was needed to kill someone. It had been his life, his purpose. The sense of understanding you felt was uncomfortable, further confusing how you felt about him. And you hated it. You didn’t want to feel sorry for him, you didn’t want to feel anything at all. 

“At least you’re an alpha,” you said grimly, “you get to fuck instead of being fucked.”

“It still doesn't explain the suppressants.”

“I started taking them because I didn’t want to get stuck being some alpha’s omega again...”

“Wait...” it took a second but he finally seemed to start putting it together. “You and Rumlow?”

You gave only the slightest of nods. Bucky didn’t say anything, but his silence made it obvious that he wanted you to explain.

“I was trying to track you down the Winter Soldier. I didn’t realise he was Hydra when I tried  to buy information from him.” You couldn’t look at Bucky as you spoke, as the anger started to slip into your voice. “He promised he would help me, he took me in and - I was young and stupid, and by the time I realised I was trapped, it was too late. He wanted to claim me, but I rejected him, so he did the next best thing and kept me...”

From the corner of your eye, you caught sight of his vibranium hand curling into a tight fist.

“He disappeared in the blip and I got away. Since then I’ve done everything I can to present as a beta.”

“Why is he after you now?” Bucky asked.

“I don’t know. I guess when you were looking into me, it must have flagged something somewhere, and he came looking,” you answered, feeling your stomach knot at the thought. “Brock, he - he doesn’t like to lose and he doesn’t like to be told no. He thinks I’m his...”

“Well, he’s not getting you back,” Bucky stated with an angry certainty that you didn’t understand.

You looked at him, not sure you wanted to ask and, by the time you’d decided that you probably should, it was too late. He got to his feet and headed for the door, telling you to shout if you needed anything.

For a time you just lay there, staring up at the ceiling, trying to make sense of everything that had happened, everything that was still happening.

You had wanted Bucky to suffer for killing your brother, but you wanted to be the cause of that suffering, not his own remorse over his actions. And, again, you found yourself thinking back to your conversation with Sam, the way you’d had to concede that it hadn’t even been Bucky who killed your brother.

Round and round, there was no escaping all the thoughts and questions in your head, all the things that made you angry and the things you couldn’t control.

And, soon enough, it became hard to think about anything but the torture your own body was putting you through. Your temperature started to rise again and you squirmed awkwardly, pressing your thighs together, slick starting to soak through your underwear.

Then you remembered the bags by the bedroom door, the clean clothes Sam had brought for you.

On shaky legs you made your way out of the bedroom, expecting to find Bucky on the sofa but, instead, you could hear the shower running again - why was he showering again? The thought quickly left your mind as you started rummaging through the bags. One bag was filled with womens clothes and the other -

Fuck.

The backpack was basically a bio-weapon, filled with Bucky’s clothes, shirts and sweatpants that hadn’t been laundered. And, before you knew what you were doing, you’d taken one of his shirts and were heading back to your nest with it, not thinking to close the bedroom door behind you, suddenly consumed by your baser urges.

Falling onto the bed, you pressed his shirt to your nose and inhaled his scent.

You hated yourself for how much you craved him, how much you wanted to be wrapped up in his scent, in him. You twitched and squirmed, that awful, longing ache burning through you again. It wasn’t long before your hand was reaching between your thighs and soft whines started to escape you.

At some point the shower stopped, and your eyes opened to find Bucky in the doorway, wearing nothing but a towel slung low around his waist, his eyes fixed on you. Just the sight of his exposed chest and abs, still damp from the shower, was enough to cause a dramatic spike in your arousal.

Despite your embarrassment, your hand kept moving, fingers strumming your clit through your slick-soaked panties while you held his shirt to your nose. And Bucky watched.

“Bucky...”

That moan was all the invitation he needed to cross the room. Even as he came to stand over you, your fingers didn’t stop, in fact they got faster, desperate. More little whimpers and moans escaped you, but he didn’t touch you, didn’t attempt to give you what you needed, what you craved. He just watched and his gaze alone was all it took to break your resolve.

“Please?” You finally begged.

“You sure you want my help again, little mouse?”

You nodded. Despite everything you’d told him after the last time, you nodded. Desperately. Enthusiastically. 

Bucky didn’t need any more than that, climbing onto the bed and kneeling between your legs. His hands felt cold as they slipped up your thighs to pull away your wet panties. (Somewhere in the back of your mind you realised he’d been having a cold shower, but in your needy, muddled state, you couldn’t understand why.)

Without hesitation or ceremony, a cold metal finger ran through your folds before sinking inside you, moving slowly, as if he thought you needed warming up.

Your head dropped back on the pillow and your hips started to move against his hand, desperate for more. You were so caught up in the feeling, in the need for more, for everything, that you didn’t realise he’d lowered his head until you felt his heavy breath against your inner thigh and you felt the slow drag of his tongue over your thigh gland.

A desperate moan tore from your lips, your eyes opened and you looked down to see him between your legs. The sight alone was enough to cause you to clench around his finger and leave you on the precipice of orgasm. 

Without thinking, your hand reached for him, tangling in his hair. His eyes stayed fixed on yours as his tongue ran along your gland again, this time licking higher, groaning against your skin, letting out sounds that made it seem like he was the one in need instead of you.

You jolted, back arching the moment his tongue found your clit. His free hand pressed on your stomach, pinning you down while his vibranium hand continued to slowly fuck you with a deliberately teasing pace. His tongue moved just as slowly, causing you to whimper and keen, your fingers tightening in his hair, trying to pull him closer.

The pressure built up in you slowly and the sounds you were making got more desperate and eager. 

You just about screamed when he started to suck your clit and bent his finger inside you, finding that sensitive spot, causing you to come almost instantly. As you trembled and shuddered, your hand reached for his hand on your stomach and pulled it upwards, pushing up your baggy tee-shirt and placing it on your breast. Your other hand remained in his hair, holding tight, ensuring that his head stayed between your thighs.

He stilled for a few moments, letting you ride out one orgasm before starting to lead you towards the next. A second cold, metal finger slid inside you with ease, your back arching a little, your own fingers twisting in his hair and tugging harder.

You’d told him never again, but after the second orgasm pulled from you by his fingers and his tongue, some part of you knew you wouldn’t survive if you never got to experience this bliss again.

After the third orgasm, he finally lifted his head and slowly started to move up your body, and you let him. No, you encouraged him, tugging on his hair until his face was only inches from yours. You both hesitated as he looked down at you, his fingers still fucking you at that delicious pace.

“It’s just biology,” he muttered softly, as if he was giving both of you permission to give in to each other.

Finally, you lifted your head, your lips clumsily crashing into his and igniting a desperate kiss that seemed to go on and on, until a final fourth orgasm was pulled from you. Even then, as his fingers stilled and finally slipped from your trembling body, his lips lingered against yours, and your fingers remained tangled in his hair

When your body slumped back, exhausted, Bucky remained above you for a few moments more before finally withdrawing, getting up and leaving the room, and leaving you more confused than ever. But at least some of the pain had subsided. He wasn’t gone for long.

After a few minutes he returned fully dressed and with two plates, each with a slice of pie. 

He placed one on the bed beside you before sitting back down on the floor next to your bed. Despite what you’d just done, now that it was over, he seemed to want to maintain a polite distance.

“Gracie’s apple pie?” You muttered, tired but definitely hungry enough to eat. 

Bucky gave a hum of acknowledgement. “She said it was your favourite.”

You fell silent, staring at the pie, thinking about the life you could have had; the murder plot aside, you’d liked working at Gracie’s and you liked the friends you’d made. But it was all gone now. You couldn’t go back and tell them you’d been lying to them about who you were just to get close to Bucky.

You were going to be alone again.

And that thought hurt.

“At least I get to have it one last time,” you muttered as you sat back against the headboard and started to eat.

“Last time?” He repeated, confused.

“It’s not like I can go back after... y’know all the lies and everything,” you said.

“I think they’d be a lot more understanding than you think,” he offered through a mouthful of pie.

“Right, I’ll just come out and tell them that the sweet little omega act was all a lie, and I was only being nice to them so I could get close enough to kill you,” you retorted.

Honestly, you might have laughed if it hadn’t made you feel so pathetic and alone.

“Sometimes people are willing to forgive a lot if you apologise,” Bucky shrugged.

You weren’t sure if he was suggesting that you should forgive him or trying to let you know that he’d already forgiven you. You didn’t ask. Both of you fell silent while you ate. And, not long after finishing, you managed to fall asleep again.

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

The sound of muttering woke you up. You quickly realised that it was Bucky. He was laid  on the floor in his boxers with nothing but a pillow for comfort, thrashing and grumbling in his sleep, obviously having a nightmare. He must have decided to sleep on the floor to be close in case you needed him in the night and - fuck, you didn’t even want to think about how that made you feel.

All you knew for certain - all you were willing to admit - was that you hated seeing him like that. As someone who knew what it was like to be plagued by nightmares, you wouldn’t have wished it on your worst enemy. 

You half-fell out of bed, landing on your hands and knees, before slumping down beside him. Moving closer, you pressed yourself into his side and draped your arm over his body, your face against his neck, nose inches from his gland. 

He quickly stilled and you heard a sharp inhale as he woke up.

“What -” he started, sounding exhausted and confused.

“Shut up,” you half-demanded, half-begged, not wanting to explain it to him.

He didn’t say anything else. A moment later, his arm was around you, pulling you closer. Instinctively, your leg moved over his thigh, tangling your bodies together. His hand pressed against your cheek for a moment before brushing your hair away from your face.

“You’re burning up,” Bucky muttered, “do you need -”

“No, just - just don’t move,” you whined, wanting to hold him, wanting to feel safe in his arms even though you knew it was the most dangerous place for you. “Just... please don’t move.”

“Okay, mouse...” he muttered softly, shifting just a fraction so you could share his pillow.

Slowly but surely, you felt him relax and, as he did, you did too, shifting closer so his thigh was pressed between yours. Right then, you didn’t need or want more than that, you were content just feeling his body against yours.

But, like every other still moment that you’d managed to find during your heat so far, it didn’t last.

After a few hours you woke to that awful, cramping sensation in your stomach. He was still sleeping, still holding you so tight, and you didn’t want to wake him but his thigh between yours became impossible to ignore. You started to move slowly, grinding yourself against him, slick quickly soaking your panties and his thigh. At first you tried to be gentle, but it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t what you needed.

Bucky woke to find you desperately grinding against his thigh like a feral, horny animal. If you hadn’t felt so desperate, you would have felt your cheeks burning with shame. But you were desperate and you needed something to stop the pain. You needed him.

He didn’t speak, didn’t ask what you were doing, he just pressed his thigh against you and turned his head toward yours. As your head fell back, his lips pressed to your throat, kissing, licking and sucking their way towards your gland, and causing you to let out a desperate moan.

You pressed closer still, until the only way you could get close enough was to straddle his lap. You weren’t shocked to find that he was hard - it barely even crossed your mind, too deep in your own desperate needs to think straight anymore. His hips lifted, pressing against you as you both started to move, each of you seeking something from the other as you slick quickly soaked through your panties and began to wet his boxers.

Leaning back, you pulled off your top and led his vibranium hand to your breast, moaning as a cold metal thumb brushed against your nipple. You kept him trapped beneath you, your hands on his chest, holding him down, as if you really thought that you could restrain him. But Bucky let you, he stayed exactly where you wanted him, letting you take what you needed from him.

Your moans got wilder and more desperate, his name slipping from your lips over and over again as you neared orgasm. His flesh hand gripped your hip as he continued to grind up against you, letting out little grunt and groans of his own as he stared up at you through the gloom.

As you came you felt his cock twitch between your thighs and heard his own gasped moan, and you realised that he’d come too.

You collapsed on top of him, your body trembling from your release, slick now coating your thighs and his, and something else, something soaking through Bucky’s boxers. Sprawled against his chest, you buried your face against his neck, breathing in his scent, and clinging to him, not willing to let go. Bucky’s arms wrapped tight around you, holding you as you shook and shivered, and finally fell asleep again.

End Note : Anyone who doesn't read my Billy Russo fics, and didn't see me mention it there, I just want to give a heads up that I broke a key off my laptop (the T key for anyone interested) so I'm having to use a laggy bluetooth keyboard to write atm. Sorry if any weird typos have slipped through, it's probably because of the keyboard. Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter!!

And thanks so much for the likes/comments/reblogs on the last chapter, it really means a lot to me!

If you'd like to be tagged in future chapters, let me know!

Tag List : @greatenthusiasttidalwave @bighappypiels @maddiedrmr @dreadfulxives18 @scott-loki-barnes

@thecraziestcrayon @silas-aeiou @danzer8705 @notpotatocap

[redrose10]

Hey, Could I, please, have a story with picture number 2? It'd be awesome if you could turn it into a time traveller story, but you don't have to. I fully trust your talent and skills.

On the other hand, I think it's awesome how you could turn having very bad anxiety and panic attacks into such a nice short story. I hope you're better now. I don't know if you wrote it for the sake of the story or if it's true for you too, but The Last and Snooze are my two favourite songs from Yoongi :) I really loved that part in the story where you wrote about Yoongi's indigestion problems, it made me laugh.

Take care and get well soon :)

They are great songs that help a lot!

I hope this is okay. It’s kind of time traveler-ish but probably not what you were expecting. It’s spooky season themed too.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Here is number 2 from the picture game!

Warnings: mentions of death, very slightly suggestive, angst

Disclaimer: Some things may not be correct for the time period. I tried my best.

“Spells, Potions, and Magic, Solutions for the Everyday Witch”, you rolled your eyes before tossing the heavy ornate book into a box. You always knew that your neighbor Ms. M as she was called was a little on the odd side but when her daughter offered you $200 to clean out her moms home after she passed away, as a broke college student you couldn’t say no.

It was simple. You could keep anything you wanted and everything else got chucked into a large dumpster that was sitting outside. There was also this book that apparently Ms.M had insisted you have even though you thought it was a little weird. Other than the book you kept a few pots and pans, a couple vintage sweaters, and what looked like a handmaid quilt. You had a box of stuff you thought that maybe you could sell for a little extra cash too.

You felt bad just throwing away this woman’s entire life like she had never existed but that’s what you were paid to do.

After you were all finished you collected your payment and your items and headed back home to your place.

The box of stuff you were planning to sell consisted of mostly some jewelry, a very old vase, a Chanel purse you were praying was real, and the spell book. You knew the campus bookstore would definitely send some cash or at least store credit your way for that one and you did not want it taking up space in your already cramped home.

After making yourself some dinner your curiosity got the best of you and you started flipping through the pages of the book.

‘How to turn your enemy into a frog. A step by step guide.’, you rolled your eyes because how original?

‘Black cat following you around? Use this spell to reveal their true identity.’, okay maybe the cat is just hungry you laughed.

‘Death by chocolate cake’, you 100% expected to find just a normal recipe for chocolate cake which you did until the very last ingredient said a touch of arsenic and you realized they weren’t kidding about the death part.

Interestingly there was one page in particular that seemed to have been opened to more times than the others.

‘How to bring someone back from the twilight.’, useful I guess if someone accidentally ate your death by chocolate cake you chuckled.

You wondered if maybe Ms.M had spent much of her life trying to bring someone back from the dead, maybe a former lover. She was probably so grief stricken she was desperate and thought something as ridiculous as a spell could work. You felt bad for the woman and whomever it was that she thought she could bring back.

Putting the book aside you started going through some of the jewelry you took to see what was profitable. What looked to be a man’s ring caught your attention first. It was very intricate with a beautiful carving of what you thought was a jaguar. The eyes appeared to be made out of diamonds or so you hoped because that would definitely up the value when you try to sell it.

You went through some of the other jewelry but for some reason that book kept pulling your attention back to it. You went back to the page with the spell about bringing someone back. As you fidgeted with the jaguar ring you began to read,

“When the moon reaches full peak and the skies are clear, read this verse, there is nothing to fear. Lost in the twilight, shall be no more. Once true loves companion, completes the lore.”, what the hell you laughed. You would have thought this was meant as a Halloween book for toddlers or something if it wasn’t for the recipe on how to murder someone with chocolate cake.

Having had enough you decided it was time for bed and you’d deal with the stuff after your classes tomorrow. You kept the ring with you wanting to make sure it was safe and went upstairs to finish your nightly routine.

When you woke up the next morning you stretched feeling a little sore from all the heavy lifting you did the day before. You reached over to turn off your alarm clock when you felt an arm wrap around your waist and pull you close. It took a second for you to realize what just happened and that someone was currently in your bed with you, but once it hit you, it hit you like a bus.

You jumped out of bed in one quick movement stumbling for your light switch. Once the room was illuminated you got a good look at who was in your bed.

A man, yes a full grown man was peacefully sleeping next to you and at one point had his arm wrapped around you.

You had experienced one night stands before. It wasn’t your favorite thing to do but you had needs too. Never though had you ever had a one night stand that you didn’t remember. And you didn’t even leave your house last night so how did this happen?

What made you even more curious was that this guy didn’t look like the typical guys you were used to seeing around town. His hair was dark black and wavy and long, one side gently tucked behind his ear. His skin care routine must’ve been top notch because he didn’t have a single blemish and judging by how pale he was he either rarely left his house or was strict about sun protection. His clothes are what threw you off the most. Most of the guys you were around wore tshirts, hoodies, jeans, sweats and things like that. Not this guy. He looked like he was straight out of an 1800’s men’s fashion magazine, if that thing existed back then. The worst part was that you caught yourself staring at him a little too long. He was breathtakingly beautiful and you were a little sad that you didn’t remember anything from your time with him because you definitely would’ve liked to.

And then you reminded yourself that he was some guy you didn’t know and you should probably wake him up so he could get the hell out of your house and you could go on with your day.

Gently you poked at his shoulder but with no reaction. So you poked a little harder. This time he swatted at your hand and pouted which only made him look more beautiful.

So then you poked him even harder, “Um excuse me.”

This time he groaned before opening his eyes to look at you. It took a second but then he screamed and jumped out of the bed making you scream and jump back towards the door.

“Who are you?”, he asked groggy and out of breath.

That hurt a little that he didn’t remember you even though you were in the same boat but you’d like to think you were unforgettable so how dare he?

“Y/N, who are you?”

“Min Yoongi.”

“Okay Yoongi well whatever we did last night is over so it’s time for you to get going. I have class to get to.”, you said motioning towards the door.

You must’ve hit snooze instead of off on your alarm because it started making that familiar annoying ringing again.

Yoongi quickly brought his hands to his face to shield himself and he slightly crouched down, “What is that thing? Is it going to explode?”

You looked at him confused. “I wish. It’s just the alarm clock on my phone.”, you said showing him that you were turning it off.

He stood back up and smoothly moved his hair back behind his ear.

“Mmhm, where is the lavatory?”, he asked suddenly.

“I’m sorry what?”

“The lavatory, latrine…the toilet?”

“Ohh down the hall and first door on the left.”, you said pointing. He walked past you with a nod and you heard the door click shut.

“Jeeze, where did I find this guy?”, you asked yourself.

You took the time that he was in the bathroom to get dressed and went downstairs thankful that you had a second bathroom so you could finish getting ready there. Once you were done you went into the kitchen and got your coffee going and poured yourself a bowl of cereal, too tired to really cook anything. You took the book and the rest of the stuff from the night before and tossed it in the box so that it was out of the way.

After a few minutes Yoongi walked into the kitchen. You were kind of annoyed that he didn’t get the hint to leave but you still wanted to be polite because that was who you were, “Would you like some coffee?”

He nodded so you poured him a cup, “I have pumpkin spice or caramel macchiato flavored creamers.”

He looked at you with a straight face, “Pumpkins aren’t spicy.”

“Okay black it is.”, you whispered handing him the mug.

“Would you like some cereal?”, you asked.

Thankfully he shook his head because you had no idea how you would explain why your breakfast cereal had different colored marshmallows in it, something you just knew he would question.

You ate in awkward silence hoping he would eventually just get up and leave after realizing you weren’t interested.

Your phone which had been sitting on the counter charging dinged with a notification making Yoongi flinch back. “Why does that thing keep making noises?”, he asked still shaken.

“Well it’s a phone. That’s what they do.”, you said starting to get annoyed.

“Well back in my day there was only one phone for the whole city and it was attached to a wall at the courthouse and only made one sound.”, he said just as annoyed.

You took another bite of cereal unsure how to answer that but knowing that you needed to get this man out of your house and then reevaluate your life decisions.

“So uh did you need me to call you an Uber or something?”

“Uber?”

“Or Lyft or taxi or give you money for the bus?”, you said running out of options.

“Do you not have a horse and buggy to take me home in?”, he asked as if you were the odd one in this situation.

Slowly you shook your head, “Noooooo I’m sorry my buggy is currently in the shop and my horse is on vacation.”

You realized rather quickly that he did not appreciate the joke.

No longer having an appetite you started to collect your dishes when Yoongi grabbed your hand. He inspected it closely and that’s when you released you were still wearing the ring.

“How did you get that? That’s my ring.”, he asked.

“Umm it was in my neighbors stuff that I helped clear out yesterday.”

“Your neighbor? Where is she? I must see her.”

You were taken back a little by his outburst.

“Well she died about a month ago so I don’t really know how I can do that.”

Yoongi scoffed, “Good, I hope she’s burning in hell where she belongs that evil shrew.”

You raised an eyebrow not having heard anyone use that word outside of movies.

“How did it happen? Was she hung from the gallows? Slowly and painfully from Cholera?”, he asked a little too excited.

“Ummm she was like 100 million years old so I’m guessing that had something to do with it.”

“What year is it?”, he asked suddenly?

“2024”

“About 221.”, he stated matter of factly.

“I’m sorry?”

“She…your neighbor…Lenora…She was born in 1803 so she would be 221 years old.”

“And you know this how?”

“She’s my little sister.”

“Oookkkaayy”, you said, “Why is it always the hottest ones that are the craziest?”

“I am neither hot nor crazy. It’s quite chilly actually.” Yoongi said after overhearing you.

“No hot means like attractive, sexy, good looking.”, you said before feeling your cheeks heat up at the realization. Thankfully it seemed like he didn’t really understand anyways so you moved on.

“Sooo I’m gonna call someone to come give you a ride.”, you said reaching for your phone.

“A ride…with a horse?”

You smiled, “Uh no in a car with flashing lights that plays a song as it’s driving so people know to get out of the way.”

He looked impressed and nodded his head in acceptance.

“There it is!! I knew that evil witch had it this whole time.”, he suddenly gasped making you jump forgetting about the call you were trying to make.

Yoongi reached over taking the spell book that you had thrown in the box.

“I was looking for this. I knew she had it but she refused to give it back. She probably knew I’d become even stronger with it in my possession.”

“Stronger?”

He nodded, “Yes and then I’d become The Supreme.”

“The Supreme?”

He sighed, “The Supreme Witch. We’re witches. Do they teach nothing at school any more?”

“Sorry I haven’t taken Witches 101 yet. I’ll see if they offer it next semester.”

He shook his head, “Don’t bother. I’ll teach you.”

You sighed but took a seat anyways.

“You see every two hundred years a new supreme is appointed to each coven. A selection of witches go through seven different tests to gage their strengths and weaknesses. My sister and I were in the finale up against each other tied three to three. She knew there was no way she could beat me in the finale test on her own. So somehow she disabled my protector spell while I was sleeping and she used a curse to send me to the twilight. I’ve been stuck there ever since…until you got me out somehow. Are you a witch by the way? What family do you belong to?”

You chuckled, “Yeah definitely not a witch. All I did was read something from that book. It was a page that seemed to be used a lot. Maybe your sister was trying to get you back.” He started flipping though the pages of the book when a photo fell out. It was black and white and low quality but you could still make it out. Yoongi stood smiling next to a woman you figured to be his sister and former neighbor. You could definitely see the resemblance of your former elderly neighbor in the young smiling woman’s face. Yoongi looked exactly the same just with a big gummy smile that made your heart race.

He smirked as he looked over the photo, “Doubt it. We’ve always hated each other.”

He read something on the back that you couldn’t see before tucking the photo in the book.

“Can you take me to the city? I need to speak with someone.”, he suddenly asked.

You checked the time and figured since you were already late for class and probably dead for all you knew at this point, you agreed.

“Sure but first we need to get you to change your clothes.”

Yoongi looked offended, “What’s wrong with my clothes? These are very expensive and in high fashion.”

“Maybe in the 1800s but right now you look ridiculous.”, you chuckled.

Thankfully you had a stash of your brothers clothes that he always forgot whenever he visited you and they might just fit your new friend.

When he finally came downstairs your mouth unapologetically dropped open. You thought he looked good before but this was on a whole other level. The jeans fit perfectly. The tshirt a tinsy tiny bit too tight in the arms and chest area but no one would complain. The Jordans that you knew your brother would kill you if he saw you letting anyone else wear looked like they were made just for Yoongi. He had put his hair in a half up half down situation and you were wondering where he got the hair tie from but you didn’t care because you were ready to buy them in bulk for him anyways.

“NOW I look ridiculous. This is how men dress these days?”, he said feeling insecure with you staring at him.

“You know if we stop at the seamstress I’ll have her patch your brothers pants. Poor guy can’t even afford to fix the holes.”, he continued.

“It’s done on purpose. They’re supposed to look like that.”, you laughed

This time it was Yoongi’s mouth that dropped open, “Wait so he actually pays money to buy pants that already have holes in them?”

You nodded and laughed, “Yeah a lot of money too.”

He shook his head in disbelief.

In the car you showed him how to use the seatbelt and once he was comfortable you started the engine.

“Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

Seven days a week

Every hour, every minute, every second

You know, night after night

I'll be lovin' you right, seven days a week”, blasted through the speakers reminded you that you were definitely not the same person you were last night so you turned the volume way down.

“Ugh what is that racket?”, Yoongi questioned with his hands over his ears.

“That’s Jungkook. He’s like one of the most popular musicians right now.”

“This is considered music now?!”

“Yeah it is.”, you laughed showing him a photo of Jungkook on your phone.

“He’s adorable.”, Yoongi cooed, “And HE’S the one that sings such a stupid song about days of the week?”

“Well the song is not really about days of the week”.

Yoongi stared waiting for you to continue, “It’s about…it’s about sex.”

His eyes went wide. “And they let that be played to the public?”, he hissed almost more embarrassed than you.

“Yeah this song is pretty mild compared to others.”, you chuckled.

You offered to drive in silence but Yoongi insisted on listening to more of this Jungkook fellows music which you happily obliged.

“Where exactly are we headed? I kind of need to know where to drive.”, you asked.

“Well it’s a book store. It’s right next to the horse stable and across from the general store.”

“Okay well uh I’ll start driving and you tell me if anything looks familiar.”

Yoongi was amazed by all of the new technology. Traffic lights, billboards, hundreds of cars passing by.

“Wait wait wait…So we don’t even have to get out of the car? They just hand us the drink through that little window?”, he asked after you had stopped to use a drive thru for a snack.

You smiled as you watched his eyes light up when he sipped on a pumpkin spice latte completely forgetting about his disdain about it earlier.

Eventually you somehow made it to the location he wanted which also happened to be the campus bookstore.

You followed Yoongi inside and watched as he walked right up to Jimin who was standing at the counter.

“Hi Y/N”, he smiled until he noticed Yoongi standing next to you, “Yo-Yoongi?”

“It’s been a while. How is Emmy?”, he asked.

“She’s good. We have two kids now, two little girls.”

Yoongi nodded, “I’m so glad to hear that. I’d love to meet them.”

“You look good.”, Jimin praised him but Yoongi scoffed, “I look absolutely ridiculous.”

“No man this is what the kids these days are wearing. You fit right in.”

You watched on in awe as you found out that the guy who worked at the campus bookstore whom you at one point had a small crush on was apparently a 250 year old witch who was also married to a fairy. And he was now talking to a 250 year old witch who you accidentally brought back from something called the twilight where his sister, your deceased elder neighbor, sent him over a hundred years or so ago. You thought you were going crazier by the minute.

“So do you have it still?”, you heard Yoongi ask Jimin.

“Yeah uh she dropped it off about six weeks ago. She probably knew her time was coming. I thought about throwing it away since I didn’t think there was any chance but I’m glad I saved it since you’re here.”, he said handing over a small envelope to Yoongi.

“Thank you.”, he nodded before turning to leave the store. You said goodbye and followed after him outside.

Once back in your car he stared at the envelope in his hands. His name elaborately written on the front.

You remained silent realizing that he was going through something. It seemed like he was afraid of whatever was in that letter.

Gently he broke open the seal watching as the letter floated up in front of him and unfolded. A voice that you recognized as your neighbors began to speak,

“Hello brother, Good to see that you finally made it out of the twilight. I admit that I only sent you there because I fully believed you would be able to get yourself out of there in no time.

Honestly every-time a black cat crossed my path I thought it was going to be you. I know they were your favorite to shift into. If I had known that I’d never see you again though, I never would’ve done it. I missed you Yoongi. It was hard going through life without you. I hope that you can forgive me and maybe we can see each other again one day.

I left the spell book with my neighbor. Her name is Y/N. I think you’ll like her. She’s got a good head on her shoulders and there’s something special about her. I can sense it. I think she could be the one.

Take care Yoongi. Love your little sister and still the better witch, Lenora.”

There was a spark and then then letter burst into a hundred little pieces before disappearing into nothing.

“Ar-Are you okay?”, you asked after noticing he hadn’t moved.

He smiled, “Yeah better than I thought I would be. That’s all I ever wanted from her. An apology and to know she was okay.”

You nodded then began to drive home when he cleared his throat, “Y/N, can I court you?”

“I’m sorry, what?”, you chuckled.

“Can I court you? Like we spend time together and talk and hold hands and then kiss and then eventually we partake in the sexual pleasure of each other?”

You choked on air, “Oh you’re asking me out, like on a date?”

“Sure if that’s what you want to call it.”

“Yes I’ll go on a date with you but let’s start with dinner or coffee and then slowly work our way up to sexual pleasures.”, you smiled hoping he couldn’t see you blush.

He shrugged his shoulders, “I mean you did call me hot and I have been told that my tongue can work magic on the body that no spell could ever do but suit yourself. We can stick to pumpkin spice lattes if you’d prefer.”

You awkwardly laughed before deciding to hit the gas pedal just a tiny bit harder.

[anachronismstellar]

Fic writer curse got me fam, and the doctor didn't give me a note so I have to go to work. To cheer me up here's more Airplane vs The System because I wanna feel I'm making progress

And it's Cumplane Bros being smart because I love them and yeah

Hope you like it!

---

“There's…” he hesitated, glancing at Shen Yuan nervously before sweeping things around, going through names of missions. “There's stuff missing. And I can see the names, but now it's all gray? I can't select my old logs.”

Shen Yuan opened his own system, checking the same options Airplane had gone through, finding everything normal.

“That's weird, even for the System,” Shen Yuan took a step back, picking up his fan, tapping it against his palm as he walked back and forth. “And you don't remember getting any messages?”

“No, I would have told you if anything had popped up!” Which, yea, Airplane wouldn't be able to hide something like that. And they had been enjoying a nice life for the past couple of years, finally living their happy ending. Yes, some wife plots here and there but…

“I thought it was done with us now that the story was finished.” Airplane's voice cracked at the end, and this time Shen Yuan couldn't help but feel his heart squeeze for his fellow transmigrator, murderously rampant or not.

“Okay, we have to think.” Shen Yuan went back to walking, pressing his fingers against his forehead, his crown starting to feel too tight on his head. “We know Linguang-Jun was working with an Owl demon. Did he say anything else?”

Airplane blanched, trembling hand going over his mouth, rubbing his fingers over closed pressed lips. It took him some moments to compose himself, shrugging as he made the screen vanish.

“He said it wasn't a Demon, but a Heavenly being, which makes no sense, I didn't write the Heavens-”

“Oh so you do remember what you wrote, amazing!”

“-But he also said that they wanted Mobei-Jun alive. He said that they were powerful and they knew all about Linguang-Jun's schemes, down to the people he had bribed, that's why he had to help them.”

“Did he at least describe them? It was an Owl type of creature but what else?” He stopped next to the table, moving papers around with the tip of his fan. He couldn't help but think that something else was going on. “If we have the physical description we can focus on one area of the map.”

Shen Yuan huffed when Airplane ignored his comment completely only with a twitch of an eye. Airplane couldn't physically hurt him, Shen Qingqiu's cultivation skills being better than Shang Qinghua could ever develop, but Airplane looked just enough on the edge that he might try his luck with a punch.

Shen Yuan didn't want to test his limits, so he ignored that he had been ignored, letting it slide.

“He said that they arrived as a white Owl, then they changed to their humanoid form.”

Shen Yuan froze, eyes going wide. The color helped to focus their search on the Northern Desert, but where? The area was huge, most of it completely uninhabitable except-

“The Polar Owl,” he mumbled, not bothering to answer Airplane's “what?”, shoving away the pile of useless notes to grab the huge map of the demon realm hidden under it all. “You only wrote one fucking normal animal in this entire weird ass story, and it was the Polar Owl,” Shen Yuan grabbed a brush to circle the places the Owl hypothetically lived, not cursing out loud Airplane's lack of following through with backgrounds. This time. “They live in the furthest north anyone ever been, no one else can survive the low temperatures except-”

“The Mobei line.” Airplane's whisper wasn't loud enough to interrupt Shen Yuan but the awed expression on Shang Qinghua's face was.

“Exactly.” Shen Yuan snapped his fan open, a smirk tilting his lips up as he straightened up his shoulders, putting on his best peak lord smug face. “And they are considered sacred to the Northern tribes because of their resistance to low temperatures. Thus it is completely possible that Linguang-Jun thought that the person he spoke with had come from the Heavens.”

Ding!

Mission in progress: Author's favorite.

UV002 objective: aid UV001

[COMPLETED]

---

Off to work I go, wish me luck ✌️

[thinkinginpen]

Unexpected Company Part 2

a/n: It may not be the holidays yet but who doesn't love some good Christmas spirit in the fall? And two in one hour? Damn. pairing: old!logan x reader w/c: 3.6k warnings: romance, hinting, love, fake dating, age gap, etc. summary: You went to Logan's house, your grumpy old neighbor, to bring him cookies and get away from the Christmas party. Little did you know this grumpy old man would take a turn. Next thing you knew he was lecturing your ex on how to treat a girl right.

You reluctantly followed your ex as he led you away from the others. He steered you to a quiet corner of the room, out of earshot of the rest of the party. His expression was cold and unforgiving.

"What the hell is going on here?" he hissed.

"What do you mean?" you asked, feigning ignorance. You knew what he was talking about, but playing dumb seemed like your best bet at this point.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about!" he snapped. "You show up with some old dude in tow and act like he's your boyfriend? Don't try to play dumb with me, I know it's bullshit!"

"It's not bullshit," you said defensively. "He really is my boyfriend."

Your ex rolled his eyes, scoffing. "Yeah, right. You expect me to believe that you're dating some old geezer?"

"Yes, I do," you retorted. "What, are you jealous or something?"

He sneered, clearly unconvinced. "Jealous? Of a fossil? Fat chance. No, I just want to know what kind of game you're playing here."

You gritted your teeth, frustrated by his tone. "I'm not playing any game. I'm dating him, and that's it."

He let out a hollow laugh. "Okay, fine. Say I believe you. How did that even happen? How'd you end up with some old man instead of me?"

You hesitated, not sure how to answer that. There was no way in hell you were going to tell him the truth - that the only reason you were pretending to be in a relationship with Logan was to get under his skin.

You took a deep breath and decided to stick with the same cover story you'd used earlier. "It just happened, I guess. We clicked."

He snorted, still not buying it. "Yeah, right. You expect me to believe that you just randomly met this guy and started dating him? I don't buy it."

Your frustration was growing. How dare he question the validity of your relationship, even if he was right?

"Believe whatever you want," you said, crossing your arms. "But it doesn't change the fact that I'm dating him, and he's better than you in every way."

Your ex's expression darkened at your words, his fists clenching. "Oh, so now you're gonna pull that crap? You honestly think this guy is better than me?"

He stepped closer to you, looming over you. "You're really gonna choose an old man over me?"

You didn't back down, meeting his angry gaze defiantly. "Yes, I am. He's more mature than you, and treats me a lot better."

Your ex scoffed. "Yeah, maybe because he's been alive longer than my grandparents. You think he'll be able to keep up with you in a couple years?"

"Better than you can," you shot back. "At least he's still active. He works out, he can do stuff. What've you been doing every day since we broke up? Playing video games and eating pizza rolls?"

He bristled, clearly insulted. "That's not all I do!"

"Oh really? What else do you do?" you asked, feigning curiosity. "I mean, you spend a lot of time on the couch. I'm sure you got up from there at some point."

He clenched his jaw, clearly getting more and more frustrated. "That's not the point!" he snapped. "The point is that there's no way you're really dating this old dude. You're just trying to make me jealous, right? That's it, isn't it?"

You felt a flicker of satisfaction as he grew more agitated. "No, I'm really dating him."

He gritted his teeth. "No way. Prove it."

"Prove it?" you repeated, surprised by the request. "How am I supposed to prove it to you?"

Your ex rolled his eyes. "I don't know, kiss him or something."

You nearly choked at the sudden request. "Wh-what? You want me to kiss him? Right here, in front of everyone?"

"Why not?" he sneered. "If you're really dating him, it should be easy, right?"

You felt a pang of panic mixed with irritation as he challenged you. You glanced over at Logan, who was still standing calmly across the room, mingling with other people at the party.

Your ex chuckled, noticing your hesitation. "See, you can't do it. You're bluffing, and you know it. You're just using this old guy as a prop to make me jealous, and I'm not falling for it."

You gritted your teeth, feeling a wave of anger and determination wash over you. He was right about one thing - you weren't really dating Logan, at least not in the way he meant. But the way he was demeaning Logan… no matter his age, he deserved better than that.

Logan was listening intently to a conversation with one of the nearby families when he suddenly heard the heated argument between you and your ex. His eyebrows rose, and he subtly moved to listen in.

He was surprised to hear your ex tell you to prove your relationship, but his expression darkened as he heard the other man's mocking tone.

He quickly made his way over to the pair of you, his expression stormy. As he got closer, he made himself known by grabbing your ex by the front of his shirt.

Your ex was suddenly yanked backwards, his shirt crumpling as Logan's fist closed tightly around a fistful of fabric.

He sputtered as he lost his balance, staring up at the much larger man in shock. "What the hell-"

Logan towered over him, leaning down to speak directly in his face. His tone was low and dangerous.

"I'm only going to say this once, boy. Leave the girl alone."

Your ex's expression flickered from surprise to anger. "Excuse me? You can't just-"

But before he could finish, Logan pulled him closer, his grip still tight on his shirt.

"I can do whatever I damn well please," he growled. "And right now, what I'm doing is telling you to leave her alone. Understand?"

Your ex floundered, clearly stunned by the unexpected intervention. But he wasn't cowed, and he tried to pull away from Logan's grip.

"And who are you, her guardian or something?" he snapped. "You got no right to tell me what to do, old man. You don't love her-"

Logan's expression darkened further. He had clearly heard enough.

"I don't love her, huh?" he said gruffly.

Before your ex could react, he tightened his grip on his shirt and slammed him against the nearest wall, pinning him there with one arm.

Your ex's eyes widened in shock and fear as he found himself slammed against the wall. The wall shook from the impact, and several people nearby turned to see what was going on.

Logan leaned in closer, his face mere inches from your ex's. "You little bastard," he growled. "You don't have any idea what it means to love her."

Your ex tried to struggle, but Logan's hold on him was too strong. He was trapped, completely at the mercy of the older man's grip.

"Let- let go of me!" he gasped, his bravado faded as he stared up at Logan's angry face.

Logan's expression was stony, his eyes boring into your ex's. "Not until I'm done talking to you," he said gruffly.

He leaned in even closer, his tone low and dangerous. "You think just because you're young that you know better than anyone else? You think you know her better than I do?"

Your ex was visibly shaken, his cocky demeanor gone in the face of Logan's angry glare.

"I- I do know her better than you," he protested weakly. "I was dating her before you came around."

"Yeah, you were," Logan said gruffly. "And you blew it. Now she's with me, and you need to learn to live with that."

He paused, then suddenly pulled your ex closer, his face a mere inch away. "You're never going to touch her again, boy. Not as long as I'm around."

Your ex's expression wavered, caught between fear and anger.

"You can't just-" he started to say, but Logan cut him off with a glare.

"Dare me," he said gruffly. "Go on, boy. Say what you were gonna say."

Your ex swallowed, clearly intimidated. He tried to pull away from Logan, but he was still pinned in place. After a moment of hesitation, he finally spoke up.

"You can't just take her away from me," he muttered resentfully. "She was mine first."

"You don't own her, boy," Logan snapped, his voice hard as steel. "She's not something you can just claim like a damn trophy. She's her own damn person, and she can make her own damn decisions."

He leaned in closer, his face almost touching your ex's. "And she made the decision to ditch your sorry ass for me."

Your ex's expression darkened at the insult. "And why would she choose some old guy like you?" he shot back, his tone bitter. "What can you give her that I can't?"

Logan's glare hardened, his eyes narrowing into slits. "I can give her a hell of a lot more than you ever did," he said gruffly.

He leaned in even closer, his voice a low growl. "I can give her stability, and respect, and loyalty. Things that you clearly didn't know how to provide."

Your ex tried again to struggle, but he was still trapped in Logan's grip. His expression darkened even further as he spat back.

"What, you think you're some kind of saint, just because you're older? You don't know me. You don't know what I can do for her."

"Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea," Logan said. "And from what I can tell, you're a damn coward who couldn't even keep her happy when you had the chance."

He leaned in so close that his chest was practically pressed against your ex's. "And you think for a second that you could do better than me?"

Your ex was clearly flustered, his expression torn between anger and fear.

"I- I could give her-" he started to say, but Logan cut him off with a scoff.

"Yeah? What, like you could give her a future? What's your plan for the future? Keep working a minimum wage job and play video games in your mom's basement all day?"

Logan chuckled, but he was seething.

"You wanna know what it's like to treat a girl right? First rule: You take care of her. I don't just mean buy her gifts and open doors for her. I mean really take care of her. Be there for her, listen to her, show her respect and loyalty and all the other things you seem to be completely incapable of."

He looked your ex over, his expression still disapproving. "Rule two: don't act like a damn child. Don't throw temper tantrums every time something doesn't go your way, don't blame her for your problems. Have some damn respect and act like you're actually worthy of her."

Logan's expression darkened further. "And rule three: Be a damn man. Don't let the people around you walk all over you, don't let people who don't matter to you drag you down. And for the love of God, don't try to cheat on her just because you can't keep it in your damn pants."

He leaned in closer, his voice low and fierce. "And if by some chance you've managed to follow all three of those rules, then maybe - MAYBE - you might be worthy of someone like her. But let's be honest, boy. We both know you haven't managed to follow a single one."

Your ex was caught between anger and fear, his expression shifting as Logan listed off the rules for treating a girl right. He opened his mouth to argue, but was cut off by another scoff from Logan.

"Don't try to deny it, boy. We both know you've failed at all three. You're a damn child, pretending to be a man. And until you grow the hell up, you will never be worthy of a woman like her."

With that, he finally released his hold on your ex. The younger man stumbled backwards, clearly shaken.

Logan glanced over his shoulder at you, his expression softening. "Come here, darling," he said, his tone suddenly gentle.

You approached the pair, your heart racing after witnessing the intense encounter. You could sense your ex's glower as you stepped up next to Logan, who wrapped a protective arm around your shoulders.

He pulled you close, his presence warm and reassuring. He kept his gaze locked on your ex, his expression still stern.

"He won't be bothering you again, baby," he said gruffly.

Logan led you over to a nearby couch, his arm still around your shoulders. Most of the party seemed to have started minding their own business again, though a few people were still shooting curious glances your way.

He sat down on the couch, pulling you down next to him.

He put his other arm around you so that you were essentially squished between his broad frame and the couch cushions. He could tell that you were still a little shaken up, and he squeezed you gently, trying to reassure you.

"You alright, baby?" he asked gruffly, his voice low so that the other guests couldn't overhear.

"You can stop the act now Mr. Logan."

Logan raised an eyebrow at the sudden change in tone. He continued to hold onto you, but turned to get a better look at your expression.

"What do you mean, hun?" he asked, feigning ignorance.

You could tell that he was playing dumb, probably to save face in front of the other guests. Your expression became a mixture of exhaustion and irritation.

"You know exactly what I mean, Logan," you said. "We can stop. I think we've sold the act enough by now."

Logan's expression softened, and he let out a low chuckle. He glanced around and confirmed that most of the party had gone back to their own conversations.

He leaned in closer, lowering his voice even further. "You sure about that, baby?" he asked, his tone suggestive.

You rolled your eyes, though a slight smile tugged at your lips. "Yes, I'm sure," you reassured him. "I think we've put on enough of a show. No need to keep this going any longer."

He chuckled again, tightening his grip on you. "Well, I don't mind keeping it going a little longer," he said, his voice low and suggestive. "I'm enjoying having you like this."

You sighed, but couldn't help the tingle of heat that ran through you at his words. "Stop it," you said, trying to sound stern despite your growing arousal. "We're in a room full of people, remember?"

Logan chuckled at your protests, clearly enjoying the way you squirmed in his grip.

"C'mon pretty girl, for Christmas' sake please can we keep this going?" he pleaded, his voice low and coaxing.

You fought to keep a straight face, trying not to let his words get to you. But it was difficult, especially with the heat rising in your cheeks.

"I thought the point of this was to make my ex jealous," you reminded him, trying to sound more stern than you felt.

He squeezed you tighter, his expression turning smug. "Yeah, it was," he said, his voice a low rumble. "and we've done a damn good job of that. But now that I've got you all to myself, I'm not ready to let go just yet."

Logan loosened his embrace slightly, allowing you a bit more breathing room.

"Honey," he said, his tone suddenly more polite. "Would you mind grabbing us some food?"

You blinked, a bit taken aback by the unexpected change in tone. But you composed yourself quickly and nodded.

"Sure, I can do that," you said, rising from the couch. "What do you want me to bring back?"

Logan smiled, pleased by your response. "Surprise me," he said. "Oh and how about some of those cookies you and your mother baked?"

You chuckled, amused by his request. "You've got a sweet tooth, huh?" you teased, as you made your way towards the buffet table.

Logan watched you as you walked away, his gaze lingering on your figure. His eyes stayed fixed on you until you disappeared among the crowd, at which point he settled back against the couch, a satisfied smile on his face.

The party continued around him, but his thoughts were focused on you. He couldn't help but feel a stirring of possessiveness. He had played the role of your boyfriend for the evening, and it seemed like he had done a pretty damn good job of it.

As Logan sat on the couch, waiting for you to return, he couldn't help but reflect on how the evening had started. He thought back to just hours earlier when he had been sitting alone, feeling grumpy and wishing he was anywhere else.

Then you had appeared, bringing him a plate of cookies that you had baked yourself. He had been hesitant at first, but the delicious treats had quickly won him over.

He recalled the conversations you had had once you had sat down. He had initially intended to brush you off and get back to his brooding, but he had found that he couldn't bring himself to shoo you away. Instead, he had ended up engaged in a surprisingly enjoyable conversation, and before he knew it, the hour was getting late.

You returned to the couch, your arms laden with food for both of you. You noticed that Logan was deep in thought, and he was visibly startled when you put the food down on the coffee table.

"You spaced out there, old man," you teased, gesturing for him to grab some food.

He chuckled, still slightly disoriented from his musings. "Sorry baby, got lost in thought there," he said, shaking his head.

He perked up when he saw the cookies you had brought back, a smile spreading across his face. "Hey, you remembered."

You chuckled, watching as he eagerly reached for the cookies. "Of course I did," you said, taking a seat on the couch next to him.

"I figured you could use a little comfort food after dealing with my ex," you added, taking a bite of your own food.

Logan grunted in agreement, already stuffing a cookie into his mouth. "Your ex's a damn fool," he said, his voice muffled through the food. "He'll never be good enough for you."

You raised an eyebrow at his assessment. "And you are?" you asked teasingly, poking him in the side.

Logan chuckled, swatting at your hand. "Hey now, watch it. You're gonna make me choke."

He finished his bite of cookie, then turned to look at you dead in the eye. "And to answer your question, hell yes I'd be good enough for you," he said, his tone serious.

You were surprised by his sudden shift in tone, and you found yourself momentarily speechless. You fumbled for a response for a few seconds before finally managing to gather your thoughts.

"You're awfully confident, old man," you said, trying to mask the flutter in your chest.

Logan chuckled at your response, clearly amused by your attempts to hide your reaction to his declaration. He continued to eat his food and the cookies, glancing over at you between bites.

You did the same, trying to ignore the fluttering feeling in your stomach as you silently ate.

The room was filled with the sounds of the ongoing party, but the two of you were mostly silent as you ate. Every so often, Logan would steal a glance at you, his eyes fixed on your lips as you chewed.

You glanced over at Logan, noticing a small spot of food stuck in his beard. It was a bit distracting, and you couldn't help but giggle at the sight.

"You've got something on your face," you said, reaching over and gently swiping the food from his beard.

Logan froze as your fingers touched his beard, and for a moment the two of you just sat there, frozen in the intimate moment. Your fingers lingered in his beard, tracing the length of it and feeling the coarse texture.

And then, almost against his will, Logan found himself tipping his head closer to yours. His eyes met yours, and his expression darkened with desire.

You became aware of his lips drawing ever closer to yours, your breath catching in your throat. Your fingers were still in his beard, as if frozen in place. Your whole world seemed to have narrowed to the two of you in that instant, the sounds of the party fading into the background.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, your lips met. The kiss was gentle at first, a tentative exploration. But then something seemed to snap, and the kiss deepened. Logan reached up to cup your face in his hands, pulling you closer as he claimed your mouth in a hungry kiss.

You found yourself responding eagerly, your fingers tangling in his beard. The kiss was intense, and it felt like the whole world had vanished around you, leaving just the two of you. Your heart raced as his hands held your face in place, his tongue slipping past your lips to deepen the kiss.

Time seemed to stand still as you got lost in the kiss. His beard tickled your skin, and you could feel the heat radiating from his body as he pulled you even closer. Your hands moved up to his shoulders, gripping the material of his shirt as you kissed deeper.

Logan reluctantly pulled back, breaking the kiss as he sucked in a gulp of air. He was breathing heavily, and his expression was still darkened with desire.

He nodded towards your ex, who was watching and seething from across the room.

He leaned in and whispered in your ear, "Merry Christmas, bubba."

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

Part 1 Part 2

🏷️: @princessleah94 @littlbitch69

[curio-queries]

I saw Jungkook's documentary this weekend and have just a few thoughts. If you're avoiding spoilers, don't click the cut!

The Hybe Documentary Format

So...as a reminder to you all, I do not have professional expertise in the film industry. I'm just a very discerning consumer. I also haven't seen Hobi's documentary and I watched Road to D-Day while I was quite ill last year so I only vaguely remember some bits. (I'll definitely be getting back to those sooner rather than later though as research for a series of posts I'm developing.) That being said, I think we have enough data points to state that Hybe has absolutely no interest in filmmaking techniques outside of music videos.

I did mostly enjoy my experience seeing this film yesterday and I'm always grateful for any amount of footage the members are willing to share with us but this 'documentary ' was worse than Jimin's Production Diary. Any of you that managed to make it through my rambling review will know how dissatisfied I was with that.

I Am Still is not a documentary, it's a mixture of showcase footage and behind-the-scenes clips, most of which has already been divulged in the various episodes and shooting sketches on YouTube. Honestly, if you're not able to see the film, just go rewatch all of the bangtantv content for JKs solo period and the showcase and you'll be up to speed with 85% of what was in the documentary.

There are definitely some expansions to the storylines featured in the bangtantv content; mostly being anything that wasn't overtly optimistic. For example, we learn a little bit more about just how sick JK was during the Seven/3D promotions. That content likely was pulled from the bangtantv edit because it would have put a damper on the promotions and given certain 'fans' a focus to fixate their vitriol. But overall, it feels more like an extended version of existing content rather than a new work. At least JPD didn't continually feed us footage we'd seen before.

I'm someone who gets completely bothered by previews spoiling content so I didn't watch any of the promos until after I saw it and I am so glad I skipped them because most of the 'original' scenes of the film were featured in least one of them. Alas, that's a separate issue of which I'm definitely in the minority.

Was There No Structure?

Kinda. Like JPD, there is a semblance of a structure: Attempting to follow the chronology of release activities for JKs GOLDEN album through the lens of JKs staement trying to prove that he is still worthy of everything he was being hailed as during the BTS group activities but I don't feel this was successfully executed. It jumps round enough and isn't very successful in explaining the events if you didn't already know about them. The film starts with the SEVEN performance at GMA and footage that we've already seen of JK recording SEVEN, not mentioning anything about the music video or really how JK got involved with the song in the first place. The rest of the story beats have similar missing points.

They have a vague narrative with the 'I Am Still' points but that's mostly carried by subs and a couple of moments that JK mentions himself. I'm not saying it's not true or wasn't top-of-mind for JK during this process but it's not the main point of many of the moment/messages he shared with us during this time period so it feels a little disingenuous since everything else jn this film really only makes sense if you've already seen quite a lot of behind-the-scenes content.

Honestly, it makes me question the intended audience. Obviously, they know that ARMY will shell out whatever we need to when there's new content from our members but most of us will have already seen all of the bangtantv content so we are already familiar with the most of the footage in this film. I genuinely don't think this was produced in such a way to be palatable for audiences not familiar with BTS so who does that leave? Our friends and family that are peripherally aware of the content but haven't learned the basics of JKs album? ARMY with short term memories only?

But again, it seems this film was compiled by an editing team and not lead by a director with experience in crafting a documentary. The only new footage that Ican guarantee was captured with the express purpose of being included in this film was the few clips of JK talking in the practice room with the albums displayed by him. But we all know that's where all of the promo clips were gathered as well. I have issues with that approach as well but I'll leave this point alone for now unless anyone is interested.

Suffice it to say, all of these suppositions over the past year about how JKs documentary was getting special treatment or even questioning about investment in a project up front are dead. This was a product assembled with bits of what they already had completely in-house which was sold for distribution.

So, Did We Learn NOTHING?

No, there are a few Golden nuggets (see what I did there?). I can't recall everything having only seen it once (and having a rather disruptive audience - I swear there were only dozen or so ppl in my theater but I forget how obnoxious teenagers can be. I'm glad they're enjoying and supporting but we really didn't need light sticks flashing during a film and how many times does one person need to get up to answer their phone during this runtime? Three according to the row in front of mine.)

Anyway, something I thought was interesting to learn was that Standing Next To You was initially recorded the day after JK heard it for the first time. And hearing a little more about how JK yearned to perform that song definitelygot me thinking a little more about it. We can't reach any conclusions just with this little nugget but it does open the door to some theories. Like perhaps they were initially planning to have JK record two separate albums? SEVEN and 3D would be the singles of the first and JK would perform them as we saw but perhaps STNY was originally planned to be the single of the 2nd album that would release while he was in the military and thus be unable to perform it? Maybe JK loved STNY so much that everything was grouped into one album and Never Let Go was the only track held back for ms? Definitely some theorizing space to be had now.

Final thoughts?

Similar to my thoughts on the GCF: Budapest (which I feel would have had a much better reception if it had been labeled as a bangtan episode rather than a GCF), I AM Still should not have purported to be a documentary. It was much more similar to the annual Memories compilations. But the general public would not have shelled out the $25 to go to a theater to watch a Memories DVD so alas, we have our content packaged as a ~documentary~...

Did my view on the music change at all? Not because of the documentary. We're coming up on the year anniversary of GOLDEN and it's still definitely not my favorite. I completely understand why some people like it but it's just not to my taste. The overall impact falls a little flat for me. Too much breadth and not enough depth. I came into my musical soul during the 00s emo phase and will always be a sucker for music that absolutely drips in an emotional way rather than catchy songs vaguely referencing heartache and love. Again, just a matter of viewpoint.

I do think most of these songs stand much better being shuffled amongst other artists in a Playlist and several of them are significantly better when JK sang them live but I still won't be listening to them regularly. I wholeheartedly believe JK completed his task of proving himself as an extremely dedicated and versatile singer and performer. He's definitely got some solid points added to his resume after this project.

[hmusunoo]

𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐘 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐋𝐈𝐄 - 𝐒𝐉𝐘 - RELEASED DRAFT (WILL NOT CONTINUE)

▏pairings. ROCKSTAR!JAKE x REPORTER!READER

▏desc. JAKE is sick of everyone judging him. He’s famous, loves to party and loves to fuck even more, what’s so wrong with that? When a Goody-two shoes reporter makes a highly criticizing article about him and his bandmates they don’t take it very well, enacting a plan to get her to fall in love with him and change her story.

▏warnings.partying, drug use, alcohol use (I'm being fr here y'all they do a lot of drugs)the members of enhypen as SHOUT OUT(the rock band)- except ni-ki, jungwon and sunoo. Not proof read. THIS IS A RELEASED DRAFT. IT WILL NOT BE CONTINUED, the reason I posted this draft is because I've got multiple people asking for me to post my draft of this. I won't be adding tags to it though, so if you follow me you'll see this. It wont be added to my master list either, enjoy what I thought was gonna be a very very good fic lol. I might regret this in the morning oops.

Jake's gaze had only left the girl in front of him for a brief second, the sound of the door slamming open rustling the lust filled moment that was currently happening. The girl in front of Jake jumped back, spitting Jake's dick out of her mouth in surprise. Her glitter covered eyelids lifting up widening her eyes.

"Out. now." Duri, Shout out's manager spit at the girl. Gathering her things the girl stumbled out of the open door, knees red and dignity in the dirt.

"What the fuck?" Jake slurred eyes heavy lidded "Why did you do that?" Duri's eyes lit up with annoyance. "Drink water, sober up at least a little bit and get your ass out here. We're having a band meeting in ten."

The door slammed closed behind Duri as he walked out of the old backstage dressing room that Jake was cooped up in. Jake leaned against the wall the high from the coke and booze he consumed earlier dwelling down. The haze from high now replaced with a pounding in his head and an ache behind his eyes.

Just a minute ago he was on cloud nine, the feeling of that no name girl's lips wrapped around his dick coupled with the high he felt was euphoric. It's crazy how something like that can fade instantaneously.

Jake dusted his self off adjusting his open zipper and making his way out the door sluggishly. The other members of Shout out sat on couches in the old dingy dressing rooms in the backstage of the venue they had just played at not even an hour ago.

Sunghoon was lazily slung over the arm of the sofa playing on his phone, Heeseung sat next to him head in his hands most likely sporting his usual headache that he gets after concerts.

Jay stood against the wall arms crossed a sour expression on his face as he glared at the floor. Jake rolled his eyes, he knew this was going to be one hell of a shit show if Jay was in a pissy mood. It didn't take a lot to piss the fucker off and honestly Jake wasn't in the right frame of mind to hear the bitching from their leader.

"Where the fuck were you?" Jay spit looking at Jake with his usual disdain.

"I don't have to tell you shit" Jake snarled sitting down besides Heeseung on the old couch.

"Yes the fuck you do. When it comes to affecting our band I need to know what shit you're getting us into" Jay was snarling. His anger radiating off him in waves. Jake could care less though, Jay wasn't his fucking father he didn't get to boss him around whenever he felt like it. He was a grown man and last time he checked his dad was all the way in Australia, where he left him.

"I'm a grown man. When it has nothing to do with the band I don't have to say shit to you" Jake wasn't letting down, no matter how angry Jay got. He was not backing down, not one bit.

Jay pushed himself away from the wall, making his way towards Jake finger pointed out at him, Jake lifted himself from the couch fists clenched ready for anything Jay threw at him. "You're a selfish piece of shit Sim-"

"Both of you sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up now." Duri said from the door of the dressing room, He stood arms full of papers in his hands. "Arguing like little kids." He grumbled walking into the room and slamming the stack of papers down onto the table in front of them all.

No one moved a muscle staring at the stack of papers like it were a foreign object to them. The silence was palpable as Jay was the one to finally pick up the first paper from the table eyes reading over it. His expression changed from annoyance to anger in half a second. "This is such bullshit!" He roared throwing the paper back down onto the table, sending the other copies flying around the room. One landing infront of Jake conveniently. Jake took the paper in his hands noticing the title immediately.

'SHOUT OUT SHOULD CONSIDER SHUTTING DOWN' written by Y/n l/n Jakes eyebrows scrunched ion confusion reading the words with a fierce precision. Pictures of The other members flooded the front of the article, ones from moments they felt were private to them. Pictures of booze, girls and lines of coke blurred out in almost every single one of them. Someone had been sneakily taking pictures of the bands after parties and selling it to this news firm to leak out. and better yet that news decided to write a whole article about how much of a fuck they all were.

Jake felt enraged at the words he was reading, judging him like he was some museum painting on display for the whole world to seem, and in some ways he was.

"My favorite line is where they mention that you were all kicked out of the music video awards because Jake was caught fucking Nari yun backstage, or oh! How Jay got blacklisted from Givenchy for having a freak out and punching the director" Duri went onto say pointing at the article with faux excitedness.

"Our how they mention Sunghoon crashing his brand new mustang going 90 in a residential area and living, she called compared him to superman but stupider isn't that hilarious!" Duri continued to laugh at the members who sat uncomfortably on the sofa. "she even mentioned Heeseung who was so drunk during the new years ball drop in New York that he threw up all over the front row during what was supposed to be one of the best opportunities and performances of your life in this band" He was nodding now, the laughter dying down now being replaced with an expression that could only be described as a mixture of disappointment and extreme anger.

Jake didn't know what which one he hated seeing more.

"You're all lucky I convinced this same agency to send a reporter out here and record your day to day tour life for a month to prove that you're all changed men and on your best behavior." All members looked to Duri in shock.

"What?" Heeseung said "So we have to pretend to be a bunch of pussies for a month? For what? To get the media off our backs when they should just be minding their own business any fucking way" Heeseung threw his hands in the air with annoyance.

"You'll do it if you want to keep your fucking job" Duri spit out, yet again shocking every member in the room. "The label is threatening to disband and break up Shout out. They're sick of your shit and quite frankly so am i. if you four don't get your shit together in this next coming month you can kiss your careers goodbye because after the news of your split surfaces and the cause of it, no label will ever want to work with you fuck ups ever again. This is your one and final chance to not be complete fucking losers." Sat in silence the members didn't dare utter a single word awaiting the next few words from Duri.

"You're going to have to convince the same girl who wrote that article that you've cleaned yourself up" Duri said as the last thing before storming out of the room, not even giving the members a chance to respond.

"What did he just say?" Sunghoon asked, looking at everyone "The same girl who wrote the article is coming to stalk us for an entire fucking month?"

Jay was seething his face a bright red watching the door that Duri had left out of. "Thanks to you idiots we have too convince a fucking bitch that were not dumbasses"

"Thank to us?" Jake scuffed "You too man. Not just us"

"Fuck you Sim" Jay spit "You're the biggest loser of us all" Jay stormed out of the room in the same fashion as Duri, making sure to connect his shoulder with Jake's on his way out.

"Fuck" Heeseung muttered running his hands through his hair "Were so fucked"

Jake nodded along to that, not looking forward to what was coming next.

"No" You shook your head "I'm not doing it" Your senior editor, boss and ex boyfriend Soobin sat in front oof your desk informing you of what your next assignment was going to be and it was one you didn't feel like you could do. Not after writing that article about them, they most certainly hate you and you weren't sure if you want to spend a whole month following them around.

"Its apart of the job, Y/n and you're the one were assigning this project to." Soobin had a smug look on his face, one you had grown to hate.

"You just want to get rid of me for a month, I know your game." You hissed at him. Soobin folded his hands in front of him "This is not about our previous fling y/n, this is about the job." You rolled your eyes at his audacity.

"I am your boss now Y/n you're going to have to accept that fact. This is your new assignment, if you don't accept then you're forfeiting your position." He tapped the top of your desk before rising up and walking out the door, the contract on the table in front of you posed as a shot towards your dignity. Well the very little of it that you had left anyway. Snatching the paper off the desk you read the fine print over one more time before picking up your pen and signing on the dotted line. It felt like you were signing your life away for a whole month and you suppose in some ways you were.

You were going to be stuck with four boys following them around judging their movements for a whole month. This was going to be hell.

"Hell no" Jay shouted a few days after the whole dressing room debacle. His face was red and the vein that usually popped out when he was extra angry was prominent as they all sat crowded in Heeseung and Jay's shared hotel room.

"How are they going to send the same bitch who wrote that article to come and follow us around for a month?" For the first time in forever Jake had found himself agreeing with Jay. There was no way they wanted her around them, judging them more than she already had. They had been on the cusp of losing their careers because of her and now the label expected them to suck up to her like a fucking star student, like a fucking teachers pet. Hell fucking no.

"I refuse" Jay said to Duri a look of utmost discontent on his face, Duri just laughed at him something Duri seemed to be doing a lot to them. "You don't have a choice. She'll be here within the week and you'll treat her with respect." Duri was laying it into them not giving them a single choice in the matter it was suffocating, degrading even.

"Get some rest. You all have that shoot with Calvin Klein tomorrow and she'll be there briefly to watch before she joins us for the rest of the tour next week, do not embarrass yourselves." Duri declared before making his way out the room.

All four members signed in frustration the events as of late weighing on them. "I need a drink" Heeseung grunted into his hands. "Or more" Jake smirked rummaging through his pants and pulling out a small baggy containing a white powdery substance.

"What the fuck dude" Jay hissed at Jake "We were just told not even ten minutes ago to be on our best behavior and you go ahead and pull that shit out?" Jay ran his hands through his hair in frustration but all three boys stared at him knew how much he wanted a bump too.

Jake knew it wouldn't take too much convincing to get Jay to chill the fuck out and have fun with them.

"Do you know how fucking child like it makes us seem when you say shit like 'be On our best behavior' were grown men" Jake said patting Jay on the back "besides were in the hotel room, what that reporter doesn't know won't hurt her" Jay looked as if he were thinking for a second milling over the idea before nodding.

Snatching the bag from Jake, Jay muttered a "This is the last time"

Soon all four boys were lazily slung over the bed and floor of the hotel room dazed out talking about the most random of things. Sunghoon sat up suddenly from his position on the floor. "I have an idea" A smirk was on his face as he looked over at the other members. Sluggishly Jake looked to Sunghoon waiting to see what his grand idea was.

"This reporter. Let's fuck with her" Sunghoon said. "What do you mean?" Heeseung asked now sitting up himself.

"She won't write badly about us if she's a fan or something" Sunghoon posed "Maybe we make her a fan"

"and how would we do that? If she's not already a fan of us now how would we get her to like us going forward." Heeseung questioned, a good question indeed. It would be hard to get her to enjoy their music if she didn't already, she certainly has to have heard their music.

"what if we don't make her a fan though, what if we get her to fall in love with one of us...string her along until she writes something good about us and then dump her after?" Jay asked the group. Jake still laid on the floor blearily looking up at the ceiling fan as it spun round and round. Truthfully he wasn't paying much attention to what the others were saying, he was in his own world entirely.

"Jake!" Sunghoon shouted bringing Jake out of his daze. "Huh?" Jake slurred looking up at Sunghoon who now towered over him.

"You down to do that for us?" He asked, Jake had no idea what he was saying. None at all but sill he found himself nodding at him agreeing to whatever it was that they needed from him. The thought oof possibly regretting his decision not even crossing his mind.

The day Jake woke up with a pounding headache and no advil near by to relieve it. Struggling to get out his bed he sees that Sunghoon is already awake and getting ready for the shoot.

"Duri called up, we gotta be down at the lobby in ten minutes." He called from the bathroom. Jake's eyes widened, rushing to his suitcase he pulled to the first few items that he could find, throwing them on in feeble attempt at rushing.

"Why the hell didn't you wake me earlier, asshole?" Jake grunted throwing his hoodie over his head.

"You looked so dreamy sleeping, I couldn't disturb your beauty sleep" Sunghoon teased with a smirk on his face. The two boys made their way down stairs to the lobby of the hotel. Meeting up with Jay, Heeseung and Duri.

"You look like shit." Duri said with a grunt at Jake. Jake just held up his middle finger at the man before making the small journey to the private van that was waiting for them outside. The screams from fans was Jake heard as he rushed out the door of the hotel. The flashing lights of paparazzi temporarily blinded him. It made his headache ten times worse, the pounding behind his eyes not letting up for even a single second.

Heeseung groaned in frustration as soon as all four boys were seated in the back seat of the van.

"Jesus Christ" Heeseung said looking out the window of the van. "I never get used to the craziness that comes with this lifestyle."

"But hey! at least the pussies good!" Sunghoon roared with laughter gaining looks of disgust from his fellow members.

"Do you gotta be so vulgar?" Jake asked "Its 8:30am dude."

Sunghoon rolled his eyes "Its not like you weren't thinking the same thing."

The rest of the ride to the shoot was filled with a comfortable silence, everyone in the car hungover from the night before not really looking forward to doing this shoot. Unfortunately the girl who wrote that article was coming and they had to try their very best to leave a good impression so she didn't feel so inclined to write another bad review after she shadows them for thee next month.

"Alright, let's get in and get this over with." Duri spoke as soon as the van made its stop in front of the building they would be doing the shoot in. Once out of the door and in the building Jake felt like he could breathe just a little more.

He was tired of being in that moving car the hangover wasn't doing his harrowing car sickness justice, it was making it so much worse. He was just glad they had stopped and he was able to get out before he puked all over the van and its occupants.

"Hey Sim" Jay called over to Jake getting his and the other two boys attention before entering the building. "remember what we talked about last night alright?" Truthfully Jake very much didn't really recall much of their conversation last night.

The confusion must have been evident because it had Jay sighing out loud, his fist bunching before he hissed out at Jake a quick "Dumbass, you don't remember?"

Jake shook his head "I was high as shit man what the fuck"

"Get the reporter to fall in love with you." Heeseung said in Jake's ear.

"Wait!" Jake protested "Why do I have to do it?"

"We talked about this last night" Jay shook his head grabbing his nose between his fingers in frustration. "You're the best one for it."

Jake sighed out loud looking over at the three boys before nodding his head "Fine, fine fuck ill do it"

This was the last place you wanted to be at today. The sheer amount of busy people running around like chickens with their heads cut off was overwhelming. You felt it hard to breathe in the stuffiness of the close proximity of everyone.

You hadn't caught wind of shout out quite yet and for that you were thankful. You didn't want to come face to face with the four boys that you completely slandered just yet. Even though you knew that's exactly what you were here for. It didn't help that you had Soobin and his skank assistant, Somi trailing behind them watching your every move.

"They should be here any minute" Soobin whispered to you, too close for comfort might you add. You stepped back from him slightly to add room between the two of you. Sending Soobin a nod of confirmation that you heard him.

You looked around the room at all the set ups they had for the boys slightly intrigued in the artistic aspects of it.

"There they are!" The shrill voice that was Somi said from her spot besides Soobin. She pointed over at the door where the members of Shout out were walking through. The screams from their fans were heard from outside the door sending you cringing at the thought of constantly being around that for the next coming month.

Soobin began walking towards the group who were immediately being approached by a few of the staff from Calvin Klein who were more than likely just explaining the event lineup for today. Soobin inserted himself into the conversation with ease laughing and joking with the members and their Manager rather quickly.

"Here is Y/n she'll be the one following you around for the next month or so" Soobin explained pointing over at you.

"Observing, not following" You corrected Soobin rolling your eyes at him "You make me sound like a stalker and not a reporter." Surely you should not be reprimanding your boss in front go people like the members of shouts out but honestly you didn't really care.

Soobin would do any and everything to try to demean you in front of important people and you just couldn't allow him to do that. He had already taken so much of your dignity you'd be damned if you let him take more.

Soobin's eyes turned to slits at you for only a brief awkward second before a big fake smile over turned his face. He looked over to the band once more clapping his hands in faux excitedness "Yes, observing." He said.

All four boys hardly looked at you, something you were prepared for. you knew that they weren't particularly looking forward to your company and you in turn felt the same exact way. Partying and drugs wasn't something you were interested in and you were petrified to see just how much of that they truly did.

Jay's eyes were looking at you with an intense gaze. It didn't look very friendly, it had you looking everywhere but at him. Your eyes trailed to Jake Sim one of the most notorious fuck boys in the industry right now. It was polarizing how attractive he was.

You had to remind yourself to keep your resolve when his eyes met yours. A smirk ghosting his lips, it made you felt tingly and honestly a little wet. He licked his lips his eyes trailing over the expanse of your body.

You tried your best to muster up a look of disgust, shooting an icy glare his way. You looked away from him with a roll of your eyes, no matter how attractive these four men were you had to remind yourself of who they were. You could not allow yourself to fall into the trap of Jake Sim. No matter how badly your body wanted you to.

"Well the boys are going to be getting ready for the shoot you're more then welcome to shadow us." Duri sent you a small smile that was warm and welcoming. You smiled making a move to walk behind the band as they made their way to the hair and makeup stands but a hand on your elbow yanked you back before you could go.

"How dare you disrespect me in front of them" Soobin hissed in your face, it was a quiet whisper but the meaning was pretty loud.

"i didn't" You deadpanned "I only corrected you-"

"That was disrespectful" Somi interjected. Your blood boiled at the sound of her voice and her audacity to interrupt your conversation.

"Mind your own business" You hissed at Somi, She just sent a smirk your way as she snaked her arm around Soobin's in a mock towards you.

"You should really watch how you talk to your boss" Your face was red with anger and to be frank you were embarrassed. How dare she talk to you that way? The nerve of her.

"Unlike some people I'm not going to suck up to my boss" You snickered "We all know where that got you" Somi's eyes widened in surprise at your harrowing words.

"How dare yo-" She began to shriek before Soobin cut in his voice sharp "Cut it out." Her mouth closed like an obedient little house wife.

Before the conversation could go any further you spun on your heels and followed tin the direction that the band went. Not looking back to see if Somi and Soobin were behind you.

You opened your notepad that you had been carrying readying yourself to take notes on how the band reacted to hair and makeup. In truth you were mainly watching Jay. He was notorious at blowing up at things like this.

Someone always pissed Jay off, always.

"Ready to find something incriminating on us?" A voice said from behind you causing you to jump slightly whipping around to find the culprit behind the voice.

"You scared me!" You yelped out, hand against your chest. Jake sim stood in front of you in all his glory.

"Sorry about that" He smiled "Didn't mean to scare you."

“Yeah well you did.” You glared. You realized how rude you were being but you didn’t want too seem vulnerable to him. You weren’t one of these groupie impressionable girls that would fall at his feet. You were here to work, and that was all.

“sooo” Jake trailed off awkwardly “How was your day?” He asked, his accent thick.

You arched a brow at him, stifling a chuckle. “What’s with the formalities? Don’t you have a shoot to be getting ready for?”

“Well i just figured since we’d be spending so much time together that i would come over and introduce myself to you.” His sheepishly cute smile was back on his face and it made you impossibly hot to look at.

How were you to survive a whole month of this?

“I know who you are though” You stated “In fact, i know all about you.”

“You know nothing about me.” He snapped, taking you aback at his tone. You stepped back an inch surprise written all over your face. Quickly Jake shook his head.

“I’m sorry” He imposed “I just meant..you don’t know the real me, and i certainly don’t know you.” It was impressive how quickly he recovered from what seemed like such angry emotions. It had you wondering if acting was something he should have take part in.

“You don’t need to know me.” You snipped. Chin high you said “I’m here to observe you.”

“Well sure but -“ He was cut off by the voice of Jay calling to him. “Sim! We need you over here man”

“You better go” You said to Jake. Jake nodded looking you over once again, making his way towards the place that jay had called him from.

"Did you talk to her?" Heeseung whispered to Jake as they sat watching Sunghoon's portion of the shoot.

"I tried to but Jay interrupted just as I was getting somewhere" Jake said an annoyed expression on his face.

"Do you think it's going to be easy to bag her?" Heeseung asked. Jake shook his head no with a sigh. "She seemed to hate me, made all these assumptions about me."

Heeseung let out a low whistle "This is going to be hard" Hands in his pockets he sat back on his chair a defeated look on his face.

"Yup" Jake said popping the 'p' "She's definitely going to take some convincing but I think I'll be able to do it."

"I believe in you bro" Heeseung said.

Jake just wanted to take the edge off of everything going on as of late. It was the first night of tour approximately An hour and a half before shout out was due to be on stage and Jake just needed a minute.

One of the new background dancers were eyeing him all rehearsal and who was he to deny the undeniably want in her eyes. He convinced her to occupy his dressing room with him to 'talk'. That talk quickly turned into him being deep inside her instead.

If Jake was being honest her moans were kind of annoying and a little bit distracting but the feel of her tight pussy kept him grounded.

"fuck, fuck, fuck" The girl chanted from underneath him on the dingy sofa of this awful dressing room. "I'm going to cum" She panted racking her long acrylic nails down his back.

"Don't leave marks" He hissed, he hated marks. The girl didn't seem to be listening to Jake continuing to rake her nails up and down his back. Jake's hips snapped against hers in a blurry rush to get to end.

"I'm going to cum!" She chanted loudly in Jake's ear, he cringed a bit at the sound wondering if anyone from outside could hear her. She wasn't even trying to be quiet.

Soon, the girl reached her end. Jake followed suit pulling out to dump his load all over her stomach and chest. His chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath.

Jake zipped his pants and flattened his shirt out muttering a small "Thanks" he said to the girl not offering to help her clean up. He opened the door and immediately bumped into a small frame.

You stood there, face as white as a sheet fist up like you were getting ready to knock on the door. Jake cursed, judging by the color of your face and the expression of disgust you wore you had definitely heard what was going on in here. Jake knew that this was already a terrible start to this Month and that she was surely bound to write about this in her article if he didn't change her mind.

But how was he supposed to get her to fall for him if he was out here fucking different girls in random dressing rooms.

"Duri needed your for sound check" Y/n said curtly. You wanted no part in what had just transpired. The sheer embarrassment from hearing the loud moans was enough to unsettle your stomach. it was day one and you already felt sick to your stomach. Slapping yourself for ever even thinking him attractive when you first talked at the Calvin Klein shoot.

As soon as you went to turn around the door behind Jake opened again. A girl walked out, one who was clearly a background dancer of the tour. Her hair and makeup were a mess and she worse an expression of embarrassment on her face as soon as she seen the two of you standing outside the door.

"Sorry" The girl mumbled putting her head down so that her long hair would frame her face and hide the reddening of her cheeks in the process.

"Hmm" You hummed out before turning on your heels to get as far from the situation as you could.

"Hey, wait" Jake said from behind you. Jogging to catch up with your long strides. "I'm sorry" He said when he was finally caught up, walking directly next to you.

"Why are you apologizing?" You asked. You decided to act stupid too the situation, not wanting to really go over the details of it. You were going to write it down in your note pad and then hopefully burn the sounds from your memory. What a roaring start to your time here.

"Come on" Jake sighed "You and I both know what you seen-"

"I didn't see anything" You corrected. Emphasis on the see. "I did hear something though."

"I'm sorry-" You cut him off again, not in the mood of the excuses of the explanations you just wanted the whole conversation out of your head.

"Don't." You cringed at him "Lets just not talk about it" You made another move too turn around once again but Jake still hadn't felt like letting the conversation go.

"You're going to write about it in your article aren't you?" He asked walking in front of you to prevent you from moving.

Finding not reason to lie you told him the utmost truth even if you knew it was not something he wanted to hear "I am." You nodded at him. His face changed in a split second and if you weren't such an observant person you might have missed it. He was angry, something you expected but still resented.

This was your job, this is what you were here for after all. Did he expect you not to write about what you had just heard. It was obvious he needed a reality check, and soon.

He flashed me a very obviously fake grin "Of course" He nodded curtly "Of course you are." He turned away from you before joining the rest of his bandmates that were tirelessly waiting for him to start rehearsing.

The sigh you let out was heavy as you grabbed your notebook from your bag, you had a feeling by the end of this month that you were going to have filled at least three of these with things you've observed. These boys were a lot already and you were extra nervous to see just how much more was in store.

The show had ended without a hitch. The fans screamed crazily as Shout out exited the stage for the final time tonight. You'd be lying if you didn't say you enjoyed yourself. The energy was live and the band had seemed like they were really letting loose and having fun. It was exhilarating to see.

"Y/n" A voice called to you as you were packing up your stuff for the night, save for your notebook. There was an after party that you were obligated to go to (per soobin's orders) and you had a strong inkling that you would need it there.

You turned to see Duri calling you over to where him and the Members were. You caught a glimpse of Jake and mentally cringed remembering the events that happened earlier.

"I understand you'll be at the after party correct?" Duri asked you when you walked up tot them. You sent him a quick nod holding up the notebook in your hand "I sure will be" You smirked at the boys in front of you who had looked anything but happy at the thought of you being around for their party. In fact the only person who seemed even remotely excited by the idea was Duri himself.

Jay let out a soft scoff but said nothing. You sent the boy a condescending smile but said nothing further as well.

"Great" Duri said clapping his hands "You can ride with us if you'd like" He motioned towards himself and the boys beside's him. You shook your head no, you were already going to be stuck in a room with them all night you didn't also want to be stuck in a car with them.

"That's quite alright" You smiled warmly "I'll just uber over, I have to go to the hotel room anyway to get ready before."

"Well, suit yourself we'll see you there" He sent you one final nod before he was walking off leaving The four boys to awkwardly stand there next to you.

"I don't think we properly met." Heeseung said holding his hand out to you. Reluctantly you attached your hand in his. "Y/n."

"We're excited to get to know you this month" He said sticking his hands in his pockets nonchalantly.

"I'm sure you are" You spoke with an arrogance one you know had annoyed the boys, especially Jay who could not for the life of him stop glaring at you, eyes shining with a hatred you had only ever seen a few times in your life. Mainly from Somi, might you add.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jay spit out. You were going tot lie you hadn't expected his brazen tone at all. You had assumed he would be keeping it a bit more cordial with you. In honestly whaat were you expecting from a hot head like Jay park.

You cocked your head at the boy, not allowing him to see you fazed at all. Choosing not to engage further you just flashed thee four a smile and said "I'll see you all tonight"

The sounds of muttered curse words were all you heard as you made your way from them, towards the door of the venue.

When you entered the club that the after party was taking place you noticed that it was in full swing, full of people drinking and dancing having the times of their lives. This was definitely not your setting whatsoever. You felt completely out of place here. You wore an outfit that was definitely not club attire. Looking for the boys you wandered around the club like a lost puppy for the better half of an hour.

"are you ok?" A deep voice spoke from behind you, stopping you in your wondering tracks. You whipped your head around coming face to face with a man you had never seen before.

"What?" You said startled by his beautiful face. "Uh, yeah i'm looking for shout out..I'm supposed to be at their after party.." You trailed off. The man chuckled quirking an eyebrow at you in a mocking way.

"Sorry sweetheart but they don't really allow fangirls in this early into the party, they wait until they're ready to ...go home. if you catch my drift.." The look of disgust you sent must have been grueling as the boy's face fell the smirk no longer on his face.

"I'm not a fangirl" You spoke with authority but you had a feeling that no matter how much you tried to appear professional this man wasn't go to hear not one word you had to say clearly. He was as drunk as a skunk, sloppily at that. "I'm working on an article on them and need to be where they are virtually at all times so if you would be please just let me know where they are that would be great."

The boy went back to laughing, at you. The anger you felt in your chest was a simmering mess. "Are you seriously laughing at me right now?" You raged. You knew how this looked; sitting here arguing with a drunk egotistical man but you couldn't help it. Your pride would not allow you to go down that easily.

"No can do sweetheart-"

"Stop calling me that." You grumbled crossing your arms over your chest like a child being scolded.

"No can do girl" You scoffed at him as he continued "Do you know how many people guise as all sorts of occupations to see them. I can't tell you-"

"Fuck you. I'll find my own way-" A hand grabbed at your forearm as you went to turn away, yanking you back against him.

"Don't even think about it" He grumbled. You moved to yank your arm from his scalding grip but he wouldn't allow it, holding on tight with a death grip.

"Let. me. go" You seethed at him.

"I told you, you can't see-"

"Hey!" A familiar voice bellowed out. Jake was walking towards the two of you, his eyebrows scrunched in what seemed like anger.

"Jake dude-" Jake cut the boy off before he could get another word out. "Let her go right now."

"dude.. she's a fucking groupie" Jake rolled his eyes in annoyance "She's that journalist we were telling you about you dumbass." A look of stark realization presented itself on the face of thee boy you still didn't know the name of.

"Oh." He said letting your now burning arm go.

"I told you that you fucking asshole" You reeled. Jake's eyes widened at your choice of words but you couldn't find it in yourself to care. The professional act left as soon as this man put his fucking hands on you. "but because I'm a woman my words mean nothing apparently you fucking-"

"Alright alright..let's go" Jake said softly putting his hand to your shoulder to guide you away from the very stupid man who stood there in silence as you got ready to berate him.

"I'm sorry about Tae.. he's a little drunk." Jake enunciated once again.

"Whatever" You clipped out at him, the situation draining all your energy for the night. You really hadn't felt like staying the rest of the night here for a bunch of drunk people if you were being completely honest.

"Do you want to get out of here? We don't even have to go to the party if you don't want to" Jake insisted, practically reading your mind.

"I have to be here." You sighed "No matter how I don't want to be here it's apart of my job."

"I'll go with you." He persisted "You'll still technically be doing your job, you'll just be observing me only."

You thought about it for a second and in all honestly it sounded like such a better idea then being here it this loud club where you were already sporting a massive headache, the strobe lights and pounding music not helping to ease the ache growing behind your eyes.

"I'm not going to sleep with you." You stood firm. Jake's eyes widened "No-no I-i wasn't I just- we just" He sputtered out. "That wasn't my intention."

"Ok" You nodded "Then lets go, I have a headache"

[bullet-prooflove]

Inevitable: Donovan Rocker x Reader

Tagging: @mirabee @oliviah-25 @luckyladycreator2 @iwannabeinthesequalmrghostface @one-sweet-gubler @victoriajhyde @telepathay @winterrosies-blog @me-ladie @mah2101 @@avillagesperson @irishavengersassemble @crimeshowjunkie @haielsker-93 @whateversomethingbruh @watashiwasun @burningpeachpuppy @slytherqueen14 @brownskinbaby22 @lady-athanasia @crazy4chickennuggets @kmc1989 @withakindheartx

Companion piece to Reputation & One Night

It’s been eight months since that night in Noche and only a couple since you’ve told Donovan how you feel. It’s weight off your chest because for the first time you’re with someone who knows every part of you, who understands the pressures of the job, who wants to fulfil every single one of your desires, especially the ones you’ve never spoken to anybody else.

The only problem is work, because no one knows you’re in a relationship with Donovan and you’re not sure you want to tell them. This thing between the two of you is private, it’s nobody else’s business but you can tell Donovan’s getting antsy because whilst you’re living in the moment he’s thinking in the long term. He’s thinking of what happens when you get to a year, two years, five years.

He knows it’s not about him, it’s about you. It’s about being one of the only two female officers in SWAT and all the shit that comes along with that, it’s about being a female cop in the LAPD who’s dating a superior. There’re no rules about working in the same line of business, you’re both on different teams but it’s the reputation you’re afraid of. Once the genie’s out the bottle, it’s not something you can put stopper back on.

You’ve worked so damn hard to get where you are, beaten all of the odds and he knows none of that will matter. There are still people in the force who will judge you for the choices you make, for choosing to be with him. It’s your decision and he respects that, however things like this don’t stay a secret forever and at some point it’s going to come out. He doesn’t wish for that, but he senses the inevitability of it.

You’re walking to the café on the corner after a night of debauchery. The sun is shining, you’re both wearing sunglasses, Donovan’s arm is slung around your shoulders, your fingers linked with his as he leans in close and whispers in your ear.

“How about I ruin you in Napa? A little wine tasting, a little fun in a B&B…”

He’s interrupted by the sound of someone calling your name. The both of you freeze as you turn your attention to the two men approaching you.

Luca and Street…

Donovan feels the way you tense; he expects you to pull away, claim that you just bumped into one another. He’s willing to play along if that’s what you want. But you don’t do any of that, instead you squeeze his hand.

“Hey, we were just trying out that new food truck up the street when we saw you…” Luca says holding up a crepe. You see the expression on Street’s face, the moment it dawns on him that you and Donovan are here together, actually together.

“The two of you…” He trails off gesturing between the both of you.

Donovan looks down at you, waiting for your play. He’d follow you to hell and back with any decision you make and that only makes you love him more.

“Yea,” You tell your team mates, your lips brushing across the back of Donovan’s hand. “We’ve been together a while now.”

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Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[stormysunday9]

I've been editing this for too long now and I just need to put it out into the world. The ending doesn't feel quite right...but maybe that's because this story just isn't done yet!

Featuring: happy Joe, some 18+ stuff, and a bit of cheese.

The Missing Piece

I was now five blocks from work and the man who had  stepped out behind me after I locked the door was still following closely behind me.

I started to panic, I was at least another ten blocks from home. It was starting to get dark. I was 5'5 and all I had to protect me was my lunch bag and the yogurt I didn't eat. My heart was pounding. I didn't need to turn around to see him, I could sense him there.

This was a pretty affluent neighbourhood, maybe I could just pretend I lived here. I walked past a couple more homes, then started the journey up one of the long driveways, not daring to look behind me. When I reached the front door, I pretended to unlock it, hoping I'd sold my story to my creepy shadow. When I twisted the knob, the door opened easily, and since I was no longer thinking clearly I just stepped inside.

After a moment of relief from being off the street and into safety, I looked up to see a very tall man standing in front of me with a look of both shock and concern fleeting over his icy blue eyes.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so so sorry! There was a man, I don't know, he's been following me since I left work! I still have so far to go, I was getting scared, I didn't know what to do, your door was unlocked, I didn't mean to come in...." I was still tripping over my words as the man placed his hands on my shoulders and tried to meet my wild eyes .

"Hey, hey." He said firmly but calmly. "It's ok, you're ok. I know, I saw him on the camera, he was following you up the drive. Do you want me to call the police?"

"No, I don't think so. I don't know. I didn't even get a good look at him." I replied. "Do you mind if I sit down?" I asked embarrassingly, the adrenaline was fading and I felt like I might fall over.

"Yes of course", he ushered me to the couch, "and my security camera, I have a clear shot of him on there."

"Oh smart. Ya I can get an image from there then, I'll file a report tomorrow. I'm so sorry for all this." My head was finally starting to stop spinning and my heart slowing down, allowing me to take in my surroundings a bit more clearly. This was a very nice house. Very clean. No clutter. I looked over my shoulder to see him coming back from the kitchen.

He carefully sat down near me on the couch, being sure to leave a full cushion's worth of space between us. He handed me a glass of water and said, "I'm Joe, by the way."

"Hi Joe", I responded, and took a quick drink of water before adding, "you should really lock your doors."

He let out a chuckle and a grin spread across his face. "Well, in this particular instance, I'm kind of glad I didn't. My manager was supposed to be stopping by, so I left it open."

"Oh my gosh, let me get out of your hair then. I don't want to get you in trouble with work! I just need to call an Uber." I started searching my bag for my phone.

"I would like to drive you home if that's ok. Not sure how many more strange men you should add to this day." He raised an eyebrow at me, presumably waiting to see if I was going to laugh or start crying.

I laughed. "That's very kind, but what about your manager?"

"Don't worry about that, my job is pretty secure," he smiled, "let me grab my keys and my shoes."

I noticed he was wearing slippers currently, slippers which I could only describe as old man slippers. He did seem to have an old soul aura about him. I followed Joe out to his garage, that housed multiple vehicles - a very flashy sports car, a futuristic looking truck, and a Mercedes G Wagon. And it looked like we were taking the latter. He must be some kind of tech mogul, I thought to myself, but what's a tech mogul doing in the middle of Ohio?

When we reached my house, which was about an eighth the size of his, I turned to look at him. I couldn't help but think how warm those cold blue eyes looked. 

"Thank you so much, seriously." I said. "You're a real hero."

He chuckled. "Would I be able to give you my number?" He asked.

My wide eyed expression must have given away what I was trying to keep my mouth from saying because Joe immediately spoke up.

"Not like that!" He backtracked shaking his head, "just in case you need more security footage, or a witness statement of something. Or anything at all really. I'm usually around. Except Sundays. I work Sundays." 

I handed him my phone and he quickly typed his number in and handed it back to me. 

"I'm Casey, by the way" I said as I stepped out of his truck. 

"Hi Casey," he smiled.

"Lock your door, Joe!" I yelled over my shoulder as I walked to my front door.

I saw him give me a hand to forehead salute through the passenger window. I walked inside, locked my own door, and peeked out the window, just in time to see him pull away.

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

The next couple days were less eventful. I had security cameras installed at the shop. I filed my police report at the station. And I ordered some bear spray from Amazon. I was glad when the weekend finally rolled around, and on Sunday headed over to my friend Jess' house for our weekend supper tradition. Jess and her husband always hosted, and our other friend Kate and her boyfriend joined, and then me, the obligatory fifth wheel. The boys usually watched football and us girls caught up on gossip and played board games.

The girls and I were playing a very distracted round of Uno while the boys yelled at the game on the TV. I casually glanced over at the TV after being served multiple miss a turns in a row, and what I saw put my heart in my stomach. 

Unforgettable icy blue eyes.

"Ummm, who is that, Trevor?" I anxiously asked Jess' husband.

"Joe Burrow.", Trevor replied.

"I can read the screen, Trev, I mean who IS he?"

"The quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals. And you're a disappointment to the whole state of Ohio for not knowing that."

"Harsh, but ok...and like, he's pretty good? Or what?"

Trevor rolled his eyes and turned to look at me, "ya he's like top three in the league, easy. Why, Case? You finally gonna become a football fan?"

I excused myself from the Uno game that I was never going to win anyway and grabbed my phone from my bag. I searched my contacts. J...O...E...

Joe with the Unlocked Doors.

There he was. And with a sense of humor at that. I opened the contact and began to type.

Wow. Your overconfident sense of job security makes so much sense now!

Presumably he wouldn't be texting back anytime soon. Based on the tv screen he appeared to be rather busy at the moment. 

Later that evening I was laying on the couch, working on a bracelet I was making and watching Netflix when my phone lit up.

Shocked Pikachu gif. (Classic choice.) So you're not a football fan then?

I just don't know anything about it. But today I learned Joe Burrow is the quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals. And that sometimes he leaves his doors unlocked. 🤷‍♀️

Ha! Both of those are true. I'm glad you texted.

It was a shock response.

I'm glad anyway. So now you know what I do, what do you do? Aside from walk into strangers houses, of course.

Cold.

I'm actually a dog groomer. I make pups pretty for a living. I have a little shop on Hudson, which is where I was walking from when I broke into your home.

That's unexpected, and so cool. Love that you've got your own grind. 

Well my grind doesn't garner me multiple vehicles in my garage, but I do love it. It only affords me my old Bronco that starts half the time, and not at all in the winter.

Is that why you walk?

Sometimes. But I do like being outside. And "that day" I chose to walk. Looking back, evidently a poor choice.

Maybe not all bad since you met me?

Haha, I dunno, I got to meet the quarterback of an NFL team and didn't even ask for an autograph! 🫤

Funny. Maybe don't think of me as that, just think of me as Joe.

...with the unlocked doors! 

Exactly. 😉

We continued to message back and forth, joking and laughing while also learning a bit about one another, when I looked at the time on my phone and couldn't believe how late it had gotten.

I think I better get some shut eye. Early start tomorrow. Nice chatting with you. Goodnight, Joe!

Goodnight, Casey. Sweet dreams.

It took me a while to fall asleep that night. What is happening? He's so nice. And absolutely gorgeous. Now that I could think about him a little more clearly and not in a fear filled state of adrenaline...wow. He had to be a full foot taller than me, with what appeared to be the strength of a Greek god, and the fluffiest, wavy hair that was just being begged to have hands run through it. And a little curl that kept falling onto his forehead no matter how many times he pushed it back. And those eyes...oh my gosh those eyes. 

Pull yourself together, Casey! I scolded myself. I was being ridiculous. And I needed some sleep, it was back to my not so lucrative grind tomorrow.

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

Monday morning I was back in my element. The Bronco started, my first dogs of the day were settled on the floor around me, my coffee was just right. Maybe it would be a good week. With my headphones on, and high velocity dryer blasting, I almost didn't hear someone walk through the door. I looked up, startled so see a man with a hoodie pulled over his head and wrap around sunglasses on his face. He must have seen the fear in my eyes as he immediately reached up to push the hood off his head and replace it with his sunglasses.

Joe.

I felt my face flush. I turned off the dryer and put my headphones around my neck.

"What on earth..." Was all I could get out.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I just figured that you saw what I do, so I wanted to see what you do...I hope that's ok." I could see a worried look in his eyes.

"How did you find me?" I probably should have reassured those baby blues, but I was still so confused.

"Well you told me your shop was on Hudson. And there was a dog groomer on Hudson called Casey's Place.....so I guess I'm a detective?" He was still feeling out if he'd made a mistake.

I laughed. "That's fair I guess. You googled me?!"

He let out a chuckle. Those seemed difficult to evoke from him, but I felt like I could make it my full time job just to hear the sound and watch the corners of his eyes crinkle.

"You haven't googled me?" He asked with mock accusation.

"Actually, no," I admitted, "I think I'd prefer to learn about you from you."

He smiled, "well I guess we've determined who's the better person then!"

He suddenly sat on the floor cross legged, and the three dogs already on the floor immediately ran to him and began climbing and licking him maniacally.

Jealous, I thought. But only said, "well that's a good sign."

"What is?," he asked while trying to avoid getting dog tongue directly in his mouth.

"Never trust someone your dog doesn't trust! And they seem to love you."

This time he blushed.

I lifted the dog on the table down to the floor so he could join the fun. 

Joe tried to untangle himself from the dog pile and stand back up. "I was wondering if I could take you to lunch?" he asked, barely making eye contact.

Wow, is he...nervous? I wanted to say yes so bad, but I was the only one in the shop today, and I couldn't leave the dogs unattended. 

"Could I take a rain check?" I asked, hoping my eyes didn't look as desperate as I felt.

"Of course," he replied, "I knew you were working, I'm sorry."

I gave him a little pout, and the corners of his mouth turned up. 

"I'll talk to you soon!" He said and quickly turned and walked out the door.

My heart sank. Did I just turn down Joe Burrow on a date? But my job, I've worked so hard for this shop, and surely he gets that. I hoisted the dog back onto the table and got back to work, while my heart continued to chastise my brain for being too responsible. Then my phone chimed. I looked at my watch to see a message from Joe. I pulled out my phone to open it.

Do you like onions?

Well...I guess he still wants to get to know me? First what I do for a living, now my produce preferences?

I typed back, Yes with a question mark.

Message read, no response.

This man is an enigma. 

And then 10 minutes later my door dinged and in walked Joe with two greasy paper bags, a tray loaded down with drinks, and a smile that could light up the dark.

"You still have to eat, right?" He said with a shrug of his big, broad shoulders and began to spread out a selection of burgers and fries across the grooming table that wasn't currently in use.

"I got you a soda, a milkshake and a coffee because I don't know what you like yet." He explained 

Yet. Oh my gosh he was adorable. I melted, perhaps obviously.

I pulled up two stools, suddenly a little unsure if one would even support Joe's enormous size. He sat down and it looked almost comical.

"I'm so sorry," I apologized, unable to choke back my laughter, "I don't normally cater to football stars". 

He brushed it off, quickly. "All good, a lot of furniture is too small for me. Or I'm too big for it. Whichever."

He took a big bite of a burger while I grabbed a couple fries, unable to take my eyes off him, trying to understand what these last several days were coming to. My overthinking brain couldn't take it anymore, and I just spit out "Why me?"

Joe turned to me, looking straight into my eyes, with surprise. "What do you mean?", he seemed genuinely confused. 

I took a deep breath. "Well, like, you're you. You're obviously super attractive, you're a famous athlete, you're talented, smart, focused, funny, kind, charming... I'm sure you could have your pick of anyone in Ohio - no, in America. Maybe even Canada too. And then, I'm just me."

"You think I'm attractive?" He said, eyebrows raising, blue eyes mischievous.

I rolled my eyes.

"But seriously, Casey," he continued, "I'm intrigued by you. I love that you know who you are, and what you're about. You're beautiful, you're smart, you're focused. And honestly, I kind of liked that you didn't know who I was."

I could feel the flush of red flowing up my face, I've never been good at accepting compliments. Especially from this remarkable specimen of a man sitting so very close to me right now.

"I really don't think you're giving yourself enough credit", he continued, "I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since the day I laid eyes on you. I wasn't going to push it, but when you texted me yesterday, I knew I didn't want to let you get away." 

He placed his large hand on my thigh, I think to comfort me because he could tell I was overwhelmed, but it had the opposite effect and made my heart beat 10 times faster.

"I like you too, Joe. I just don't know what this would look like. Dog groomer dates NFL superstar? I'm an introvert. Sometimes I get anxious if the grocery store is really busy."

Joe burst out laughing. "Maybe just don't overthink it, and we can see what happens?" He smiled, his eyes pleading with mine, feeling like they were reaching in and pulling directly on my heart. A smile started creeping across my face, despite my best efforts to convince myself there was just no way this was happening, and then Joe leaned in and planted his full, beautiful lips on mine, leaving absolutely no doubt that it really was. 

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

The rest of the week was bliss. Late nights facetiming until we fell asleep, Joe stopping in with coffee for me at work (now that he knew that was my drink of choice). I was living for getting to know and understand him. I'd never known someone so focused, so loyal. He was incredibly intelligent, loved his family, he was thoughtful, awkward enough to allow me to believe he really was human, and so adorable when he tried to flirt. And probably most surprising, he was quite introverted too, preferring to keep a small circle, and still navigating the fame that he had now achieved. 

I also learned that the day before game day, as far as anyone in the world is concerned, Joe Burrow does not exist. He takes the day to focus, watch tape, and avoid distraction and chatter at all costs. He definitely takes his job seriously, but I get it, he loves what he does.

So Friday night he picked me up to go to his place for supper. He wanted to avoid a public outing, to avoid the media storm that was sure to follow. I thought that sounded like a great idea. He pulled up in his white G-Wagon around 7pm. 

I climbed up into the passenger side. 

"Did you lock your door?" He joked.

"Hilarious.", I replied, "why do you always drive this thing? Don't get me wrong, you look hot as hell behind the wheel, but I know you have a garage full of choices."

He blushed and tried to hide his smile. "Those were all phases I thought I was going through I guess. This thing is my favourite. And the least conspicuous". 

He put the vehicle in gear and reached across the console to hold my hand. It was a short drive to his house, despite us living in very different neighbourhoods. We walked into his house that already smelled like food as his cook was busy preparing game day prep-appropriate nutrition. We sat down on his oversized couch (he seemed to have purchased furniture more suited so his size), and he turned to look at me. He grabbed both my hands in his, making them all but disappear. 

"I have a question for you," he started.

Uh oh. Serious Joe was also unreadable Joe. 

"Oooook," I said nervously.

He squeezed my hands. 

"It's nothing bad, I was just wondering if you wanted to come to my game on Sunday. You don't have to sit in the suite, I can get you tickets for the stands. You can bring friends if you want. Whatever you want."

Oh boy. There is nothing I wanted more than to be there to support him, cheer him on, watch him do his thing, see him in those tight pants in person... But I wasn't sure I was ready for that kind of debut yet.

"Joe...."

He could sense my reservations immediately.

"It's ok," he reassured me, "I wanted you to have the invitation, I totally get it if we're...not there yet." He seemed genuine, but also a little sad. Damn those puppy dog eyes.

"It's not that, I just haven't really told anyone about us yet, I wasn't even sure there was anything to tell, and I barely understand the game, and if at any point you'd be there with me I'd be all for it, but I know that's not how game day works. I will be there, and soon....I think I just need a little more time." My eyes were pleading with him to understand. 

And of course he did. He wrapped me in a big hug. "I'm looking forward to that day, and it makes me unreasonably happy to hear you talk about the future, even if you're just talking three weeks from now." He was grinning like a fool. I was absolutely falling for this man.

"I have a proposition, perhaps a bit of a compromise. What if you come to my place after your game. I would really like to see you, especially if I have to be Joe-free tomorrow." I tried my best puppy dog eyes, and they seemed to work.

"I can do that," he agreed, "but if we don't win, I can't say how good of company I'll be".

"If we don't win?!" I mocked, "well that doesn't sound like Joe Burrow at all!"

He laughed. That was still my favourite. They didn't come easily, but I would spend my last day trying just to hear that beautiful sound. 

----------

Sunday afternoon I plopped down on the couch with a coffee, a blanket, and my phone. I turned on the tv to the game. And suddenly felt very, very nervous. I wasn't sure what the superstitions were about talking to the players before the game, but I decided to send Joe a quick text. Knowing him, he doesn't even look at his phone prior to a game. 

Have fun today. We're the lucky ones, getting paid to do what we love ❤️

He replied with the kissing face emoji: 😘

Swoon.

I spent most of the game googling - offside, the pocket, roughing the passer, why are they punting, what is a punt.....this was gonna be a steep learning curve. I also spent part of the game covering my eyes when Joe was about to get hit. This was so intense. It was a hard fought game, but three hours later the Bengals finished with a loss by two points. Now I was even more nervous. I was about to meet After a Loss Joe. Knowing how seriously he takes his job, I knew losses must hit him pretty hard. 

45 minutes after the game ended, the G Wagon's headlights shone into my front window. Well, he still came over so that was a good sign.

I opened the door to him not standing as tall as he usually does, but he still wrapped me in a hug and gave me a kiss on the top of my head. 

"Hi", I said softly, meeting his eyes. "I'm proud of you, that was amazing to watch". 

He offered a small smile and walked across the room to collapse on the couch.

I walked to the kitchen and poured myself a cup of tea  and him a glass of water, then joined him in the front room. I set the cups on the table, and sat down on his lap, running my hand through his freshly washed hair. He wrapped his long arms around my waist and rested his head against my shoulder. I didn't say anything, just listened to him breathe, while I breathed in his fresh shower scent, and enjoyed how small I felt on his expansive lap, with his strong arms enveloping me. 

Eventually he swung his legs up onto the couch and scooted down so he was laying down, taking up the whole length of the couch. He moved me to the side so I was tucked in between his body and the back of the couch. I rested my head on his chest.

"I just hate letting the guys down," he finally spoke.

I didn't offer a response. I didn't think he was looking for one.

"I fumbled that snap, I don't even know how, but that was about to be a big play, and instead it was nothing."

I pushed myself up onto my elbow so I could see his face. He stared at me for a minute.

"Aren't you gonna say anything?" He asked.

"What could I possibly have to offer? I spent the whole game googling terminology and covering my eyes cuz I was scared you were gonna get hurt!" I admitted.

Unexpectedly, his face relaxed, and he laughed. 

"If it helps, I thought you looked great, I found the game really exciting, for what I understood, and I kinda hoped you were gonna show up here in your uniform still because wow, apparently I love a man I uniform." I said with a knowing look. 

"Is that so?" He asked, a smirk on his face

He sat back up, and scooped me back onto his lap, this time so I was straddling him and looking right into those beautiful eyes. He stared at me for what felt like forever before saying, "You're my missing piece." 

"Sorry?" I replied, confused.

"It's just, I have everything I ever could have wanted from life, and I couldn't figure out why I still wasn't where I wanted to be. This is the first time I've ever held onto a little hope after a loss, because I still had something to look forward to. I was excited to come here. It's you, Case. I was missing you. And now here you are. And I'm sorry to tell you, but now that I have you, i'm never gonna let you go." His face was so soft, relaxed, certain.

I felt tears prick the corners of my eyes. His sincerity made me emotional. I didn't risk speaking, as I knew my voice would give away how much I was feeling for him in that moment. Instead, I leaned into him and kissed him deeply. His tongue forced it's way into my mouth, playing tag with mine. I ran my hands through his hair like I'd been dreaming of doing all week. 

He slipped his hands under me and lifted us both off the couch in one swift movement. I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, still kissing his mouth, his cheeks, his neck. 

He gently laid me down on my bed, and I shimmied my body up to my pillow. He climbed onto the bed on his hands and knees, hovering over me like a real Bengal tiger about to devour his prey. He started at my forehead and began working his way down, kissing every inch of me. He pulled down the shoulder of my shirt and planted soft, yet hungry kisses on my bare skin. He then pushed my shirt up, exposing my belly, kissing me more. I pulled the shirt over my head, exposing my bra. More kisses between the exposed parts of my breasts. Down to my belly button, where he began to unbutton my jeans. 

"You're so beautiful" be breathed out between kisses. 

"Hold on," I begged, and pulled his shirt over his head. I almost gasped, taking in every inch of his expansive, muscular torso. A bruise on his bicep, a scar on his belly, and the most phenomenal abs I'd ever seen. 

"You're ethereal." I panted.

"Your vocabulary is so sexy", he grinned, and continued planting kisses all over me. He pulled my jeans down and kissed his way back up my legs. When he made it to the warm, increasingly wet place between my legs, he sat up on his knees, taking in all of me. I should have felt self conscious, but instead I felt safe, even beautiful. I pulled him back into me and began sliding his track pants over his hips. He wasn't wearing underwear. His cock sprung out, erect and very large. I looked up at him, he was waiting for a response. I may have whimpered.

"Is this ok?" He asked.

"I can't think of anything I want more", I replied, perhaps a bit desperately.

He slid my panties down and let his fingers enter me. I couldn't have been any more wet, but the feel of his hard length rubbing against my thigh as he fingered me was making me feral. 

I put my hands on his shoulders, drawing his attention back to my face. "I want you," I panted, "all of you."

His face was flushed, and he smiled. He positioned himself back on top of me, and slowly pushed his hard cock into me. It slid in easily with how wet I was, and filled absolutely every bit of me. When he finally bottomed out, I gasped 

"Are you alright?" His face showed genuine concern. 

"Never been better," I reassured him. I wrapped my legs around him, taking in every inch, while he kissed my neck and thrusted into me, slowly, steadily. I was digging my nails into his back. He felt so good. I never wanted him to stop. He continue to place soft kisses down my neck, on my breasts, letting his tongue linger on my nipples. Despite how strong this man was, he couldn't have been more gentle and attentive. 

When his face was near mine again, I told him to roll over. Excitement flickered over his eyes, he smiled, and obeyed.

I straddled him and began grinding my hips against him. In this position, he went even deeper into me, I could feel him in my belly. I couldn't stop staring at him. The more I took in every perfect angle of his face and body, the quicker my body forced itself against him. My clit rubbing against his abdomen in my own slickness, I could feel myself reaching my climax.

"Are you close?" I breathed, holding onto him tightly.

"I'm ready when you are," he smiled.

I began rocking harder, faster, reaching around to cradle his heavy testicles, watching his face writhe in exquisite pleasure until I felt every nerve in me release while I pulled him in even deeper and tighter in the throes of orgasm. I felt him buck his hips into me while moaning in pleasure, savoring his own release. I collapsed onto his hard body, completely blissed out. 

He wrapped his arms around me, and whispered "wow..." Between ragged breaths. 

I rolled off of him and curled in beside him as tightly as possible. His arm around my back, mine draped over his perfect torso.

"After that, I won't be going anywhere either, just so you know." I told him while tracing small circles with my finger around his chest. 

"Nothing would make me happier," he smiled, and turned to kiss my cheek. 

I guess I better start figuring out how to be a little more comfortable in crowds....

----------

[dat-physics-gal]

A leap of faith and Physics (part 2)

Now that we knew how to find the crystals, the scientific community was tense. Itching to do something with them.

One paper had just unveiled a method of propulsion using the tachyon background and directed linear resonance chirping. The tachyon background, as it turned out, is self organizing. Unlike the tardionic world we were used to, entropy actually decreases over there. There is a natural tachyon base frequency, one so high that they travel really slowly. That's also weird about tachyons, how the more energy they have, the slower they move. But we knew that part beforehand.

Anyway, the paper outlined how to use a subharmonic of that base frequency, that could slowly be chirped in one direction to one harmonic lower, which would generate physical thrust on the tardium crystal used for chirping. Only problem was that once the frequency arrived at the new subharmonic, the tachyons decayed into their base frequency, completely stopping the propulsion. This stopping effect, though detrimental to the experimental setup in terms of having broken it multiple times, begged the question though: Since it stopped, momentum isn't conserved, despite motion happening.

Just half a year later, some madlad had designed an actual engine based on that concept, that should in theory exceed the speed of light. To be fair, the tardium crystals did that, for a couple attoseconds. Unfortunately for the rest of the prototype, normal matter doesn't appreciate being moved at superluminal speeds, and therefore broke apart when the craft approached the light barrier.

Despite that setback, people kept on theorizing and engineering. Then, two years later, Star Trek came to the rescue again. A research group posited that they could make a 'structural integrity field' by sprinkling microscopic tardium crystals into the steel and ceramic of the hull, and engineering a tachyon field that would keep them at a constant distance relative to the drive crystals. Ten months later, and a tiny prototype did what we thought to be impossible: For 24 milliseconds, it traveled at about 1.000000001c, and it came out of this experience unharmed. However, the sharp drop from superluminal to low subluminal speeds did de-tune the structural integrity field. Unless we got someone to board the vessel and re-tune it after every drop from superluminal, this wasn't going to work out. Especially because the chirp would not last all that long.

Now that the principle was proven, though, the engineers and mining crews took over. While the former slaved over engine and hull designs, the latter set up multiple extra bases along the asteroid belt, undulation mining all the tardium crystals they could get their metaphorical hands on. They were tiny, but since we needed most of them for the integrity field anyway, that wasn't a problem. What was harder was finding good, sufficiently large drive crystals.

Meanwhile, the engineers had settled on a design that was, for some reason, a flying saucer. They explained that they needed three or more engines to run at the same time all the time, to be able to adjust course. And also have more than that so some could be stopped, reset, and be ready to chirp again before the active ones were done. Therefore, at six points radially along the saucer, there were 2cm sized drive crystals which would propel the craft. They would be working on three cycles, while one pair was resetting, the other two pairs would be actively propelling the vessel. This way, continuous propulsion could be achieved. And the integrity field would not need to be re-tuned every couple milliseconds.

For low subluminal speeds, the engines didn't actually require the integrity field to be active. This had the advantage, that the vessel could be contacted. Because as prototyping quickly revealed, as soon as the integrity field was up, communications were all blocked in their entirety.

But, well, after 5 more years of prototyping and biological compatibility testing, the first starship was deemed spaceworthy and safe for humans to be on the inside of. Turned out that as long as the hull integrity field was up, the inside of the craft needed no further cautions, and you could float around in it like normal. The field itself didn't even extend much further inside beyond the outer hull. Though, when the field was down, you would experience the g-forces of the drive, which sounds bad, but actually made for some handy way to produce artificial gravity during the ascent from the surface. Once the field was up, the magnetic boots of the uniforms anchored you to the floor. Or you could grab onto two handles and anchor yourself that way.

We would love to have made a bigger ship than we did, but unfortunately, the Enterprise (because of course they named it that) was limited by the amount of available large tardium crystals for the drive. So we deemed its first mission to be getting some more. Trade for them, get permission to mine them, whatever, we just needed some larger ones.

As for now, the enterprise had just one deck in the wider saucer, but 3 in the middle, which was bulbed out for no discernible reason i could find, other than to make it look like a proper UFO. And maybe to house the living quarters for the crew of 45 brave explorers. And also to transport back more tardium in the cargo hold, located smack dab in the middle of the ship.

We sent a request for the isocoordinates of the closest civilization to us over vibromessage, and after receiving them, we gave the go ahead.

We however forgot to take into account that due to the message blocking of the structural field, we could no longer send our friends in the Andromeda galaxy any messages. Nor could we check in with the Enterprise, as it would be in the tachyon slipstream continuously, so as not to need to re-tune the integrity field as often. Because that takes a while each time.

So for 30 long years after the sendoff, we didn't know anything. We didn't waste that time, but with so much of our supply of crystals built into that ship, we needed a while to even start on other experiments. And the first thing we did was to upgrade the control network for the dyson collectors. I say first thing, as if we finished that project quickly, when in reality it took us 2 of those 3 decades. The last decade was pretty calm. Humanity had endured so much excitement, that the new generation now pushed to refocus on our culture. So, now that the collectors were precise enough, we finally began to enact our long awaited plan to terraform Mars. But that would take about a century in total, so it wasn't like there was much daily excitement to be had about that.

Then, thirty years and 5 months after launch, at 0:1 PFJ, we received a vibromessage from Andromeda. Enterprise had made it.

Quickly thereafter, the prime administrator called me, demanding to be connected to the tachyon network at once, now that comms were open once more.

I didn't really watch the negotiations that followed, but to make a long story short, our wayward crew was allowed to mine asteroids in the system of the aliens for tardium, so long as the aliens got a 40/60 cut. They themselves admitted to being unable to mine them by themselves, so they gave us the lion's share.

For the domestic scientists, this meant the reserves of tardium were opened more to experiments, as more was on the way soon-ish.

This resulted in the discovery of how the tachyons decayed into their base frequency, or vacuum state, if you will. We knew that in tardium, the tachyons directly couple with the phonons, which are the vibrational excitation modes. However, in vacuum, when coupling with themselves in order to decay into a higher frequency, the excitation was mitigated by an elongation of the surrounding spacetime in turn. We had finally found the explaination for the expansion of the universe: Whenever tardium gets excited and tachyons of non-base frequencies are sent out, their decay mode stretches the universe. Or, well, it stretches spacetime, with isospace being left unaffected. Our drive tech basically anchors the vessel to isospace anyway, so even if the universe keeps expanding, we can still visit everyone we want with the first drive we made. But... negative spacial curvature was something we wanted to achieve for centuries. And now, we were able to!

With this discovery, the engineers went back to work to try to make this into a method of propulsion as well. This necessitated a name for our first, working engine, which we decided to call the slipstream drive. This was fairly intuitive of a name, as the vessel would couple to isospace instead of regular spacetime, where it would be carried by the pressure of the tachyon field on one side, while the chirpers destructively interfered with it on the other side. Thus essentially creating a slipstream pocket in the front, into which the tachyon pressure would continuously push the vessel.

Speaking of names, the newly conceived drive was uncreatively christened the warp drive. To be fair, it was pretty much exactly what a warp drive in pop-culture had been. Except, turns out, it didn't work that easily. The warp prototypes at the moment had small drive crystals. And so, their warp fields collapsed fairly rapidly, due to unwanted resonance we couldn't shunt away. No prototype even managed to break the warp 1 barrier yet, though they did achieve fairly decent sublight speeds. And, interestingly, they could still be communicated with via tachyon message. This was due to the fact that they worked on the opposite principle of comm-arrays. Where communications needed to stay stable over vast distances, the warp drive needed the tachyons to rapidly decay into the ground state in order to achieve propulsion. Anyway, as exciting as the warp drives were, in terms of actual propulsion, they weren't all that revolutionary.

The theoretical development of better, more efficient slipstream drives on the other hand flourished. Once Enterprise got back, the engineers were confident that the next trip to Andromeda could be tackled in about a month or two, with the new engine design. Maybe three, if some unforeseen hazards appeared.

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

The high council of Krg didn't really know how to react to the news of the Humans' arrival.

Nobody could wrap their minds around how they got here. Or really why. Well, they stated that they wanted to mine the asteroids in the star system for tardium, but why they came to the surface was beyond the council's understanding.

They had to wear thick, bulky suits, with gas containers for respiration, as Krg didn't have an atmosphere. To even get to our habitats, we had to open one of the pressure doors, which we normally use to get to the surface whenever we want to access the telescopes. It was such a strange feeling, letting something else then a Krgian crawl through our living spaces. Usually when that happened, the intruder was some kind of pest, which we quickly drove out.

The Humans had trouble with the steepness of some of our tunnels, but they still insisted they come down here. Our multitude of locomotive limbs allows our kind to easily traverse these tunnels, but that didn't mean the Humans didn't manage. When we thought it would be too steep for them to follow us, they unveiled a rope and pulley system, which they used to hoist themselves down along the wall. Ingenious!

Though i couldn't help but ask: "Are you sure you can get back up?"

The lead human, furthest down the rope turned its head, and replied: "Yeah, easily. The gravity here is so much lower compared to Earth, it will be a cakewalk. Ah, sorry, human expression, what i meant was it will be a simple matter. To be honest, i am more worried about the light."

Light? "Oh right, you Humans have sensory organs that require light." I had forgotten about that, but supposed it made sense for surface dwellers such as them.

"Yes, we can't see much down here with our measly flashlights."

"What is a flashlight?"

"A portable light source, which can be directed into a specific direction. But in tunnels like these, in the dark, i can see why your species has evolved vibrational senses first and foremost."

"You are familiar with them?"

The Human made noise that sounded as if it had trouble with respiration. "Yes. We have lots of life forms on Earth that have whiskers like yours. Not even all of which live in tunnels. Some live together with us."

This surprised me. "There is another intelligent species on your planet?"

"No." came the swift reply.

"Ah, a pet then. Or is it livestock?"

"No, cats are pets. Though jury's out on who's domesticated whom."

I wanted to ask for clarification, but we had arrived at my workstation.

"We are here," i announced to the humans, opening the hatch. "You may enter."

"Whoa. Is that? A tardium crystal?" The third Human in line extended their forelimb toward one of the array crystals. "It is gigantic!"

Appraising the crystal, it was only about one and a half body lengths of the Humans. "It is for a communications array, after all. Though it is not the largest single crystal we have," i informed them.

"If the boys back home saw that, they'd be foaming at the mouth, you know that?"

"Isn't mouth foaming a bad sign?" I wasn't sure about all the intricacies of Human biology, i was a communication officer after all, not a biologist.

"It would be, if that wasn't just an expression. Sorry, i keep forgetting that idioms require context that you don't have. May we use the array to send a message back home? Our vessel is only equipped with a short range communication grid."

Another human whispered something i think i wasn't supposed to hear, but could clearly: "ET phone home." It was said in English, which i was rusty in, so i didn't know what it meant. We had been conversing in basic so far.

Of course, i agreed to let them use it. They proceeded to turn their heads in many different positions, but didn't go to the controls.

"Is something wrong?" i asked.

"We have no idea how to work this thing."

Oh. I went over to the vibromotor-controls, and softly brushed the control crystal. Brushing the harmony for communication with Earth, the vibromotors undulated, configuring the array crystals into the correct alignment.

The Humans then initiated a small scale communication from their own limited range communicator, which i configured the array to pick up and amplify, then transmit toward Earth. On the side, i used internal communications to call the council of elders up here, who to my surprise agreed to come right away. Only two millirotations later, they crawled up the side entrances, their chitin softness dampening their approach to a respectably low volume.

At the same time, the communications array was picking up a response, from the leader of Earth.

"Shall we leave the leaders to their decision?" one of the Humans asked me.

"Probably." i responded. We made our way outside the cavern.

"Do you have a water reservoir here somewhere?" one of the Humans requested. "We need to refill our oxygen supply, but we have electrolyzers and hydrogen fusers in the ship. So if you could spare a couple tons of water, that would really help us."

I had no idea what half these words meant, but lead them to a communal pressure well. We use those to transport cargo from the lower levels, but we had more than enough liquid water to spare. A couple tons were nothing.

After a trip back to the surface, hauling some metallic objects down the tunnels, the humans went to work. Why they were using construction material was beyond me, but soon, a rythmic hum came from one of the devices.

"Fusion in 3. 2. 1. Fusing now," one of them announced, having connected a soft pipe from one device to the other.

"What exactly is it that you are doing?" i inquired.

"Electro-chemically splitting the water into hydrogen and oxygen, then using the hydrogen for the fusion reactor, which in turn powers the electrolyzer."

"I have no idea what any of that means," i admitted.

The Humans turned their heads to one another for a moment, then back to me.

"We're using a machine, or two machines rather, to make breathable gas out of the water."

"Oh, so you breathe water vapor?"

"No. But we can make what we breathe out of water. We don't just vaporize it. I don't think i can properly explain chemistry or electrolysis right now. We don't have the time for that."

"Don't we have plenty, while the negotiations are underway?" i inquired.

"If you think they will take multiple cycles, then maybe. But i thought it would only be a few rotations, right?"

It takes multiple cycles to explain?

What?

Just what is up with these Humans?

...to be honest, i kind of wanted to find out for myself at this point. Maybe, just maybe, they would allow me to travel back to Earth with them. I didn't have a clutch of eggs to care for, nor a mate. Which hadn't exactly bothered me, but it did mean i had nothing holding me here. Except for the now obsolete thought that i couldn't go to any other civilization.

Hello, Author here. I am sorry to say this, but this is probably the last thing i write for this world. ADHD refuses to let me do such a sustained project. If any of you want to write something in this setting i created, though, be sure to run it by me to see if it fits the setting. Also, if anyone has a cool idea what to call this worldbuilding/setting/universe, feel free to send me an ask with a suggestion, i'll edit the tags so we can find stuff written in that setting later on.

[presiding]

What is your favourite thing about Billie Lurk?

(Answers are obvious possibly but i love when people talk about her👍)

thanks for the ask!! YEAH ME TOO I love when people talk about Billie! I can't say I have a favourite thing specifically, but I can explain why she's my fav. apologies for not taking this qn literally, but -

short answer: she’s really cool

& you can stop reading there, or, for the maybe 2 mutuals who might have time to read this my thoughts on her as a character, her meta, and her character as raw potential...

long answer:

i considered making this entire thing a gush so you could read a gush about Billie. but, part of what draws me to her is that she’s not always well written, and in fandom she’s underrated for a literal protagonist.

since you ask...

billie is a cool character

when I played Dh2 (hadn't played Dh1), I was excited to see a black woman with disabilities who was captaining a massive ship by herself. wow.

then I discovered Billie’s backstory with Deirdre, the way she responded to that, then having to survive while living on the run, and her bisexuality. as well as her history with daud & delilah. fascinating!

she’s an outsider who has so much to lose, and knows what it's like to lose everything - having lost everything not once but three times - but nevertheless speaks truth to power. she's so brave! she went and helped Emily & Corvo and she must have known they might kill her! plus, she’s smart, she’s funny, she gets shit done, she’s gorgeous.

but... the meta

mild critique of fandom & arkane incoming.

skip this bit if you want - you've been warned twice now - jump to tired Hayao Miyazaki and read from there if you'd like my thoughts on writing her.

i thought Death of the Outsider was going to be amazing and then... well. *sad trombone* i've written about that before so i won't keep banging on. i figured others must be disappointed too, so I joined a few fandom spaces in hopes of finding camaraderie.

most people with complaints about DotO didn’t like how the Outsider and Daud were handled. which is valid & I agree. but it seemed like most paid no attention to Billie; when people talk about her it’s with respect to Daud, as opposed to in her own right. you could argue for fandom misogyny because people don’t talk about adult Emily Kaldwin that much either, but in Billie's case, it’s misogynoir (compare & contrast with the popularity of thomas, particularly the popularity of thomas portrayed as a white man for no particular reason that i've been able to discern - i keep asking around, is it in the books???).

i think this is a LOT better now than it used to be, which is fantastic. or perhaps i have found the correct echo-chamber? ha.

ultimately, The Fandom is a fraction of the entire picture, and not even the important bit since The Fandom is not who these games are made for. you can't make money relying on only your hardcore fans even if all of them spent a fortune on merch, this is true for any AAA game.

while it's true that Billie is underrated from a fandom perspective - but Billie as an underwritten protagonist is squarely Arkane’s fault.

it was reasonable when she was a side character - the lack of info in Dh2 makes perfect sense (if anything there was more lore in Dh2 which is kind of wild)-

- but as a protagonist in Death of the Outsider?

.... there’s lousy writing, and there’s whatever is going on with Billie Lurk, a black woman who mostly exists as a foil or saviour for light-skinned characters. In her own game there’s barely any of her own lore except where it's relevant to saving two dudes.

lore hints at, but barely touches on what race means in the Dh universe (xenophobia is stronger in Dh1; separate essay i guess), but Arkane has patted themselves on the back for portraying non-white characters, which feels like the same thing as the aesthetic of diversity we're seeing in advertising currently because it’s in marketing trend guides. it's self-congratulatory and it's a missed opportunity for deeper storytelling.

you can see an example of diversity at its most shallow in the way that Billie’s written: there’s little engagement with her as an entire person with history & wants & preferences, and the world she walks through in that game feels like it has nothing to do with her. you could make a case for alienation as a theme, but then, how do you handle the titular premise of 'Dishonored' without ever letting Billie make changes in an environment without a chaos system? it's disappointing from that angle too.

in my opinion, whatever it's worth, it was an accident Arkane created such an awesome character - they needed someone to betray daud. congrats billie.

all this said, it makes her an underdog as far as characters to enjoy & create art & stories for. it's nice to find so many like-minded, switched on people! <3

billie's character potential

she’s got a wealth of unexplored lore, being deeply intertwined with both Karnaca & Dunwall’s fates & criminal underbellies, as well as her connections to the witches & whalers, and three Empresses.

she’s lived a few distinct lifetimes and in the games we get to meet her at two peaks (KoD & DotO) & a low (Dh2 as Meagan).

her voice is very distinct, her dry & often dark humour is entertaining & fun to write. her perspective is really interesting - she’s had the widest variety of void-powers of anyone canonically, and she’s also lived through the highest highs and lowest lows.

she's got everything going for her :) i couldn't really pick a fav thing!

[thegoldenhoof]

I think about this interview a lot.

I think about how Jenkins thinks queer romances end up tragic/unrequited.

How these queer romantic characters deserve a happy ending.

How he gave this as an answer to the question about the death of the one character whose arc was very much queer and very much not romantic.

Its great to be able to see yourself in fairytale romances.

It would be still more amazing if those of us for whom romance was not in the picture and probably will never be could see our fantastical queer happy endings too....

But of course... How could you possibly tell happy queer stories without romance. Being queer is all about Love is Love after all /s

[mul71v3r53-is]

6 years of creating <3 happy birthday BB and Rasp!!

[loverboyfae]

is there any version of the jekyll and hyde story that's good? lemme know

[keeps-ache]

ggghhg i hate vehiclessssssss ghghghhghhhhh [dies dies dies forever]