#i think the laptop will take a LONG time for it to recover from crashing so im gonna start working on kanon's bday drawing

[caramelmochacrow]

oh yeah. uh. in bbtag (as of this moment) i play yuzuriha, linne, seth (kind of?), hazama, nine, yosuke, and weiss bc she's like londrekia.

[tiannasfanfic]

Eddie’s Secret Stash

Eddie Munson x Reader (Smut)

| Eddie & Steddie Masterlist | AO3 Link |

Summary: When your laptop goes on the fritz, using your boyfriend's computer leads you to finding his porn collection in an unexpected way.

Rating: Explicit 18+

Author Note: Afab Reader, they/them pronouns (if any). Modern AU. Smutty but not full smut.

CW: Porn watching; description of porn video (ffm threesome, oral [f and m recieving], p n v sex).

Word Count: 1,628

It all started out with an innocent text to your boyfriend.

Hey babe, my laptop crashed again and I really want to get this story finished. Can I hop on your computer really quick?

Even though Eddie was at work, it didn’t take long for him to text you back.

You don’t ever need to ask me that, sweetheart, feel free to hop on whenever you need to.

Sweet! Thanks baby!

You went to his desk, sat down, and woke up his computer.

After it booted up, you had to text him again.

I kinda need the pin code to unlock it.

Every time you had used his computer before, he was home and it was already unlocked, so you just jumped on and did what you needed to do. Up until now, you didn’t even know he had a pin code on it.

Oh shit! Sorry sweetheart, I forgot. It’s the month and day of your birthday.

That made you melt into a puddle right there at the desk.

Aww, trying to score some brownie points with me?

Maybe…Is it working?

You’ll just have to wait until you get home to find out. ;)

Score!!!

Despite the fact you had been together for a while now, Eddie always acted like a horny teenager whenever you made allusions to having sex with him. And you were just as bad when he did it, even blushing a bit now at his eagerness, so you couldn’t really tease him about it.

You set your phone aside and typed the PIN number into his computer.

As a little turning wheel appeared on the center of the screen to show it was thinking about signing in, you got three texts from Eddie in rapid succession. He only did that when something was urgent or he was excited about something, so you looked at your phone Lock Screen to see what he said.

Wait!

Don’t sign onto my computer yet!

I need to get home first!

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw the computer screen change as it finally signed you in and you glanced up from your phone to it.

And then you took a much longer glance.

On the monitor in front of you, paused in mid scene, was the fairly zoomed in image of a hard cock disappearing into the mouth of a woman wearing dark lipstick.

You blinked a few times and stared at the screen for a moment.

As a frequent purveyor of porn yourself, you weren’t upset by what you saw on your boyfriend’s screen. But surprise porn was like surprise alcohol in a drink when you were expecting soda or surprise weed when you were expecting a hand rolled cigarette. It’s always a bit shocking and it takes a moment to recover from. When you did, the corners of your mouth to curve upward in a playful grin.

Now with your original train of thought gone, you were in a playful mood. Your story could wait awhile. The deadline for it wasn’t until two weeks away anyway, you had just wanted to get the first draft done.

Settling back in Eddie’s computer chair, you clicked the space bar to unpause the video.

In this time period, two more texts came in from Eddie. You glanced at your Lock Screen again without opening them.

Sweetheart?

Y/N? Baby??

Eddie seemed uncharacteristically worried, which was a little bit confusing. The two of you had talked about watching porn before, so he should know it wouldn’t bother you. You shrugged and set your phone down, distracted by what was going on in the video.

It was a well-done amateur recording of a two girl, one guy threesome. As the one girl was blowing the guy, she was sitting on the other girls face. The scene stayed like this for just long enough to let you take everything in before the guy was pulling his cock from the girls mouth and then pushing her down so the two girls were in a sixty-nine.

You bit your lip, watching with rapt attention as the guy hopped down from where he had been standing on the bed to position himself behind the girl on top. He then grasped the base of his shaft with one hand, angling it so the girl on the bottom could start sucking on the head. It was a messy angle, soon her lips and cheeks were glistening with saliva from his thrusts into her mouth.

A small warmth began pooling between your legs as you watched the guy pull his cock out of her mouth, angle himself upwards and then sink deep into the cunt of the girl on top.

You had to give it to your boyfriend. He had good taste.

Since you had been striking out lately with your usual porn sites, you began to get curious where Eddie usually found his. You paused the video and minimized the window to find out.

Rather than a website, you were greeted by the file browser on the computer system itself, opened to a folder that was filled with porn. And it was by no means a small collection, it looked like he’d been working on this for years. There were dozens of sub folders and sub sub folders dedicated to specific acts and specific porn stars. Most of the videos were unsorted though, the majority of the files just dumped directly into this main porn folder.

Eddie had sent a few more texts by now, which you had ignored in favor of opening a different video that caught your eye. When it was clear those hadn’t gotten your attention, he was soon calling you instead.

“Edward James Munson!” you said when you answered your phone, making your voice sound stern.

“Sweetheart, I promise, it’s not what it looks like!”

“Really?” you said. “Because what it looks like is that you’ve been holding out on me!”

“I honestly wasn- wait, what?” he said, going from pleading to confused in two seconds.

“Seriously!” you said, exaggerating the tone so it was clearly playful. “You have an impressive collection like this and you don’t even think to share?” You clicked your tongue at him in an admonishing way. “I’m hurt. Truly, I’m hurt.”

There was a long pause from Eddie’s end of the phone.

“I’m…sorry?” he said slowly, nerves and hesitation in his voice, like this was an entirely new situation he found himself. “I…didn’t realize…you’d be interested in…it.”

“Seriously?” you dropped the playful act, now confused yourself. “We’ve talked about our favorite porn stars before, in depth discussions even, and you didn’t think I’d be interested?”

“Hey!” Eddie protested. “In my defense, do you know how many people will say they are fine with porn then freak out if they catch you watching it?”

Now that you thought about it, he had a point. Even you had that issue a few times in the past, either because you watched porn in general or because of what kind you watched.

“All right, fair point,” you said, then switched back to that playfully stern voice. “But that still doesn’t make it okay, mister.”

Now that Eddie knew how you really felt about the whole thing, his tone changed to a playfully apologetic one.

“I know, and I’m sorry,” he said, then his tone dropped lower. “Let me make it up to you, sweetheart.”

His voice sent pleasurable tingles down your spine.

“And how do you propose you’ll do that?” you said.

While you weren’t really paying too close of attention to the video you selected, focusing on the timber change of your man’s voice instead, what you did pay attention to had you rubbing your thighs together slightly. This one was definitely right up your ally.

“In any way you want me too, sweetheart,” he said, his voice a soft growl that was nearly a purr. “Anything you want me to do to you, I’ll do it with pleasure.”

Being a metal singer, and a damn good one at that, Eddie could do things with his voice outside of music that you previously wouldn’t have thought possible. While you were already getting quite worked up easily enough on your own, he knew just the right inflection to use on each word to make you clench around nothing.

And it also made all rational thought fly from your brain.

You swiveled your gaze up to the ceiling, distracting yourself just enough to pull your brain back from the haze Eddie’s voice was making your brain slip into.

“Gosh, I just don’t know,” you said, tapping your chin with one finger even though Eddie couldn’t see it. “Oh! I know! I could browse through these videos I found and see if those give me any ideas!”

From the other end of the phone, you heard Eddie clear his throat a couple of times. Clearly the idea of you watching porn on his computer derailed his brain a little bit.

“T-That is a good idea,” he said, and you could tell by his voice that you just made him blush, among other things.

“You’re off in about an hour, right?” you asked, and when he made a sound of confirmation, you continued. “I’m sure I will have something fun in mind by then.”

Since it was clear his brain wouldn’t get back on track if the phone call continued, you quickly let him go so he could finish out his workday.

As you settled back into his chair, watching the video, an evil grin came to your face.

If you knew Eddie as well as you were sure you did, this next hour was going to be the longest hour of his life.

Eddie Munson Taglist: @eddie-swhore @bmunson86 @tayhar811

[petedavidsonscock]

Chowder and Dex have been studying in Chowder’s room for a few hours when Nursey slams open the door, walks in, and collapses onto the bed. He mutters something, but Chowder can’t make it out because Nursey’s face is fully buried in the pillow.

“What?” he asks.

“I said,” Nursey says, turning his head to the side, “I’m melancholic as fuck right now, bros.”

Dex snorts, not looking up from his code.

“How come?” Chowder asks anyway.

“Because the year’s ending .” Nursey pushes himself up just enough that he can flop over onto his back. “Like, sophomore year. We’re already halfway through college. Like, we just got here.”

“Yeah,” Chowder jokes, “our Taddy Tour was last week, right?”

“Exactly! Time moves despite and against our own desires. It’s mad fucked up.”

Nursey closes his eyes, apparently overcome.

When he doesn’t continue for a few moments, Chowder opens his mouth to prompt him, but Dex elbows him and mutters, “Don’t encourage him.”

Chowder frowns. He says in a low voice, “I’m not encouraging him, I’m talking to him.”

“Same difference,” Dex says flatly.

“What, you don’t think I should talk to him?”

Dex makes a face like, Yeah, kinda . Chowder makes a face back like, Explain yourself then .

“Like, he’s just sad and wants attention right now.”

“So what?” Chowder asks, genuinely confused. “We’re his friends, that’s part of the deal.”

“Well, it’s like—you can’t—” Dex stops, looking frustrated. “It’s like, you have to distract him. Or else he’ll keep working himself up into a fucking, like, pit of ennui.”

Nursey jerks upright. “Ennui? Did you just say ennui?”

He grins at Dex, who glares back at him and says, “I know the word ennui.”

Dex and Nursey have a side-pot Sin Bin, for when Dex uses a particularly English-major word or phrase, which, to his own frustration, he’s doing increasingly often.

“Babe,” Nursey is saying, “you did not know what ennui meant before me.”

“Yeah, I did. How the fuck would you know?”

“ Ennui . Come on. Admit that’s me. That’s a dollar.”

“I know words,” Dex argues, while Chowder plucks the computer off Dex’s lap and shuts it. “Just because I’m not majoring in sucking T.S. Eliot’s dick doesn’t mean I don’t know the word ennui.”

Nursey brightens even more. “ And bringing up a modernist poet. Two dollars.”

“No, fuck you.”

Nursey cocks his head, eyes wide and exaggeratedly interested, until Dex sags.

“Fine, I’ll give you Eliot. But,” he adds quickly, “I did know the word ennui. Otherwise I couldn’t have done so well on the SAT.”

Nursey groans, long and loud. “No one’s asking you. No one wants to hear about this.”

There are a few moments of silence while Chowder bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. “I don’t know if I remember,” he manages after a moment. “What did you get, Dex?”

“It’s pretty easy to remember,” Dex says, “in case you ever forget again. You just take Nursey’s score—” He ducks to avoid a flying pillow “—and add ten points. Convenient, huh?”

He smirks at Chowder, who says, “Ohh, cool, thanks, Dex,” and then Nursey starts hitting Dex with Chowder’s favorite stuffed shark while Dex scrambles to protect his face. As he watches Nursey get in a few solid hits, mussing up Dex’s hair, Chowder feels really glad he moved the laptop.

“Wait, guys,” Chowder says, as Dex gives up trying to fend Nursey off and attempts to grab the toy shark instead. Nursey pulls it out of the way, and Dex nearly overbalances, but recovers just in time for Nursey to smack him again.

“Fuck you,” he sputters, laughing, and stands for better reach. Nursey scrambles to his knees on the bed so he can maintain some height, and hits Dex before switching the shark to his other hand to hold it out of danger. Chowder watches, horrified, as Dex, in scrabbling for the stuffed animal, falls basically on top of Nursey. They're still presumably fighting over Chowder’s (innocent!) shark, but, with the inevitability of a car crash, there comes a moment when they both stop laughing to look at each other. Dex is propped over Nursey, they're staring into each other’s eyes, it’s really clear what they're both thinking about, and Chowder wants to die. He’s happy that his two best friends don’t hate each other anymore, he is, but this might actually be worse.

(It’s not really worse. He’s really happy for them. But, like, seriously? In his bed?)

“Um, guys?” he tries, but his voice comes out quiet and very high pitched. “Guys!”

They startle apart.

Or, actually, Dex hastily shoves himself off of Nursey and to a sitting position. He scowls, already starting to turn red.

“Uh,” says Nursey, who has better maintained his composure. “Yeah, as I was saying, uh.” He blinks hard, regrouping. “It’ll be weird when everything changes, you know?”

Chowder gives him a few long moments to squirm—which Nursey doesn’t, because he has a great poker face, but Chowder hopes he feels really awkward inside—before picking up the conversation.

“That makes sense,” he acknowledges. “But you have to have change to have improvement, right? I mean, graduating will be scary, but it’ll be nice to live in a place that has, you know, normal, not-falling-apart furniture and actually hot water.”

Dex looks up. “Is the hot water out again? I thought I took care of that last week.”

Oh. “Oh, yeah. It’s still working in other places, just not in my bathroom.” Chowder has been meaning to call maintenance. “But I really feel like this time it’ll fix itself if I wait long enough.”

Dex rolls his eyes and gets up. “I’m gonna get my stuff. C, just tell me next time.”

He leaves, presumably to get his tools from his dorm. When the door closes behind him, Chowder glances at Nursey, who looks—God. Besotted might be the right word. After a moment, Nursey flops backwards onto the bed.

“Ugh.”

Chowder glances down at his computer and deletes a stray line break.

“You know,” he says softly, “we’re still gonna have this. After, I mean.”

“Have what?” Nursey asks without opening his eyes. “Dex being pissy all the time?”

“Us. The Frogs.”

Nursey sighs. “I guess.”

“No, really.” Chowder slides out of his chair to sit cross-legged on the floor, ticking points off on his fingers, getting more certain as he speaks. “Rans and Holster are gonna be here for like every Kegster. Bitty’s totally gonna move in with Jack when he graduates, and that’s only forty minutes away. And we have a whole year before that of him being captain.” He can’t help but grin. “He’s gonna be ‘swawesome . And, like, when it’s our turn, we’re not gonna stop being friends just ‘cause we don’t have to skate suicides at 5am together anymore.”

Nursey is still enough that Chowder can tell he’s listening intently now.

“It’ll be different,” Chowder adds. “But we’ll still be us.” He hesitates, then takes the plunge. “And you and Dex…”

“What?”

“You’re both obviously in it for the long run.”

“Oh,” Nursey says. He totally fails to sound normal. “You think?”

Chowder snorts. “Uh, yeah. The other day he asked me whether it would be weird to invite you to his family’s Thanksgiving.”

Nursey props himself up on an elbow to stare at Chowder. “Wait, like, next year Thanksgiving? It’s April.”

The expression on his face is so stunned that Chowder finally lets out the laugh that’s been building inside him for most of this conversation. “Yep,” he says finally.

“Oh,” Nursey says. There’s a smile growing on his face, so sincere that Chowder almost feels like he’s intruding. “That’s chill.”

“Yeah,” Chowder says, then considers. “I think it’s maybe all gonna be okay, actually.”

Nursey turns that smile onto him. “You know I love you, right, man?”

Chowder picks himself up off the floor: this moment definitely calls for a hug. “‘Course I know that,” he tells him. “I love you too.”

~~~

thanks for reading! here’s the ao3 link for if u want to leave a kudos/comment.

[morganlefaye79]

Why my Cyberpunk ocs aren't "nice" persons.

Last week @pandorasaquariumm posted their take on why Kerry is not a nice person, and I agree in many points.

@jaymber answered with a few more points to which I also agree. I have a few more things that I hc for Kerry, which also puts even more gray on him as a character.

But this post will be about my ocs, who I often show from their nice and soft side, but who are, as @kharonion already stated about their oc Vikt, mostly criminals as many others in NC, maybe with a robin hood attitude sometimes, but still criminals.

I did some time back a Kiroshi-scan for my main ocs, the full template you can find here, but I will just take the interesting part of it for this subject.

Those are only the things the NCPD knows. Valaire is my "V", some of those things are probably obvious. When he was still a merc he sometimes had problems to keep the NCPD on distance, but since he "changed" his way of operating he can more or less walk free with nearly everything he does. Who would have thought that the NCPD would be corrupt? Not me!

Val did blow up Saka tower a second time (Johnny loved watching it happen) with Alt's help, and never was made accountable for it, because he knows the right people who he will pay some money. Arasaka tried a few times to kill him after he recovered from the Relic, but at this point Arasaka's teeth were already pulled for a big part.

Or which is also often the case, when someone will get at him, he finds dirty laundry about this people. Since he has a very skilled netrunner brother, and also Nyx from the Afterlife at his service. Why would Nyx work for Val you ask? Because he owns the Afterlife, but next to no one knows. For the normal people, Rogue is still in charge there.

He maybe was born in Arroyo, where his parents pretended to be non-corpo's, but maybe it is true that some traits are in someone's genes already. He is a Corpo and he acts like one and plays the game, even if he hates that life, but it is the only way to make a difference in this city.

Joris is similar to Valaire, but absolutely ruthless. He won't think twice about if someone deserves to die. If the question is one time answered with yes, you can be damn sure that the person will not walk long on earth anymore. But you can't kill them all! True, but he is young and has much time to try!

How will those people die?

No idea! He is at times very creative. Most of the times he will make devices malfunction. What a shame when a laptop blews up in someones face, isn't it?

Joris also provides his brother with the dirty laundry he digs up. Also are all 3 police reports you see altered by Joris. Most of the times the NCPD doesn't even notice he was in their servers.

Although he grew up as a Corpo and being able to play the game, he refuses to play nice. So tread lightly around him or you may be the next one that crashes their car against a concrete wall. It'd be a real shame.

He takes mostly gigs where he can steal and/or destroy corpo property. It's kind of a hobby, especially if it is Arasaka property. You should choose jobs which bring you joy.

He does sound like a mad man and lunatic, doesn't he? Well he is the mentally most stable out of my mains. Whoops!

Vicco is somewhat special in a way, they survived long enough on the streets of NC to reach adulthood. Not many can accomplish that. They know Vicco on the streets and they know what Vicco did. You surely not manage this by being nice. They learned very early to take what they want and if it belongs to someone else then that someone has to part with it one way or another.

They are a chameleon, becoming everything you want. They paid a little fortune for it, well Valaire, more likely. Their Kiroshi's are used by corpo spec ops, and were taken from the previous owners dead body, because he certainly didn't need them anymore, they're able to slighly look through walls, or find safe's in them which is quite handy for a sneaky thief. Slipping in as a woman with long legs and round hips, and walking out as a man.

Before becoming a merc, they were as most of the youngsters drugdealers. They themselves always stayed clean except for cigarettes and alcohol. Only in adulthood as a joytoy they started taking drugs and boosters.

They specialized very soon on attracting corpo's because they knew that it is the place where the money is, and where's money, there's much to steal.

Killing Tiger Claws and Maelstrom scop is kind of a hobby for them, they had many run ins with them and they will never get friends for many reasons.

Although they would never stick it to others noses, they're proud to be a Mox. The Moxes saved them several times when they couldn't save themself. They now often return the favor when they're aware of a Mox in need.

You could ask Jotaro Shoba... nah, no one ever found that piece of shit after Vicco was done with him.

And then there was that scumbag... what was his name again? Blake something... Crow? Crowls? AH! Croyce! Didn't saw that one in a while either!

Vicco loves a good hunt!

And this my friends is the not that nice side of my ocs, I didn't go too much into details, because some of those things I will put into fics. At least that's the plan. But if you're curious I might answer questions x)

[jackie-shitposts]

I Thought Thieves Love Jules!

Carmen strolled out of the elevator, feeling pretty beat after her workout with Shadowsan. Not that she would ever admit that- she had wanted to keep going, but it had only been two days since she got electrocuted in Egypt, so Shadowsan made her cut her workout short while he continued. Carmen sauntered over to the counter, taking a long drink from her water bottle, just as Player’s image appeared on her laptop screen. “Check it out, Red. Julia just posted a new entry on her blog, about a recent find in Columbia.” Player said, ”But it totally digresses into fun facts about fair trade coffee, including a “Red Blend.” Carmen leaned onto the counter. “Could be another riddle to solve?” “Good thing I learned a thing or two about code-breaking from Julia.” Player smirked, clearly excited to show off his new skills. “Every paragraph ends with a number. If you line ‘em up like they're a date and time, it’s tomorrow at 8am.” “Seems Chief wants an opportunity to thank me over coffee.” Carmen quirked an eyebrow. Seems as though she’d be seeing her favorite agent-turned-historian-turned-agent-again in the field, per Chief’s request. “How can you be sure it’s not a trap?” Player asked apprehensively. “If it were, Jules would’ve worded it differently.”

“OoOoO, are we talking about Jules?” Zack asked, peeking his head out from the doorway.

“That ACME gal Carm has a crush on?” Ivy chimed in, peeking her own head out from under her brother.

Carmen rolled her eyes at the sibling’s cartoonish antics. “Jules and I are just friends, you two.”

Ivy scoffed, entering the room and flopping onto the couch.  “Yeah right- then why did you specifically go to her when you needed help decoding the relics?”

Carmen casually took a sip of her water before answering.  “Jules was already familiar with VILE- getting a stranger involved would’ve only made things more complicated and dangerous than it already was.” Zack hopped onto the couch opposite of Ivy, resting his feet up on her knees. He pointedly ignored Ivy’s protests of, “Zack, gross!” and smirked at Carmen. “Oh? Then why did you ask Devineaux where she was in Louisiana?” “Hey, you never told me about that one!” Ivy gasped, feigning betrayal. “I was just surprised ACME let that driving disaster use a car,” Carmen quipped. Player laughed on his side of the screen. “Don’t act like you’re any better, Red. Don’t you remember your first caper?”

Carmen gasped, pretending to be insulted. “Says the 17 year old without a learners permit.”

“Not like I have anywhere to go.” Player laughed, before refocusing on Carmen’s interrogation. “Speaking of firsts, how about when you first met Julia? I listened in, and it totally sounded like you were flirting with her. You called her “Jules” on your first meeting!” Carmen narrowed her eyes at Player in defiance.  “I was just sitting across from Jules so I could blend in while keeping an eye on Paper Star. And what’s wrong with nicknames? I called Crackle “Gray” and Ivy “Ives”. I don’t see what the difference is.” “The difference is that you and Cracker used to be best friends, and now we are best friends. However, you and Jules were not friends at the time.” Ivy said, emphasizing the nickname. “His name is Crackle now.” “He went and rejoined VILE, I think I get to call Gary whatever I want.” Player chimed back into the conversation. “Why did you leave the Magna Cartas with Julia, anyway? You had one conversation with her, what made you think leaving them with her meant they were in “good hands?” “While sitting next to her, I noticed Devineaux’s briefcase, and she said they were travel partners on business. I figured that meant they were law enforcement also trying to recover the documents. Leaving them with Jules simply saved me the hassle of returning the documents myself.” Carmen explained casually. “What about the fashion show in Milan, Carm? Why’d you have Julia help us then?” Zack asked, a shit-eating grin plastered onto his face. Carmen sighed in annoyance. Why won’t they just get off her back about this already? “Jules was the only ACME agent around, and I knew that ACME would be able to get the gowns to safety. And before you ask,” Carmen pointed at Ivy, whose mouth was already open with some smug retort, “I put her in charge instead of you because she would know where the gowns could be put for ACME to return.” At that, Ivy simply leaned back onto the couch and mirrored her brother’s smug grin.  “Yeah, that was a fun night.” She smirked, and Zack tried to hold back his laugh that came out as more of a snort. Carmen raised her brow at the untold story, but she decided not to press. For the sake of her sanity.

“Well, what about Stockholm?” Zack blurted. Ivy and Player’s eyes snapped to Carmen, looking for any hint of discomfort, and Zack immediately tried to rectify the situation. “I-I mean, yknow, you just were gonna go try to get her help before-”

Carmen cut off his anxious rambling, smiling warmly. “Don’t worry about it Zack, I know what you mean. I wanted to talk to Jules to see if she could get ACME to back off. While that obviously didn’t happen, I know Jules didn’t try to betray me.” Carmen glanced out the window for a moment, whispering quietly to herself. “I don’t think I could be angry at her if I tried.” Carmen turned back to her friends and smiled. “Plus, she helped me out in Monaco and Ile De L'oleron afterwards, so-” Player practically leapt up from his chair, causing a loud crash as he knocked the fidget spinners off his desk and dropped the rubix cute he was playing with. “Yeah, let's talk about Monaco! You can’t tell me you guys weren’t flirting at the party. She was so confident you were going to deliver the goods to her door, and you trusted her not to stop you when you stole the eggs. Come on, Red, you know she was flirting with you!” Carmen felt Zack and Ivy’s eyes on her expectantly, and she chuckled at Player’s exasperation. “Player, I’m pretty good at reading people, and I’m fairly certain she wasn’t flirting with me. Even if she was, I was not flirting ba-” “Then what about the roses?”

Carmen’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. How did Zack, of all people, know about the roses?

“Oh my god, the roses! Carm, why the fuck didn’t you tell us about the roses?” Ivy exclaimed, springing up from her relaxed position on the couch.

Carmen bit her lip before answering. “They were just flowers, as a thank you gift for the help. How do you know about them, anyway? I didn’t buy them until after you guys left.”

At that, Player piped up once again. “So Red, you know how at the end of each month, I look through our funds and see how much we spend on capers, to set our budget for the next month? Well, it was pretty interesting for me to see that you used our encrypted card to buy a bouquet of red roses from the flower shop across the street from Julia’s apartment, on the same day we left her the goods.”

Fuck. Carmen needed to shut this down, now. “They were just a thank you gift guys, nothing more. Just something Jules could keep for herself. And red is my color, so the roses seemed like a good gift. Now if you’ll excuse me,” Carmen glared at the redheads sternly, daring them to stop her, before looking down at Player with the same forbidding look. ”I’m going to take a shower. Player, let me know when you’ve got a red eye to Seattle ready.” Carmen closed the laptop, tucked it under her arm and walked out of the room without looking back. ~~~

The video call flickered to black, and Player leaned back into his chair, sighing. Red can be so thick-headed sometimes. As he booked her flight, he thought back to their teasing and banter from moments before.

Red seemed pretty genuine- maybe we were wrong after all.

Player took a deep breath- he didn’t want to call Carmen back so soon, especially when she seemed pretty pissed at the end of their last call- but he had booked her flight for a short two hours from now. So, Player reconnected to Carmen’s laptop, still looking at the red eye information on his other monitor, before hearing a loud, exasperated groan coming from his speakers.

“Holy fuck that was such a mess!”

Player’s head snapped towards his other monitor. The laptop had been set on the dresser across from Carmen’s bed, where she was laying sprawled out in agony. Player quickly hit his mute button and sat back to watch.

Carmen’s arms raised up to cover her face- though Player couldn’t see it, he was sure her face was covered in her signature color. “God, and the roses- why did I use the card for the roses? That’s a basic credit card slip, how am I so stupid!”

Carmen sat up, hands still over her flushed face. “I’m so fucking lucky they didn’t hear us on the ferry or at her office, there’s no way they would’ve ever let that go- I thought I wasn’t being obvious about this stupid crush-

That was all the confirmation Player needed. He clicked unmute and nearly shouted, “So you do have a crush on Julia! I knew it!”

Carmen’s head snapped up to the source of the sound, her face as red as her coat hanging on the wall’s hook. “Player! What the fuck are you-” Carmen froze as she watched Player pick up his cell phone. “Player, if you do what I think you’re about to-”

“Then what? You’re two thousand miles away Red, I'm practically untouchable.” He laughed and grinned smugly at the webcam as he dialed a number.

“Player, you are so dead next time I visit Ontario!” Carmen yelled before she threw her door open, barrelling down the hall to the stairway.

~~~

Zack and Ivy watched in silence as Carmen walked out of the room. When they heard the door to the stairway close, they looked at each other, before they couldn’t take it anymore and burst into laughter.

“Holy shit she looked so mad!” Ivy wheezed through her laughing fit.

“I know! Do you think that means she was telling the truth?” Zack questioned as he tried (and failed) to calm his giggles.

“No way.”

“But she seemed pretty-”

“What are you two laughing about?” Shadowsan’s stern voice stopped the twin’s giggling dead in its tracks. Just as Ivy opened her mouth to make an excuse, since she doubted Carmen wanted Shadowsan involved in her love life, (he is like her father, isnt he?) Zack spoke up.

“We tried to get Carm to confess that she likes Julia, but she kept on telling us she just likes Julia as a friend. Maybe she wasn’t lying, most of her reasons were pretty solid.” Ivy would’ve smacked him then and there if Shadowsan hadn’t interrupted her train of thought with a small chuckle. Since when did Shadowsan chuckle? “On VILE Island, Carmen was trained to be a master of deception. Do you not realize that she was also trained to survive any interrogation?” Shadowsan said, with…humor in his voice? Zack and Ivy were silent for a moment. “Wait, does that mean she actually does like Ju-” The moment was interrupted with a call on Ivy’s phone. When she looked at the caller ID, her eyes widened as she answered it and put the device on speaker. “Carmen does have a crush on Julia!” Player shouted from the phone, just as the Crimson Gay Ghost herself burst into the room and crashed into Ivy. “Dammit!” Carmen yelled, taking the phone from Ivy who was now on the floor with Carmen and laughing. “Player, I’m going to fly to Ontario and kick your ass!” Player’s laughing from the phone was almost drowned out by Zack and Ivy’s. “Oh no you’re not, you’ve got a flight to catch in two hours!” “OoOh where to? To go see your “favorite ACME agent”?” Ivy teased through her laughter. “Yeah Carm, I thought thieves love Jules!” Zack said as he laughed. Carmen jumped off of Ivy, her voice a noticeably higher pitch and her face extremely red as she shouted, “No! I mean- well, that is- I just-” As Zack, Ivy and Player continued to tease an extremely red-faced and stammering Carmen, Shadowsan smiled and quietly walked out of the room. It seems the war may be coming to a close with ACME on their side, but that doesn’t mean Carmen has to stop chasing someone.

[ryanclaremont]

a thousand cuts.

They say bad things happen in three.

The first was Ryan walking to work and this asshole of man bumped into her causing her to crash to the ground and rip a whole in the knee of her pants. Her knee’s scuffed up, nothing awful but God she was pissed. She walked all the way back home and changed, charging the company Uber to get to work on time. Tragic event number two was a project she was working on completely disappeared from her laptop and IT couldn’t recover it. Hours of work down the drain and she swears there’s a hex on her at this point. So she stays late on a Wednesday to get back the progress she had made, ordering in take out (order wrong) and try not to have a stress breakdown. 

The third thing is something Ryan hadn’t been expecting in a million years. James hasn’t been on her radar since she almost lost it at August’s party as she figured out that love is not what they had. Yet a woman named Hannah pops up in her Instagram messages with a full blown paragraph that nearly knocks the wind out of Ryan as she walks home from work.

Hi Ryan, I’m sorry this is out of the blue... I think he was seeing the both of us at the same time?... We were in Chicago together when you were calling him... I didn’t know, he said you were his sister....

The whole paragraph, the sentences blend together and Ryan has to sit on a bench to catch herself. Her chest feels hollow and yet why doesn’t feel surprised at the same time? James had another girlfriend at the same time, a whole year, even when he proposed. There was another woman named Hannah who has screen shots, call logs, fucking plane tickets. It takes a long while of sitting on the bench for Ryan to reply and even then she’s pretty sure her reply is incoherent but Hannah is typing right back, distraught as well. 

It feels like a thousands mini paper cuts swiping past her. Angry is an understatement, dismal doesn’t cut it. It’s humiliation. It’s the thought that they were compatible to the fact that James truly did not give a fuck about Ryan at any point throughout their three year relationship.

Bad things, they happen in three. But the third makes sure it hurts.

[cheri-translates]

[CN] Pet Feature - Depressed Pet (Gavin)

🍒 Warning: Detailed spoilers for content not yet released in EN! 🍒

I’ve named the pet “Major”!

More from the Pet Feature: Adoption l Date 1 l Depressed Pet l Date 2 l First Birthday l Skin Problem

Other sick pets: Kiro l Lucien l Shaw l Victor

While carrying Major, Gavin and I wait outside the waiting room of the animal hospital. 

MC: It hasn’t been eating much recently, and it’s low in energy...

Gavin: Don’t worry. You’ve been taking thorough care of it. There won’t be any problems.

Doctor: Are Little Major’s parents around?

MC: I’m here.

Doctor: It caught a cold, but it will recover very quickly with treatment.

MC: Major, do you hear that? You can’t stay in the cold next time.

Gavin: Mm. We can’t let it burrow under the air-conditioning in the future.

Doctor: Take good care of it. The most important thing is to feed it medicine punctually.

-

Bearing the doctor’s instructions in mind, Gavin and I begin Major’s recuperation project. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been going smoothly since day one.

Looking at the tiny bowl from which Major has eaten everything aside from a medicine tablet, I let out a sigh.

Gavin: I tried stuffing the medicine into its snacks, but it smelt it.

MC: I didn’t think that feeding it medicine would be even more difficult than bringing it to the vet...

We’ve tried all the methods on the internet. Right now, there’s only one method left...

Gavin and I exchange a glance, deciding to catch this playful little fellow and feeding it the medicine by force.

While I hold a small snack to coax Major to let down its guard, Gavin finds an opportunity to catch it.

MC: Major, come here.

Perhaps sensing the change in the atmosphere, Major’s pawsteps grow hesitant.

Then, it seems to sense Gavin coming up from behind him, and jumps up fiercely.

Gavin: Don’t run!

Major leaps over all the obstacles with precision. In the process, it topples over a bag of food and bumps against the power cable of my laptop...

MC: Major!

Gavin: Be careful!

I quickly rescue it before the laptop crashes down onto it. Gavin pulls me into a hug and we roll onto the carpet, his other hand grabbing my notebook laptop.

Gavin: Are you okay?

Gavin: Little fellow.

Major fails to escape. Under Gavin’s “intimidation”, it eats the medicine reluctantly.

By the time we tidy up the mess it created in the living room, more than an hour has gone by.

Collapsing onto the sofa, I stare at Major tiredly while it sleeps soundly in my arms. 

Gavin: Tired? 

MC: I never thought that feeding medicine to a pet would require this much physical work...

Gavin: In the STF, giving the police dogs parasiticides every month is a really difficult task as well. Some police dogs pretend to eat the medicine before spitting it out and hiding it secretly.

MC: Shh, lower your voice. Don’t let Major learn from this...

With a finger, Gavin gently covers Major’s tiny ears. 

Gavin: Okay, it can’t hear now.

Gavin lies down beside me, reaching out to embrace both Major and I in his arms.

Gavin: After busying ourselves for so long, it’s time for us to rest.

[corpsedaydream]

crash

so, here i am with a new one shot.

so before anyone asks if i’m gonna be posting frequently again or anything, i process things by writing about them. if something is running through my mind over and over and i can’t think through it on my own in my mind, writing about it generally helps me. this past weekend was supposed to be a fun long weekend away w my friends but it quickly ended when i experienced something pretty traumatic. i haven’t been able to sleep at all the past couple nights and so i started working on this. originally it was just going to be something private to help myself w the panic i was feeling then i started adding a muse into it and then i realised i was still writing about corpse without even meaning to, so i guess he’s still got me feeling musey.

anyway, i thought about keeping this private bc i’m still rly shaken up about what happened but idk feels like a shame to just let it sit on my computer.

idk if i’m back to this blog yet, i still feel indifferent about it. i’m signed out on my phone and was signed out on my laptop until just now and haven’t opened my inbox.

anyway. here’s the one shot.

word count: 1666 words (i’m not kidding)

trigger warning: car crash, panic attack

__________________________________________________

crash

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up wake up wake up.

The words repeated over and over in your head. You’d had dreams about crashing your car before, but usually you woke up just before the point of impact. This time you didn’t.

This couldn’t of happened, this can’t be real, this is a a dream, I’ve got to wake up.

But you were already very much awake, this was very much real.

The colour had already drained from your face, tears were welling up in your eyes and your heart had already sunk. Your hands were trembling, your chest was completely still, you weren’t breathing in that moment. Your body had reacted before your mind had completely caught up.

“Fuck.” Was all you managed to say as realisation had hit you. You’d gotten into a car crash.

You looked around you, wondering how the others cars on the road were still moving when it felt like your world had just come to a stop when your car had its collision. You heard your dad’s voice in your head, all the things he’d told you when he taught you how to drive, had - god forbid - you ever ended up in a situation like this.

You went through the motions as well as you could. You were in a state of shock and physically, you were definitely there, but mentally, you really weren’t present. You were having an out of body feeling in the most terrifying way, it was a defence from the panic that had overwhelmed you.

-

Corpse felt a surge of anxiety. He had no idea why, either. All he was doing was looking through fan art on twitter, he hadn’t seen anything that usually would make him feel like that. It just throttled its way into himself seemingly out of no where.

It was especially odd seeing that today had been such a good day. Waking up beside was usually something that put him in a good head space.

So he started to call you, you always made him feel better. But then he remembered you were driving and you were a cautious driver, you never answered your phone when you were behind the wheel. You’d told him in the past how tenacious your dad had been as a driving teacher and it had really stuck with you.

Just as he was about to hang up, knowing you weren’t going to answer, you did.

“Hello?” Something was off. Corpse heard it right away in just that one greeting from you.

“Are you okay?” He didn’t even greet you back, he already had anxiety running through him and the unsettling tone of your answer of the phone had only made it increase.

“I think so.” You were so monotoned. Corpse had never heard you speak this way. You were a lot of things, but monotone was not one. You were expressive, bright and dramatic.

“You think so?” He repeated in a questioning way, wanting to know what was wrong.

“Yeah.” You responded so plainly again. Corpse almost wanted to ask you who was he speaking to right now, because surely this couldn’t have been you. This person had your voice, but this was a person he did not know right now.

“What’s going on?”

“I crashed my car.” You said it to him so simply. There was no emotion behind it. His heart thundered as if a terrible hail storm had just broken out. 

“What?!” 

“I crashed my car.” You repeated. Once again so eerily unemotional.

“Where are you?!”

-

Corpse shouldn’t have been driving in the state he was in, but he needed to get to you. His emotions were running so high and he couldn’t comprehend why yours weren’t.

After what felt like the longest drive of his life, he reached the crash site. His panic peaked when he spotted the ambulance, immediately thinking the worst. But then he saw you standing to the side of it. You were up and talking to the paramedics, that was at least a good sign you weren’t seriously injured.

“(Y/N),” He called for you as he got out of his own car. And just like your voice on the phone, your movements were so robotic.

You were normally so open with your emotions, you were such a readable and honest person. When you were happy, you shined, when you were mad, you yelled red, when you were sad, you cried oceans. But Corpse had never seen you in a true state of shock. He’d never seen your fight or flight response. And apparently it was a stillness and unresponsive, the complete opposite to how you were normally.

“Are you okay?” He knew you probably weren’t, but he couldn’t find any clue to how you were feeling. Until his footsteps brought him closer to you.

You didn’t respond to him at all. Even words felt like too much right now. As he neared you, though, he spotted the signs of fear your body displayed that your words did not. Your hands and arms were trembling, your shoulders were slumped, your face was completely pale, sweat dotted all over your forehead despite it not being a hot day, tears were slowly spilling from your eyes one by one, your chest was moving unevenly as you struggled to breathe properly.

“Baby, c’mere.” Corpse didn’t hesitate to gather you in his arms. Holding you so tenderly against him. That’s when he felt that it was more than just your arms and hands that were trembling, your entire body had a slight shake to it. He knew you were experiencing true terror in that moment.

-

The time between your banged up car getting placed onto a tow truck and arriving back at your apartment felt like a blur.

You’d just gotten off the phone with your insurance provider when you’d heard Corpse.

“Are you in any pain?”

"What?” You’d heard him perfectly but you hadn’t once thought about how this had affected you physically.

“Are you in any pain?” He repeated himself.

“I’m not sure.” And you weren’t, but the paramedics had said that adrenaline would be coursing through you right now and adrenaline was the biggest distraction from pain. “I’m gonna go have a shower.”

“Okay.” Corpse watched you with concerned eyes until you disappeared behind your bathroom door. He so badly wanted to help, wanted to make you feel better, break you out of this state you were in that he was so not used to.

-

You didn’t know how much time you’d spent in the shower. But it was long enough that the sky had grown darker and the moon had replaced the sun by the time you emerged. Once you’d gotten dressed, you made slow steps towards your bedroom. Your hands were trembling more violently than before and your breathing was speeding up.

The shock was finally wearing off and reality was getting ready to slap you hard across the face.

“Corpse...” Your voice was so silent, almost as if you couldn’t form a word due to the air that seemed harder and harder to breathe as a panic attack started to take control of you.

Corpse might not have even heard you had he not been on such high alert for you right now. But he was, and so he did he hear you and when he saw the state you were in, he instantly got up from his spot on your bed where he was waiting for you and was wrapping you up tight.

You were hyperventilating so dangerously, your heart felt like it was being encased in treacherous clouds that tightened with every intake of air you struggled to get.

You couldn’t remember the last time you had cried this way. You were breaking down.

Corpse was completely holding you up. Had it not been for him, you would be a crumbled heap on the floor.

-

The both of you didn’t sleep that night.

Every time you were close to drifting off, the crash would replay in your mind on an insufferable loop and you would jolt awake and the panic would restart all over.

And every time, Corpse was right there to hold you through it. He didn’t sleep due to how concerned he was about you.

-

The next day was a little easier mentally, but a lot harder physically. You’d gotten so much emotion out the night before that now the pain could have your attention.

Everything from your hips up felt sore, stiff and tense. Every time you moved your neck was scary because it felt like it was about to snap. But worst of all was your chest. It was hard and painful to breathe. The paramedics had warned you about this. The impact to your chest was going to take the longest to recover from. You kept your breathing shallow, any other kind of breathing made you wince and Corpse noticed.

“You’re hurting.” It wasn’t a question, he was stating what he noticed. He’d known the signs of someone in pain. Plus he had also taken note of the bruises that had appeared on your skin, the colouring of them looking like a painting of a galaxy, all purple and blue. 

“A little bit.”

“Mhm.” He knew it was more than a little bit, but he wasn’t about to argue with you. He looked over you laying beside him, grateful that you were still here, you were alive. A car could be replaced, but you could not.

You were flat on your back because that was really only the current position that felt even the tiniest bit comfortable right now. Corpse was on his side, one of his hands supporting his head as he leaned over you. His other hand began to soothingly run his fingers through your hair and you let your eyes flutter close at the touch.

“Tired?”

“Yeah.” You mumbled back, keeping your eyes shut and feeling exhaustion take over you.

“Try sleeping, baby. I’ll be right here.”

[sluttbuttsstuff]

Not to spam you but…

Yandere la squada and a darling that’s a little pant-y mess on the occasion that she masturbates and knows a member of the team is home, but upon thinking she’s alone (unaware of her stalker) is masturbating REALLY FUCKING LOUD 🥺 👉👈 sorry if it’s too filthy but this thought will not let me know peace

I do NOT know how to write short pieces; sorry, but that's just not the kind of writer i am. That being said, i had a lot of fun with this, so thanks for the request!

WARNINGS: afab femme reader, Not sfw, dub/con, but reader strongly implied to be okay with everything, voyeurism, sex toys, fingering, blow jobs, intercourse, etc.

Why is it so hard to get some alone time?!...okay, when you’re living with 9 other men, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise to you, but STILL! Well, at least you were able to release some tension, late at night when everyone was too asleep to barge into your room to ask you for something, but you had to stay quiet. God forbid anyone hear the noises you make, so you had to get yourself off quickly and efficiently, without getting to really enjoy yourself. So when this week’s meeting left you free for a day at the base ALONE (even Risotto himself had to be out for a mission, which was rare) you intended to take advantage of it to the fullest.

First: You sang all your favorite songs at the top of your lungs, without fear of anyone hearing you go out of key, or judging you for your taste in music. Then, You took an extra long shower AND bubble bath, effectively using up all the hot water and pampering your skin and hair-which you never had time to when you had to share the bathroom with all the other members. You ate a ton of junk food and ordered delivery all for yourself, and watched all the shows and movies you didn't have the time to before because Formaggio would watch sports games all day.

Finally, you figured now was as good a time as any to....”relax your body”. You were so excited, it had been so long since you’d taken the time to really explore your body while you rubbed one out. You got undresses, rubbing your smooth, moisturized legs together while you turned on one of your favorite pornos on your laptop. You mimicked the motions onscreen, rubbing your neck, your chest, stomach, and finally the lower lips of your pussy. You were already warm and tingling with anticipation, and it didn’t take long for you to get into it. You let yourself moan freely, not saying anything in particular as you clenched around your fingers, lubing yourself up for your toys that were waiting to be used again.

Eventually, the porn ended, but you were just getting started, rocking yourself on your favorite dildo, circling a vibe around your clit and pinching your nipples. It was intense but slow, pleasure raising and declining like gentle hills you rode out. Still, you held off your orgasm for as long as possible, you were having so much fun you didn’t want it to end. You were so invested in the pleasure you were feeling, the rest of the world went away, you didn't even notice the crash of your laptop off the bed.

You were close now, like it or not, so you pushed your body faster and harder than you had in ages, despite the cramps in your wrist and hips. You couldn’t stop your body now, wailing out, tears streaming down your face as you begged yourself for release. Almost there, almost-!!!!

Formaggio: Of course Formaggio was able to finish his hit early- he’s good at his job and doesn’t like carrying things out needlessly! Besides, his favorite team’s playing tonight, he has to hurry home before Prosciutto claims the TV again for an old movie marathon, ughhh. He calls out to you when he arrives home, since he knows you were off this week, but didn’t hear you greet him. You must now have heard him, either, or you wouldn’t be making noises like that. Formaggio cackles to himself-of course you’re getting off, he does the same when he gets the day off too. He likes to do something more exciting than usual though, like leave his door open, or do it in someone else’s room. Yours, for example.

Stifling his own laughter, he uses his stealth skills to sneak into your room. You’re so out of it, you don’t even notice when he opens the door, or your overturned laptop at the foot of your bed. It’s pretty hot, actually, you’re usually more tight-lipped than this, refusing his advances and keeping to yourself when not at work. He likes this side of you a lot more; hair messy, gleaming with sweat, and moaning like a porn star. Yeah baby, let it all out! Formaggio knows he probably shouldn’t, that you’ll kill him afterwards, but Formaggio isn’t exactly a good guy per se so he forces himself on you and grabs the dildo from your hands. You gasp and make an odd, half-choking noise, shocked at Formaggio’s presence and trying to stop moaning in front of him while he fucks you on your toy at double speed.

“Yo, y/n, had a good day today without the guys around? IT’s about to be a lot better, now that I'm here~ why don’t you let me have a turn making you feel good? I’m sure you’re tired from doing this all yourself.” Formaggio teases you, as you struggle to find the words and hide the noises. Finally, you roll your eyes and give up; if Formaggio really wants to help you out so badly, then you’re gonna put him to work. The two of you end up fucking for the rest of the aftenoon and evening, until Proscuitto bangs on your door to keep it down, and even then you have another round or two while giggling.

The two of you are exhausted, but sated, afterwards, and you convince Formaggio to make a run to the fridge to pull out your leftovers, on the condition you share them with him. You spend the rest of the night eating in bed, watching Formaggio’s beloved game on your laptop, and falling asleep. It's an almost perfect end to your day, except for the fact that Formaggio snores louder than a chainsaw.

Illusio: unfortunately, this is not the first time Illusio’s heard (or seen) you masturbate, try as you might to hide it. With a stand like his, you know he not only has the means, but desire to snoop on others. Hell, half the time he doesn’t even mean to spy on others, he just forgets about other’s privacy when he’s in his mirror world. This is, however, the first time you’ve been so vocal, presumably because everyone’s supposed to be out right now. Poor girl, it must be hard to take care of your needs when you’ve got to stare at him all day. He’d be pretty flustered too, with his long chocolate locks and well-toned muscles. Illusio pities you, so he decides he’ll give you the help you clearly need. Jumping from the mirror in the hallway to the one in your bedroom (See? You don’t even cover it up, of course you want him to ravish you!) he watches and listens for a minute at the raunchy display before him. Despite you clearly doing this for quite awhile, judging from the sheen of sweat and heavy breathing, your movements were steady and rhythmic, almost like you’d been edging yourself for a long time. How cute. You must have wanted him to finish the job for you. You’re being very loud however, which Illusio likes, but you’re not saying what he wants to hear. So, he slinks over to you like a ghost, and puts his hand over your mouth to stop you from screaming.

“As much as I love coming home to hear you pleasuring yourself, I think we can do a little better than this. And also-” He kisses the side of your shocked face, “If you’re going to scream something, scream my name.” He picks up where you left off, edging you again and again until you’re so desperate that you beg him to fuck you, and say all the pretty words he wants you to. He fucks you so good you squirt when you come, and makes you come again after he finishes inside of you. It takes you a minute or two to recover, but when you do, and Illusio is bragging about what he did to you, you chase him out of your room with a pillow for being an annoying cocky bastard.

Prosciutto:

Hmmm, well, this is a bit awkward. He knows what the noises mean the minute he first hears them, but isn’t sure how to approach this without embarrassing both of them. If it had been one of the other men, he’d have just slammed their door until they shut up so he didn’t have to listen to their tug session, but Prosciutto prided himself on being a gentleman, and didn’t want to embarrass a lady if he didn’t have to.

He waited about 5 or so minutes, hoping you would wrap up, but when you only got louder and louder he decided enough was enough. After all, god forbid one of the other men hear you-like Illusio or Formaggio. So, steeling himself, he coughed loudly and knocked on your door. You must not have heard him, as your moaning didn’t stop, you were clearly enjoying yourself too much to notice or care about the other men in the base.

Prosciutto huffed, almost offended. Is this what he gets for trying to be polite? Jerking off loudly like a common whore where anyone could walk into you? He tried the doorknob, and was almost disappointed you were careless enough to leave it unlocked. Really, this was all your fault, so when your noises of pleasure turned to shock and embarrassment, he merely chided you for your carelessness, forcing his tongue into your mouth to shut you up while he took over. He took control and instructed you how to properly touch yourself, as well as jerk him off in appreciation for the self-love lesson. He decides to leave it there for the night, as motivation for a reward the next time you’re home alone. So you better work hard on your next missions if you want him to properly fuck you, got it?

Pesci:

Pesci was grateful Prosciutto was willing to finish up the job for him, since it meant he got to go home early. Heck, maybe he could even get a chance to watch one of his documentaries before Formaggio came home and the game started. However, he was growing increasingly concerned about the noises coming from your room. He didn’t want to pry or anything, but you sounded...almost in pain. Sometimes you worked out or did yoga though, and Pesci thought that’s what you were working on, so he decided to leave you be.

However, upon hearing a loud crash, followed by a particularly pained groan, he thought it was best to check in on you. He knocked on your door frantically, but you were unable to answer it. Oh no, maybe you’d hurt yourself so badly you couldn’t even move! Determined to help you, he opened the door, only to see you writhing on the bed, nude and in the midst of an intense self-love session.

Pesci’s mouth opened, and closed, but unlike you, he couldn’t make a sound at the sight before him. It’s true, he harbored a small crush on you, but he had hope he would see you like this under better circumstances. He wasn’t sure what to do, he knew the right thing was to close the door and pretend like this never happened, but you seemed desperately in need of help, not to mention Pesci’s pants were tented with his own sudden but no less intense arousal.

Thinking back to advice Prosciutto had given him about manning up and taking what he wanted from life, he creeps up to your still unaware body, crouching onto your bed with a squeak of the bed springs. This is enough to break you from your trance, and you jolt up, looking at Pesci in shock and embarrassment. Pesci shushes you before you can say a word, pushing a trembling, clammy finger to your lips.

“Please...Let me help you y/n,” He begs you, looking you in the eyes with more courage and bravery than you’d seen from the man since you first met him. Still wet and horny, and body growing tired, you lick his finger, earning an adorable squeak from Pesci; this is going much better than he thought it would. You pull him on top of you, and show him what to do.

What Pesci lacks in experience he makes up for in quick-learning and a massive cock with a short refractory period. You move his hands for him across your body, bringing yourself to climax finally, and return the favor with a blowjob. Pesci doesn’t last long, but he’s hard again very quickly, which you decide to use to your advantage. You ride him again and again, Pesci doing everything you tell him to, and making sure you come as many times as he does. He comes everywhere, inside you and out and on your chest, and makes quite the mess of you.

IT doesn’t stop him from pulling you into a passionate kiss and spooning when you’re both sated, mumbling his thanks and sweet compliments about you. You end up sleeping together that night, and in the morning the men tease him half to death about it, but you can tell Prosciutto's proud of him.

Melone:

Oh, he’s been WAITING for this day since you first joined the team, and now that it’s finally happening he can hardly believe it’s real. First he Manages to reactivate the babyface from today’s mission to grab his camera and record everything. Then, he grabs his chest of toys from his room to help you out. He has a hard time not just jumping in and screwing you into your mattress, but like everything in Melone’s life, he has a plan for this, and he intends to follow through with it. After getting a minute or two of just your moans recorded (just in case his “mission” is unsuccessful, at least he’ll have fap material for later, he decides to make himself known.

“You know, y/n, your arm’s are going to get worn out like that before you’re able to climax if you keep this up.” Melone chided you, sitting on your vanity stool, head in his hands like he wasn’t just watching you touch yourself. You scream, out of shock and anger this time, trying to cover yourself and yell at him to get out. Melone’s incredibly stubborn however, and the tongue of a snake, and is able to persuade you into letting him stay, be it from charm, blackmail, or perhaps tapping into your own dark desires.

He starts by merely watching you, taking pictures with his phone and directing babyface on angles to take video. He instructs you on how to touch yourself, and gives you free range on his collection of toys. It all feels good, and you are able to come, but you’re still unsatisfied, to your disappointment. As if knowing this would be the result all along, Melone plays dumb and makes YOU beg him to touch and fuck you.

Once you finally give in, though, he’s much nicer to you, and to no one’s surprise is an excellent lover. He licks your pussy until you come again, and then finger fucks you once more for good measure, before pulling out his copy of the Kama Sutra. He lets you pick out your favorite positions, as well as a few he thinks will give you the most pleasure, and you tire yourself out.

Ghiaccio:

Ghiacchio does NOT want to deal with your loud noises right now, and he ESPECIALLY doesn’t want to deal with the “problem” it’s caused him personally. He breaks your door down, fully intending to chew you out for being so….”distracting” but ironically enough, Ghiacchio freezes when he sees you. He doesn’t have the most experience with dating, especially not with women (I imagine what limited experience he has was with other passione members *cough* Melone *cough*) so seeing you fully bare in front of him is a lot.

The noises you made haven’t helped either, halfway pained and desperate, it makes Ghiaccio oddly jealous; he wants to be the one that makes you make those noises. So before you can chase him out, or cover yourself, he tackles you on the bed, sloppily kissing and touching you. He’s rough, as you could have probably guessed, but also weirdly shy and gentle? For example, he fingers you so roughly and quickly you cum squirting within minutes, but he’s looking you in the eyes the entire time and gaging your expressions/reactions. He’s got a giant blush on his face, almost like he’s ashamed of doing this, but then bites your shoulder while he spears himself inside of you with a snarl.

Good news: you are no longer the loudest one in the house, Ghiacchio progressively growling then shouting the closer he is to climax. He jackhammers you with incredible speed, and bends your body in half to suit his own purposes. It takes him a couple rounds until he’s fully sated, but then he gets really soft afterwards. He likes to spoon you from behind so you don’t see his face, but he holds you gently, rubbing your shoulders where he nipped you, and soothing your sore muscles.

Risotto:

Let’s be honest: this isn’t his first time hearing you masterbate, he’s heard everyone in the base do it at least once. Hell, he’s even walked in on Melone a dozen times, once with Ghiacchio, so that’s not the issue. What is the issue, however, is that you’re being so loud and obvious he can’t ignore it. Even putting aside his personal feelings for you (which he isn’t necessarily willing to do) it would be bad if you were keeping yourself pent up like this around the others. You could be distracted on missions and hurt yourself or mess up your hit. Or worse- you could go to the others for sexual relief.

Clearly, you needed help, and it was your capo’s responsibility to help you take care of it, and only him. He turns invisible and sneaks into your room, but he needn’t have tried so hard to be stealthy. You were clearly in your own little world, fucking yourself on your fingers, crying out over the wet squelching of your aching pussy. He touches you lightly, so lightly you barely notice, while he’s still invisible. Sure, Risotto’s more than happy to do this, and he doesn’t care if you or the others know about his feelings, but he’s still a little shy, and unsure how you’ll react.

He’s worried for nothing, however, when you unconsciously rock into his touch, palming your breasts and licking the sweat off your brow. You’re confused about the phantom touches lingering on your body and invisible force rubbing your clit, but too aroused to do anything about it. You merely relax your tired body, letting yourself be finger-fucked into climax, crying out in pleasure-pain from the large, rough hands raking orgasm after orgasm out of your body.

After Risotto’s able to finger you enough to (he hopes) sufficiently stretch you out, he repositions your limp body, fluffing pillows under your head and placing you to face his still invisible body. He rubs the head of his cock against your clit and entrance, collecting as much lubrication onto his cock as he can. At the last minute, Risotto turns himself invisible, and watches the look of surprise and embarrassment turn into red hot need as he bottoms out into your aching, tender pussy.

He doesn’t go easy on you, each thrust hitting the deepest parts of you, forcing squeals out of you every time. You wrap your arms around him, trying to take some sort of control of the situation, but Risotto doesn’t give you an inch as he fucks the daylights out of you. Your moans spur him on, having gone from non-specific mewling to begging for Risotto to go deeper, harder, “more, more, more!” Risotto likes this side of you best, completely under his control and telling him exactly what he’s doing to you.

Far too soon, you orgasm again, already sensitive from your previous orgasms. Risotto isn’t done though, and doesn’t finish for several hours. Even when the others go home, and are tempted to say something, they hear who’s name you’re calling, and think twice before interrupting their capo’s “alone time.” Finally, after finishing, You pass out almost immediately, too exhausted to even clean yourself off. So, Risotto takes care of you, cleaning up your mess, putting some comfy pjs on you, and fetching some water and painkillers (just in case).

When he walks out of your room, the Squad is silent, no one daring to say anything (Ghiacchio and Formaggio are physically restraining Melone from talking). Risotto sees no need to say anything to them either, merely gives them all an unreadable look, before smiling to himself and returning to your room. Tomorrow, he’s going to need to rearrange the schedule; you’ll need some time off to recover.

[ot7always]

My Fair Lady

Word Count: 8.1k

Pairing: Crown Prince!Taehyung x Captain of the Guard!Reader

Genre: Historical/Fantasy AU, fluff, smut, angst

Warnings: Sparring (swordfight/fistfight), I’ve literally never fenced in my life I’m sorry for any errors, pining, mentions of battle scars, angst angst angst, angsty sex, crying during sex (and not in a sexy way), unprotected sex, oral (f receiving), fingering, it’s super angsty but I promise it’ll be okay

Rating: 18+

Summary: His brother unable to spar with him that day, Crown Prince Taehyung comes to you in need of a partner. 

A/N: This fic was such a wild ride of a writing experience, and I literally lost chunks of writing because of my laptop crashing multiple times. But this fic is my baby, please let me know what you think!

Huge thanks to @wwilloww​​ for beta reading for me, and also @peekaboongi​​ for crying with me as I wrote.

Tagging @moonmintrails​​ @ppersonna​​ @irissilujm​​ @dee-ehn​​

Masterlist

--

You gaze swept across the palace training grounds, hands clasped firmly behind your back. You watched as your soldiers trained, whether it be alone or with each other, and kept an eye out for any glaring errors – incorrect form, weak footwork, and the like.

As the youngest Captain of the Guard in history, it was your duty to ensure each of your soldiers, men and women alike, were in prime condition. Though the position was not passed through bloodlines, you had taken over from your father following his retirement from duty. He was a very well-respected man, and you were determined not to disappoint him. You would continue to prove time and time again that you deserved the honour of your place.

You kept your eyes forward even as you sensed a tall presence settle beside you, taking on a similar stance to your own.

“My Lady,” a deep voice greeted. Your nose crinkled at the title. While it was true your family was of noble station, you much preferred to be addressed as “Captain.” You sought to distance yourself from your cousins who enjoyed hosting fancy balls and tittering about the latest messenger visiting from overseas.

You gave the man beside you a brief once-over, eyes quickly returning to your soldiers in the field. The Crown Prince was looking particularly fresh today, white cotton shirt laced neatly and tucked into black pants that moulded to him like water. His dark curls appeared freshly washed, small tendrils swaying in the wind, having escaped the small tie at the nape of his neck. He smelled suspiciously of lavender. Perhaps he had been delving into his sister’s perfumes once again.

“Your Highness,” you nodded curtly, ignoring the pang in your chest at his appearance. While you tried to put up a good front, you were not immune to the Prince’s charms.

“You know I don’t like when you call me that,” he smiled bashfully at his feet before turning the entirety of his attention to you. “I am in need of a favour,” he continued, gaze imploring.

“What can I do for you, Your Highness?” you responded, suppressing a smirk when you heard him sigh at your words. Having grown up around him, even sharing lessons and training together before you surpassed his abilities, you would consider the two of you friends – more, even. However, you had an image to keep up, barriers that needed to be kept in place lest anyone question your ability to prioritize the royal family’s safety without distraction.

“I require a sparring partner.”

“Do you forget yourself, Your Highness?” you grinned at the notion. Not many dared to challenge you to a fight, and the last time Taehyung matched you in skill he was perhaps a foot or two shorter.

“I beg of you, Captain. My brother is feeling out of sorts and I am in need of a distraction. I have been meeting with courtiers all morning and I cannot begin to express how tiring-”

“He’s taken ill?” you cut in, eyes wide and tone laced with concern as you finally turned to give the Prince your undivided attention. His younger brother was only 15, and you had developed a soft spot for the boy over the years. The plague which tended to come and go from your Kingdom was no joke. While many recovered, many more slowly but surely lost their lives.

“Don’t worry yourself too much, My Lady. Our doctors have assured us it is simply a minor ailment.” His heart warmed at your obvious affection for his brother, knowing how much you cherished his younger siblings. He wondered whether he himself held a similar place in your heart. “Let’s not concentrate on that which will resolve itself quickly in time. Rather, I am still in dire need of a partner. Please?” he appeased, giving you his best impression of a pout. You tried not to crack a smile at the resemblance to his sister.

Your hesitation did not last long – you found it difficult to deny Taehyung anything, not that he asked much of you very often. “Very well, then. Though, we are not exactly dressed for the occasion, are we?” you chuckled, meeting his eyes. It was true. Having only recently left a meeting with those who would accompany Their Majesties to town the next day, you were dressed in a white blouse, dark leather bodice laced on top. While your leather boots allowed for sufficient footwork, the suppressed movement of your torso was not exactly ideal for a fight.

“We both know that you are more than capable of fighting in such attire. Come,” he said, giving you no time to refuse before you were led to the central combat ring. The ring was often used to host friendly tournaments and was clearly visible from any spot in the field.

“Are you so keen to showcase your defeat to my entire squadron?” you teased, shooting the Prince a grin as you caught the foil he tossed to you. Light, thin, and dull, it ensured you did not cause any serious injury lest you accidentally hit him. Cotton, after all, was not the most ideal material to prevent bruising. As for you? Well, you didn’t plan on getting hit anyway.

You took up your position opposite him, bent slightly at the knee, sword in hand, opposing hand clenched comfortably behind your back. You watched as Taehyung settled into the same posture. You clicked your tongue in disapproval upon seeing his form. Shoulders tense already, you sighed. Well, you would just have to see if he fixed his error later on.

“Ready when you are, Sweet Prince,” you smirked, exhaling a laugh as his face flushed. It was a nickname given to him by the men and women he’d seduced and bedded over the years. Even if he’d invited them into his bed only once and never again, they never stopped singing his praises. A part of you was desperate to know what he did to impress them.

“I don’t have all day, Your Highness,” you called out, smile slowly lighting up your face at his embarrassment. A lie, of course. If he asked you to stand there and wait for hours while you simply stared at each other you would do it. You liked to tell yourself it was because of your royal duty, but in reality you had never been able to say no to him, even in your childhood. There was something so charming yet shy, so mature yet naïve about him, that had you wishing for his happiness at every moment. He was a walking contradiction you wanted nothing more than to solve.

Having collected himself, Taehyung launched himself at you quickly, sword flying its way toward your shoulder – easily parried. You figured the two of you would ease into a proper match. After all, neither of you were properly warmed up, and you refused to listen to the Prince’s complaining of sore muscles if you could avoid it.

You remained light on your feet, focusing solely on defending against his basic lunges rather than attempting to retaliate. That would come in time. It wouldn’t be so enjoyable if you didn’t toy with him just a little, right?

After several minutes of rather simple steps, you figured you were ready to break a sweat. The next time his blade swung at you, you batted it aside and thrust your own at his chest, tip poking into his shirt before he could even blink.

“Come now, Your Highness. Shall we see what my father taught you?” you taunted, backing away to your original position. Your heart warmed when you saw the fire light in his eyes at the challenge, his playful expression temporarily replaced by sheer focus. You couldn’t conclude which was more handsome.

The next time he flew at you, it was with newfound ardour, the clink of metal on metal a familiar symphony to your ears. The Prince was skilled, you would give him that. Not that you were surprised – you recalled a time in his youth when he dedicated himself fully to training in this exact spot.

You gave yourself fully to your reflexes, blade swinging left, right, and circling round as you blocked his attacks. Quickly side-stepping a stab toward your neck, you grinned. Despite your original hesitance, you were enjoying yourself. Seeing the sweat form on Taehyung’s brow from his effort, you were happy to see him dedicate himself to something so completely. His technique focused on agility over power, something well-suited to his long limbs and lean muscle. You were the same – fight smart, not hard, your father used to tell you.

Backing away suddenly, Taehyung pouted slightly as he caught his breath. “I can tell that you are going easy on me, Captain. At least try to hit me, I swear to you that I can handle it.” You chuckled at his words.

“Very well, Your Highness. Though if I may point out, perhaps it would serve you better if you relaxed your muscles more. How can you expect to hit me when your shoulder fails to follow through?” you chided. Taehyung bit his lip at your words.

“My apologies, Captain. I find it difficult when I am near you.” Your brows furrowed, unsure whether you heard correctly. He has trouble relaxing around you? You preferred not to pick apart such a statement.

In answer, you lunged at him, a tide of satisfaction flowing through you when he moved immediately in response. You allowed him to continue on the offensive, though this time you followed up every few parries with a riposte, ensuring you never actually hit him with your blade.

Steel was flying through the air so fast it was a blur, your focus lying solely on the flurry of blades between your bodies. You quickly lost track of time, though based on the slight burn in your calves the activity must have gone on for quite a while.

It became almost like a rhythm – feet dancing, you blocked thrice, circling around for a responding thrust. Little did you know, in your focus you missed Taehyung’s wistful glances as he took in your appearance – gaze sharp, hair around your face flying as it escaped your tight knot at the back.

While you did your best not to make contact, your efforts were not perfect. Because as the Prince stepped left rather than right as you had expected, your blade made full and hard contact with his abdomen, confirmed by the faint oof that accompanied the motion. Broken out of your trance, you stared wide-eyed. “My apologies-”

You let down your guard for only a moment, but it was enough for him to swipe your blade aside, his own resting right between your collarbones. Raising your eyes to meet his own, you found only a grin, no sign of pain. That little-

“KIM TAEHYUNG!!!” you bellowed, ignoring the nearby gasps at your blatant show of disrespect. The eldest soldiers only shook their heads in dismay, having become used to your antics over the years. You whipped the side of his blade with your own, force enough to send it flying out of his grasp. “I was worried about you!” you shouted, stalking your way over to his retreating body, met only by a full-bodied laugh and hands raised to defend himself.

He took hold of your shoulders, keeping you at arms’ length as you glared up at him. The look only sent him into another fit of laughter. “The look on your face was magnificent, Captain,” he snickered, ignoring the betrayal on your face. “I’m perfectly fine, also. You needn’t worry so much-”

“Oh, you will not be fine by the time I’m done with you, Your Highness,” you seethed, picking up his discarded blade only to chuck it at him with just a little more force than necessary. “If you wanted a fight, Kim Taehyung, you’ve found one. I will pray for your recovery.”

Taking up your position for the third time of the afternoon, you scanned his features opposite you. He had no blaring weak spots, though you would be surprised if he did after all his years of training. He was fast, though you would bet that you were faster. Defeating him at his full capabilities would not be extremely easy, but if you gave it perhaps 80% you supposed you could be done within minutes.

“Any last words?” you goaded, grinning at the fleck of worry that crossed his face. “You look afraid, Your Highness.”

“It is perhaps in my best interest to remain a bit afraid, My Lady,” he chuckled lightly, eyes keen as they awaited your first movement. The narrowed your eyes, taking him in, planning your actions. He’s not wrong, you thought. Everyone in this field was just a little bit afraid.

Taehyung jumped when your blade made contact with his own, a high-pitched screech ringing out as he fought you off. You gave him no time to contemplate his own actions before you lunged relentlessly at him, delivering strike after strike without pause. He was forced to remain on the defensive, putting in his full effort to parry and step away in time.

Despite his struggle, you were impressed he was able to keep up with you as well as he was. He’s been training more, you noted. His improvement was clear compared to the last time you fought only several months ago. However, in a game of stamina, you were sure to win.

The top of your bodice dug sharply into your chest as your breaths quickened, but you were no stranger to discomfort. Over time you had learned to put aside such trivial things. Aches and pains were part of your job, and you’d be damned if you didn’t do it well.

Unwilling to let go of your pride, your steps quickened, Taehyung’s blade moving frantically to keep up but inevitably slowing slightly as you did not give him time to breathe. If you hadn’t focused all of your energy into this alone with no distractions, you perhaps would have poked fun at him.

When his sword arm lagged only slightly behind, arms slightly too wide, slightly too open, you struck hard. Batting his blade to the side only centimetres above where he held it in his grasp, you simpered, watching his shocked face as his blade went flying. His eyes darted between you and the blade, metres away, seemingly contemplating whether to give up or to pounce on it.

“What now, Little Prince? If this were a battlefield, would you simply cower in fear?” you coerced, eyes predatory. Perhaps it was sadistic of you, but you relished in the look of dismay in Taehyung’s face. He’d been thoroughly defeated – it was only a matter of how long you would draw it out.

Tossing your own foil to the side, you stretched your limbs before beckoning him over, fists positioned in front of you. It was a petty move and you knew it, for soldiers were much more well-versed in hand-to-hand combat than the Crown Prince, who was known to favour his swords and bows.

Taehyung had no complaints, however. A fight was a fight, after all. As he came after you with one, two, three jabs to your chest, you danced aside as you evaded easily. The difference in speed between his punches and sword thrusts were clear, the former much less practiced than the latter.

You unfortunately had not thought this idea through, because your options for victory without injuring the Prince were limited. While you were aware Taehyung would not mind, it would not be the best image for you to beat the life out of the Kingdom’s Crown Prince in open view of a squadron sworn to protect him.

“Are you so eager for my company that you would draw this out?” he joked, a weak punch toward your face easily shoved out of the way by your forearm. “Or perhaps you find pleasure in cornering me, My Lady?”

“You think so highly of yourself, Your Highness. Is it so disconcerting to find yourself put in your place every so often?”

“Quite the opposite, I think. I’ve never enjoyed myself so much,” he beamed, eyes shining. “I’ve quite missed you, Captain.” You faltered at the admission. While you loved to give him a hard time, you knew he was well aware of your fondness for him. However, you don’t believe you’ve ever said something so forthright to each other, and the statement awakened something in you that you thought you had buried deep.

Noting your slightly frozen state, Taehyung charged at you. However, you would not be fooled twice. The audacity of this man-

Twisting your arm to grab hold of his, you leaped forward. Suddenly taking the force of your full weight, Taehyung had nowhere to go but down, groaning as his back thudded against the canvas floor. Knee digging itself into the Prince’s ribcage below you, you sighted your previously discarded blade nearby. Grabbing hold of it, you held it to his throat.

“Yield,” you whispered, words escaping you much softer than intended. He made no effort to move, only staring up into your face with unspeakable emotion.

“And what if I am happy where I am, My Lady?” he murmured, taking in your appearance. Chest heaving, escaped hair wet with sweat, blouse crinkled – you were perhaps the finest sight he’d ever had the pleasure to lay eyes on. Though his words might have been taken for humour, you saw the look on his face. He didn’t even attempt to mask the desire, shameless through and through.

Before you could even think to respond, smatterings of applause broke out across the field at your victorious display, though they could not even begin to understand what was happening between the two of you. Moment broken, you quickly hopped up, helping Taehyung to his feet but avoiding his gaze. You were afraid to admit how much your heart fluttered when you heard his words, afraid of how much it would hurt when you would be forced to walk away and never speak of this moment again.

It was for the best.

“Y/N,” he called out softly, hands reaching for your own, but maintaining a respectful distance. Your eyes flew up to meet his, unused to hearing your own name in the palace nowadays. The look he gave you was honest, sincere. “Do you feel this too?”

You paused. Though he didn’t quite say what this meant, you could guess. In fact, his knowing gaze told you he only wanted you to admit what he already knew. The man had always been perceptive, and you had more memories with him than with your own family. You were certain he was familiar with your every expression. After all, you could write novels about his face – the way his eyes shone in his passion, the way the corners of his lips twitched when he was repressing a scowl.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Pleading ignorance was the best defense. Admitting to your desires was foolish, and would not change your circumstances. You knew this was deeper than physical desires, but that just made it all the more impossible. Princes were destined for arranged marriage – nobody could simply form a relationship with a future King, least of all the soldier who has pledged her life to his parents. No, a proper relationship was not within the realm of possibility. But neither could you lay with the Crown Prince in good conscience – how would the public trust you to put the King and Queen’s safety above all else if you were warming their Prince’s bed?

Every option to act on your desires was fated for failure.

Taehyung’s hands moved from your palms to your wrists, his thumbs pressing into your pulse firmly. “Your heart is racing,” he murmured, eyes staring into your own as though he knew your every secret. “Why do you hide it?”

“You know why,” you stated, voice soft. “Of course I feel it, but it matters not.” The admission coming from your own lips shocked you. You had danced around each other for years, orbiting each other like binary stars, but you’d never admitted your attraction to him.

“It matters to me,” he whispered, thumb stroking at the soft skin of your wrists with care. “Come to my chambers after dinner.”

Your brows shot up at the suggestion. This was not a light request. You were no longer children, no longer laughed in his company until the maids shooed you away, chiding you for making so much noise.

This was real. As much as you grew to accept your desires, you had never even fathomed acting on them. Not when you knew it couldn’t last – not when your reputation, perhaps even your position, were at stake. “Your Highness, I couldn’t possibly-”

“Please,” he begged, staring into you with an expression you would liken to a puppy begging for scraps. You attempted to turn away, but he only followed. “Please,” he repeated, noting your conflicted expression. It was hard to deny him anything when he was looking at you like that, but even harder to deny yourself when every part of you wanted nothing more than to say yes.

“Very well,” you breathed, sealing your fate. “I shall come when the clock strikes eight, Your Highness.”

--

You couldn’t do it. As much as your heart craved him more than anything, you couldn’t. He was untouchable. If you were any other person, if you were just a court lady, you would jump at the chance. It wasn’t a secret that the Prince has had many partners, and nobody gave it a second thought. But to be with you?

It was improper. Impossible. How could you be trusted to do your duty fully and objectively if you’d laid with the Crown Prince?

After bathing, you made your way to his bedchambers, clad only in a loose blouse and cotton pants, hair flowing freely around your shoulders, still wet. You could not join him in his bed, but he at least deserved a rejection in person rather than your absence.

Knocking lightly on the door, you were startled when it swung open, your arm still raised. He gave you such a sweet smile it was almost painful, still dressed in his earlier attire but hair loose around his face. You stepped into the room, taking in its appearance, having not seen the room in years. It smelled of him, of vanilla and lavender and musk, a scent you would breathe for the rest of your life if it was possible. The room was exactly as you remembered it, mostly barren if not for the set of throwing knives on display – a gift from your father for the Prince’s coming-of-age.

“I’m so glad you came-”

“I’m sorry,” you cut him off, turning to face him. “I came to put a stop to this before it’s begun, Your Highness. You're trying to start something that will be too painful to cease.” Your words struck him, and it physically pained you to see his face transform from excitement to distress.

“But I am not imagining what we have, am I? I have longed for you for years. Am I wrong to think you have too?” he pleaded.

“It doesn’t matter what I want, Your Highness. We can’t possibly do this – think about it. Not only that, I cannot have the palace thinking I earned my position through your bed. There are so many reasons we cannot – I want you but I cannot have you!” You didn’t mean to raise your voice, but you couldn’t help it in your grief. Eyes brimming with unshed tears of frustration, it hurt to look at him standing so close, and yet so out of reach.

At your anguish, Taehyung reached for your face, thumbs wiping away the tears you didn’t even notice had fallen. His tenderness only sent another wave of sorrow through you, chest heavy. “I’m sorry. I know it was selfish to call you here. I know this is easier for me than you. Please forget I ever asked.”

“I know it’s wrong, but...”

“But?” he urged gently.

“Is it so foolish that I want it anyway?” you whispered. You looked at him wide-eyed, gaze pained, searching his face as if it held the answers to the universe. For you, perhaps it did.

“Y/N...” he begun, the sweet sound of your name coming from his lips the final nail in your coffin. Denying that you wanted this more than anything would be the greatest lie you’ve ever told. It was brash, and stupid, and irresponsible, but you wanted to feel this at least once. You wanted to indulge in his touch, his affection. You needed to feel his hands on you, his mouth on your skin, and you didn’t know if you would ever be brave enough to accept him again if you didn’t do it now.

“It can only be once. Nobody can know.” You couldn’t risk the noblewomen catching on to your activities. They were unusually observant, and you didn’t doubt their abilities to discern your relationship with even the faintest of hints. Taehyung knew better than anybody that the palace ladies treated gossip as currency, and word traveled especially quickly on matters involving him. He nodded at your words, but the grave look on his face told you he wished things were different.

“I will cherish our time together, My Lady” he breathed, but his conflicted expression spoke volumes. “We don’t have to do this-”

You shook your head, closing the space between you until your chests were pressed together. Stomach in knots and chest tight, you ran your fingers along his broad chest and down to his abdomen before wrapping them loosely around his waist. You would savour every touch, make note of every expression, save away every delightful noise from his lips, and you would pray for it to be enough to satiate you for a lifetime. Because it had to be.

Tilting your head back to meet his eyes, your heart nearly leapt from your throat at the look on his face. The adoration, the warmness – but most of all, the pain. This was torture for both of you, and you knew it. It was selfish and self-destructive, but the two of you always seemed to bring out both the best and the worst in each other.

Without speaking, you reached up to grab hold of his head, yanking it down to smash your lips together without ceremony. He responded with fervor, moving against you, arms tugging until there was not even a millimetre of space between your bodies. You tried not to think about the desperation in your movements, the saltiness of the tears still present on your face. You dragged your hands over the planes of his chest and down to his biceps, nails digging in slightly when he bit at your bottom lip.

Harshly tugging his shirt from his waistband, you traced your nails up his bare skin, relishing in the uneven breath he let out in response. You would dedicate yourself to memorizing every inch of him. Every dip, every curve would be ingrained in your mind for eternity, your hands tracing patterns into his skin like a brush on canvas.

He did the same to you, his large hands finding their way beneath your blouse and chemise, lifting them both above your head to toss them to the floor. You were bare underneath, having planned to leave for your own bedchambers only minutes after arriving. He sucked in a breath at the sight of you on display entirely for him. His careful fingers traced the scars on your abdomen, accumulated through years of training and fighting on the frontlines. While ugly, you were not ashamed – these were proofs to others and to yourself that you would put your Kingdom above all else.

Bending at the knee, he traced his mouth down your jaw, down your throat, kissing you reverently as he continued his path. Passing over your breasts, he moved lower to mouth gently at the scars littering your belly, his gentle presses causing new tears to spring to your eyes. Was this how it felt to be worshipped? To be loved?

Taehyung took in the sorrow painting your features, but did not comment. There was nothing to be said – he understood perfectly. Perhaps if he pressed his face more firmly into the softness of your skin, he would spare you having to see the twin look of despair he was unable to hide.

Sliding a hand into his hair, you softly brushed it away from his face, gently pulling his chin up to look at you. Your heart wrenched at the sight of him, eyes looking at you as though you were a treasure, as though you weren’t the thing causing him so much pain. As though you wouldn’t leave him alone after this.

Tugging lightly at the collar of his shirt, he quickly got the memo, shucking it off in a direction you didn’t see, too focused on what was just revealed to you. If not for the honeyed gold of his skin, you would have been convinced he was carved of marble. You traced the lines of his body, a tiny smile breaking through at the shudder he gave when your nails scratched over his nipples. Though your actions were slow, he did not rush you. He only watched the awe in your gaze, eyes wide as though if you blinked, he would disappear. The childlike wonder in your face warmed his heart, pleased that you would let your guard down here with him.

You blinked out of your stupor at the sensation of a warm hand on your cheek, the sight of Taehyung’s soft grin at your antics lighting a small fire of embarrassment in you. “Bed?” he asked lightly, nuzzling his face into your neck. The hot breaths near your ear sent a shiver down your spine, tugging him ever-so-closer as you nodded in response.

Pulling away from him, you tugged lightly at the drawstrings to your pants, biting your lip when you saw the Prince follow your every movement. Taking his hands into your own, you brought them to your waistband. “Help me,” you breathed, heart racing at the knowledge that you would soon be laid bare to him.

He took a deep breath before releasing the knot at your waist, tugging your pants ever so slowly down your legs. He knelt at your feet, removing the fabric from your ankles until the only cloth left on your body is your underwear. Eyes falling on your face, he thumbed the waistband, looking up at you in question. At your quiet “please,” he removed that too, your folds revealed to him, shiny with your arousal.

Groaning at the sight, Taehyung latched onto your clit before you could even process the movement, the sudden pleasure making you weak in the knees. He sucked at your bud lightly, taking pleasure in the way you sunk your hands into his hair to ground yourself. When you wobbled slightly in your bliss, his left arm rose to hold you steady at the waist.

When his other hand rose to thumb through your folds while his mouth continued its ministrations, you moaned out. Eyes falling down to observe the Prince, the sight brought a small whimper to your lips, your hips grinding down onto him. He looked absolutely sinful, his eyes heavy-lidded as he delved into your heat with such abandon, focused entirely on your pleasure. When he inserted a finger into you, quickly followed by another upon feeling your wetness, you were sure you would have fallen if not for his arm holding you steady.

“What-” you started, but ended up cutting yourself off with a loud moan at the sensation of his fingers scissoring inside you. “What happened to going to bed?” you managed to get out, utterly breathless.

You let out a gasp when he pulled from you abruptly in response, picking you up at the waist and throwing you onto his mattress. You had no time to reprimand him before he was spreading your legs, mouth and fingers returning to you as he joined you on the bed. Any words were stolen from your throat at the stretch of a third finger, your hips bucking up to get closer to the source of your pleasure.

“You taste so good,” he moaned out, panting. You didn’t miss the way he grinded his clothed crotch into the sheets, heat shooting through you at the sight. When his fingers curled inside you, the heat spread throughout your whole body, abdomen tight and walls clenching tightly around his fingers. You were so close to the edge, it would take only one breath before you fell over.

“Give it to me, please,” he pleaded, tongue flicking over your clit as his fingers continued to nudge that spongy spot inside you. Needing no more encouragement, you fell apart, moans forced from your throat, hips grinding against him as he worked you through your orgasm. When a dull ache begun to replace the pleasure, you pulled away from him, pushing him onto his back.

His arousal was clear, his cock straining in his tight pants enough that it must have hurt. Though, his face held no complaint, only dazed wonderment clear on his features, almost as if he still couldn’t believe what was happening. He let out a sharp hiss as your nails traced the outline of his cock, his teeth biting furiously at his bottom lip.

Deciding not to torture him after the ecstasy he brought you, you tugged his pants and underwear down in one go, Taehyung groaning in relief as his cock sprung free. The tip was angry and red, the slit leaking precum. After freeing him of his clothing, you reached out a hand to pump lightly at his cock, noting the way it twitched in your hold. It looked almost painful, the vein running up the underside big and angry.

You began to lower your mouth to him, eager to return the pleasure he gave you, but were halted by a gentle hand on your cheek. “Please,” he begged, “I can’t. I need you,” he expressed all in one breath, eyes pained and needy.

Taking mercy on him, you rose, shifting until you were seated in his lap, mouth seeking his out. He cried out into your mouth at the sensation of your slick folds rocking against him, grinding down onto his cock. Hand reaching down to position him at your entrance, you pulled your face away to watch his as you sunk yourself slowly onto his length. The moan you let out at the stretch was crude, and it didn’t appear that Taehyung was faring any better, his breaths coming in pants, eyes screwed shut.

He’s beautiful like this, you thought, your own eyes wanting to badly to flutter closed, but your need to take in his every expression won out. Your head tipped back in pleasure as you seated yourself fully, moans escaping as you rocked against him, his pelvis pressing into your clit.

Losing yourself in the sensation, you fell forward to bury your face into Taehyung’s neck, his scent only adding to your pleasure. His hips rocked against your own, thrusts shallow, both of you letting out low moans at the movement. The friction against your clit had your abdomen tightening again, his tender hold on your body the best thing you’d ever felt. But as the pleasure reared in on you again, it was at that moment you remembered the totality of your situation.

You would never get this again.

The thought was like ice-water thrown over your head. How could you have forgotten? His cock deep inside you, his hips rising to meet your own, his hand clutching at the small of your back, his moans – it was all temporary.

You shoved your face tightly into his shoulder, hoping your sob would disguise itself as a moan. But at the shaking of your shoulders, Taehyung paused his actions, hand rising to cradle your head. “Y/N?”

“Tae,” you cried out, heart wrenching. It wasn’t lost on him that this was the first time he’s properly heard his name from your lips since your promotion – no teasing, no games. His heart broke at the sound, your sobs guttural, and he wanted nothing more than to take the pain away. The gravity of the situation brought tears to his own eyes, unable to suppress the emotion any longer.

“I know, I’m sorry,” he whispered, your head lifting to meet his glassy eyes. Your eyes were red-rimmed, your lips quivering. This was an agony that only the two of you could ever understand.

“Taehyung, I-” you faltered, choking on a sob. I love you. You couldn’t say it. What good could it bring you now? But your eyes spoke volumes, the emotion clear on your face. He knew how you felt just as much as you knew how he felt.

“I know, I’m sorry,” he repeated, tears finally escaping his eyes as he tugged you closer. There was no way to be more intimate than this, arms cradling each other as you cried, his cock still nestled inside you.

It would have to be enough.

As your bodies shifted minutes later, the friction against you had you shivering, remembering the position you were in. You pulled your head from his neck to gaze at his face, his eyes meeting your own. It hurt, but there was sad acceptance in your eyes, mirrored in his own. You tried to force a small smile onto your face, but you were unsure whether it appeared as a grimace. You instead elected to press a soft kiss to his lips, eyes falling closed as he returned it.

You rocked your hips together slowly, relishing in the light sighs and quiet moans of the other. Your movements were tender, careful, full of love and affection you would never get the chance to verbalize. When you felt your release creeping up on you again, you arched your back, grinding into his pelvis. Wanting to help you along, Taehyung grabbed hold of your hips, holding you steady as he thrusted up into you, every so often holding himself deep, grinding against you. The emotion of it all had your breath caught in your throat, your orgasm washing over you in gentle waves as you writhed against his body.

You could tell he was coming undone, his thrusts erratic, breaths heavy as he pulled away from you to leave open-mouthed kisses on your collarbone. You moaned at the overwhelming sensation of his movements so soon after your orgasm, but you wouldn’t dare rob him of his pleasure. Not now, not like this.

Groaning loudly, you felt his cock twitch inside you as he continued his thrusts, feeling the warmth of his release coating your walls. He shook in your arms, and you couldn’t bring yourself to confirm whether he was overwhelmed with pleasure or sorrow.

Letting out a whine as you pulled yourself off him, you wiped the mess between your  legs on his sheets. His maids would clean for him come sunrise, and you were anxious to escape the room before you lost yourself fully to despair.

You allowed yourself to bask in his presence momentarily, laying alongside him for several minutes before you rose to get dressed. You kept your back to him, unwilling to show weakness despite your vulnerability only moments ago.

“Stay,” he begged, his voice still husky from the passion you’d shared. Your heart sunk at the suggestion. You wanted nothing more than to stay, but every minute you spent here knowing the outcome only shattered you a bit more.

Fully dressed, you made your way to the door. You could still feel where his hands touched you, where his lips pressed against you, where his cock had been inside you. “I’m sorry,” you breathed, misery colouring your tone. You turned to him, taking in his bare appearance for the last time. You stared, hoping to burn the image into your retinas.

“I know,” was his only response. What more was there to say? Your eyes swept over each other, locking this moment away in your hearts forever. Finally, you turned back to the door, turning the knob and stepping out into the hallway without looking back. The sound of the hinge falling into place behind you felt like waking up from a dream, the period at the end of a sentence.

Your tears fell freely and silently as you made your way back to your chambers. Your heart ached a bit more with the increasing distance, every step leaving a piece of you behind.

It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all? You supposed whoever could claim such a thing had never loved like this. Because walking away left your heart in a million pieces, the only glue that could piece you back together still staring at his empty sheets, the dip from where your body once laid still warm to the touch.

--

Months went by without speaking of that night. The tonic you’d taken upon returning to your room had worked well, your body having bled weeks later. You had still talked to Taehyung – you had to; your duty required it. But the pain never ceased, only dulled. You told yourself you would move on, that there was no use in dwelling. But the heated glances you caught him directing at you, desire and heartbreak in his eyes, always took you right back to that night.

He hadn’t been with anyone since – not that you were listening. You couldn’t help but to overhear the palace ladies gossiping, spreading word of the Crown Prince denying their advances. You didn’t know what to do with the information.

Having just returned from mapping out Their Majesties route to a neighbouring city, you returned your horse to the stables. While not necessary, you much preferred to prepare yourself for every possibility of attack, taking note of any weaknesses in visibility along the path. Every second counts when you’re under attack, after all.

“Captain!” a voice called out to you urgently. Having just handed off your horse to the stablehand, you turned to meet the man, his hands on his knees as if he had just run a mile before coming here. “I have been looking for you everywhere, Captain. Their Majesties have requested your presence in the throne room.” Unusual, since you had met together only this morning, but you would not keep them waiting.

“Thank you, sir. I will head there now.”

--

You went directly to the throne room, pausing outside to nod to the royal family’s assistant stationed outside. He smiled to you briefly before pushing the door open.

“Captain Y/N to see you, Your Majesties.”

“Let her in, thank you,” a kind, feminine voice rang out.

You stepped inside quickly, taking a knee until the King gestured for you to stand. “I deeply apologize for my appearance, Your Majesties. I had just returned from planning our route for tomorrow and thought it better not to leave you waiting.”

The King smiled at you, the warm-hearted expression reminding you of Taehyung’s. Your chest ached at the thought, but you kept a blank expression. “Hard at work as always, I see. We had something we would like to discuss with you.” At his words, you noticed that not only were the King and Queen present, but Taehyung was stood off to the side as well. Your heartrate increased slightly at the sight of him.

“Your Highness. Forgive my disrespect, I had not seen you there,” you bowed respectfully, ignoring the heat that rushed through you at his appearance. His hair was loose, his outfit form-fitting. He was beautiful. You tried not to think too much on what he looked like beneath the clothes. “What can I do for you, Your Majesties?”

“Captain, my son came to us earlier today with quite the startling proposition,” he began, and your brows furrowed in confusion. When he failed to elaborate, you spoke up.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean, Your Majesty.”

“You see, he came to us in a frenzy and asked, ‘Father, what would you say if I wanted to marry the Captain of the Guard?’” You froze, eyes wide. Marry? You? Taehyung? Your heart pounded violently at the notion.

“Sire, I promise you this was not my idea. I apologize-”

“My dear, do not panic. We are not angry. But we wanted to ask your thoughts.”

“Your Majesties, I couldn’t possibly marry your son.” You made effort not to look at the Prince, lest your composure fail. “I have no lands to offer. No gold, nothing. I cannot offer you any alliance, I cannot bring anything to your family,” you turned to Taehyung, his expression unreadable. “You cannot marry a soldier,” you whispered, heart breaking once again as the possibility was dangled in front of you, lingering just beyond reach.

“Captain, do you know that the people adore you? That they sing your praises when we pass through their villages?” the Queen asked, a bright smile painting her features. Your face grew hot at the mention. “Your soldiers respect you. Your hometown throws festivals in honour of your birthday. Dare I say that you’re more popular than us?” she joked, giggle chiming lightly through the room. Taking in her appearance and mannerisms, it was no question why Taehyung was as handsome and as loved as he was.

“Ma’am, of course not,” you responded, hand raising to awkwardly scratch at your head. You were unsure where she was going with the statement.

“You’ve earned the Kingdom’s trust, Captain. You’re perhaps the most loyal person I’ve ever laid eyes on. Might I also add that you are not just some nobody? Your family has served ours for generations. You are of noble birth,” she stated matter-of-factly. “Do you consider yourself so unworthy?”

You paused at the question. It did not seem to be a trap, and the Queen was certainly not one to be malicious. Glancing around the room, you noted the King and Prince were observing your reaction expectantly. It was not an environment good for your nerves. “A soldier is not fit to be the future Queen,” is the statement you settled for, attempting to maintain a mask of indifference.

“My dear, do you remember what you told me only a few years ago? When I asked you if you were afraid of trying to accomplish what nobody else in history has?” the King’s deep voice rang out. Your gaze snapped up, knowing exactly what he was about to say. Oh no...

“‘Damn history. I will write my own history,’ I think it was.” Chuckles broke out across the room, the Queen tittering, Taehyung snickering. You’d never told Taehyung about that encounter, embarrassment flowing through you every time you thought about it. You focused your gaze on your feet, face burning at the reminder of your words.

“I have since learned to control my words, Sire,” you muttered ashamedly, fingers tangling together.

“Y/N,” the King’s voice called, grabbing your attention once again. “You have guts. Daring. You’re smart, well-trained. And there’s nobody I would trust to guard my life more than you.” You bit your lip at the praise, struggling to hide a proud grin. Being praised by the King was a feat not many experienced. “It would be an honour to call you our daughter.”

You stared, slack-jawed, processing his words. You didn’t notice Taehyung approaching you until his fingers laced with your own, his opposing hand moving to raise your chin. The open affection on his face, the love - it was everything you’d ever dreamed of and nothing you’d ever dared hope for. Your breathing quickened as he sank to his knees in front of you.

“Please,” he beseeched, vulnerability clear on his face. “Spend eternity with me, together. Will you marry me?”

Tears filled your eyes, but for once they were tears of joy, not tears of despair. You dropped to your knees to meet him, arms thrown around his neck. He barely had time to catch you as you threw yourself at him, bodies the closest they’ve been since that night in his bed. Raising your head to lock your eyes on his, you knew the same love you had for him was written all over your face.

“Yes,” you cried, hands raising to cup his jaw. “Yes.”

[akakeiiji]

Hi! This is my first time requesting something, i was wondering if you could do headcanons or reactions for Oikawa, Akaashi, Atsumu, sugawara and Nishinoya who have an s/o who is a medical student and works as a paramedic in her free time and tends their injuries after games or durning them, especially oikawa 😔🙏🏻

Omg anon, if this ask is based off of you then you are amazing!! Keep up the great work! 

Also I finally broke through my creative block and actually wrote something, I actually finished these hcs a few days ago but my laptop died before I could post so I had to start from scratch huhu (having to start over drained me so much hence why this took so long to post)

✂︎・・・masterlist

-`,✎Oikawa, Akaashi, Atsumu, Sugawara and Nishinoya’s reaction to their S/O tending to their injuries

Oikawa Tooru

Oikawa is the king of overworking himself

Even when he doesn’t have any matches to worry about, he’s in the gym practicing and practicing till he physically can’t anymore

It’s no wonder why he gets injured a lot, he just never knows when to stop

If it weren’t for you his body would be in horrible shape

You always know what to say and do to get him to stop practicing for the day, and you’re always the one tending to his sore and exhausted body ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

He loves flexing you, he needs everyone to know how smart you are

When I say everyone, I mean everyone

You turn around for a bit and he’s suddenly telling the cashier how amazing you are for being a paramedic

Contrary to popular belief, Oikawa is actually very smart so sometimes he’ll study with you in his free time, helping you out by quizzing you and stuff

He studies your material sometimes, idly reading through your papers and textbooks sometimes

He’ll just randomly blurt out random medical facts, which may or may not be a ploy to impress you

One day when it was reaching the end of a match, you could tell that something was wrong with Tooru, it wasn’t obvious but you knew when he was in pain

You internally screamed at him, urging him to sit the rest of the match out but this was Oikawa you were talking about

Luckily the match ended quickly after that with Oikawa’s team winning but he almost collapses from the sheer pain he was feeling on his leg, it had been acting up again from his old injury

You were absolutely livid because it wouldn't have been so bad if he stopped playing when it started hurting but you were too worried to lecture him

There are tears prickling his eyes but he’s still smiling and telling everyone he’ll be okay because you’re there

“They’re the best of best, they’ll be able to help me!”

He’d be bedridden for a while and, of course, you’d be by his side the entire time

You scolded him for an hour and he couldn’t run away so he had to endure it all

For the first few days, everything would be okay, but after a while, he starts getting restless and keeps trying to get up to do things by himself

You would physically restrain him to the bed if you could

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

JUST KIDDING��.Unless

He wants nothing more than to go back to training, he’d literally start dreaming about volleyball on some nights

You have to constantly remind him that if he doesn't recover properly he’ll just worsen his leg so that he doesn’t run away while you’re at school or at work

“If it gets worse, they might have to amputate it.”

“What?! You can’t be serious…you’re joking, right?”

Since he can’t go out or train anymore, he spends the rest of his time trying to get your attention

He’s so pouty and whiny, always calling for you for no good reason

While you’re studying in the other room, he’ll suddenly call for you saying he needs you

When you go over to him, he’ll just be like: “I need you~” and you’d have to fight the urge to strangle him

He really just wants your attention, pls help him

In all seriousness though, he’s so thankful to you and truly appreciates what you do

While you’re checking on his leg one day, he’d take your gentle hands in his and pull you in for a hug

“Thank you for putting up with me. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“…also I need to pee.”

Akaashi  Keiji

My son

My precious boy

It pains me to write about him getting hurt

He’s so supportive of you and your studies, he knows how hard studying medicine is

He always checks in on you when you’re studying or working

He’s the type of boyfriend that will give you little snacks while you’re working and remind you to take breaks

Whenever he feels sick or gets hurt, you’re the first one he calls because he trusts you the most and because he knows how capable you are

But this happens very rarely because he’s really careful and knows his limits

During one of his matches though, he suddenly falls over after setting a ball, clutching his leg

He’s immediately rushed over to the infirmary but when they arrive you’re already there wheezing and panting after running all the way there from the bleachers

The nurse tells you that he sprained his ankle pretty badly and that he’d recover just fine but you still felt so bad because you could see how much Akaashi was in pain

I'm legitimately hurting rn while writing this

After getting injured, he starts overthinking so fricking much

He’ll start thinking that he was pulling his team down and begin questioning his skills as a player

You literally have to slap some sense into him or he’ll just drown in his thoughts

You’ll have to cup his face in your hands and urge him to look at you while you tell him how much of an amazing player he is and how injuries like these are inevitable when playing sports

He’ll only start feeling better after this but he still needs a huge dose of your hugs and kisses to fully recover

Out of all the boys, he’s probably the easiest to take care of (he’s prolly tied with Suga)

He’s more obedient and doesn’t mind staying in bed for a long time

But at the same time, he’s so stubborn and says he doesn’t need your help

He just keeps thinking that he’s burdening you while you have so much on your plate

“I don’t need your help, love. I’m completely fine.”

“Keiji, there are literally tears in your eyes.”

He subconsciously gets clingier than usual as the days go by, always trying to get your attention

He isn’t as obvious as other ehem tooru and tries to do so in more subtle ways

Like he’ll just accidentally drop his book and when you go to pick it up he’ll pull you onto the bed and before you know it you’ve been cuddling for two hours straight

The extra affection is his own little way of saying thank you

While you’re checking on his injuries he’ll grab your hand with his and press your knuckles to his lips

“Thank you, love.”

My heart burst

Miya Atsumu

Oikawa part 2 but snarkier

He just doEsn’T kNow whEn to StOP

He always finds some nitty gritty detail he absolutely needs to fix during his regular practice and stays after hours to work on it

He can train for hours without realizing it, before he knows it it’s midnight, he’s the only soul left in the building and his legs are dying

Other times, when you arrive home to find your boyfriend missing, you immediately head over to his gym and drag him home

During a match, he dives down to save a ball only to crash on the ground awkwardly and injure his shoulder

He’s forced to leave the court after failing to convince the referee and his coach that he was fine and he was absolutely livid

Not at them but at himself

He thinks that the injury was a sign that he was slacking off or losing his edge

He goes off on a tangent about how he needs to practice more and how he can’t afford to waste time

Nobody could calm him down until you arrived

After you got there and talked some sense into him, he finally complies and lets himself be lead away to the infirmary

He’s down in the dumps for at least a week, usually found grumbling at the tv, unsure of what to do with this unprecedented free time

But soon after a lot of talks lectures with you and food sent by his brother, he starts going back to his usual old self

He’s absolutely basking in this extra attention from you, he secretly loves being doted on

It used to really irk him when he finds he can’t do certain things with his injury like opening a jar

But once it dawns on him that you’re there, he will totally abuse this just to get your attention and to bother you

“Hey, can you help me open the fridge?”

“You can do that by yourself.”

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU WON’T HELP YOUR INJURED BOYFRIEND.”

Whenever you’re checking on his shoulder, he always distracts you by kissing your lips or neck while you’re trying to be a good s/o and it always ends up in a makeout session or more

Because he’s got so much more free time, he’s usually found in your shared apartment, clinging onto you while you’re studying waiting for you to finish

“Are you ready to dote on me?”

“No, be patient.”

“>:’(”

When the doctor tell him he’s fully recovered, the first thing he does is lift you in his arms and twirl you around

Sugawara Koushi

Precious bby

This mama bear rarely gets injured, he’s usually the one nursing others

You two are like this wonderful duo with magic curing hands

He absolutely loves that you’re pursuing your dreams of being in the medical field and low-key shows you off to everyone he knows

Especially to his parents, they love you almost as much as they love him don't tell him that tho

He’s really careful while playing because he hates being in pain, like more so than the average person if you get what I mean

While blocking though, he ends up injuring his wrists from the sheer strength of the spike and the not so ideal positioning of his arms

He has tears in his eyes while he’s being brought to the infirmary and your heart literally broke as you watched from the sidelines

He was stuck with a wrist splint for a couple of weeks

Like Atsumu he constantly needs your help to do mundane things like open cans and such

Unlike Atsumu though, he’s less whiny and more distraught over the fact that he’s always being doted on

He isn’t used to being the one taken care of

He always tries not to burden you and always tries to do things by himself

“Koushi! What was that crash I heard?”

“Nothing! Don’t mind me, just focus on your work.”

“WHY ARE YOU COOKING!?”

“BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, DAMNIT—”

He broke two plates that day trying to make your favorite meal

Apparently cooking with a splint is pretty difficult, he takes note of this

He becomes guilty when you do things like cook and clean, he tries to help as best he can but you always tell him to just sit back and relax but he jUSt cAn’T

He doesn’t want you to worry about stuff like that because you need to study!! He feels so helpless sometimes

While you’re cooking dinner, you’ll just turn to the side and do a double take when you see him staring at you with wide, concerned eyes

“What?”

“I want to help :(”

He’s literally the living embodiment of this emoji: 🥺

You let him help with little stuff like stirring and watching the pot while you cut the vegetables and stuff

He immediately feels better after this, he wants to feel at least a little bit helpful

At the end of the day, while you two are in bed, he’ll nudge closer to you and pepper your face with kisses

“What was that for?”

“I just love you so much, thank you.”

Nishinoya Yuu

Sorry but everyone at the ER is on a first-name basis with Nishinoya

LISTEN HE’S SO CHAOTIC AND WILD, HE ALWAYS GETS HIMSELF INTO DUMB SITUATIONS

His grandfather didn’t even bat an eye when the school nurse would call him informing him that Nishinoya managed to break his arm during his math exam don’t ask

When he found out about your studies and your job he was so giddy and kept telling you that it was fate and that you two completed each other

He’s literally the proudest boyfriend that you could ever have, always telling everyone about how smart and talented you are

“Yeah, you may be a rocket scientist but you will never be as smart as my s/o!”

“Yuu, what are you doing—”

He loves having a smart s/o, he’s always being wowed by your vast knowledge

You can always find him silently cheering you in the corner while you’re studying

Basically, he’s your number one fan and supporter

Asides from that, he’s also your number one patient

Whenever he gets hurt, you’re the first one he turns to, he tells you it’s good practice and that it’s helping you improve your skills in an attempt to stop you for scolding him

One time, he sprained his elbow while trying to do some new move he saw on tv

Insert vine: I don’t care that you broke your elbow

Except you do care, a lot in fact

He’s lowkey tearing up when being rushed to the infirmary because it hurts but mostly because he just wants to play

You have to be so strict and stern with him

He’s so energetic and bouncy, he definitely doesn’t respond well to being bound with bandages or slings

If it weren’t for you, he probably would have worsened his injuries, but he’s a huge simp so he listens to everything you say…mostly

Since he can’t use his energy for volleyball and sports, he’ll direct that energy towards giving you attention

He becomes sooo affectionate and clingy, he just wants to shower you with love

He gets restless often, whenever he does he’ll plop down beside you and wrap his good arm around your waist while you’re working as a way to remind himself to stay put and to not jump out the window from boredom

“Kiss my boo-boo?”

“What are you? Five?”

Unlike the others, he’s very very open about how thankful he is to have you taking care of him, he would scream it out the window if you would let him

He reminds you every day how blessed he is to have you, at the most random of times actually

“Can you open this bottle for me?”

“Sure.”

“GOD, WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE YOU?”

“CALM DOWN—”

He’s so in love, please save him

[agoldengalaxy]

deny, deny, deny

read on Ao3

5 times someone told Sam and Bucky they cared about each other, and the 1 time they showed it.

--

1.

“You two bicker a lot,” Dr. Raynor says, eyeing the two men who sit, fuming, on the other side of her desk. “If you won’t speak to each other, then tell me this, instead. James, why would you ignore Sam’s texts?”

Bucky grumbles something under his breath. Sam seems genuinely curious to hear the answer. Raynor glares until Bucky sighs and repeats himself, staring at the floor. “Didn’t wanna bother ‘im.”

“What? I was the one texting you, Bucky! Why would I -”

“Just drop it, Sam.”

“…Fine.”

Folding her hands on her desk, Raynor sighs. She can’t be certain, but Bucky has been her client for a few months now, and she knows it takes a long time for him to tell the truth. In this case, however, she thinks the truth is there, as a small part of it. The way that the tips of his ears redden tell her that there must be more to it.

She isn’t blind. She has a feeling she might know that answer. So she leans forward a little. “Good. Thank you for that answer, James.” Her gaze slides to Sam, whose arms are crossed over his chest as he looks toward the wall. “How does that make you feel, Sam?”

He scoffs. “After everything I’ve done for him, he still -”

“You shouldn’t have given up the shield, Sam.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Gentlemen, please,” Raynor interrupts, feeling a headache coming on. She blows out a breath. “You’re both big boys now. You can handle this -“ she gestures vaguely, because she knows that they don’t quite understand yet, “- if you just talk to each other. Emotions are powerful things, you can’t ignore them forever.”

Bucky groans. Sam huffs.

They don’t get it. She’s not sure she wants to see them flounder, but she should put it out there, anyway. She leans forward. “Emotions including love, that you may have buried deep below.”

For a split second, she is met with stunned silence, before they both erupt, loudly. Denying, denying, denying, pushing the feelings down even deeper than they had been before despite the way that they fluster.

It’s okay, she tells herself. Deep breath in and out. They’ll accept it soon, someday.

Still, she shakes her head, effectively cutting them off. “No matter what kind of love it is, you care about each other. And that’s the bottom line. Once you cross it, things’ll be a whole lot easier.”

Sam looks at his lap, blinking. Bucky’s cheeks flush pink.

Raynor needs a drink.

2.

“This is really easy for you, isn’t it? All that serum runnin’ through your veins.” John hates the man standing in front of him. Maybe, in another life, they could have been friends. But the stubbornness just pisses him off, so he goes for Bucky’s weakness. He knows Bucky can take being insulted, but there is one thing he won’t accept. “Barnes, your partner needs backup in there.”

He watches Bucky’s cold stare waver, if only for a moment. John takes that opportunity to stand his ground, glancing behind Bucky, to that open door he wants to go through so desperately. Karli is right there, and the only thing standing in his way now is Barnes, and his stupid loyalty to Sam.

Bucky thinks so highly of Sam, he doesn’t have any other choice but to use that one weakness.

So they lock eyes again. “I know you care about him. Do you really want his blood on your hands?”

Beside him, Lemar shifts his weight from one foot to the other as Bucky looks down for a split second. John knows what it’s like. He’d never leave Lemar behind, though he knows with Sam and Bucky, things are a little different. He can feel Zemo’s eyes boring into them now, clearly amused. They wait.

Bucky’s jaw is clenched, every inch of him now rigid. John knows the feeling, and knows perhaps it might have been unfair to put him in that position; he knows he would stop at nothing if it were his wife in that room. That’s almost the equivalent of what Bucky must have been thinking.

But the ends justify the means.

Drawing in a sharp breath, Bucky turns around, his shoulders still tight, and John exchanges a look with Lemar as he speaks. “You’re right. We should help him.”

John’s grip on the shield tightens. Lemar grins. “Maybe you should tell him how you feel,” he suggests as they start up the stairs.

Bucky ignores them both, readying for the fight.

3.

“Super soldiers cannot be allowed to exist.”

“Isn’t that how gods talk?” Sam asks, cool and collected as ever. “And if that’s how you feel, then what about Bucky?”

Zemo carefully removes the ice pack from his forehead, weighing it in his hand as he sits up. He doesn’t know how to feel about Bucky just yet. For now, that question doesn’t have an answer. For now, Steve Rogers is the only exception, and he can’t imagine that changing anytime soon.

Still, he has to have some kind of fun, right?

So he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, tilting his head to get a better look at the man sitting at the table, and shrugs. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Sam blinks, eyebrows furrowing. “What do you mean?”

“Come now, Sam, I always thought you were an intelligent individual,” he replies, only slightly teasing. He does like Sam. He’s righteous, level-headed, and doesn’t make any stupid decisions. Except, perhaps, the person he might have chosen to love. “What do you think of James?”

“Is this a trick question?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

Nodding, the other smiles and looks down, gathering his thoughts. “I think he’s annoyin’ as hell,” he answers slowly. “But...he’s passionate, smart, a big softie deep down...and he always does the right thing even though he’s hurting, too.” He pauses, then adds, “I still can’t tell if breakin’ you out of jail counts as the right thing, though.”

Zemo smirks, leaning back a little, tossing the ice pack from one hand to the other. “You know, when I first met my wife, she hated my guts.”

“Can’t say I blame her, Zemo.”

He chuckles, somewhat sadly, then continues. “These fights that you and James have, over the small things, they are nothing more than just couple’s quarrels.”

Sam’s eyes widen and he turns to look at him fully, as if he’s lost his mind. “What the hell are you talkin’ about? Bucky and I are just -”

“Just what, Sam?” Zemo tilts his head, as if challenging him. This is exactly the reaction he had been hoping for. It isn’t often the calm and collected Sam Wilson loses his cool, and Zemo likes to know he’s one of the ones who can get a rise out of him. “Friends, partners, all these terms you both throw around…” He thinks back to that look on Bucky’s face when John had challenged him, and his smile returns. “Perhaps you ought to think about what you truly want.”

And okay, maybe it isn’t just wanting to get a reaction from Sam. Maybe Zemo has seen the good in both of them, and thinks, perhaps, they ought to be happy, for once. His own partner is long gone, but it isn’t too late for Sam and Bucky.

Sam opens his mouth to respond, but he is cut off by the heavy sound of the door opening, and he immediately falls silent as Bucky walks in, with news that the Dora Milaje are after Zemo. Although Sam recovers quickly, staring at his laptop, Zemo side-eyes him, wondering if he might be blushing.

So Zemo stands up, shaking his head. How juvenile.

4.

Sarah leans against the truck, wiping sweat from her forehead. It’s been hours, and she still can’t believe Sam has managed to pull off receiving this much help. She knows their parents did a lot of favors, but she never could have imagined it would pay off this much one day.

She’s already made up her mind. She can’t sell this boat. It means so much to her, and to Sam.

Her gaze drifts toward the dock, where Bucky is helping Sam carry some things to Carlos. She’s almost certain they’re bickering again, but as they walk, their shoulders almost touch. Sam smiles. It’s something she hadn’t realized she had missed so much.

Seeing her brother smile, and seeing the reason for that smile, is all the evidence she needs to agree to let Bucky crash on her couch. The sun is already dipping closer and closer to the horizon, and she knows people will begin returning home soon. Personally, she has to get the boys to bed. But she lets herself enjoy this moment as long as she can.

When Sam and Bucky place down their loads, Sarah whistles, getting their attention to wave Sam over. Bucky seems to think about following, but is soon distracted by AJ and Cass, excited to meet their uncle’s ‘cool friend.’ Sam chuckles as he tells them to behave, then makes his way over to his sister, a huge grin on his face.

“What’d I tell you? I knew we could make it work,” he says, spreading his hands. Just as confident as ever, she supposes. She rolls her eyes, but for some reason, she can’t stop smiling, and his grin fades a little. “What’re you lookin’ at me like that for?”

Sarah shakes her head. “Nothing. I just missed seeing you so happy,” she admits, because although they tease each other, although they bicker, she loves him. She has no trouble admitting she cares. Seeing the confusion on his face, she hops up to sit on the back of the truck, folding her hands in her lap. “You were gone. For a really long time. And that’s okay, I know what you had to do.” A pause. “When you came back all sad-puppy-dog in the rain that first night, my heart broke. I guess I’m just trying to say I’m glad my brother’s back.”

There’s another pause until Sam comes to sit beside her, so that their shoulders touch. He nods. “It’s been a rough couple years,” he murmurs, and she nods. It has been for both of them.

They gaze at the boys, who are excitedly coaxing Bucky to flex his metal arm, who has a confused look on his face as per usual. Sarah rests her head on Sam’s shoulder, just grateful to know she’s no longer so alone. And then she sits up, turning to face him.

“But enough of that sappy stuff,” she says. “Tell me about Bucky.”

He groans. “Don’t tell me his awful attempt at flirting was actually successful.”

“What?” Pulling a face, she shakes her head. “No, not that. Tell me about him. A guy that makes you smile that much is probably one worth keepin’ around.” She nudges his shoulder and he chuckles a little, his gaze returning to the man in question.

“You’re the second person who’s asked me about him recently.” He seems to collect his thoughts for a moment. “...He reminds me a lot of Riley, sometimes.”

Sarah nods, having expected something like that. “Is it the same?” Sam and Riley had always been close, but she had never seen them get physically close the way that Sam and Bucky did. Sam shakes his head.

“Some things are better. Some things are...more annoying.”

“It’s okay,” she assures, patting his shoulder as she slides off the truck to stand up. “In case you were wonderin’, I still know everything, and I also happen to know he feels exactly the same about you. He cares about you, and I know you care, too, so it’s up to you to do somethin’ with it.” She grins as a stunned look appears on his face, walking away before he can even think of something to reply with.

She hopes they can get their heads out of their asses and realize it. After all, having Bucky around could be pretty helpful.

5.

“I’m sorry for how things ended down there.” A lie. “But for what it’s worth, suit looks good on you.”

Things had gotten dangerously close for Sharon. Too close. Luckily, though, Sam and Bucky haven’t found out the truth. If they had...well, she doesn’t want to think about what she would have to do if that were the case.

But here he is, their new Captain America, standing there in front of her with a soft chuckle and a slight nod. “Thanks.”

“All right, look, can we get out of here, please?” Bucky interjects, sounding...somewhat annoyed, for some reason. Her abdomen hurts terribly, but it’s not like she can’t handle a single gunshot wound. Still, standing around probably isn’t going to do her any good, so she nods and lets Bucky guide her.

They walk in silence for a little while until she looks at him. His gaze is fixed ahead, maybe lost in thought about something. Her eyes narrow a little. “What was that all about?”

“What was what all about?”

“I mean, you basically cut Sam off. Why’d you wanna leave so bad?” Her interest is peaked when she notices that, despite the fact that his expression barely changes, his ears redden.

Bucky clears his throat. “In case you forgot, you’re kind of bleeding out here, Sharon.”

She huffs. “I told you, I’m fine.” Watching him for a moment, she attempts to piece the puzzle together. His eyes hadn’t left Sam since he returned with Karli’s body. Back at her apartment, he’d seemed almost angry when she had complimented Sam without his shirt on. It dawns on her and she smirks. “Oh, don’t tell me you have a crush.”

His ears redden further. She guessed right.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I like you?” Deflecting the accusation and dissing her all in one go. She’s almost impressed.

“We both know I’m not talking about myself.” She grabs his arm, and they both stop walking. He won’t look her in the eye. “Hey, it’s okay, all right? Your secret’s safe with me.” Of course, unless he gets in her way. That’s a bridge she’ll cross if it comes to it. “For what it’s worth, I think he’s a great candidate for you.”

Bucky frowns, shaking his head a little. “...I don’t wanna talk about this.”

Sighing, she nods. “Of course you don’t. Look, you should just go for it. What do you have to lose?”

A flicker of pain flashes across his face. “Everything,” he mumbles, almost inaudibly.

“Sam wouldn’t leave you if he didn’t feel the same. You shouldn’t hide from him.” She winces, then, not quite sure why she’s giving him advice. If he knew the truth, he’d have left her to die. But she doesn’t dwell on that, feeling his hand on her arm to ground her, and they begin walking again.

Bucky doesn’t say anything else, and neither does Sharon. She might have gone down a different path a long time ago, but she still thinks they both deserve to be happy.

Unless, of course, they get in her way.

+1

It’s late when Bucky comes to Sam’s door, knocking quietly before opening it to stand in the doorway, offering a beer out to him. “Fresh air?”

Sam accepts, and they walk outside together, footsteps sounding in tandem on the empty dock. A fresh sea breeze whips past, but not enough for either of them to get cold, the smell of salt filling their noses and the last couple cries of the seagulls before they settle in for the night.

They stop in front of the boat, admiring the work they had done on it together. Sam breaks the silence first. “Thanks for helpin’ out. With everything.”

Bucky looks at him and nods. “You’re welcome.” A pause. “It’s nice here, you know. Quiet. Nothing like New York.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Yeah, I think it is.”

They gaze at each other for a moment before turning to their bottles. Silence is filled by the quiet crashing of waves in the distance. There’s a tension there that hadn’t been there before; an unspoken understanding of the situation.

Sam looks at Bucky, noticing the way the shadows under his eyes look a little lighter than they had been before. Bucky’s jaw is clenched, showcasing the stubble he’s been letting grow out, and Sam can’t help but think he looks princely.

And Bucky looks at Sam, at the way the moonlight so perfectly etches his features, his eyes bright as they stare back at him. He remembers the way Sam’s eyes crinkle when he smiles, how he reminds him of a sunshine that had pulled him from the deep, dark abyss he had been stuck in after Steve left.

They aren’t sure how long they’ve been standing there, quietly. Two words tear from Bucky’s throat, like he has no choice in the matter. “Sam, I…-”

Instead of answering, Sam steps closer, cupping one of Bucky’s cheeks, smashing their lips together. It’s rough but sweet.  Sam tastes like vanilla. Bucky tastes like beer. And nothing has ever felt so right before.

Sam pulls away and chuckles. “I hope that was what you were gonna say.”

Bucky smiles, though his face is bright red, placing a hand on Sam’s hip to pull him closer. “Somethin’ like that. Want to say it again?”

“I like that idea.”

They suppose they can put the promise of ‘going their separate ways’ on hold for a little while.

[lambourngb]

For the first line meme: It's later than he thought when the knock on the door interrupts another night of staring at the computer screen.

the heart is a muscle - post season 2, mentions of forlex , getting back together malex fic for you dear @jule1122, and @haloud, and @christchex.

It's later than he thought when the knock on the door interrupted another night of staring at the computer screen.

Mr. Jones and his last words to Michael, before he was forced back into stasis, still haunted him. “You really think there was just one ship? We were in formation, kid. What you should ask yourself is, where did everyone else go? Did they just keep zippin’ on their way to the colony? Or did they stop and take a gander at this planet and what they did to the survivors?” 

The tiny bit of hope that this Max-lookalike psychopath didn’t represent the last of his species, had Michael diving back into his research behind the crash of 1947. The online conversations about Roswell had moved on to other topics since Michael had abandoned the message boards in the wake of Caulfield, but with some effort, he had found new threads detailing neighborhood folklore regarding newcomers with eerie talents, like the ability to grow food in droughts. Stories that peppered all over the world. Stories that might mean an alien colonist on Earth.

The thirst for knowledge about his planet and his people would never leave him, even if the actual urge to go had quieted down into just a soft whisper. Life was finally good in Roswell. After the mind games of Mr. Jones, Michael could admit now that he did have a family here, even if they weren’t related by blood. Sanders, Arturo, Mimi, Michelle Valenti had all stepped in at various times to offer a guiding hand to him, or just a quiet nod of reassurance that he was valued. Max and Isobel would always be his siblings, but now he could count Liz, Rosa, Kyle, and even awkwardly in their new friendship, Maria, as extended his family now.  

It didn’t escape Michael that not even in his thoughts could he attribute his feelings for Alex as brotherly. There was still a vacant place at the head of Michael’s overflowing table of family for a partner, a spouse. That somehow, the seat even as other people came and went, only seemed to fit Alex. 

Except they were still just friends.

Another knock, more impatient this time, rattled the Airstream’s door. Michael sat up, placing his ancient laptop on the counter and rolled off his bed to get to his feet. His life was had changed so much in the last couple of years that he had enough people in it, friends, who dropped by his trailer at all hours of the day, not just Isobel, that he couldn’t even guess the identity of the visitor. 

Backlit from the auto yard’s security lights, stood Alex Manes holding a cardboard drink holder from ‘Bean Me Up’.

“Alex,” Michael greeted, a smile already at his lips. He glanced at the coffee and back to Alex, “Couldn’t wait until tomorrow I take it?” This was part of the new normal for Michael, meeting Alex for coffee, three or four mornings a week. It was something that had grown out of a happy coincidence, Alex’s gym was near the Boys and Girls Club that Michael volunteered at, serving breakfast in the mornings and tutoring kids in math in the afternoon.

Same place at the same time, once, then twice, became a standard thing. Not a date. Just, taking advantage of the mutual collision to talk. And at first, it was awkward to share news with each other, like Alex’s dating experiences with Forrest or Michael’s attempts to recover his memories of his planet, but later things had softened into a routine. Order coffee, find a small table, and then spend the next hour playfully fending off Alex’s attempts to foist food on Michael’s side of the table while also stealing sips of his caramel lattes. 

Perhaps one day Alex would realize that Michael had only ordered the ridiculously sweet coffee drinks because he knew that was what Alex preferred to drink. It was still a damn toxic hold over from Jesse Manes that Alex still persisted in ordering black coffee with no sugar. Dating Forrest might have helped Alex be open with his sexuality, there were still lessons for Alex to learn in being gentle with himself, Michael observed. The act of indulging in pleasures, instead of engaging in deprivation, it was something he struggled with as well.

In the meantime, Michael could at least help Alex in this small way, letting him ‘steal’ his lattes.

“Alex?” Something about Michael had robbed Alex of all speech as he just stared up at Michael in response, still holding the drinks dumbly in his hands. “Are you okay? What’s wrong-”

The switch from teasing to urgent concern finally snapped Alex out of his apparent stupor. “Right, nothing, um, just- since when do you wear glasses?”

Michael’s hand went to his face automatically, realizing belatedly that he was still wearing his reading glasses. He started to pull them off, blushing in embarrassment, when Alex blurted out, “They look good! On you. The glasses. Um great even.” 

“Oh.” Now that. Michael did not know what to do with that. 

In the yellow-wash of light, Alex was clearly the same man from yesterday’s coffee visit physically. His soft mouth was there, but it came with his standard closed expression that he must have picked up abroad, wearing it now as Michael’s least favorite souvenir. His posture was the same too, forever changed from losing his leg, straight-backed and rigid but just then, he was someone Michael hadn’t seen in a long time. That awkward stuttering response was Alex Manes, the seventeen-year-old boy who had whipped off his visor nervously in the museum, the same boy who touched with soft gliding palms newly revealed skin before snatching his hands away at the first sign that it was unwelcome. 

Aware that it was his turn to stare at Alex, Michael forced himself to smile naturally, “I guess not even my alien physiology can beat back the glare of a computer screen. I forgot I had them on.”

“Did I interrupt something? I can go if you want,” Alex stopped, probably hearing the past echo between them but not in the benign way of before. “Or I can stay and help, even if it’s with surprise coffee?” This time he lifted the tray up between them, an offer or a barricade of politeness, Michael wasn’t sure.

“I’m looking for other survivors,” Michael admitted, before looking down to avoid Alex’s sharpened gaze of interest. “On the internet, obviously, since I don’t think I can trust that I could sense them with my mind.”

It was clear that Alex hadn’t forgotten any of the various tactics Jones had employed against them, but Michael in particular. A frequent repeated taunt was about how damaged their psychic abilities were for adults, to the point no one had sensed Caulfield, but that from his pod prison Jones could hear Nora calling for help nightly right until the end. The twisted knife of how Michael had grown up waiting for someone to save him. Alex pursed his lips to object, “Michael-”

“Jones was full of shit about a lot,” Michael assured him quickly, “but I think he was right about the ships, that it wasn’t just one that crashed. I’m just combing through stories, basically internet mythology, looking for clues about strangers who might have some sort of power. It’s a lot of ‘world’s biggest cucumber’ stories right now, but hey, come in, you’re the computer genius and I could use your help and your coffee.” He placed his hands on the coffee holder, carrying it for Alex and backed away from the steps to let Alex have as much room as possible to navigate the cumbersome metal steps into the Airstream.

The seating area of the Airstream had been folded away and stored in order to make room for the drying rack of his clothes from laundry day, leaving only his narrow bed for seating. Michael had half-a-minute’s pause in reconsideration. They could relocate outside to his fire pit with the cheap camp chairs, and sit pressed together elbow-to-elbow around the dim screen of the laptop between them. Or. Or they could squeeze together on his bed, a place where that sort of contact between them had always led to sex. What was the safer option for their friendship? 

His heart always strayed too far from the safety of his bones when it came to Alex. 

Ignoring his pounding pulse, he grabbed the coffee cup marked “Alex” and pulled it to his lips to drink and made a gesture to the bed. At least he had made the bed up earlier with clean linens, the spread was neatly tucked into the corners, almost military sharp. That made it feel slightly less risqué to him than inviting Alex into warm mussed sheets that reeked of Michael’s skin. That rain and bourbon scent that Alex had pointed out.

“Um, your coffee was the other one.” Alex picked up the abandoned cup marked with a ‘M’ and followed him over to the bed. 

“No, I’m drinking the coffee I always end up with. Your black tar juice.” 

Alex smiled slightly, caught out by the observation before gingerly sitting next to Michael as Michael scooted over toward the wall of the Airstream. “Yeah, I guess I do end up stealing yours.” He brought his left leg up easily on the mattress and then passed his coffee cup over to Michael’s waiting hands as he brought his prosthetic up with both hands for balance. The smile faded, as Alex reclaimed the ‘M’ cup to sip from deep in thought as he seemed to review the history of their morning encounters. “I’m sorry-”

“Alex, come on,” he teased leaning his shoulder against Alex’s. “You haven’t caught on by now? I only order that sugar monstrosity because I know you won’t let yourself do it. I don’t even like caramel that much.”

“What? Come on, that’s what you ordered that first time-”

“I ordered that for the director at the community center.” Michael placed his coffee on the window of the Airstream and concentrated on bringing the laptop back up to rest on his knees between them not daring to look at Alex. He would never be able to confess the next bit and see Alex’s too-expressive gaze at the same time. But. As he had reminded himself earlier, he needed to work on indulging in pleasures as well, not just holding on to the pylon weight of depriving himself, of never believing he was worthy of good things. And being Alex’s friend was that. A pleasure. A good thing. The best thing.

“Once I saw you though, I kinda forgot the errand I was on in the first place. Then, I might have gone back at the same time the next day. And the day after that. For reasons.” He glanced to the side, meeting Alex’s wide eyes briefly before turning back to the laptop. “So I guess it's my turn to apologize? I might have had an agenda.”

It was quiet between them, as Michael clicked through a few different forums. He wasn’t paying any attention to where his cursor landed, he just kept scrolling through window after window as a distraction because the urge to pull back, to crack a joke, to do anything but let Alex process in silence was hard to suppress but needed. That was a part of becoming friends, learning that Alex needed extra time to formulate a response, something that came from needing to shut all emotional responses off during a drone operation at work.

“Me too,” Alex replied softly. “About the agenda. I mean, I don’t even have a membership at that gym.”

Michael frowned, the words not making any sense to him.

“That first time was dumb luck, I mean, I stopped in that morning because I had stayed the night at Forrest’s for the first time and I found out he doesn’t drink coffee. Doesn’t even own a coffee maker.” Alex scoffed quietly, before leaning against Michael affectionately, “I should have known that it was doomed from the start, just on coffee alone but what really put the nail in the coffin was the fact I pretended to go to that gym for two months because I had a bag of clothes with me when you saw me.”

“That was your clothes from staying over with him,” Michael said slowly, almost to himself, before he frowned even deeper as the connections fell into place. He didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh or not, but this was a new level of avoidance of an awkward subject for Alex.  It did make sense considering the timing, and maybe that was why he was confessing now to Michael because not that Michael allowed himself to show it, the early days of Alex’s relationship with the historian were difficult for him. He didn’t begrudge Alex being happy or being with someone else, but there was still an old, gnarled bit of Michael’s heart that pinched painfully at seeing the romance play out for everyone in Roswell to see. “Alex, I know you guys are dating, you didn’t have to lie about that and pretend you had gone to that gym.” 

“Were dating,” Alex patiently corrected. “Pay attention, Michael. I just said it was doomed from the start.”

“Because he didn’t drink coffee?”

“Because I was engaging in a deep cover operation that involved a fake gym membership, rescheduling my appointments to the afternoon and blocking out time in my mornings all, so I could see you.” The gears were still turning too slowly for Alex’s liking as he rolled his eyes at Michael and continued, “I ended it with Forrest about a month ago. Or well, he ended it with me because I was always too busy in the morning for breakfast and I never wanted to stay over at his.”

Michael blinked, then looked down at his laptop. The ancient fan and processor were making a soft whine of effort, much like his own brain at the moment. Alex was single. Alex has been single for over a month. A month where he didn’t mention it once during their get-togethers. 

Alex exhaled slowly, draining the latte before placing the cup out of range. “I’m really trying to use my words here, but you have exactly one minute to understand what I’m saying before I have to get creative-”

“Are you saying that you-”

“Yes-”

“Still want me?”

“I never stopped,” Alex reached for Michael’s hand, stilling the rapid clicking. “I came here because I wanted to be honest with you. It occurred to me that somewhere along the line, those meetups for coffee had basically become the most important part of my day. I … I was turning them into dates in my head. With you.” He licked his lips, his eyes drifting down to Michael’s mouth, causing Michael to bite his own lip in response. The anticipation between them thickened, until Alex groaned softly, his head briefly ducking toward Michael’s. “In the past, I’ve been guilty of thinking we were on the same page, and we weren’t, so I’m- Michael, I will still be your friend no matter what, but I want-”

This time, Michael didn’t let him finish and closed the scant distance between them on the bed to kiss Alex. The laptop fell to the side of their legs as Alex surged into it, pushing Michael down flat on the mattress in his eagerness. Michael opened for Alex, letting him have whatever he wanted and buried his fingers in the soft, black hair as they traded kisses.

Suddenly, a bubble of laughter burst from Michael’s chest, the lightness of the situation that felt almost too good to be real spread through his veins. “Oh my god, you brought me coffee to tell me that getting coffee together wasn’t just getting coffee for you, Alex-”

“Shut up!”

“You need a new job, nothing in intel, sweetheart-”

“I am, I did, that is.” Alex lifted his eyebrow at Michael’s too-still pause before he sweetly brushed the long stubborn curl out of Michael’s face, “Done with the Air Force as of next month.”

“Fuck me.”

“I can do that too.”

[jamie-leah]

War of Wolves (20)

Season 1

Episode 20- The End Is Nigh

Bucky x Reader

Summary: You have been on the streets for the past two years, ever since your accident that left you with the ability to tell if someone is lying. You work as an informant for the white wolf and his mob but you had never met him…until you overhear a phone call that leads you to saving his life. Now he wants you to work for him. Its an offer you couldn’t refuse…right?

Word Count: 2425

Warnings: Violence, outbursts, mention of weight, vomiting, kidnapping, injuries, hallucinations, swearing

A/N: Okay all you Lovely people, I am hitting you with another episode thick and fast. I love you all for your support and encouragement! Enjoy this one! And come tell me if you would like to see another season of WoW? Because I have a few ideas...

<---Previous Episode Next Episode--->

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A week later

YOUR POV

You weren’t sure how much time had passed. It felt like a lifetime of Isaac drugging you up, poking and prodding and taking samples.

You had been in and out of consciousness like a yoyo. Your body getting weaker every day. Isaac barely fed you saying some bullshit about experimenting how the stress affected the way your ability grew.

Any food that you did manage to eat it was another story trying to keep it down. You often found yourself dreaming or imagining conversations as if Bucky was here.

You were currently imagining being back at that restaurant with the aquarium as a wall having a meal. You were laughing at him tipping sauce down his suit when the scraping of your cell door cuts through it.

You keep your eyes closed trying to hold onto the dream as Bucky says, “looks like our dinner is about to be rudely interrupted Doll”.

You wave him off, “let him carry me, as long as I get to keep my eyes closed and see you it won’t be interrupted”.

Bucky raises an eyebrow, “and have you stop fighting against them? Come on Doll, you know I’ll be here when you get back”.

The blonde man cuts through the dream, “move”.

You open your eyes suddenly feeling the cold in your bones, “make me you curly headed fuck”.

You knew what was coming, yet you still couldn’t bring yourself to move or stop fighting him all the way to Isaac.

BUCKY’S POV

Night had fallen hours ago but Bucky stayed sitting in his office. He watched the footage again and again of you being shoved into the car and being whisked away from him. He hadn’t slept and only ate and drank out of necessity.

Sam was in the room talking on the phone trying to get information out of more informants when Steve walks into the room.

Bucky rewinds the footage again as Steve approaches, “you need to get some sleep Buck”.

Bucky ignores him, watching the footage again hoping to spot something he missed. Steve waits a few seconds before closing the lid of the laptop.

Bucky stares at where the screen was, the image of you burned into his eyes, for a few seconds. Bucky stares until he shoots up from his chair and sweeps the contents of his desk onto the floor.

“And what the fuck is sleeping gonna do Steve? Nothing! She’s out there now, on her own! Its been a fucking week and we still have nothing!”, Bucky’s chest is heaving, the strain of keeping his emotions in check showing.

Steve speaks normally, not matching Bucky’s raised voice, “and what good is staring at the footage doing? Also, nothing”.

Bucky shakes his head, “I’m not sleeping while she’s still out there going through only the devil knows what”.

Steve sighs, “you need sleep Buck, to think clearly…you know if she were hear now, she’d be saying the same thing”.

Bucky bursts again, “but she’s not Steve! She’s not here”.

Bucky doesn’t wait for empty words from Steve or Sam. Instead he strides from the room and towards the back doors.

He keeps walking until he reaches the door and pulls it open. Winter starts to get up to greet him but Bucky orders him to stay.

Bucky goes over and sits next to him just like you would. Winter sits up facing him as Bucky strokes him. After a few moments Winter whines and Bucky nods, “I miss her too boy”.

Bucky shakes his head, “its my fault she’s gone, I should have done more…she’d probably slap me for even thinking that”.

Bucky smiles at the thought of you being cross with him before saying to Winter, “Steve’s right, isn’t he? She’d tell me to sleep if she were here now”.

Bucky pats his lap and Winter settles next to him laying his head on his leg. Bucky lays his head back and closes his eyes, images of you haunting his dreams.

YOUR POV

You think about two days had passed since Isaac had sent for you. On the one hand you were grateful for the rest, but it was freezing. The only warmth you felt was in that shitty room.

You were in the corner dry heaving for the hundredth time that day. Your body was shaking violently from the cold and strain your body was going through.

Your dreams had spilled out into reality as you now conjured the image of Bucky while you were awake. He was still wearing his black suit leaning against the wall, “that’s the third time today. You need to start keeping your food down if you want to get out of here”.

You spit into the bucket, “you think I don’t know that? It’s the fucking drugs”.

You put the bucket down and go to stand but you fall instead. Bucky goes to help but stops himself, you both know he’s not real and he can’t help.

You finally manage to make it back to the bed before saying to Bucky, “you can’t find me, can you?”.

Bucky pushes off the wall, “you know I’m trying”.

You nod slightly, “I know that. I just don’t know how much longer I can live like this”.

Bucky looks alarmed, “you can’t stop fighting”.

You close your eyes, “but I’m tired Buck”.

Bucky scoffs, “you know there’s things you could be doing to help me find you”.

Your eyes snap open in anger, “yeah? Like what? In case you hadn’t noticed I’m locked in a cell”.

Bucky shrugs, “you know the more people that know you’re here the more likely it is that I can find you. Everyone has a price for information and everyone knows I’d pay anything”.

You lift your head up to look at him. He looks exactly like your Bucky but there’s something off and you’re well aware that he’s not real and none of this is healthy.

You stare at him a little longer and you realise what’s off, it’s the eyes. His eyes aren’t the same colour blue as your Bucky, “did you have something in mind?”.

You waited another day before the blonde guy came to get you again. You had gathered your strength for what you had planned.

It was the same story of the door scrapping open and his voice seconds later, “move”.

You don’t even waste energy on a reply. You just count his steps so that you can time it all perfectly. When you know he’s a step away from pulling you off the bed you twist from your foetal position and smack him in the face.

You know he’ll only be shocked for a second, so you get up and knee him in the balls to keep him down longer. You hear him grunt before falling to one knee.

You don’t wait to see if he recovers, you run. You ignore the shaking in your legs and the way your feet thud against the stone.

You run as fast as your heart would allow down the narrow corridor and passed the door that leads to Isaac. That’s when you hear the guy shout for you to stop and you nearly laugh at the absurdity of it.

You near the end of the corridor and take a sharp left down another corridor. Its just as narrow but you see a set of double doors at the end of it, the only double doors you’ve ever seen in these corridors.

Your body is screaming at the exertion, but you keep going, the image of Bucky popping up by the doors pointing to them.

You feel like you’ve been running for hours but you don’t stop as you approach the doors. You brace for the impact as your body slams into the wooden doors.

They give way followed by a loud crash of metal hitting a wooden floor. You fall and realise that a knight uniform was in front of the doors to make it look like they weren’t useable doors.

You look behind you and see the blonde guy halfway down the hall and gaining fast. You look forward and see some stunned men and maids.

You scramble to your feet and step over the metal, realising you’re in the foyer and the front doors are right there.

Hope blossoms in your chest at actually having a chance of getting out of here as you sprint towards the doors.

Bucky is standing by them and you smile at him. You skid to a halt to open the door. Your shaking hands taking a few seconds to turn the door knob. Valuable seconds.

Just as you push the door open arms grab you around the waist. You scream and struggle as hard as you can as you watch the door swing open.

Sunlight floods the entryway and hits your skin, the only real warmth you’ve felt in what feels like eternity. Bucky stands passed the threshold looking at you as you get dragged back through the double doors.

The sunlight gives an aura around him that makes him look like an angel and as you lose sight of Bucky, the door and hope, you can’t help but call out his name.

BUCKY’S POV

Bucky was in the office with Sam, Steve and Darren. Darren had come over to say that he hadn’t found anything out but wanted to help any way he could.

They had been talking for the past hour about what else they could do. Bucky could barely concentrate on what was being said as he looked out the window thinking of you.

“I know we looked into Harry, but he could be worth checking again. He may have estates we don’t know about”, that was Steve.

Bucky heard Sam next, “but if we don’t know about them how are we meant to find out?”.

Steve again, “I don’t know, but Harry’s organisation isn’t big, he wouldn’t have anything outside of the UK”.

Darren this time, “but the UK is still a big place if we don’t know where we’re looking”.

A few seconds of silence and then a buzzing. Bucky was trying to ignore it as he thought about you. He was quite successful in ignoring it until one of his spare phones gets shoved into his face by Steve, “Bucky! You’ve got a call”.

Bucky quickly snatches it from Steve and gets up from the chair before answering, “hello?”.

A whispered voice comes out, “Bucky is that you? Its me, Noah”.

Bucky nods as if he can see, “yeah, its me. Tell me you got something Noah”.

Noah continues to whisper, “she’s here”.

It was only two words, but it was enough to leave him feel like he had been suckered punched, “you saw her? Where are you exactly?”.

Bucky turns to see everyone standing now, “yeah I saw her. He was keeping her in a place I didn’t even know existed. After this conversation I’ll text you the exact location”.

Bucky had too many questions he wanted to ask, “how did you find out where she was?��.

Noah was silent for a few seconds before whispering, “she made a break for it. I was just about to leave when she came crashing through a set of doors and ran to the front door. Someone got her before she could make it passed the door and took her down corridors I never even knew existed…you know I couldn’t help her as much as I-“.

Bucky cuts him off, “I know. You did the right thing…how was she?”.

Noah was silent, and Bucky clenched his jaw, “just tell me Noah”.

Noah sighs, “she didn’t look great. She was skinny and had bruises, was wearing a hospital gown. She screamed your name before they took her away”.

Bucky closed his eyes, he didn’t know why he was asking he was only torturing himself. Bucky managed to speak, “thanks Noah. Send over the details and be prepared for contact from me soon”.

They both hang up after that and Bucky relays everything Noah had just told him as he texts through the details. Bucky finishes with, “so let’s go. I’m not waiting any longer”.

Steve blocks his path, “hold on Buck. You and I both know that we need to plan this properly. We can’t fuck this up”.

Sam nods, “Steve is right, but we can plan as we make our way over. If we do both at the same time, then we don’t waste as much time”.

Darren also chips in, “I’m coming too”.

Bucky looks at all of them before nodding, “lets get everything in place then”.

YOUR POV

Isaac was furious with you and you took great satisfaction in it. Not even him slapping you across the face could wipe the smile you gave him as you said, “you can’t break me”.

He ordered the blonde guy to take you back to the cell and you fought with what little energy you had left.

You were now on the bed trying to sleep, but it just wouldn’t come. You open your eyes to see Bucky leaning against the far wall again smiling, “you did great. I’m thinking we could do that again and even get out this time”.

You scoff, “you think I’ll be able to do that again? You’re delusional”.

Bucky laughs, “actually I think you’re the delusional one. I’m thinking if you get the keys off blondie and lock him in next time you’ll be able to do it-“.

“Shut up”, you murmur.

He ignores you, “you may have to wait a day or two because he’ll be jumpy-“.

“Shut up”, you try again.

He still talks, “come on Y/N! We can’t give up now, we’re so close-“.

You lose it as you shoot up from the bed, the anger giving temporary life to your bones, “shut up! Shut up! Shut up! I hate you!”.

You stand there, chest heaving, as Bucky looks hurt, “I thought you loved me?”.

You huff in frustration, “you? No. Bucky? Yes. You’re not him, you’re not even real! I imagined you as a way to make myself feel better but all you’re doing is making me feel worse. You’re just a reminder that Bucky, MY Bucky, is out there and I can’t touch him or see him…I need my Bucky, not whatever you are. So just go away”.

You sink back down on the bed and turn your back on him, your heart breaking in the silence of the cold room.

WoW Taglist: @a-really-bi-girl @crazyblonde124 @summerwelsh @scuzmunkie @loving-life-my-way @pequenaguaxinim @paranoid-borderline-insane @lilsonbucky @somanyfandomsblog @broco8 @inquisitor-selvala @mad-red @k-n-e @rinkashirikitateku @duhh-danielly @boundtomyfate @kalesrebellion @booktease21 @whatinthyworld @flyingbabyunicornnamedangel @asapkyndall @yaszx @amoredashley @aveatquevale- @putinovertime @melimelbean @valsworldofcreativity @lokilokilokilokilokilokilo-blog1 @vesper852 @littlenerdgirl16 @wiccanmetallicrose

[kpophours]

Haven

➵ Stray Kids: Jisung x fem. reader / one shot, college AU, frenemies to lovers AU / fluff

➵ warnings: slight cursing, mentions of alcohol/drinking, a teeny tiny bit sexual suggestiveness (nothing explicit)

➵ word count: 6k

It’s not even 8am, and your eyes feel as dry as sandpaper while your head is pounding with a slight migraine. You’re currently getting everything ready for the crowd of caffeine addicts that will soon arrive at the café you work at. It’s way too early to deal with the horde of zombies called students, but you got stuck with the worst shift of the day - starting at 7.30am which, in your opinion, is just inhuman. Stupid Minho and his stupid luck whenever it comes to drawing straws. For some reason, you always end up getting the shortest one. At least you’ll be done with work before most people your age have even made it out of bed. Still, right now you’d give almost everything to be back in your blanket burrito. Earning money is hard and annoying. If you’ve ever wondered if working at a café could ruin the beauty of coffee… the answer is yes. Because capitalism destroys everything, leaving no survivors.  

“Good morning, Y/N!”, your co-worker and the other unlucky one having drawn one of the shorter straws chirps when she enters the café, and you grimace - Sana’s voice is way too cheerful so early in the morning. You only give her a curt nod of your head, not in the mood to talk right now. You’re not really in the mood to do anything, if you’re being honest. Ugh, you hate the morning shift. You’re currently 80% tired, but 20% also tired - you don’t even remember what it’s like to not be tired anymore. College is great! 

Sana doesn’t seem to mind your grumpiness though, being the sweetheart that she simply is, and begins to wipe the counter while humming a cheery song under her breath. It’s only her second week at work, but so far she’s proven to be a better and more reliable part-timer than the last three who had worked here. Jun is usually a nice and caring boss, but he has some strict rules - always be on time, no drinking coffee while you’re working, don’t take more breaks than necessary, and don’t give out free drinks to your friends. The last three part-timers had broken at least one of these rules, so Jun had let them go again. Sana is doing well so far, and you think that Jun has maybe even taken a liking to her - not that you can blame him, she’s not only super nice and a general sunshine, but also incredibly beautiful and funny. You’re always happy whenever you work a shift with her. She’s a student like yourself, and wants to become a kindergarten teacher. You’d never let your children near her though, too scared they’d like her more than you - not that you could actually blame them. “Shall I put on some music?”, Sana asks after she’s finished with wiping everything down, and you just nod, finally being done with prepping the giant coffee machines. Just seconds later, smooth lounge music fills the cozy space of the café, and you inhale deeply. 

Maybe you lied earlier. Capitalism did not destroy coffee for you, you still very much love the scent, taste, and especially the effect of it. You check the time, noticing you still have about 15 minutes left before you have to open the café - meaning you have more than enough time to enjoy a nice cup of coffee with Sana. She immediately agrees to drink a cappuccino with you, and just minutes later, you bask in the fresh scent of grounded coffee beans. Sana sighs deeply after having taken the first sip, and gives you a bright smile. “Heavenly. You truly make the best coffee out of all of us, Y/N!”, she compliments you, and you tilt your head to one side. Thanks to the caffeine in your system, you’re finally ready to talk to her now. “Well, if my academic brilliance proves futile, I can always become the best barista in the world, I guess. And by the way, don’t let Minho hear you say that, or he’ll force you to taste all the coffee he makes, resulting in you overdosing on caffeine. You know what he‘s like.”, you answer, and Sana giggles. “Well, I stand with what I said, and I’ll even say it to his face. He needs to learn that he can’t always be the best at everything.” You raise one eyebrow, lips twitching. “No offense, but I don’t think he’s ever been the best at anything so far, he’s just very good at pretending. He basically invented the phrase “fake it till you make it”.” 

Before Sana can reply, there’s a knock against one of the café’s windows. Surprised, you look up, and groan when you see a familiar face staring back at you. “What is he doing here?!”, you grumble, and place your mug on the counter, not moving a single muscle. But Sana, being her nice and angelic self, is already walking towards the door of the café, and before you can protest, she’s already unlocked it. Jisung jumps over the threshold, sporting a bright grin. He greets Sana with a hug, before sliding his giant headphones off his ears. “Moooorning.”, he says, with at least five Os. You’re already annoyed. You’ve known Jisung for… well. For a long time. Too long, some would say (you, for example). Your moms have been close friends since their own college years, and while they thankfully didn’t move into the same neighborhood, they ended up living quite close to each other. Meaning Jisung had been there for pretty much you entire childhood and teenage years - at every single one of your birthday parties, at most Christmases, and sometimes even at Easter (even though neither of your families really celebrated Easter). You’ve also gone on hiking trips together, and on wildlife expeditions, and on holidays by the seaside… In almost all your memories, there’s Jisung. 

“Ugh, why are you so obsessed with me?”, you whine when he leans over the counter to grab your mug and take a sip of your coffee, “There are literally hundreds of colleges and you had to go choose the one I’m attending?!” He grins, puffing out his stupidly adorable hamster cheeks. “I’d never be so cruel and rid you of my pleasant company, my dearest Y/N.”, he answers, dark eyes sparkling with humor. You just huff and turn around. “The usual?”, you ask in a flat voice, and he hums in confirmation. To say you hate Jisung would be a severe overstatement, you just often strongly... dislike him. And feel annoyed whenever he’s around. Mostly because he’s a walking disaster, who kinda thinks the world revolves around him (you blame him being an only child for that). One of your most vivid and probably also traumatic childhood memories is of your sixth birthday party: you had gotten a brand new, soft green bicycle, falling in love with it as soon as you laid eyes on it. Naturally, you had wanted to take it around the block for a little test drive, but all of the sudden, Jisung had thrown a big tantrum until your mom had made you give him the bike first. And being the clumsy child that he simply was (and kinda still is), he had crashed your beautiful new bike into a tree. The tree had won that battle, the handle bar completely bent, same with the front wheel. So you and your bike had been a very short love story with a tragic ending. Romeo and Juliet had nothing on you. And this instance has only been one of many - Jisung had also accidentally sat on your birthday cake once (till this day, you have no idea how he’d even managed to do that). He had also ruined one of your favorite jumpers by dumping ink all over it, had tipped over the canoe when you’d been happily paddling on a lake one summer day, and had given you a black eye when you went mini golfing for your eleventh birthday.

So Han Jisung has always been - and probably will always be - a walking disaster. Being his friend means you have a “Why is he like that” moment at least five times a day. Your biggest fear at the moment is that he’s accidentally going to sit on your brand new laptop and break it, the one you had been saving up for for over two years. And then you’ll just have to kill him which will probably make his very nice mom very sad. But as the bible clearly states: an eye for an eye, a life for a laptop. Or maybe he’s just going to set your whole apartment on fire - he’s truly a mess inside the kitchen, you sadly know that from experience (note to self: never try to bake cookies with Jisung ever again). Your old dorm kitchen will probably never recover from that one particular incident that ended with half the building having to be evacuated. This is one of the reasons why Jisung hasn’t been at your new place yet. The second one being that you also only just moved into it a few weeks ago. Ever since moving, he’s been pestering you though, asking you to have a movie night with him at your new place. Like you said, he’s kinda obsessed with you. He also literally spends every morning at the café you work at - or well, you just assume it’s every morning. As you’re a part timer, you don’t actually have to work every single morning, but he’s definitely always here when you have drawn one of the short straws again.

You quickly busy yourself with making a flat white for Jisung, his preferred drink of choice, while he continues to chat with Sana. They know each other thanks to a mutual friend of theirs, Chan - he’s one of Jisung’s roommates as well as Sana’s best friend. Everyone on campus knows Chan: he’s on the student council, he plays for the baseball team, and he’s one of the most promising music majors you’ve ever seen (or well, heard), already being scouted by different labels even though he’s not even a senior yet. And he’s also just so nice and down to earth, truly a prime example of a man. Jisung should really take a leaf out of Chan’s book. 

“Here you go.”, you say while sliding Jisung’s finished order his way, taking your own mug out of his hands while doing so. You quickly shake your head when he wants to hand you his credit card, and he shoots you a happy smile. Jun would probably fire you instantly if he knew about this, but not once have you let Jisung pay for his coffee - and you’ve been working here for almost four months now. You try to ignore the way your stomach jolts when Jisung locks eyes with you, but fail miserably. So maybe he has the most beautiful smile in the whole world, and maybe his eyes hold entire galaxies in them, but what about it? It’s not like you even really like him, right?

You turn around and pretend to wipe down the coffee machine, but in reality, you just don’t want to look at Jisung’s cute hamster cheeks anymore, because they just make you want to squish them. And you have a reputation to lose. “Well, I’m off to my lecture now - I hope your day will be pleasant, ladies!”, Jisung finally says, and you turn around, catching him giving you a mock salute and mischievous wink. You just wave at him, while Sana wishes him a good day as well. As soon as the door falls close behind him again, you exhale. You really need to get a grip on yourself.

It’s Friday night, and there’s a party at Jisung’s frat house. At first, you don’t want to go, but your roommate Amber basically drags you with her. You know she’s only going because she has the biggest crush on Chan, and you honestly can’t even blame her - half the girls on campus have a crush on him after all, and at least a third of the guys. But while Amber and Chan are good friends, nothing more has ever been going on between them - not yet, that is. Who knows, maybe tonight’s finally the night.

You’re currently sipping on some stale beer Seungmin - one of Jisung’s roommates - had handed you the second you stepped over the threshold of the frat house, scanning the room for people you know. Amber is off to greet some friends from her architecture class, so you’re on your own for now. Which is fine, you don’t really mind just standing in the corner to observe the other guests, it’s actually highly entertaining. For example, there’s one guy twerking like crazy to some Beyoncé song. You think his name is Kevin and he’s in your calc class. A friend of his is currently hyping him up like crazy, while another one with green dyed hair is clearly wishing he was somewhere entirely else. You honestly can’t blame him, the secondhand-embarrassment way too real. A few seconds later, Sana enters the room with a group of girls, and she happily waves at you as soon as she spots you. You simply return her smile, before continuing to watch Kevin. 

“Enjoying the show?”, someone beside you suddenly asks, and you jump, dumping some of your beer over your shirt. “Oh fuck you!”, you yelp, and turn around to glare at Minho’s shit-eating grin, “You definitely scared me on purpose!” “Fuck... me? Absolutely, just name the time and place, babe.”, he answers, and you smack his chest. “Not even in your wildest dreams, Lee.”, you reply, and narrow your eyes at him. He pouts playfully. “I just think we’d make a really great couple.”, he argues, and you shake your head. “Well, society should be able to limit what some people are allowed to think, then.”, you retort, voice flat, and he ruffles your hair. “You know what I love about you? You’re kinda mean and annoying, but unapologetically so.”, he says, and you raise one eyebrow. “I might be kinda mean and annoying, but at least my lock screen isn’t a selfie.” At this, Minho gasps dramatically, and protectively clutches his phone to his chest. “I mean, I could always change it to one of your selfies, you know?”, he then suggests, making you groan. He’s clearly drunk already or else he wouldn’t be flirting like this. If this sad attempt can even be considered flirting, it’s probably just him being his annoying and arrogant Scorpio self. Minho sighs deeply. “When will you finally accept my eternal love for you, Y/N?”, he asks, and tries to grab one of your hands, but you just smack him again. “Maybe when you finally stop cheating at drawing straws! I have the Monday morning shift again!”, you hiss, and he smirks. “You’ll never know my secret.”, he says smugly, and empties his cup in one single gulp. 

You begin to pout and take a sip from your own cup, eyes wandering towards where Kevin is still throwing it back on the dance floor. “If I ever do something remotely like that, just take me out, and instantly.”, you say, an exasperated expression on your face. “On a date or with a sniper?”, a familiar voice on your other side suddenly asks, and you sigh internally. “Han.”, you greet your favorite frenemy, and Jisung grins while wrapping one arm around your shoulder. “Nice to see you accepted my invite.”, he says, and you quickly duck out of his embrace, trying to ignore your racing heart. Minho just wiggles his eyebrows at you, before flashing you a shit-eating grin and disappearing from view. Traitor. 

“I only came because Amber asked me to.”, you explain, and stand on your tiptoes to look for your friend. Seriously, where did she even go?! It’s been at least 15 minutes since she left you on your own. “You can just admit that you missed my handsome face, you know.”, Jisung says, and you snort. “Yeah, whatever you say, hamster boy.” He groans, ruffling his hair with one hand and making it stand on end. You desperately suppress the need to flatten it again, and quickly take another sip of your beer. “Don’t you get tired of using that old nickname? Plus, my cheeks aren’t as chubby anymore! I have finally lost all my baby fat, the glow up we’ve all been desperately waiting for!”, he says, and you suppress a smile, looking him up and down. “I guess some people would agree that you don’t look bad.”, you finally reply, and ignore the way your heart flutters when he shoots you a wide grin. “Aww, you old softie, I knew you actually liked me.”, he says, lovingly punching your shoulder. You grimace, rubbing the spot he hit - you know he and Chan have started to work out recently, and apparently, Jisung doesn’t know his own strength anymore. “Now don’t get all sappy on me, just because I might have erased your name out of my death note.”, you reply, quickly draining your cup to hide your blush, and mumble something about getting a new drink before basically running away from him. When you enter the kitchen, you exhale deeply. Your hands are shaking, your heart is racing and you know the blush is still very prominent on your cheeks. 

So yeah, maybe you’re kinda a bit in love with Han Jisung. He might be a complete mess, but he’s also funny, hard-working, intelligent and something close to a musical genius. And yeah, maybe you absolutely adore his stupid hamster cheeks, bright smile and beautiful dark chocolate eyes. You close your eyes for a few seconds, groaning internally. You don’t want to be in love with Han Jisung! There is literally no other person you want to be less in love with. Okay, except for Lee Minho, simply because you just couldn’t bring yourself to ever date a Scorpio, no offense. But Han Jisung is at least a close second! 

You can’t even say when you first began to develop these kinds of feelings for him. After graduating high school, you had finally realized how much you’d actually miss Jisung’s constant presence once you had to go off to different colleges. You’re almost embarrassed to admit how your heart had leaped when he told you he’d actually be going to the same college as you. Maybe you had truly just always kind of loved him - him and his weird antics. He’s always been himself, and unapologetically so. In the modern world of snapchat filters, snow apps and facetune, he’s always felt real to you.

You shake your head, trying to get rid of these thoughts, and groan again. After you’ve refilled your red party cup, you drown it in a few gulps, repeating the process a few times. Drowning your feelings might not be the responsible thing to do just now, but well, you’re only in your early twenties, so you still have lots of time to become a more responsible adult in the future.

Half an hour later, you have probably drunk way too much beer and are also still trying to figure out where Amber has gone. So you finally decide to go search for her, noticing that for some reason, the floor seems to tilt a bit with every step you take. “Weeeeird.”, you mumble, squinting your eyes, “That’s new.” Just then, you manage to walk into someone, soaking their entire backside with your beer. The person yelps loudly, before turning around to glare at you. Your brain needs a few seconds to recognizes the handsome face, and when it finally does, you give him a bright smile while slurring “Hyunjiiiiiin.”, squishing his face between your hands. The boy turns from annoyed to alarmed, and pries your hands from his face while narrowing his eyes at you. “Okay, what and how much did you drink, Y/N?!” Your smile gets even wider. “Only the best kind of alcohol, which is a lot!” Hyunjin just groans and begins to look around for someone. “Where is Han when you need him?!” With that, he wraps one arm around your waist to pull you with him and through the crowd. You hold onto him like your life depends on it - and the way the floor is swaying from side to side right now, it truly just might. You make a disgusted sound when your hand touches Hyunjin’s soaked shirt. “You’re wet, do you know that?”, you mumble, head lulling around until Hyunjin gently guides it to rest against his shoulder. “Yeah, surprisingly I do.”, he says, but in your current state, his sarcasm gets totally lost on you. “You should change, it’s freezing outside, and we don’t want you to catch a cold!”, you tell him off, and he groans, half amused, half exasperated. “I promise I will change as soon as I’ve found Han.” 

You raise both eyebrows at that. “Why do you need to find Jisung? Does he have clothes for you?” Just then, Hyunjin seems to find the desired person, sighing in relief. “Hey, Han! I think your girlfriend has had a little bit too much to drink tonight.”, he yells over the music, and you frown. “His girlfriend? Since when does Jisung have a girlfriend?! And why hasn’t he told me about her?! I’m his oldest friend! Like, not old in the sense of actually being old, but in the sense of time spent toge-”, before you can ramble on, Hyunjin basically shoves you into Jisung’s outstretched arms. “Here, she’s your responsibility now! Take her home or whatever. I’m gonna go change.”, he says curtly, before turning around and marching off. You wave at his retreating backside, before you look up at Jisung, who sports a very confused expression. “Uh, what exactly happened?”, he asks, taking in your glossy eyes, flushed cheeks and lopsided smile, “Shit, are you drunk?! I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drunk!” He actually looks amazed, and you can’t help but ruffle his dark hair. It feels silky when it slips through your fingers, and you giggle to yourself. “Nice.”, you murmur, before you glare at him, “So, you have a girlfriend and didn’t tell me about her?! That’s rather rude, you know? We’re friends, after all! The oldest friends ever! I tell you almost everything.” Jisung just blinks a few times, before he shakes his head in disbelief. “Uh, okay, maybe I should bring you home.”, he murmurs, and wraps his arms even tighter around your waist, “Where’s your stuff?” You shrug while snuggling closer to him to bury your face in the crook of his neck. He yelps, and freezes for a few seconds, before he sighs and drags you towards one of the sofas. “Wait here, okay? I’ll be back in a second.”, he murmurs softly, and tugs some of you hair behind your ear. You lean into his touch, and close your eyes while nodding. The last thing you hear is his low chuckle.

Bright sunlight greets you the second you try to open your eyes. You groan and decide it’s better to just close them again. Seeing is overrated anyway, especially when your head is pounding like crazy. Mh, maybe you did drink a little bit too much yesterday.

“Are you alive? Groan once for yes, twice for no.”

You truly love your roommate, but right now, you’re prepared to throw her out the window as her voice cuts through your hazy state like a knife. Still, you manage to groan once.

“Okay, good. There’s water on your bedside table, and some aspirin. Take it.” 

For the second time this morning (or midday, you honestly have no idea what time it is), you try to open your eyes, just a teeny tiny bit. Still half blind, you carefully fumble for said things on your bedside table. After taking the aspirin and drinking some water, you sigh in relief and fall back into your pillows. “You were really out of it yesterday, huh? Any reason for drinking for at least three people?”, Amber asks, her voice laced with quiet humor. You just grumble something unintelligible, and she chuckles. “Do you remember who brought you home?”

You finally turn around to look at her, raising one eyebrow. “... You?”, you guess, and she presses her lips together to try and stifle her shit-eating grin - she fails though. “Nope. I was kinda busy.”, she just answers, a smug expression on her face. You finally manage to sit up, ruffling your messy bed hair. “Busy doing what? Now that I think of it, I remember you were gone from my side the second we stepped foot inside the frat house. Talk about loyalty.” You try not to sound too offended, but while you don’t remember much from last night, you do remember that you spent some time looking for it, but in vain. “Chan.”, Amber just answers, and you squeal - regretting it a split second later when a sharp pain shoots through your head. “Remind me to never make that noise again while I’m nursing a hangover.”, you say, holding your head between your hands, and Amber giggles. “Noted. But yeah, Chan and I… well. Let’s just say we had a good night.” She wiggles her eyebrows at you, and you return her grin. “Well, congrats, then! You snatched the Bang Chan, props to you.” Her smile softens, and she sighs dreamily. “He even asked me on a date afterwards. So we’re going out to get some pasta tonight.”, she tells you, and your smile gets even bigger. “I’m so happy for you, Amber. He’s a really great guy, and you deserve a really great guy.”, you say gently, and she nods. “Damn right I do. But speaking of a really great guy - Jisung was actually the one to bring you home last night.”, she explains, grinning smugly when she sees your shocked expression. “He did what now?!”, you ask, not ready to believe her, at least not yet. Amber leans back on her elbows, obviously enjoying this way too much. “Well, after you drank about half the alcohol the boys bought for the party, you decided to give Hyunjin a beer shower, who immediately realized it was definitely time to get you home, so he went searching for Jisung who then brought you to our apartment. No idea what happened after you left the frat house though, I only got to know about this because Hyunjin told Chan who told me.”

You bury your face in your pillow and let out a long, miserable noise. You sound a bit like a dying whale which makes Amber laugh. “Ah, come on, it’s not that bad. You and Jisung are friends after all, I’m sure he saw you drunk lots of times already!”

You shake your head.

“Wait, he hasn’t?!”

“Nope. I very rarely get drunk, and it’s not like Jisung and I are actual friends like that - friends who take care of each other and so on, you know?”, you try to explain, and Amber frowns. “What do you mean? Y/N, you and Jisung have known each other since forever, you hang out constantly, and you always talk about him with endless adoration - well, and a bit of annoyance too, to be fair. But what do you mean you’re not friends “like that”?!” You blink at her, surprise written all over your face. “I don’t talk about him with endless adoration!”, you disagree. Amber just gives you a very long, hard look, and you begin gnawing at your lip. “I… do?”, you ask in a small voice, and she nods. “You talk to him every day, Y/N, and you talk about him even more. It would be annoying if it weren’t also extremely cute.”, she replies, and begins filing her nails, lips twitching while she watches you trying to digest what she’s just told you. “I guess… I should at least message him to thank him for bringing me home.”

“And for tucking you into bed.”

You groan and throw your pillow at Amber. She catches it and laughs. “What, you looked very cozy and all snuggled up when I came home! And I doubt you yourself did that, at least if Hyunjin told the truth about the amount of alcohol you consumed yesterday.”

You look yourself up and down, noticing that you’re not wearing your clothes from last night anymore, but your favorite pj’s, the ones with little succulents on it. “Does this mean…”, you whisper, but shake your head, “Nope, not even going there. I’m way too sleep-deprived and hangover to deal with any of that right now.” Amber grins and shrugs. “Just go ask Jisung, I’m sure he can fill you in on everything.” You groan again, and fall back onto your bed. “I’ll have to take a shower first.”, you mumble, and close your eyes again. “Yes, please do, you reek of stale beer.” And with that, your roommate throws your pillow back at you.

It’s already about to get dark again when you arrive at the frat house, nervously bouncing on your feet for a few seconds before you finally gather the courage to knock on the front door. You quickly stuff your hands back into the pockets of your leather jacket, gnawing at your lower lip while waiting for someone to open the door. Just a few minutes later, Hyunjin’s tired face greets you. He raises both eyebrows when he lays eyes on you, immediately noticing your nervous expression. “Hi.”, you say, and give him a small smile. He leans against the doorframe, and crosses both arms over his chest. “Hi yourself. You actually look less zombie-like than expected.” You roll your eyes. “Thanks, today’s look is inspired by sleep deprivation and a mean hangover. Water and aspirin helped though, or else I could have auditioned for The Walking Dead.”, you grumble, “And uh… Thanks for yesterday, by the way. I’m really sorry about your shirt, I heard I dumped beer all over it.” Hyunjin cracks a smile at that, and shrugs. “Yeah, but it’s fine. The washing machine will take care of that. Wanna come in?”, he asks, and you nod, quickly following him inside the warmth of the parlor. 

Surprisingly, the house looks clean and tidy again - the guys must have spent the entire day getting rid of last night’s mess. You’re actually impressed. “Han is in his room.”, Hyunjin says, before you even have the chance to ask, and you gulp nervously. “O-okay…”, you mumble, and are just about to walk up the stairs, when Hyunjin tugs on your sleeve. You turn around to face him again, expression questioning. The boy gnaws at his lip, looking nervous. “Just… Finally tell him, okay? I’m like, literally begging you.”, he then says, and you narrow your eyes at him. “Tell him what, exactly?”, you inquire, but Hyunjin only gives you an exasperated gaze. “You know exactly what. We’re all tired of you guys pining after each other but not actually doing anything about your feelings. Quick reminder: this is not a cheesy rom-com where you have to wait until one of you guys leaves the country so you can finally declare your love at the airport or some big, stupid gesture like that. Just do it now, in his stuffy frat room and get it over with.” Before you’re able to reply, he gives you a mock salute and retreats into the kitchen. You huff, surprised at the audacity of his words, and turn around to finally go up the stairs and towards Jisung’s room. 

You take in a few deep breaths before knocking on his door, trying to steady yourself. Then, you wait - but after a few seconds have passed and the door has not yet been opened, you simply turn the doorknob and let yourself in. Jisung sits at his desk, giant headphones covering his ears while he hums along to the music he’s listening to. Well, that explains why he didn’t hear you knocking. You quickly cross the room, and tap his shoulder. He screams, and whips around, almost ripping his headphones off in the process. You giggle at his shocked expression, dark eyes almost comically big in his face. “When did you arrive!?”, he almost yells, and you slide the headphones off his ears, brushing some of his hair back while doing so. His eyelids flutter for a few seconds, before he raises one eyebrow. “You don’t look that shitty, which is surprising considering the amount of beer you drank last night.”, he says after looking you up and down, and you defensively cross your arms over your chest. “Wow, thanks. Always the charmer, huh?”, you huff in mock offense, and he grins up at you. “No need to charm when I know your heart is already mine.” You almost choke on your own spit, and beg the blush creeping on your cheeks to just not do that right now. Truly not the time nor place. “I came to thank you, actually. For last night - I heard you were the one to bring me home.”, you finally admit, nervously shifting from one foot to the other. 

Jisung just stares at you for a few seconds, before giving you a soft smile. “Well, yeah. I couldn’t just let anyone take you home - and Amber was kinda busy, I heard.” You nod. “True, I’m glad you didn’t interrupt whatever she was doing. So, uh, yeah, thanks, you’re… a good friend, I guess.” Almost immediately, embarrassment washes over you, and you groan at your own words. Jisung’s lips begin to twitch. “A good friend, huh?”, he repeats and crosses both hands behind his head, still looking at you with an unreadable expression on his face. You blink a few times, before slowly beginning to nod. “Y-yeah…?” “For someone so smart, you’re really fucking oblivious sometimes, you know that?”, Jisung suddenly states, and you huff. “Excuse me?! Who do you call obliv-” But before you can tell him off, he pulls you onto his lap and then, his lips are on yours. You yelp, freezing for a few seconds, before basically melting against him. He hums appreciatively, and wraps both arms around you to pull you even closer towards him, deepening the kiss. You bury your hands in his soft hair, gently tugging on it, and he groans against your lips. You use the chance to slide your tongue into his mouth while his hands wander lower to grab your ass. You shift on top of him, and he moans when you brush against his crotch. 

When you draw back to catch your breaths, you simply stare at each other, cheeks flushed and lips swollen. Then, Jisung begins to smile at you, and your heart flutters. Twenty years of seeing his smile, but you’ll apparently never get used to it. “About fucking time.”, he then murmurs against your lips, voice pleased, and you roll your eyes at him. “I’m not oblivious, by the way! You’re the oblivious one - I never give anyone free coffee, because it could literally cost me my job, and yet you always get a flat white on the house!”, you tell him, and he smirks. “Oh, baby, the oblivious one is definitely you - or do you really think I just happen to have a lecture every morning you got the early shift again?”, he replies, a smug expression on his face. You just stare at him. “You-”, but before you can say anything else, Jisung quickly presses his lips against yours again. You immediately lean into his embrace, and close your eyes, losing yourself to his touch - so familiar, yet also so new and exciting.

Yes, maybe you’ve truly always been in love with Han Jisung - but at least he seems to feel the exact same way. 

[masterlist] | [requests] 

[fanfictiongreenirises]

Would love to see you check off the sleep deprivation spot on your batbingo. Maybe sleep dep used as torture by a villain and the batfam having to rescue and help (probably dick knowing you) recover

Hi! Super sorry about how late this is, but I hope it’s worth the wait! I promise not having this be Dick-centric wasn’t like intentionally done 😂 it’s just so fitting for Tim? Wonderfully angsty prompt too thank you!! Here’s Tim + sleep deprivation:

Warnings: there’s a mention of taking way too many sedatives to help sleep and a mention of potential ODing. nothing major though

Ao3 link

“Tim.” When Tim didn’t look up, Bruce tried again. “Tim.”

Tim lifted his head, eyes slowly moving from the laptop screen to Bruce’s face. He didn’t have the look of someone who’d already been up for more than a day, but Bruce knew that one could get used to almost anything if they did it long enough. And god knew that Tim was accustomed to staying awake far beyond what a normal person should be able to function after.

“Yeah, Bruce?” he said.

Or maybe Tim had actually managed to sleep properly for once. Instead of questioning him, Bruce stepped into the room and came to awkwardly stand at Tim’s shoulder. It reminded Tim of every teacher he’d had in high school who hadn’t understood the meaning of a personal space bubble.

“What’re you working on?” Bruce asked. He wasn’t the type to obtrusively look through tabs – he had much more sophisticated means of prying, if he wanted to.

Tim shrugged. “Nothing work related, for once,” he said. “Kon had something he wanted me to look into. All the cases I had are wrapping up.”

Not that that would last for long. It was strange, really, to have a whole afternoon to himself.

Bruce gave a little hum of approval, squeezing Tim’s shoulder.

“Was there anything you needed?” Tim asked, when it was clear that Bruce wasn’t going to say anything.

Bruce paused. He’d finally caught a glimpse of the game Tim had open in front of him, it seemed, and was eyeing the strewn bits of the policemen that Tim’s GTA character had just shot. The four stars blinked on the top right corner of the screen.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” he said finally.

“I’m doing great,” Tim said. It was true, for once – since that case of his the previous day, he’d been riding on some sort of high that didn’t seem to be going down anytime soon.

Bruce didn’t seem to believe him. “Tim,” he said, face turning serious. “They had you for two days. Have you slept since?”

Tim turned to look at him. “I’m not tired,” he said, in a calm and rational voice.

Bruce frowned. “It’s better to sleep now, while you still have some energy, than to sleep because you’ve crashed.”

Tim let out a sigh worthy of a twelve-year-old. “B, I can’t sleep if I’m not tired. It doesn’t work like that. I’ll sleep when my body tells me to.”

~~~ 

Tim had been completely ready to keep his word, but the thing was that his body didn’t tell him to. The last time he’d slept for more than an hour was six days ago.

Damian halted in the doorway when he came down for breakfast. “Drake,” he said slowly. “What’re you doing here?”

Tim would normally have answered that with either something philosophical or something downright scathing, but having broken into Dick’s secret stash of liquorice, combined with a mug of coffee, he was riding a pleasant combination of caffeine and sugar.

“Reheating waffles,” he said, watching as the store-bought, sugar-crusted waffles spun in the microwave. Alfred would have a coronary if he saw it in the Manor, but Alfred had left to go grocery shopping.

Damian scowled. “What’re you doing awake?” he repeated. Tim hadn’t known it was possible to aggressively open fridge doors until he’d met Damian. “Father said we weren’t to disturb you.”

Tim raised an eyebrow. “Why would Bruce think I slept last night?” he asked.

The microwave finally beeped at him, and he opened the door, using the sleeves of his hoodie as ovenmitts as he brought the plate over to the countertop.

Damian eyed the waffles. “This isn’t food,” he said. It was phrased more as a question than a statement. In his hands was a tub of yoghurt and a bowl of sliced fruit.

Tim shrugged. “Grass is food,” he said, stealing a handful of strawberries and mango pieces from the bowl.

“It is for Batcow. If you keep eating,” Damian wrinkled his nose, “that, your night career will be over in a day.”

Tim swung his legs, placing a blueberry in each hole of the waffle before pouring a river of maple syrup over it. “Then why haven’t you been making me stuff myself with sugar and carbs this whole time instead of stabbing me?” he said. “Hey, pass me the whipped cream.”

Damian handed it over gingerly, as though he thought he might catch sugar cooties from just holding something that Tim was going to put on the waffles. He watched in silent judgement as Tim first sprayed a decent mouthful directly into his mouth, and then over the maple syrup. He was so glad he’d had the foresight to use a bigger plate.

Then he glanced at Damian, who was seated in the farthest barstool from him and still eating his yoghurt. “Want some?” he asked, shaking the can at him.

Damian glared at him. “That’s unhygienic,” he said.

Had this been any other day, and Tim hadn’t been so incredibly hyped up on the sheer amount of sugar he was shovelling into his body, he probably would’ve let it go and maybe moved into another room.

Instead, he hummed a little. “It’s a thing,” he told Damian, mouth half full. “Eating it straight.” He shook it again. “Sure you don’t want some?”

Damian’s frown increased, but he didn’t say no. Tim put the plate down beside him on the counter. He went to hop down, but the moment his feet touched the ground, it was like he’d forgotten how to stand. His legs folded under him, and he went down with flailing arms.

“Drake?”

Tim blinked up at Damian standing in front of him, looking absolutely furious. “Huh,” he said, getting up with only a little wobble. “That was weird.”

The whipped cream was no longer in his hand. Tim spotted it on the ground, bending to pick it up. When he looked back at Damian, he saw that the boy had his phone out and was typing something furiously.

Tim flicked his ear. Damian didn’t even look up as he punched Tim’s stomach, hands only pausing for a moment. And yet, the hit wasn’t as hard as he knew it would’ve normally been.

“You were the one who said you wanted to try it,” Tim told him, hoisting himself up onto a seat this time. The whipped cream atop his waffles was beginning to droop. “Can’t leave it out for too long or it’ll go off.”

“Fine,” Damian said, pocketing his phone. “What’s the procedure for this?”

Tim snorted, almost choking on the massive bite he’d just taken. He swallowed painfully before he spoke. “Open your mouth and tilt your head back.”

Damian did so, but not before commenting about looking stupid. Tim shook the cannister before aiming it into his mouth, filling it until there was a mountain of whipped cream rising out.

“Now eat it,” Tim said.

Damian closed his mouth, a look of bewilderment passing his face. His cheeks puffed out as he tried to stop himself from swallowing the entire thing in one go. He looked like a chipmunk. 

Tim finished up the first waffle as he watched with distant curiosity. The maple syrup had seeped into the second one, which was exactly what he’d wanted. Now if he could only find the caramel topping that Cass had left the last time they’d had a movie night.

“That wasn’t…unpleasant,” Damian allowed. “But not good enough to warrant that.” He nodded to Tim’s plate.

Before Tim could defend his culinary masterpiece, Damian turned and left the kitchen. It was probably a good thing – despite this being probably the longest time they’d spent in a room alone without fighting, it didn’t mean it would last.

~~~

Tim found out that night exactly what Damian had been typing, because apparently the kid had been ratting him out to Dick, of all people. Backup arrived three hours before patrol in the form of Dick carrying an overnight bag and his favourite yoga mat into Tim’s room.

“Not that I’m not happy to see you,” Tim began, watching as Dick cleared the floor with methodical sweeps of his feet, “but why’re you here? And what’re you doing?”

“Damian messaged,” Dick said, shaking one of Tim’s socks off his foot. He shot Tim a worried look. “Said something about you not having slept since before you got kidnapped.” Dick opened his mouth, before closing it again, as though he’d changed his mind about something he’d been meaning to say, instead telling Tim, “So I figured we’d do some relaxing yoga.”

Tim’s eyebrows shot up as Dick scrolled through his phone, connecting it to Tim’s speaker system. “You can tell Damian he’s a fucking tattletale. And I’m fine. My legs just forgot how to function for a second.”

“But when was the last time you slept properly?” Dick was now rooting through Tim’s closet, trying to look for appropriate clothing for Tim. “Aha!”

Tim caught the loose sweatpants Dick tossed at him. “Are you serious?” he said, voice pitching up to almost a whine. “Dick, c’mon. Not everyone does yoga to relax.”

Music started up, something funky with a beat. Tim typically meditated to relax, but even he knew that this wasn’t usually considered calming music.

“We gotta work ourselves down, Timbo,” Dick told him, catching the look that passed his face. “We can’t just start with the chill music.”

Tim let out a dramatic sigh before taking the pants into the bathroom to get changed. When he emerged, Dick had spread a bunch of fake candles around the room – had he always had them, Tim wondered, or did he go out and buy them just for this? – and turned off all the lights bar one lamp that sat by the door.

Tim plopped down on the mat beside Dick. “Okay, go for it,” he said. “But if I sleep through patrol, you’re explaining it to Bruce.”

Dick shot him a strange look. “Bruce told me he’d talked to you yesterday about taking tonight off.”

Tim blinked, because Bruce had. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten that. “Slipped my mind, I guess,” he said, avoiding looking Dick in the eye. In the dim lighting, it wasn’t difficult. “You know me. Never know what day it is.”

Dick didn’t say anything, instead instructing Tim with both words and a demonstration. Soon, Tim found himself in a strangely curled position, and he felt all stretched out, but nowhere near falling asleep. His head was buzzing.

Dick, on the other hand, was probably nearing it, with eyelids drooping. Tim couldn’t imagine how anyone could fall asleep positioned as they were – Dick worse than him, being more flexible and accustomed to regular yoga.

“Dick?” he said quietly.

Dick hummed in response. His eyes were closed. Tim would normally let him rest, but he needed to know how to get out of this pretzel he was currently in.

“Can you untangle me?” he said in a low voice.

Dick lifted his head, yawning. “You tired yet?” he asked.

Tim hesitated. “Yeah, so tired,” he lied.

Dick’s grin was small but real.

In the end, Dick crashed in Tim’s bed, and Tim curled up next to him trying his damndest to sleep but completely unable to.

~~~

Tim hadn’t been able to sleep for over a week, and now he knew something was wrong. He wasn’t tired: there was no yawning, no eyes drooping shut. But his mind was fuzzy. He couldn’t hold onto anything, couldn’t maintain a conversation. His appetite had half disappeared, and his coordination was practically non-existent.

The longest a human being had gone without sleep for was eleven days, the last time he’d checked. He didn’t want to know what would happen to him if he went that long. A study on rats showed that they died.

But even that fear felt distant, because his mind was an absolute haze where nothing felt like it had concrete consequences. It was sheer dumb luck, really, that patrol was only a few muggings here and there. It was as if Gotham had seen Tim’s plight and decided to take pity on him.

The rest of the family didn’t know about Tim’s sleeping – or lack thereof – because he was doing a rather fantastic job of lying and pretending to be busy with digging up information for the team. He was busy, but not enough to be working as much as he appeared to be.

But the fact that Tim had become increasingly moody as time went on didn’t help him in the slightest. He snapped at Alfred for something he couldn’t even remember five seconds later. He was sharp with Cass when she asked him how he was doing, eyes narrowing at his face through the video call. Damian had been avoiding him ever since he’d ripped into the kid about texting Dick.

So it was fitting that it was Bruce who would be the final straw that sent everything crashing.

“Tim,” Bruce said. “It’s four in the morning. C’mon, kiddo.”

“In a minute,” Tim said distractedly. He could barely focus on anything for extended periods of time, so any time he could actually think was absolute gold.

Bruce sighed, coming around to stand by Tim with his arms folded. “Whatever it is you’re doing can wait until you’ve slept a few hours.”

“I’m not tired,” Tim said.

Bruce reached over and with the press of a button, had turned off the screen.

Tim saw red. He somehow found himself on his feet, the chair having been shoved back by him when he’d leapt to his feet.

“I told you I’m not tired! Leave me alone, Bruce,” Tim shouted. Distantly, he knew he was getting worked up over nothing, but a larger chunk of him was livid. “I’m sick of you all telling me to go to sleep!”

“Tim, let’s take a breath and—” Bruce began, a worried look on his face.

“Stop patronising me,” Tim yelled. His hands were clenched into fists. “You’re not my father, Bruce. Quit acting like you give a shit about anything beyond your fucking mission, let alone me.” Tim slammed his hands down on the bench, and a tray of mugs that had been sitting right on the edge jumped upwards, one of them smashing as it fell.

Startled at the crash, Tim took a step, but Bruce’s arm was a vice grip around his shoulder steering him away from the shards of ceramic. He shoved away from Bruce’s hold, stumbling against the chair.

“Tim, you don’t have shoes on, you’re going to cut up your feet,” Bruce said.

Tim wouldn’t have seen it if he hadn’t looked at Bruce in the eyes to deliver another retort, but Bruce glanced at something behind him, giving an almost imperceptible nod before he felt a prick in his upper arm.

~~~ 

Tim wasn’t out for long. He knew this because he was barely out at all, waking up to feel himself being carried to the Cave’s medbay. Bruce placed him down on the cot gently, arranging his limbs in a comfortable position.

“Thank you, Cass,” he murmured. “I had no idea he was…” He let out a sigh, and Tim knew, even without opening his eyes that Bruce was rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“He’s awake,” Cass said instead of responding.

She nudged Tim’s shoulder, and Tim opened his eyes groggily to find the two of them staring at him.

“You tranq-ed me?” Tim said, struggling to sit up.

Cass only had to look at him for Tim to duck his head and mutter an apology.

“Tim,” Bruce said, voice gravelly. “Be honest with me. I won’t get mad. When was the last time you slept properly?”

“Wow,” Tim said, drawing out the word. “I can’t believe you do all this just to give me a lecture on sleep.”

Cass frowned at him. “Something’s wrong,” she said pointedly. “You’re obviously sleep deprived. We just don’t get why.”

“Why what?” Tim asked exasperatedly. He would’ve left the Cave by now had one of the people before him not been Cass.

“Why you aren’t sleeping.” Cass’ frown eased into a look of concern.

“She’s right,” Bruce added. “Your workload is lighter than it’s been in months. You aren’t overly obsessed with any video games. You don’t have schoolwork or company work that’s pressing enough to do late into the night—”

“I can’t sleep, okay?” Tim burst out. He stood on wobbly legs, wanting to be on the same level as them. “I’ve tried. It just doesn’t work.”

“Tim, there are treatments for insomnia—”

“You don’t think I’ve tried those?” Tim ran a shaky hand through his hair. It probably did nothing to help his deranged look. “I’ve even taken like double the required dose for every sort of sedative we have, and none of them work—”

That wasn’t supposed to have come out of his mouth. He cut himself off sharply.

Cass was looking at him with serious eyes, but Bruce had rushed off to the first aid kit. He returned with a syringe, not even looking at Tim as he plunged it into his arm to draw blood.

“Hey!” Tim yelped.

“You can complain once I’ve made sure you aren’t going to die from overdosing,” Bruce said grimly. His face was pale, and part of Tim was suddenly very guilty at having contributed to that.

Cass sat with him and questioned him about all sorts of things, making it feel less tedious than when Bruce or Alfred did it. He’d missed her. When he said so, Cass wrapped her arms around him tightly.

Bruce came back with a grim face.

Maybe Tim had been hanging around Jason for too long, because the first thing that came to mind to say was am I gonna live, doc? which would definitely not have gone down well. Instead, he stayed quiet, looking at Bruce questioningly.

Bruce exhaled. “I think you were injected with something when they had you,” he said. “Do you remember anything? Maybe it was delivered orally, or as a gas.”

Honestly, the kidnapping hadn’t been that memorable. Tim had been caught, tied to a chair for a few hours as the kidnappers made him contact Batman, and had a few punches delivered to him. He’d been stuffed in a tiny room, with a bucket if he needed the bathroom, and a packaged Batburger the next day. 

He hadn’t eaten it, but he’d drank the bottled water. There was only so long you could go without water, and he had no way of knowing how long he’d need to go before he had access to it again. And besides, the bottle had been sealed.

“The bottle was sealed,” he said with a shrug. “I figured it was safe. It didn’t taste different.”

“They could’ve resealed it,” Cass said. “Steph showed me how.”

Tim turned to her. “Why?”

“To sneak alcohol into places,” she said simply, and Tim laughed.

Bruce blinked, and Tim watched as he visibly boxed away the knowledge to discuss with Steph and Cass at some later time. “Alright, that narrows it down. The results will be out in a few minutes, but until then I think you should lie down. You need to rest, Tim. The human body wasn’t meant to go this long without sleep.”

The inner teenager in Tim shrugged. “I’ve been doing alright so far.”

“Really,” Bruce said flatly. “You would call this past few days ‘alright’.” Without waiting for a response, he spun around and walked back over to the Batcomputer.

Tim sighed, leaning back.

Cass nudged his shoulder with hers. “One of the symptoms of sleep deprivation is moodiness,” she supplied. “Want to watch a movie?”

“Sure.”

~~~

Tim had been given strict instructions to not leave the Manor. He’d been told to stay upstairs as well but that order hadn’t been as emphasised as the first, so he considered that rule to be bendable. He could tell that Bruce was conflicted in taking both Cass and Damian out with him, but he needed the backup tonight.

“I won’t hesitate to call Dick,” he said. “Or one of your teammates.”

Tim could barely handle Bart while he was firing on all cylinders. He’d probably end up channelling his inner Damian and stabbing his friend if he came to babysit him. Kon was better, but Kon was busy. Actually, everyone was busy. Tim didn’t want to bother them just because Bruce thought he couldn’t follow instructions and stay home.

“Don’t worry. There’s a Harry Potter marathon on tonight,” he said. “I’ll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending I don’t exist.”

Tim who had been awake for over a week was much more blunt than well-rested Tim, it turned out. Yesterday he’d told Jason his hair reminded Tim of the skunk from Bambi.

Bruce’s eyebrows furrowed. “You don’t have a TV in your bedroom,” he said.

Tim’s eyes widened. “Tell me you’ve at least watched the Harry Potter movies,” he said.

“He fell asleep every time,” Cass said, walking into the room with a grin. “Dick told me he’s never gotten beyond half an hour into any of them without dozing off.”

“But that quote’s in the first half hour!” Tim turned to Bruce. “You have no excuse. We’re going to pump you full of whatever’s in me and make you sit through twenty-three hours of movie. Does this mean Damian’s never watched or read them, either?”

Whatever the relationship between him and the demon child from hell, he couldn’t handle the thought of him passing his eleventh birthday without humouring the thought of receiving a Hogwarts letter. 

Bruce cleared his throat. “I believe Dick tried,” he said. “We’re running late. Cassandra, I’ll meet you downstairs. Tim?”

Tim unfolded the blanket that was on the armchair and draped it around his shoulders like a cape. “I promised, didn’t I,” he said.

Bruce grunted, but as he passed Tim he bent down and pressed his lips to his hair before continuing on his way. Tim sat frozen in place for a while after he’d left.

~~~

Tim had, in all honesty, fully intended to keep his word and stay on the couch until they’d figured out a way to neutralise this concoction running through his veins. But that all changed when his phone buzzed beside him.

Tim lifted his head groggily. He’d put his phone on a customised Do Not Disturb, only allowing through certain notifications and calls. He hadn’t expected any tonight.

His phone glared holes into his skull in the dim lighting of the room and Tim winced as he looked at the screen.

Jason was calling, but he was calling Red Robin, not Tim.

Tim picked up. “Hood?” he said.

“You free?” Jason asked. There was a loud crash and the sound of gunshots. “’Cause I could use backup.”

Tim was already halfway standing before he remembered he was meant to stay in tonight. “Have you contacted the others?” he asked, running down to the Cave even as he spoke.

“They’re in a comm blackout.” An explosion this time.

“I’ll be there,” Tim said. Backup took priority over whatever promise he’d made to Bruce, and besides, he was fine. “I’m at the Cave, though. What’s your location?”

Jason let out a low curse as he gave Tim an address to one of the thousand abandoned warehouses littered around Gotham.

Tim snuck by the kitchen, where Alfred was readying post-patrol snacks. He didn’t have long before Alfred would check up on him discreetly, as he’d been doing all night, but it was enough time for him to pull on his costume and grab his bike.

“Brief me,” he said. He hadn’t driven his motorbike in days. It was exhilarating, the wind rushing past him as he zipped through the traffic.

“What’s there to brief?” Jason replied. “The bad guys are the ones shooting at us.” After a moment, he added, “All the intel said it was a handoff. Ended up being a lot bigger than that, and now I have a shittonne of drug dealers and their minions on my ass. And each other's.”

Tim, despite everything, found himself grinning.

“I’m here,” he said, pulling up to the building. He could hear the commotion from the other end.

Locking his bike, he ran forward, grappling in through a broken window on the second story. He had to kick someone down to make it in. Inside was like a pub brawl – there was no way of distinguishing between who was on what side of this fight.

Tim quickly disarmed the three men who were in the tiny room he’d entered, knocking them out and handcuffing them. Four more rushed up the stairs, and he swung forward on a beam supporting the second floor as he kicked the first person squarely in the shoulders, shoving him back into the other three.

The last one managed to dodge the domino effect, leaping around them with a gun aimed at where Tim had been. It really was too bad that Tim wasn’t there anymore.

He swept the thug’s legs out from under him, grabbing the gun as he fell over the railing and landed on his back. Tim leapt down the stairs, jumping over the three bodies and using his dwindling stock of tangler grenades to bind their hands.

According to Jason, there were still about ten of them standing. To make matters worse, this was probably one of the most convoluted abandoned warehouses Tim had ever been in.

“What’s the point of a warehouse if all you’re gonna do is put walls in places?” he complained as two goons rushed at him.

There was gunfire on Jason’s end. There was always gunfire on Jason’s end. Tim was really going to have to teach him how to disarm people, at this rate. Tim couldn’t even make out most of Jason’s response because of the noise.

He’d knocked out one of his opponents, tossing another tangler grenade at their hands, when a third person rushed at him from behind, landing a punch for the first time that night at the side of his skull. Tim went down like a sack of potatoes, seeing black spots.

There was a ringing in his ears as he tried to claw his way back to his feet, but it was made difficult with the repeated blows from the two thugs standing above him. Tim attempted to sweep the smaller one off his feet, the move only being half effective as his opponent stumbled but regained his balance on the wall.

Tim had a gas pellet in his belt, but reaching it was proving to be difficult as kicks rained down on him.

And then the man – the third one, the one with the steel-toed boots – was yanked back ferociously. Milliseconds later the other one disappeared too. Tim slumped in relief at the sight of Jason.

“Thanks,” he said, accepting the arm Jason stretched down to yank him up.

His vision went out for a moment before righting itself again, ears ringing before regaining functioning, but not before he���d apparently lost his window of responding to something Jason had just said.

“Hey,” Jason demanded. “Focus. Follow my finger—”

“I don’t have a concussion, Jay,” Tim said, batting the hand away. “Is that everyone?”

Jason gave him a long look. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Thanks for coming.”

“Course,” Tim said. He fought to step properly. His torso was going to be a lovely rainbow in the morning. And Bruce was going to kill him. Alfred, too.

Jason looked at him sharply. “Why?” he asked. He narrowed his eyes. “Were you benched for injuries?”

“Not for injuries,” Tim said. Apparently his mouth ran when he was running on a week and a half of no sleep. “Haven’t been sleeping.”

Jason huffed a laugh. “Man, I always hated being benched for that. Fucking hypocrite. As if he gets anywhere near the amount of sleep he should.”

Tim didn’t tell him about the exact circumstances, and Jason didn’t pry. But when they neared the bike, he stuck his hand out for the keys, and Tim handed them over with minimal grumbling.

The ride back was much smoother than Jason’s driving usually was. He seemed to think that Tim would fall off if he took corners too sharply, and Tim’s continuous insults of grandma and wimp were met with threats to scratch up the paint job.

Bruce was standing in the middle of the Cave with arms crossed and a thunderous expression on his face.

“Oh, fuck,” Tim muttered, sliding off. “Can you start a fight with him so I don’t get yelled at?”

“I heard that, Tim,” Bruce said, even as Jason looked like he was contemplating it. “Jason, Alfred has cookies upstairs.”

It was as clear a bribe as any, and Tim gaped at Jason’s guilt-free half wave as he went into the showers to change.

“In my defence,” Tim began, looking anywhere but Bruce’s I’m disappointed face, “Jay had no backup. I wasn’t about to leave him alone out there when I could’ve done something about it.”

Bruce sighed. Instead of saying anything, he walked over to the medbay, indicating with a jerk of his head for Tim to follow him.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just bruises.”

“You’re damn lucky that’s all you have,” Bruce said. Despite the words, his tone was even. Tim hated it more than if Bruce had yelled at him.

“I’m sorry I broke my promise,” he said. “But I’m not sorry for going out there.”

Bruce didn’t say anything, instead poking and prodding at Tim to check for any internal wounds. There was silence as he did so. Normally Tim would’ve been jumpy with the tension, but right now his head hurt too much for him to care.

Finally, Bruce handed him an icepack. “You went in there risking both your life and Jason’s,” he said. “You two may have gotten out of there mostly fine this time, but statistically speaking, the chances of that happening were slim to none. You know as well as I do what happens when someone doesn’t sleep for a week and a half. You could’ve gotten through the blackouts at the press of a few buttons, but you didn’t. You could’ve contacted Oracle. This drug in your system might be making you think you’re fine, but you’re really not, and your lack of critical thinking tonight just goes to prove that.”

Tim exhaled, eyes prickling.

“Go upstairs, Tim,” Bruce said, sounding as though he’d aged a decade in a single night.

Tim left the Cave without a word.

~~~

The headache that had begun the night he’d gone out hadn’t disappeared, and pain medication didn’t seem to be working. Tim lay with his feet dangling off the bed, staring at the ceiling. It was too high to see the tiny cracks in the paint – if there were any – but if he looked long enough, the black dots in his vision looked almost like constellations.

“Drake?”

Tim hummed, eyes still upward.

“Pennyworth wants to know if you’re hungry.”

“Nope,” Tim said. His mouth was dry, but he didn’t feel like drinking water, because drinking water made him feel sick, because he hadn’t eaten anything substantial in a bit too long, but he wasn’t hungry enough to eat. It was all a giant circle created entirely to make him feel like absolute shit.

Tim thought Damian would disappear now, but footsteps came closer.

“Pennyworth says you must eat regardless.”

Tim turned his head to the side as Damian placed a tray in the centre of the bed. “I’m really not hungry,” he said.

Damian huffed. “Eating is not about hunger,” he said impatiently. “It’s about necessity.”

Tim blinked slowly at him. “Wow,” he said. “Wait till we take you to an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

Damian didn’t respond, instead bending down to pick something up behind him. Tim watched as Alfred the Cat was placed unceremoniously on the bed beside him.

He didn’t have the energy to ask, but Damian seemed to have understood his look. “He’s good at making inducing sleepiness,” he said.

Tim, had he been able to actually think beyond ‘aww’, would’ve probably said something now that would make Damian punch him, and then take his cat with him as he left the room. This sleep deprivation thing was actually pretty good for their relationship.

“Thanks,” he said instead. “That’s… I dunno how helpful he’ll be, though.”

And then he caught a glimpse at the food on the tray, and his eyebrows shot up. “Does Alfred realise that not all of us are Jason and Cass?”

Damian peered at the three sandwiches, two bananas, bowl of muesli and yogurt, four scones, and cup of tea. “I believe he wanted to give you ‘options’ in case something sparked your appetite.”

Tim sat up with a groan befitting a dying whale in a wildlife documentary. His head pounded as he sat up, and he had to sit there and breathe for a moment before the headrush disappeared. 

"Help me finish this so Alf isn't sad?" he asked. 

It being Alfred, Damian complied. 

~~~

Tim was crying. He didn’t even know why. He just wanted to sleep. He could feel someone stroking a hand through his hair, but it did nothing to help soothe him.

“We’ve almost got it, sweetheart,” Bruce was saying in a low voice. “It just needs a bit more time to be synthesised. Only thirty minutes. Just hold on for thirty minutes.”

Tim had no memory of where he was. His eyes were screwed shut, cheeks itching from dried tear tracks even as more covered them. Bruce – or, he assumed it was Bruce – would wipe them away from time to time.

Another voice, too distant to make out its owner, said something to Bruce. Tim didn’t process Bruce’s response, but suddenly the hand disappeared, and he realised that this was worse, knowing that he was alone in this hazy hell.

~~~

The only reason Tim realised he’d fallen asleep was because he woke up. It was a strange sensation, to open his eyes and realise that he’d actually gone for an extended period of time without actively thinking, without needing to tell his brain to shut up, without forgetting that he needed to have his eyes shut in order to at least imitate sleep.

He was in his own bed, covers pulled up to his chin. That meant he hadn’t moved in his sleep at all, which was surprising. But considering the circumstances, all too understandable that he’d probably slept like the dead.

His mouth was, to use a phrase he’d once heard from Cissie, as dry as the devil’s armpit. Tim couldn’t be bothered gathering the energy to get up and grab the water he knew would be on the nightstand.

There was an IV line attached to his arm. Tim eyed it, wondering what the pros and cons of removing it would be. Just as he’d lifted his other hand to where it was stuck into his skin, Tim’s door opened.

Light from the hallway spilled in – it wasn’t morning, then. It was Dick, sticking his head in. When he saw Tim sitting up, his whole face changed.

“Tim,” he said on an exhale. “How do you feel?”

“Thirsty,” Tim got out, and Dick immediately rushed to hand him a glass of water, helping to prop him upright so he didn’t choke.

“You’ve been out for like two days,” Dick said, rubbing his upper arm almost subconsciously.

The touch didn’t send ants crawling under his skin like it had towards the end when Tim had really started losing his mind. He could barely even remember it, but there was a distinctive sensation about the whole ordeal that made him shiver.

“Never taking sleep for granted again,” Tim murmured, burrowing back into the pillows.

He didn’t see it, but he could hear Dick huffing a small laugh. “I hope you remember that next time we tell you to go to bed.”

There was movement in the other side of the bed, and Tim, despite oblivion calling to him, couldn’t help prying his eyes open to look. His eyebrows rose in surprise at the sight of Titus and Alfred the Cat there.

“Damian gave Bruce a whole speech on healing qualities or something behind animal companionship,” Dick said. His voice was fond.

It was strange to think that a few years ago, Damian would’ve probably been overjoyed at the thought of Tim potentially dying from lack of sleep. He didn’t know if it this change was even stranger or not, though.

The door opened again, and this time it was Bruce looking in, probably to see why Dick was taking so long. His face changed less than Dick's had when he saw Tim awake, but Tim hadn’t spent his whole Robin career creating a mental Batman dictionary to not be able to see the shift just as vividly.

“How do you feel, kiddo?” Bruce asked, walking inside.

Dick stood with a stretch, stepping past Bruce with a grace that Tim had always envied, but even more so now that he’d spent the last week or so stumbling around like a drunk toddler. Bruce took Dick’s place beside Tim, taking the glass of water from him when he was done and putting it back.

“Tired,” Tim said honestly. Before Bruce could say anything else, though, Tim added, “B, I’m sorry. I’ve been… terrible. For the last week-ish. I shouldn’t’ve yelled at you as much as I—”

“You have nothing to apologise for,” Bruce interrupted. “And in a way, you were right. I should’ve noticed sooner. The fact that Damian of all people realised first…” He exhaled.

“He even lent me his pets,” Tim said. "And I was hiding it as well as I could. It's not your fault. I should've noticed it."

Bruce hummed, eyeing them. Tim thought he was just glad Damian hadn’t decided to bring Batcow in here as well. He exhaled, standing.

“Sleep,” he said. "We'll argue about whose fault it is later."

Tim was only too happy to comply. The sheets were soft and warm and welcoming in a way that he could only ever remember them being when he was absolutely dead on his feet after a long patrol. He felt the sensation of Bruce brushing his hair back from his face and repositioning the IV line, before he fell into the infinitely black abyss.