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jadedxrealityw · 3 years

Text

-Second And Third Chance- Tony Stark x Female Reader

☼-☪-☼

Kody: favorite dilf- i’m sorry lmao

Movie/Show: after endgame. but no one is dead because i’m still in denial.

Summary: (Backstory included) Being the fiancee of Tony Stark was all you could dream of, but not everyone is perfect and Tony is certainly no saint. Even with Thanos being gone, Tony is still obsessing on how to keep you safe from other worldly beings, but due to his own ignorance ends up losing you all by himself.

Possible Triggers / Warnings: angst with fluff ending, cursing, Tony being Tony, F.R.I.D.A.Y and Wanda being your besties lmao,

☼-☪-☼

you wondered how you were ever came across such a man. Narcissistic, arrogant, just completely full of himself in every way possible. You had met the infamous Tony Stark at a shield ball/party so long ago. He was charming, you’ll admit, but you were fully aware of his playboy status.

you wore a long black off the shoulder dress that started skin tight at the top and flowy at the bottom, also sporting a slit down the side of the dress. Some said hi and gave you compliments on your outfit. You wanted to find Fury so you could talk to him as he was the only person you really knew.

walking along the floor a woman holding a platter of drinks offered you one and you gladly accepted it. You spotted Fury a few tables away, talking amongst Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers. Once you made it over, you slipped yourself into a empty seat.

Fury noticed you first and patted your shoulder “Didn’t think these parties were your scene Agent L/n” he spoke with his usual formality. You hummed into the glass of wine as you took a sip “They are not, but i needed a reason to drink” you admitted, earning a chuckle from Natasha.

you then took the time to look at both of them and smile “Natasha Steve. Still doing the whole saving the world thing?” you say. Steve cracks a smile and nods once “The world can’t seem to give us a break” he says. A chuckle bubbled in your throat “Not that you would take it though, right cap?”

you four spent a good thirty minutes talking about the usual, until Maria Hill showed up then you got to talking about new missions that he Fury only trusted you all with. You were like Fury third in command. Someone Maria had recommended if something would have ever happened to her.

not to long Natasha and Steve had left the party earlier then expected, but they were always in the rush. You, Fury, and Maria were now standing next to the table. Maria’s phone rang and she slipped it from her bag and pressed the green button “Yes?...Give me ten minutes”

she hung it up and put it back in her bag. Fury looked at her with a questioning stare “I’m going to assume Romanoff or Rogers were on the end of that line. Would the rest of us be needed?” he asked. Maria shook her head “No. Just a minor problem. I’ll call if it escalates”

Fury nods once and gestures with his head to the exit, dismissing her. They were so loyal to each other. Maria then sends you a polite smile before exiting the ballroom. You placed your cup on the table were you all resided minutes ago “Should we be concerned?” you ask.

he shakes his head “They’ll be fine. I like to come in at the end anyway, makes me alluring” he says, making you stifle a bit of laughter. “Right” you agreed not really wanting to dwell in that subject. Only seconds later is when an unfamiliar voice spoke “Nick”

both you and Fury turn around and see the nice tailored suit belonging to the less nice man of Tony Stark. Fury cracks a small grin and holds his hand out “Stark, fashionably late” he points out. Tony grabs his hand and shakes it “Well if i wasn’t i’d be stuck looking like you losers.”

did this grown man just call you both losers? Okay then. You folded your arms over your chest, not really paying much attention to there very testosterone filled conversation. Tony eyes removed themselves from Fury and looked at you “and who is this?” he asked.

you removed your eyes from the people walking past you and looked towards the billionaire “ This is Agent L/n. works alongside Agent Hill and myself” Fury explains. You give Tony a polite nod “It’s Y/n L/n” you say. Tony grins and went to say something more when Fury coughed.

“I’m going to use the bathroom. Tony don’t be weird” he spoke before leaving you both by your lonesome. Great. “May i offer you another drink?” he asked and you shook your head “I already had one and i have to be alert at all times. It’s in the job description. Very fine print”

“Sounds like you need a vacation or a xanax” he makes a face, earning a small smile from you “Maybe, but i like my job too much” you reply. Tony steps to the side and gestures with his hand for you to walk. You didn’t see much wrong with that, just a friendly stroll. Why not.

you step in forward and Tony lifts his arm up a bit for you to link yours. ‘What a charmer’ you thought before slipping your arm through his. YOu both began to walk slowly through the ballroom “So what does your significant other think about how much you work?” he asked.

‘very slick’ “I don't have a boyfriend or girlfriend at the moment. Tried dating on the job, but no one really understands how much working here changes you in a way” you explained, Tony nodding along with your answer. Being an Agent had its perks and downfalls.

“Why did you get into this line of work, if you don’t mind me asking?” Tony questions. It was strange seeing him be so genuine with his wording, the complete opposite of what Fury, Steve, Natasha, or Maria had to say about him. It was pleasant.

you gulp, a few choice memories deciding to flood your mind “I worked CIA with my sister for awhile. Our whole family was worked in some form of Government job. Then the 2012 attack happened and we were told to stand down. Me and my sister were stubborn so we didn’t”

you inhale deeply and managed to keep your formal smile upon your face despite the urge to down another glass of wine and call it a night “No one knew about aliens back then, but we wanted to help people in any way we could. In hindsight it was very stupid of us”

your mind began to wander to something else, the smile fading from your face and be replaced with a blank stare. For an expression so neutral it would be hard to tell that you were reliving a terrible memory. Crashing, a blood curdling scream, your pleas, and a then silence.

Tony looked at you once you had stopped talking abruptly and used his free hand to pat your shoulder. You broke out of whatever horrific trance you were in “Sorry, zoned out- anyway my sister ended up passing, i was charged with treason funny enough, but Fury convinced them to drop the charges”

Tony chose to ignore the brief daze you were in for your own sake and you two continued your stroll. The night ended with more talking and much needed laughter. He also offered you a ride home and you gladly took him up on that. It was really nice.

when you got to your house he asked you on a date to a very nice restaurant near your place. You accepted even though your brain was telling you not to. On the day of the date you ended up being called in and canceled. He said he understood and that you could reschedule anytime.

you never did go on that date

☼-☪-☼

just like most things it only happened once and you figured that was that. Spending a couple magical hours talking to Tony Stark would be any girls dream and just like dreams you awoke to reality. You had a job and had many other important things to do beside fantasize about a billionaire.

that was until Hydra took over Shield in 2014, you and Fury faked your deaths. Tony actually went to your funeral, wearing sunglasses and standing away from everybody. It was pretty sad, but you had a job to do. fury actually came back, but you stayed in hiding.

then in 2015 when Ultron was a the main problem and you were itchy to bash some robots skulls in- wait they don’t have skulls. Whatever, Fury wouldn’t get involved. Then Sokovia became a giant plane and Fury caved. After a year of doing grunt work you could finally fight.

all the staff, including you loaded up a helicarrier. You made your way to the command center where Fury and Maria resided “Ah Agent Y/n. Glad that you could join us. Already suited up i see?” Fury points to your all black outfit and mask.

shrugging, you walked towards the front “I’ve been ‘dead’ for a year, cut me some slack for being excited” you say. Fury nods, agreeing with your statement before facing forward. “Set a course to Sokovia and making it fast” Maria announced.

and with that, you were off

☼-☪-☼

Maria hacked into the Avengers coms and connected Fury’s, your’s, and her own. “Where else am i gonna get a view like this?” a woman said through your earpiece. You instantly recognize it as Nat. You missed her so much, god you couldn’t wait to talk to her again.

“Glad you like the view Romanoff. It’s about to get better” Fury spoke, folding his arms behind his back, interlocking his hands. The helicarrier started to raise above Sokovia. Holy shit this is high. As you ascended you were able to see Nat and Steve standing together. Nat cut her hair, it looks pretty.

rest of the staff began to enter the command room and set up “Nice right? Pulled her out of mothballs with a couple old friends. She’s dusty, but she’ll do” he spoke. “Fury you son of a bitch” Steve said right back. Did he just curse? That had to be Ultron.

“Woah, you kiss your mother with that mouth?” Fury said with a fake surprised tone. His comment made you chuckle a bit since he had a foul mouth. Hypocrisy am i right? “Altitude is 18,000 and climbing” Maria spoke, typing away on her keyboard like desk.

another guy spoke up from behind you “Lifeboats secure to deploy, disengage in three...two...take them out ” he clicked one final button and sat back. You felt the helicarrier rumble beneath you, which meant the lifeboats were being sent to the ground.

oh shit. You were supposed to be on one of those. “Shit!” you yell before running out the command room. You raced down the stairs and made your way to the deck. You watched as a lifeboat flew right below. This is such a bad idea. Your doing it anyway.

taking a couple steps back, you mentally prepare yourself before running as fast as you could. As you touch the edge you jump and launch yourself off the helicarrier. The lifeboat came closer to you until your shoulder collided with it. You hissed and slowly pushed yourself up “Damn- that’s gonna sting”

“Did you just jump off the helicarrier?” Fury says through the coms

“Who did?” Steve spoke

“Oh you know, backup-” Fury replies before Maria cut in “Sir we have multiple bogeys on our starboard flank” she spoke and indeed when you looked up you saw a bunch of Iron man suits flying above. Oh shit. “Show them what he got” he replied back.

you reach down and pull both guns out the holsters that were on both of your thighs “It feels good to be back” you said to yourself. You heard something fly above you that wasn’t a Bogey and saw War Machine- Rhodey blasting through a bunch of them. He’s pretty cool.

just as you were about to bask in the moment a Bogey landed on the lifeboat and came charging at you. It swung and you ducked just in time, lifting your foot to kick it in the chest. As it stumbled back you raised your gun and shot it straight in the head.

the literal lights behind its glass ‘eyes’ flickered until it shut off and it fell to the ground. “It better not be that easy to kill the actual Iron Man” you spoke. “And your not gonna find out” a voice spoke. You turn around and see Tony in his suit, with his arm raised, ready to attack you.

you raise your hands “Woah- What the hell Stark!” you shout. Oh shit- you had a mask. “I’m on your side” you add. Tony tilts his head “Really, prove it” he says. You slowly move your hand. as to not startle him and slowly pull the mas down from your face “Hey Tony”

he visibly tensed up. His mask retracting back into his face. Still has handsome as ever. He reaches up with both arms and takes off his helmet, dropping it to the side. “So is faking your death a Shield initiation thing or you just really didn’t want to go out with me?” he asked.

you cracked a smile and dropped your arms to your sides “I told you work gets in the way” you said. He went to say something when four Bogeys landed on the lifeboat. Damn you couldn’t let any on until you landed. Tony groaned dramatically and shot one in the chest, causing it to fall off the ship.

“No. See regular work doesn’t involve faking your death. I went to your funeral you know?” he says. You drop off and push off the seat and onto the Bogey, wrapping your thighs around its head. You push the barrel of the gun against the top of its head and shot “I know. I was there!” you shout.

“Oh that’s just great. You saw me all vulnerable and teary” he says with a scoff. what was happening right now. You drop to the ground and the Bogey grabs your leg, pulling you back. You shot it in the arm and it lets go “I actually didn’t know you cried. That’s kind of cute though”

you shoot the Bogey in the head and stand up on your feet. Just as you are about to take a step, a metal arm wraps around your neck, pulling you back. Oh yeah there was four. You went to reach behind as Tony shot through it’s head. The grip around your neck was released and you pushed it’s corpse off.

“Your welcome” Tony spoke, he still sounded snappy. “Your such a baby Tony. What can i do to make you stop moping?” you ask, putting one of your guns into the holster. You look behind you as the lifeboats pull up next to Sokovia “One date after all this. So i can show you what you missed of course”

you crack a smile, pulling your hood off your head. You raise your hand and hold up one finger “One date. That’s it” you say and he nods along “That works for me” he replies before picking up his helmet. He puts it on his head “But you’ll come back for more” he says as his face is covered by metal once more.

☼-☪-☼

present

you ended up did going on that date with Tony and he was right, there would be multiple date and girts until he finally asked you to be in a relationship. It was any big grand gesture that you expected from him, it was simple and sweet. It took him three years for him to propose in 2018.

but he was always one to wait.

the second battle with Thanos, but everyone seemed to be somewhat recovering, but Tony wasn’t himself anymore. You already knew he was a workaholic, but it had never been this bad. He’d stay up all night working on new tech. Security, suit adjustments, anything.

when it first started happening you chalked it up to his response to trauma. One night you suggested he’d go to therapist. Just one session and if he thought it would work then he could continue and vise versa. Tony ended up shooting down the idea with a couple harsh words.

it was strange to see him yell at you because he had never done before. It was like you were talking to an entirely different person. It scared you to be honest, but you loved him. A whole year after Thanos had gone by and he was just falling deeper and deeper into his work and less into you.

“Friday, is Tony awake?” you spoke, pouring coffee into a black mug. You place it on the silver tray and grab the light beige cardigan off the counter, slipping it over your white sports bra. “Yes Miss. Would you like me to inform him your coming down to the lab?” Friday asked.

“No that’s alright. I’d rather surprise him. Thank you Friday” you say and grab the tray off the counter, it had a mug of coffee and a plate of pancakes. You knew he wouldn’t have eaten already “Just doing my job Miss” she replies. You smile to yourself. You liked listening to her accent.

☼-☪-☼

you push open the door with the side of your hip since your hands were full “Tony!” you call out, looking around the lab one time. You stop as you see your lovers head pop up behind a machine you were unfamiliar of “Y/n? What’re you doing up? It’s late” he said, putting down a tablet.

you roll your eyes and walk over to the big table in the middle, placing the tray down “It’s nine in the morning, love” you reply. Was he starting to lose track of time now? This place needed more windows clearly. Tony put on a confused face as he scratched the back of his neck “Really?”

nodding, you lift up the mug of coffee from the tray and make your way over to Tony. You dodge a few tools laying on the ground and hand him the cup “Drink” you say. He takes it from you and brings it to his lips “Thanks” he says. While he drank you studied his face. He looked so exhausted.

it broke your heart

“You look terrible by the way” you comment, causing him to crack a small smile. “You said yes to this face, remember that” he retorts. Well he wasn’t wrong about that one. “That is true, seriously i want you out the lab today and into bed. Tomorrow is an important day”

Tony goes silent for a moment and you can tell he was trying really hard to think “Tony” you said, your voice sounding like a mom who was getting ready to lecture there child for forgetting to do homework. “I know i know- important day. Can’t wait for that...day”

you narrowed your eyes “Friday” you called out. “Yes Miss” she replies instantly. “Read me Tony’s schedule that he set for himself for the week” you ask. Tony steps forward, but you take a step back, moving away from him. “There is nothing on Mr. Stark’s schedule this week Miss”

wow

moving away from Tony, you walk over to the table “It’s our anniversary tomorrow you ass” you snap at him. Tony sighs and runs his hand over his face “I’ve been busy-” “You’ve never forgot it before” your tone was unusually calm, which through Tony off.

“Thanos is dead Tony”

“I know-”

“Then what are you doing?!” you shout, shocking yourself at the loudness of your own voice. “I’m trying to keep you safe!” he exclaims. Your fist clench. God you loved this man, but you wanted to punch him in the nose “You know i thought that you would get over this, but i can’t take much more”

your words seem to scare Tony a bit, but you continued to speak “It’s been a year Tony. You don’t sleep next to me, we barely talk unless it’s me making sure you don’t fucking starve to death, we haven’t been intimate in god knows how long. I’m tired of being neglected”

crying for a man was so pathetic, so you reached up and wiped any forming tears away with your thumb. Tony reached his arms out and wrapped them around you. You wanted to push him away, but he hasn't hugged you in so long, so you gave in.

he rubbed the back of your head as you let a few tears fall onto his shirt “I’ll stop okay- look i promise i’ll get some sleep and will have a whole day together okay?” he says. You were mad and you wanted to scream at him, but you also loved him and wanted to give him a second chance.

“Okay, but i swear Tony. You screw this up and-” you were cut off by him placing his lips on yours. Damn Stark. You smiled lightly into the kiss and pull away a couple seconds later “and you’ll throw me out on my ass i know.” he says.

you ended up making Tony go to sleep in your shared room while you cleaned up his lab and such.

☼-☪-☼

the anniversary, night

you were waiting outside a restaurant since Tony wanted to show up in his car to ‘swoon’ you wearing a black jumpsuit, it was his favorite color on you You looked at your phone and noticed he was about ten minutes late, but that didn’t worry you much since he liked to be fashionably late.

he’d come. He wouldn’t risk his last chance.

would he?

☼-☪-☼

after two hours Happy ended up picking you up and taking you back to your home. He apologized for Tony a couple times, but you said it was fine. Once you got home you kicked off your heels at the door. You were kind of running on autopilot just in shock and realization at the same time.

you knew what you had to do, but at the same time you didn’t want to, but it was over. You gave Tony a chance and he blew it. Nine years down the drain in a flash. You just couldn’t believe it. Walking down the hall, you wipe your face from the warm tears.

shutting the door to your shared bedroom, you go over to the closet “Miss you seem to be in distress is there anyway i can help?” Friday spoke. For an AI she was very self aware on feelings. “Is Tony awake Friday?” you ask, going over to your closet. “No Miss, he is asleep in the lab. May i call someone for you?”

you open the closet and pull out a suitcase you had in there and bring it over to the bed “Call Wanda” you say as you unzip the suitcase, opening it up and throw it on the bed. “Of course Miss, contacting Wanda Maximoff” she replies. After a couple seconds you hear her voice.

“Y/n? It’s late, are you alright?” she asked. You had confided in Wanda about your relationship problems with Tony since you were both in a long term relationship. You had also told her about the anniversary thing and Tony’s last chance. she said if it didn’t work out yo could stay at her place.

“Hey Wanda- uh. Yeah i know it’s late but-” you didn’t get to finish speaking when Wanda cut you off “Are you crying? Tony didn’t come did he? Know what? i’m on way. He better like a car through his window” she threatens, you could hear her moving around and the sound of keys. Well damn-

you began to grab your clothes from your dresser and stuff them in your suitcase “He’s sleeping, just pull in the front. I’ll send you the gate code okay?” you say, beginning to take off the jumpsuit you were wearing. “Fine, but no promises if i see him in the street. I’ll see you soon Y/n, goodbye”

Wanda hung up the phone “Friday-” “I sent Wanda the gate code. Before you leave would you like to leave a message for Mr. Stark?” Friday asked. You grab a dark green sweater and jeans from your dresser and throw them on quickly. You didn’t bother to pack the jumpsuit.

you wanted Tony to know why you had left so he could see the consequences of his actions and so that he wouldn’t tear the city apart thinking you were kidnapped. “I will, can you record a holographic message?” you ask. “Yes Miss, also Wanda will be arriving in 15 minutes”

“Okay”

☼-☪-☼

Tony awoke to the sound of his alarm blaring off into his ear “Shit. Friday shut that off!” he groans, lifting his head from the table “Yes Boss” she replies and the alarm shuts off. “Y/n has left a message for you to listen too. It is very important” she adds.

“Play it” he says going to lay his head back down on the table “It is a holographic message, Boss” Friday says. Tony begrudgingly lifts his head and leans it on his arm “Play it” he repeats. A second later you appeared sitting on the chair at the table with a blue hue around you.

“Hey Tony” you spoke a half smile on your face. tony would have found comfort in it if he doesn’t your puffy eyes and saddened expression. His head lifted on his arm “Remember our anniversary, you know your last chance and all that? Yeah.” you began. Tony sighed mumbling curses under his breath.

“I care about you, i have since you talked to me at the Shield dance, but i haven’t been your first priority in a while and i get it, but you promised when i left Shield that you would always make time for me. I know that Thanos shook you and you won’t admit it, but you need realize that something bad isn’t lurking around every corner”

Tony watched as you reached up and rubbed your eyes, the scene tugging on his heartstrings “We need a break from each other Tony, just for a little while. I’m going to stay with some friends. Please try to help yourself, get out the lab, clean yourself up, all of that.”

you pulled something off your ring finger and placed it on the table. Tony looked down and saw the silver ring with three aquamarine stones. He remembered proposing to you with it. You said the color reminded you of his reactor. Weirdly enough your hologram looked up at him and smiled.

“I’ll be waiting” you said and then flickered away “That’s the end of the message, Boss” Friday says. Tony slowly picked up the ring off the table. You had recorded the message in hear, talking to his sleeping body. He wished he had woken up.

☼-☪-☼

three months later

staying with Wanda was fun, but after a month or so you decided to get your own place. As much as you loved your big house you shared with Tony you bought small cabin well away from the city. It was quiet, it was outdoors and you loved it.

when you and Tony got engaged you ended up retiring from Shield so you could be more at home and help Tony with his work, but now even though you didn’t need a job you also didn’t like the idea of sitting on your ass. In that night of packing you put your old suit in there while on autopilot.

It took awhile, but you called up Fury and he was more than happy to let you back in “What does Stark have to say about all this?” he asked and you just sighed quietly “What Tony doesn’t know won’t hurt him” you replied and he didn’t ask any more questions after that.

getting back into your old life was pretty easy. All you needed was to get back into your regular exercise regiment that you had been lacking on and you felt more confident than ever. You didn’t feel neglected or forgotten, the complete opposite, you felt badass.

one day when you were walking out the store after picking up some groceries you felt eyes on you as you walked along the sidewalk. After years of being an Agent you knew when you were being followed. What was strange was that it felt like someone was watching you from above.

having a hunch at who it might be you quickly looked up and see a quick blur of red and blue swing away from your vision. Was this kid following you? but why? You duck into an alley way and walk slowly. You hear him drop behind you and follow your steps.

“Peter”

“Hi” he replies in nervous tone. You turn around, placing your free hand on your hip “Why have you been following me all week Peter?” yopu ask. You haven’t talked to Peter in months. Did he need something? Peter lifts his arm and grabs the top of his mask, pulling it off of his head.

he was lucky you were in a remote part of the city “Mr. Stark told me you weren’t together at the moment” he starts, looking at his feet. “I just wanted to make sure you were doing alright” he says and flashes a toothy grin. Aw- wait. “Did Tony ask you to check on me?”

Peter shook his head “No. He’s been busy with setting up the new senteries and therapy- i mean i don’t know. I just missed you and i can tell Mr. Stark is trying to change, but i hate to see you both so sad. I couldn’t imagine not being with Mj” he says. This kid was too adorable.

not only that he went out of his way to see how you were doing. Wait- what did he say about Tony “What senteries?” you asked, stepping closer to him. Peter started to fidget a bit “Uh- i really have to get going-” “Peter” you said in a demanding tone.

he exhaled deeply, knowing he wasn’t getting out of this “Mr. Stark has a whole line of senteries to sell to the senator so he can finally retire from being Iron Man. Not fully retire just on a long term vacation- that’s what he called it.” he spoke. Holy shit- you hoped he had done this for himself

and you as well- but mostly himself

a smile creeped onto your face. The most stubborn man you had ever met changed. “When does he plan on doing this?” you say to Peter “A dinner party this weekend. I wasn’t supposed to say anything until it was done. He was going to do some grand gesture to show you he’s changed”

you shook your head and placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder “Don’t be. For once i’m doing the grand gesture”

☼-☪-☼

saturday

after figuring out and planning on when and where you were going to show up you decided to tap into Friday’s systems and watch most of his speech then find Tony when the time was right, preferably when he was alone. Being with Tony for so long you figured out a way to enter your shared home, undetected.

once you were in the building you hid away in a spare room that was never used “Friday show me the room Tony’s in” you spoke, pulling out your phone “Yes Miss” she spoke and on your screen you saw Tony in the dining room. You lift your phone and flick it so its projected off the screen.

your eyes latched to Tony as soon as it turned on. He looked so different and healthy. It was pleasing to see that he was doing much better. You were also glad he took your advice. A warmth invaded your chest, it’s like you fell in love with him all over again.

gosh how you wanted to run into his arms that very moment.

“So Stark, why retire now?” the senator asked, taking a sip of wine from the glass he held. Tony seemed to tense up the question, but no one noticed other then you and Tony himself “If you asked me three months ago i would have told you to go to hell and that i don’t need to retire”

“and now?”

“Well back then i had my fiancee and thought i was the king of the world. Then i lost her because of my workaholic nature- also i’m not retiring Iron, Man will still be here for whoever needs him, but i think it’s time i put my future wife first if i want to keep her” he shrugs his shoulders casually.

most at the table were stunned into silence before the senator lifted his hand for tony to shake “I guess Tony Stark does have a heart” he spoke and Tony shook his hand. You felt something warm come down your face and reached to wipe the tears away.

god- what a charmer. Always knew just what to say.

“Well this was fun, but my finacee i’ve been talking about is actually here on the moment” he said. Wait what? You looked at the screen as Tony’s head turned towards the camera, sending you a wink. How the hell did he find out?! Tony grabbed a pen from his pocket and signed the paper.

“Happy will show you all out” Tony waved them off before walking out the room “If you step out the room you’ll be able to meet Mr. Stark in the hallway” Friday spoke. Oh so she snitched. Betrayal at it’s finest “Thanks Friday” you spoke before stepping out the room.

as you turned your head you come face to face with your husband to be, except he seemed nervous? “You look great- well you always look great” Tony says, making you form a smile “I’m proud of you” you say back. Tony reaches up, using this thumb to wipe away a stray tear.

“That means a lot coming from you. I can’t believe i let you slip away” his voice got darker, a frown forming. “I’m right here” you open your arms out. tony takes the opportunity to wrap his arms around your waist, pulling you flush against him. “But seriously Tony i will really leave you next time”

he nods “I know i know. You can have the whole house if i do” he says, making you chuckle. After a moment of staring into each other's eyes, silently making up for lost time. “Oh my god Tony Stark if you don’t kiss me right now-” you didn’t even need to finish before his lips were on yours.

the kiss was desperate and starved for a deeper feeling. Who knew one person could miss another so much? After this, you speculated you’d be stuck to his side like glue for a couple weeks before he say something stupid to piss you off.

Tony’s hands traveled lower and lower until they gripped the back of your thighs, causing a familiar feeling to bloom within you. He pulls away from your mouth and his lips attach to your neck, leaving hot open mouthed kisses. Zero to one hundred real quick.

“Tony” you breathed out. You could feel the smirk against the skin of your neck. Horny bastard “Tony seriously” you say, a laugh bubbling in your throat. He pulls away and looks at you ‘I’m trying to seduce you. Why are you interrupting?”

you shake your head and hook your arms around his neck “I love you, you idiot” you say, trying to catch your breath. A ego filling grin decorated his face as he pecked your lips “I love you too. Now let me get back to work” he says and goes back to kissing your neck and his hands worked off your belt.

yeah- you were in love

☼-☪-☼

Click here to join my Taglist! @sonbelleame @hel-viti @loudbluepancake @vmame

☼-☪-☼

Kody: Eh this kinda sucks. requests are open and my taglist. Anyways, peace

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hacawijo · 3 years

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Alright, If We’re Gonna Play with Az’s Bonus Chapter, Let’s PLAY with Az’s Bonus Chapter (Pt. 2)

Yeah baby, part 2 of a PAINSTAKING close read lol.

Azriel winnowed into shadows before she could say anything he uses the shadows to ESCAPE, they are a coping mechanism, appearing at the door to Rhys’s study a heartbeat later. His shadows whispered in his ear that Elain had gone upstairs. It’s interesting that the shadows specifically report on Elain’s whereabouts here and not earlier, as well as later not reporting on Gwyn.

Rhys sat at his desk, fury a moonless night across his face. He asked softly, “Are you out of your mind?”

Azriel donned the frozen mask he’d perfected while in his father’s dungeon. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Rhys’s power rippled through the room like a dark cloud. “I’m talking about you, about to kiss Elain, in the middle of a hall where anyone could see you,” he snarled. “Including her mate.” It is not out of line for Rhys to acknowledge that this was stupid. If for no other reason than that it would hurt Lucien if he saw/felt them.

Azriel stiffened. Let his cold rage rise to the surface, the rage he only ever let Rhysand see, because he knew his brother could match it. Which is the mirror to something that Rhys notes in ACOFAS, that they are similar in their darkness. Because Rhys is really the only person Azriel can be himself with, completely, I think it’s important to acknowledge that this is unprecedented ground for them and specifically for Azriel. This is the first time Azriel can actually voice ANY of these thoughts out loud, and only because Rhys saw them, he did not bring this concern to Rhys himself. “What if the Cauldron was wrong?”

Rhysand blinked. “What of Mor, Az?” Also very not out of line thing to ask. Feyre is the only person Mor has really told about her sexuality, and so to Rhys and co. AND Azriel, nothing about this situation has changed in the past 500 years. The fact that Azriel is able to get over Mor, without that confirmation of her sexuality, because of Elain, is significant I think.

Azriel ignored the question. Hmm yeah, but he can’t keep ignoring this question forever, and that’s another reason he and Elain did NOT kiss in this chapter. He and his family and Mor all need closure regarding their relationship. “The Cauldron chose three sisters. Oh boy, I have a lot to say about the number three later on! Tell me how it’s possible that my two brothers are with two of those sisters, yet the third was given to another.” He had never before dared speak the words out loud. NEVER BEFORE DARED TO SPEAK THE WORDS OUT LOUD. This is the first time he’s even verbalizing these thoughts - of COURSE he doesn’t know how to navigate this conversation. This is raw emotion being spewed out right now, enhanced by the unresolved tension from his interaction with Elain.

Rhys’s face drained of color. “You believe you deserve to be her mate?” So, he says that his two brothers ARE WITH two of those sisters, which is a way to acknowledge the fact that both people in each pair accepted the bond and that it was a mutually built connection. Then he says “the third was given to another” which is actually really different. He’s saying that Elain was given to Lucien by the Cauldron, suddenly one member of that bond is not an active participant - and this is mostly true! Elain has ignored Lucien diligently, and she hinted about her lack of feelings for him when she asked Feyre why he should be entitled to her affections just because of the cauldron and whatever amends he has made. I don’t like Azriel saying that Elain is something to be given as opposed to a person to be connected to, but I’m not sure exactly what it means that he did that. ANYWAY, Rhys really does supply the word deserve, and we have evidence from earlier in this chapter that essentially proves that Azriel does not believe he deserves Elain, anyway. He is having an argument with Rhys, yes, but it almost feels like he’s arguing with himself.

Azriel scowled. “I think Lucien will never be good enough for her, and she has no interest in him anyway.” (THE ONLY TIME ELAIN’S ACTUAL FEELINGS, ACTIONS ARE CONSIDERED IN THIS DISCUSSION BTW) Also, not that he doesn’t answer Rhys’s question. For Azriel, this isn’t necessarily about what HE deserves in this moment, it’s about what Elain wants. Almost certainly, Azriel DOESN’T believe that he deserves Elain, but he sees the injustice of her being forced to accept a bond with someone for political or spiritual/societal reasons. So while to Rhys it may seem like Azriel is is putting Lucien’s claim down in order to boost his own, I actually think Azriel is trying to distinguish a different issue - Elain’s agency. This same thing happened with Mor and Eris. ABSOLUTELY THIS IS NOT ALL LIKE THAT SITUATION BECAUSE LUCIEN IS NOT ERIS!!! I am not trying to compare their behavior. BUT, Azriel would have dueled Eris for Mor’s agency regardless of whether or not she chose to be with him.

“So you’ll what?” Rhys’s voice was pure ice. “Seduce her away from him?” Rhys, I think, misinterpreting Azriel and it’s mostly not Rhys’s fault. Azriel doesn’t communicate well and is not currently communicating well. That being said, I wish he would give Azriel more benefit of the doubt.

Azriel said nothing. He hadn’t got that far with his planning, certainly not beyond the fantasies he pleasured himself to. HE HADN’T PLANNED ANYTHING, this whole conversation is just like a raw nerve.

Rhys growled, “Allow me to make one thing very clear. You are to stay away from her.” Well come on, now, Rhys, what if she doesn’t want to stay away from him? BE A FEMINIST RHYS, just add, “unless she wants to see you”!

ALSO, DID RHYS TELL FEYRE ABOUT THIS? MY MONEY IS ON NO, AND IF RHYS DIDN’T TELL HER ITS BECAUSE HE KNOWS HE’S NOT WHOLLY DOING THE RIGHT THING BY ELAIN.

“You can’t order me to do that.”

“Oh, I can, and I will. If Lucien finds out you’re pursuing her, he has every right to defend their bond as he sees fit. Including invoking the Blood Duel.” Another really big sign that this is going to play out Elriel style is the mentioning of the Blood Duel. Chekhov’s gun eh?

“That’s an Autumn Court tradition.” The battle to the death was so brutal that it was only enacted in rare cases. Despite being an outsider, Azriel had wanted to to invoke it when he’d found Mor all those years ago. Had been ready to challenge both Beron and Eris to Blood Duels and kill them both. Yes see? He would have done this regardless of Mor’s feelings toward him. Only Mor’s right to claim their heads in vengeance had kept him from doing so.

“Lucien, as Beron’s son, has the right to demand it of you.” But hey fun fact Rhys knows that Lucien is almost CERTAINLY not Beron’s son. Interesting to consider in context.

“I’ll defeat him with little effort.” Pure arrogance laced every word, but it was true. Again, Azriel is dodging Rhys’s points and is honestly being pretty immature right now, but he hasn’t actually said ANYTHING about an intention to pursue Elain with any of this. Rhys has filled in the blanks, and Azriel has responded to smaller aspects of Rhys’s macro-points with which he finds fault. I think this is also because he knows Rhys is right about a lot of the realities of the situation, but he is in the mood to be contrary right now, so he’s fighting back where he can stomach it.

“I know.” Rhys’s eyes flickered. “And your doing so will rip apart any fragile peace and alliances we have, not only with the Autumn Court, but Also with the Spring Court and Jurian and Vassa.” Rhys bared his teeth. Rhys’s motivations are based entirely on things that have nothing to do with Elain’s feelings, which is sad. But, they’re not insignificant considerations. Though come on dude you did pretty much enable Hybern’s arrival to Prythian by alienating The Spring Court with Feyre’s escape.“So you will leave Elain alone. YES, ALONE, because Elain probably is PRETTY FREAKIN LONELY If you need to fuck someone, go to a pleasure hall and pay for it, but stay away from her.” Low. Blow.

Azriel snarled softly.

“Snarl all you want.” Rhys leaned back in his chair. “But if I see you panting after her again, I’ll make you regret it.” I do think this is a really ungenerous description of what was happening downstairs with Elain. Their interaction was careful and consensual, we have painstaking detail to prove that, and it was far from panting/animalistic in action.

Rhys had rarely threatened punishment or pulled rank. It stunned Azriel enough that it knocked him from his rage. This is another person taking ANOTHER choice away from Elain. I think she may find out about Rhys doing this and I personally think she’s gonna be rightfully pissed.

Rhys jerked his chin toward the door. “Get out.”

Azriel tucked in his wings and left without another word, stalking through the house and onto the front lawn to sit in the frigid starlight. To let the frost in his veins match the air around him.

Until he felt nothing. Was again nothing at all. With Elain, he is SOMETHING. Because he feels things.

Then he flew to the House of Wind, knowing that if he slept in the riverside manor, he’d do something he regretted. He’d been so vigilant about keeping away from Elain as much as possible, Further evidence that Azriel never intended to fight Lucien or make a stink over Elain and had stayed up here to avoid her, and tonight... tonight had proved he’d been right to do so.

He aimed for the training pit, giving in to the need to work off the temptation, the rage and frustration and writhing need.

He found it occupied. His shadows had not warned him. I am not sure what it means that his shadows didn’t warn him. It could mean that Gwyn is protected from his shadows/immune to them. It could mean that his shadows wanted him to go see Gwyn - either out of a desire for Azriel to find some peace with her or out of curiosity as to who/what she is?

It was too late to bank without appearing like he was running. Azriel landed in the ring a few feet from where Gwyn practiced in the chill night, her sword glimmering like ice in the moonlight.

She stopped mid-slice, whirling to face him. “I’m sorry. I knew you all were going to the river house, so I didn’t think anyone would mind if I came up here and—“

“It’s fine. I came here to retrieve something I forgot.” The lie was smooth and cool, as he knew his face was. His shadows peered over his wings at her. They are… wary of her? They’re shy around her?

The young priestess smiled — and Azriel thought it might have been directed at his curious shadows. But she just hooked her coppery-brown hair behind an arched ear. “I was trying to cut the ribbon.” She pointed with her sword at the white ribbon, which seemed to glow silver. Some interesting language here and above (glimmering, glow etc.) to do with light, and again a juxtaposition between light and dark. But not a golden light, a colder/silver light.

“Aren’t you cold?” His breath clouded in front of him.

Gwyn shrugged. “Once you get moving, you stop noticing it.”

He nodded, silence falling. For a heartbeat, their gazes met. Gaze is definitely a romantically charged word, this is one of the tiny details that makes me unsure about the future nature of their relationship. He blocked out the bloody memory that flashed, so at odds with the Gwyn he saw before him now. I definitely do not think they are mates. I’m not closing the door on them being romantically involved, I don’t have enough evidence to do that, but I really think that if they were mates, Azriel would have known when he saw her at Sangravah.

Her head ducked, as if remembering it too. That he’d been the one who’d found her that day at Sangravah. Shades of Cassian’s reactions to Emerie’s wings having been clipped, in ACOFAS. “Happy Solstice,” she said, as much a dismissal as it was a holiday blessing.

He snorted. “Are you kicking me out?”

Gwyn’s teal eyes I have a lot to say about these teal eyes :) flashed with alarm. “No! I mean, I don’t mind sharing the ring. I just... I know you like to be alone.” Her mouth quirked to the side, crinkling the freckles on her nose. “Is that why you came up here?” I’ll talk more about this later, but there are a few small moments in the book where it seems like Gwyn might have a crush on Azriel, or some kind of special awareness/interest where he is concerned. I have seen almost no evidence that Az returns those potential feelings, except PERHAPS for the moment where he hears her screech and pays attention. But I think anyone would pay attention if someone screeched? Also he watches reverently as she cuts the ribbon, but that also feels like it would happen regardless of any romantic feelings he might have. But I don’t know for sure!

Sort of. “I forgot something.”

“At two in the morning?”

Pure amusement glittered in her stare. Better than the pain and grief he’d spied a moment before. So he offered her a crooked smile. He cares that she not be feeling pain and grief, as he does with anyone he deems good, and that is part of why he offers her the smile, as he clearly says right here. “I can’t sleep without my favorite dagger.”

“A comfort to every growing child.”

Azriel’s lips twitched. I think her irreverence matches his sense of humor quite well. He refrained from mentioning that he did indeed sleep with a dagger. Many daggers. Including one under his pillow.

“How was the party?” Her breath curled in front of her mouth, and one of his shadows darted out to dance with it before twirling back to him. Like it heard some silent music. This shadow is acting totally independent of him. She’s asking a simple question of Azriel at the moment, and he CAN’T hear the music he believes that shadow might be dancing to. Lightsinger evidence, I’d say.

“Fine,” he said, and realized a heartbeat later that it wasn’t a socially acceptable answer. “It was nice.” LOL I will say here that Azriel has to make a lot of conscious effort in this interaction. He makes himself respond in a specific way, which is not language that was used to describe his interactions with Elain earlier in the chapter. This could totally just be because he doesn’t know Gwyn that well, and certainly that’s a big part of it, but I think there’s something to be said for the fact that he is still filtering himself here with Gwyn in the quiet.

Not much better. So he asked, “Did you can the priestesses have a celebration?”

“Yes, though the service was the main highlight.”

“I see.” LOL

She angled her head, hair shining like molten metal. More glowing-type stuff “Do you sing?” I love Gwyn.

He blinked. It wasn’t everyday that people took him by surprise, but... which is great! Elain surprises him with the headache medicine in ACOFAS, Feyre surprises him with her intuition and tenderness throughout. I think this indicates that they will have a significant relationship regardless of its exact nature. “Why do you ask?”

“They call you shadowsinger. Is it because you sing?”

“I am a shadowsinger— it’s not a title that someone just made up.” It’s super-duper interesting that they actually discuss the fact that he’s a shadowsinger. When Feyre meets Azriel, she is curious, but specifically doesn’t ask follow-up questions or for expansion on the ability. Why specifically remind us here that Azriel is a shadowsinger and that Gwyn sings? If not to foreshadow something related to the ability and Gwyn?

She shrugged again, irreverently. Az narrowed his eyes, studying her. “Do you though?” She pressed. “Sing?”

Azriel couldn’t help his soft chuckle. “Yes.” I love Gwyn. She is the reason I now realize a lot of what I’ve been doing in my life is irreverence :P

She opened her mouth to ask more, but he didn’t feel like explaining. Or demonstrating, since that was surely what she’d ask next. So Az jerked his chin to the sword dangling from her hand. “Try cutting the ribbon again.” I love this so much. Maybe it is romantic, but I think that’s debatable. What’s not debatable is that it’s completely charming.

“What— with you watching?” It’s actually pretty funny that in order to avoid giving a demonstration of something that makes him vulnerable and puts Gwyn in the role of expert he flips it and makes her demonstrate vulnerability while he is the expert. Gwyn might be quite a bit braver than Azriel in some ways.

He nodded.

She considered, and he wondered if she’d say no, but Gwyn blew out a breath, steadied her feet and balance, and sliced. A beautiful, precise blow, but it didn’t sever the ribbon. SEE? Brave. I love Gwyn.

“Again,” he ordered, rubbing his hands against the cold, grateful for its bracing bite and the distraction of this impromptu lesson. Distraction is a notable word here. Azriel’s thoughts don’t really ever stray from Elain and his turmoil throughout this interaction, that’s what the word distraction tells us.

Gwyn sliced again, but the ribbon remained unyielding.

“You’re turning the blade a fraction as it comes parallel to the ground,” Azriel explained, drawing his Illyrian blade from down his back. “Watch.” He slowly demonstrated, rotating his wrist where she did. “You see how you open up right here?” He corrected his position. “Keep your wrist like that. The blade is an extension of your arm.”

Gwyn tried the movement as slowly as he had, and he watched her self-correct, fighting against the urge to open up her wrist and rotate the blade. She did it three times before she stopped falling into the bad habit. “I blame Cassian for this. He’s too busy making eyes at Nesta to notice such mistakes these days.”

Azriel laughed. “I’ll give you that.” I sense a lot of compatibility, just, again, not sure it’s romantic.

Gwyn smiled broadly. “Thank you.”

Azriel dipped his head in a sketch of a bow, something restless settling in him. Even his shadows had calmed. As if content to lounge on his shoulders and watch. This is another line that I think offers the most evidence for something significant between Gwyn and Azriel. It’s lovely that she has helped to settle something restless in him with the distraction - and I think it’s important to note that it might not have done the same thing had he encountered Emerie or another trainee on the roof. At the same time, maybe it would have. Also love that his shadows like to watch Gwyn. Lightsinger/Shadowsinger evidence! This all being said, I can’t really think of an SJM romance that is built around a comfort zone. I can think of many friendships that operate that way, but not so much with the romances. There’s usually nervousness and flutters and passion and… restlessness, somewhere in there.

But— sleep. He needed to at least attempt to get some.

“Happy Solstice,” Azriel said before aiming for the archway into the House. “Don’t stay out too much longer. You’ll freeze.”

Gwyn nodded her farewell, again facing the ribbon. A warrior sizing up an opponent, all traces of that charming irreverence gone. I love Gwyn.

Azriel entered the warmth of the stairwell, and as he descended, he could have sworn a faint, beautiful singing followed him. Could have sworn his shadows sang in answer. This feels VERY much like Lightsinger/Shadowsinger evidence. His shadows, as this chapter has demonstrated time and again, operate independently of him, and they react to Gwyn’s song. I also think it’s possible that Gwyn is sort of always singing, even when she’s not. Like she glows with song on some level, and that’s what his shadows are reacting to - because I don’t think she’d necessarily actually sing while attempting to cut the ribbon.

He slept as well as could be expected which means pretty much not at all y’all — he makes it clear he never expects to sleep well, but when Azriel returned to the River House to gather his presents before dawn, he found Elain’s necklace amid the pile. He pocketed it. Spent the rest of his day, even the blasted snowball fight, with every intention of returning it to the shop in the Palace of Thread and Jewels. How did the necklace get there??? Did Elain really put it there??? Seems like even more evidence that he assumes too much about her understanding of his feelings. Also, though, it seems really rude/OOC for Elain to do that. She gave up very quickly after he gave her a really thoughtful gift. SOMETHING’S FISHY.

But when he returned from the cabin in the mountains, he didn’t go to the market square.

Instead, he found himself at the library beneath the House of Wind, standing before Clotho as the clock chimed seven in the evening. Important to remember that this is one of the longest nights of the year, which means dusk is coming on later than it was when Nesta attended the evening service weeks/months prior- a service that started almost exactly when seven bells rang the time. It is very well possible that Azriel finds himself at the library as the evening service is happening. The one in which Gwyn sings. If she does have some kind of Lightsinger power in her, it may be that he was lured by that power instead of returning the necklace. Even if they always start at 7, he still arrives exactly at 7. The only point against this surmising that I’ve done is that Clotho led the service which Nesta attended, and yet she is here to greet Azriel. Either I’m wrong and the service is not happening at or around this time, OR the service can take place without Clotho occasionally, and this served the interest of the plot so that Az could speak with someone.

He slid the small box across her desk. “If you see Gwyn, would you give this to her?”

Clotho angled her hooded head, and her enchanted pen wrote on a piece of paper. A Solstice gift from you?

Azriel shrugged. “Don’t tell her it came from me.” Yes, it really doesn’t seem super romantic to re-gift a necklace to Gwyn. It just feels sour, if this is the start of a romance between them.

Why?

“Does she need to know? Just tell her it was a gift from Rhys.”

That would be a lie.

He avoided the urge to cross his arms, not wanting to look intimidating. He blocked out the memory that flashed— of his mother cringing before his father, the male standing with crossed arms in such a way that made his displeasure known before he opened his hateful mouth. This feels very important. We know VERY LITTLE about Azriel’s story, his past, and his family, and so I want to point out ANY and EVERY nugget we get!

“Look I...” Az searched for the words, his voice becoming quiet. “If there’s another priestess here who might appreciate it, give it to them. But I’m not taking that necklace with me when I leave.” I’m not exactly sure what it means that Azriel says this. It could be that he doesn’t want to make a thing of his potential feelings for Gwyn and so tries to deflect with this statement, both to convince Clotho and himself that it’s not about Gwyn. It could also mean that Azriel needed to be rid of the necklace, and wasn’t in the mood to fight with Clotho over an ultimately secondary (to getting rid of the necklace) impulse to give it to someone who provided him comfort and companionship at a time when he needed it.

He waited for Clotho’s pen to finish writing. Your eyes are sad, Shadowsinger.

He offered her a grim smile. “I lost the snowball fight today.” HE LOST THE FIRST SNOWBALL FIGHT IN 200 YEARS! And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because Gwyn made him feel better the previous night. I think he lost because he is in anguish over the situation with Elain. Again, I understand that anguish shouldn’t necessarily be a romantic thing, but in SJM’s writing it often is. This is a romance series, angst is a thing, stakes are a thing. It’s not necessarily the most healthy, but it’s also not all-the-way unhealthy. He just feels strongly about Elain and there are a lot of obstacles between him and finding a way to resolve those feelings for good or bad.

I am a counselor for folks who have and are dealt/dealing with sexual, gender-based, and interpersonal violence, and if you want me to do an analysis of all of the relationships in SJM’s writing that aren’t wholly healthy, there won’t be any left over. Except for maybe Sartaq and Nesryn. they really do have their shit together. I suspend a fair amount of my disbelief and professional knowledge in reading these books because I love them and they are fictional :) Also, relationships are complicated. It’s pretty rare for me to work with a client that has a cut-and-dry, black-and-white story.

Now, in my PERSONAL NOT PROFESSIONAL experience, shit is messy, and messiness, even in real life, doesn’t always mean something isn’t worth the strife. Though absolutely abuse and assault are a whole other thing. I think it’s really good to think critically about relationship dynamics in fiction, because it’s a safe place to do great learning and reflection. I also think it’s important to consider that the rules of our reality are not necessarily the rules of the reality being written by an author. Maybe you personally find Azriel’s feelings toward Elain (as they have been expressed so far) are beyond redemption, and are unhealthy to a point where the relationship cannot be salvaged. But that is not realistically a reason that the relationship in question won’t happen. Pretty much any negative/toxic assertions that can be leveled against Elriel based on the VERY SMALL amount of first-person perspective we have in the relationship could be leveled against at least a few of SJM’s other endgame couples. Totally happy to get into this more and provide those examples :)

Clotho was smart enough to see through his deflection. She wrote, I’ll give it to Gwyneth. Tell her a friend left it for her.

He wouldn’t go so far as to call Gwyn a friend, but... “Fine. Thank you.” Not sure what this means. Maybe just that it takes Az a while to open up to people and call them friends.

Clotho’s pen moved once more. She deserves something as beautiful as this. I thank you for the joy it shall bring her.

Something sparked in Azriel’s chest, but he only nodded his thanks and left. He could picture it, though, as he ascended the stairs back to the House proper. How Gwyn’s teal eyes might light upon seeing the necklace. For whatever reason... he could see it. And here we have the most romantic evidence for Az and Gwyn as a couple. Maybe he is falling for her and that’s why he can picture her smile. I really don’t know. I think it could also be that he is happy to be able to make her happy, in recognition of the comfort she gave him the previous evening. Maybe he can picture her because of her potential lightsinger status. Thoughts?

But Azriel tucked away the thought, consciously erasing the slight smile it brought to his face. Buried the image down deep, where it glowed quietly. The image glowing, again, lightsinger-supporting language.

A thing of secret, lovely beauty. So now he is referring to Gwyn’s smile here. This is interesting, because Gwyn’s smile wouldn’t necessarily be a secret, but perhaps it is if you think of her as being hidden in the library, or that he’ll know about her smile and her receiving the necklace even though she won’t know that he’s the one who gave it to her. Or maybe he’s drop dead in love with her! Another thing that I don’t think is true given his stony attitude post-Solstice (when Gwyn is very much around) and the fact that he doesn’t seem to react viscerally to Gwyn’s kidnapping until Cassian points out that bad things could be happening to both her AND Emerie, as well as Nesta. He knows Gwyn just as well, if not better at this point, as he knew Elain when he reacted to HER kidnapping in ACOWAR. He was very riled, he was the one who noticed she was gone, he vowed almost immediately to go get her, knowing it might mean certain death (to be fair, he seems to have a bit of a death wish, BUT he’s still a pragmatist and doesn’t try to WASTE his life on things - either they’re essential to the court and/or Prythian’s wellbeing or essential to someone for whom he cares deeply.)

#azriel #azriel shadowsinger #elriel #elain archeron #rhysand #gwyn acosf #acosf #acotar theory #acosf theory #azriel bonus chapter #azriel pov #azriel x elain #lightsinger #shadowsinger

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byunbaekby · 4 years

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Home (l.jn)

Pairing: Reader x Jeno Warnings: Language, loss of virginity, safe sex, alcohol use Summary: The story of your first love, which never truly ends for anyone. Luckily for you, Lee Jeno was the perfect first boyfriend. The struggle for you is trying to be perfect for him. Words: 11.6k

You had a thing for perfection.

It was something that had been ingrained into you from the moment you were born, to an entrepreneur mother and a father who was a cardiac surgeon. As soon as you could walk, you were placed in dance classes and trained from that moment on. You had practically tried every playable club sport in Korea. In addition to these demanding extracurriculars, your parents also expected school to remain your top priority.

It was a tiring life, trying to be perfect. But even so, even you yourself had learned to never settle for anything less than.

The way you meet Lee Jeno is perfect.

It was a rare weekend off for you, without swim practice or dance rehearsal to attend or an upcoming test to study for. You wanted to do something, free from the restraints and stresses of your overworked life—rarely were you ever able to simply let loose and enjoy the short vacation from school allotted by the weekend.

That is how you find yourself walking arm in arm with your best friend Heejin down the trails of the town’s harvest festival, an annual weekend-long celebration to welcome the oncoming Halloween holiday. There were booths manned by the local businesses, contests with sizable prizes, and games for the children to partake in.

As you tread down the pathway with your best friend in tow, you close your eyes and take a slight whiff, relishing in the smell of nature and the breeze against your shoulders. One could never appreciate the idyllic simplicity of life until they were too busy to even breathe. “You really should get out more, babe. I feel like we haven’t hung out in forever,” you hear your best friend saying, her attention turned to the nearby booth selling churros.

“You say that like it’s a choice, Heej.” You retort quickly, a simpering smile at your lips despite the fact that you know it actually is: it is simply you who overloads yourself with work.

“No, it’s not, not with you and your busybody ways,” she replies with a laugh, tugging you along. “I just.. miss my best friend sometimes.”

You sigh, a sharp juxtaposition to the festive mood of your surrounding environment. “I know. I miss you too, Heej. But.. we’re here, right? Let’s enjoy our time together!” Your response brings a grin over your best friend’s lips and immediately she nods, glad to have you back.

The two of you spend the next hour filling your stomachs with sugary treats and playing games intended for children age ten and below. The hour is filled with laughs and grateful glances at your best friend, having been too long since the first time in a long time that you had experienced such carefree joy.

You’re once again sauntering through the pathways of the festival when you hear Heejin’s whispered voice in your ear: “Dude, hottie at three’o’clock in the pumpkin patch. Look at him!”

Your best friend had always been a bit boy-crazy. So, you laugh and turn your attention in that direction, your grin dissipating as your gaze falls upon likely the most attractive male you’ve ever seen.

You catch him mid-laugh, so his smile is the first blessing you witness. Teeth bared in a wide smile, his eyesmile is enough to make you melt, and you feel an overwhelming desire to match his smile. Once you get over your initial shock at the beauty of his smile, you’re able to take in the remainder of his appearance. His hair is dark, shaggy as it falls over his eyes slightly. He has a lanky build, though you can see the slight outline of muscled arms beneath the sleeves of his t-shirt. Said t-shirt is bright orange, a typically unsightly color, and from your distance you can make out the words.

Oh, you realize. He’s a part of your town’s youth committee, dedicated to community service and other activities. This makes sense now, as you observe the way he smiles brightly while he helps a little girl pick out a pumpkin. He’s volunteering, you realize.

Your heart swells a bit, and you curse inwardly; it’s already happening.

Before you can register it, Heejin is already tugging you by the arm to the enclosed area, where families can buy pumpkins to make their own homemade jack-o-lanterns. “What are you doing?” You whisper to her in surprise as she pulls you to look at one of the many piles of pumpkins.

“Nothing,” she responds with a knowing smile, feigning interest in the pile of orange squash. “Just getting a closer look.” Not so discreetly, she lifts her head and looks over her shoulder to where Pumpkin Boy is helping the little girl and her family check out, a hefty pumpkin on the father’s shoulders.

“This is a bit too close… too obvious,” you tell her cautiously as she turns back to stare at the pumpkins of animated interest. It wasn’t that you weren’t interested in boys; you rarely had time for them, so much that your past flings were barely significant at all before you were forced to break up with them for the sake of your schedule. Now, having just turned seventeen, you had never had a serious boyfriend. If anything, you were wary of boys. Especially handsome ones like him, with a smile to melt a heart.

“Okay, but would you look at him? Why can’t the guys at our school look like that?” She whines, already turning back to steal another look. “Oh- he’s gone.” Her voice is confused, and dejected. With curious eyes betraying you, you follow her line of sight to find that he has, indeed, disappeared from the table he previously occupied.

“Can I help you ladies?”

The sudden deep voice takes you by surprise, and the two of you yelp as you jump in surprise, turning back to find none other than Pumpkin Boy himself, a friendly smile on his face. “Sorry,” he says, a deep chuckle leaving his throat next. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Were you girls looking for pumpkins?”

For a moment neither of you say anything, until Heejin clears her throat and nods while trying to hide the unsettlement in her voice. “Uh, yeah, we were.. Recommendations?”

“Depends what you’re looking for,” he leans down to roll over a pumpkin, moving it into place from where it had fallen out from its display. “Small or big?”

“Small,” is her immediate reply. A small pumpkin would definitely be cheaper, and as he leans down to search for a fitting pumpkin you slap your best friend’s arm, confusion in your eyes. Was she seriously going to put down actual money just to talk to a cute boy? She was unbelievable, but that was why you loved her: where you were quiet and studious, Heejin was always upbeat and bold, something you wished more of for yourself.

Pumpkin Boy soon stands straight again, and hands a small hand-sized pumpkin over to your friend with a thoughtful gaze, as though he truly cared about the state of the pumpkins he was selling. “What do you think about this one?” Without any disagreement she takes the pumpkin from his hands, already nodding.

“Exactly what I was looking for!” She responds, causing you to roll your eyes in amusement.

Though you thought he hadn’t noticed you, Pumpkin Boy turns to you. “And for you, beautiful? A small one too?”

His direct statement catches you off guard, and you swear your eyes widen as the air leaves your lungs. Did he just.. call you beautiful? You can almost feel Heejin’s excitement from beside you. Clearing your throat to mask your shock, you nod before replying with a small voice. “S-Sure.”

Immediately he is down again, searching for another small, hand-sized pumpkin to suit you. When he crouches to do his job, Heejin turns to you with her mouth open and her eyes full of elation, as though to say “He just called you beautiful!” You can practically hear it in her voice.

He stands again, hands sporting yet another pumpkin, similar to the one Heejin currently nests in her hands. “What do you think?”

The sincerity with which he gazes at you causes you to nod. “Perfect.”

“Great!” He responds, starting to walk to the tables where you can pay for your items, your pumpkin still resting in his large hands. Though it cannot weigh more than five pounds alone, your best friend looks to you with an overjoyed look at the fact that he is carrying your pumpkin for you. “I’ll help you two ladies out at checkout then.”

You follow him to the checkout area, where he places your pumpkin on the table that he stands behind. He reads out your prices to you, and Heejin pulls out her wallet to pay first while you observe his side profile. From all angles, he is undeniably handsome.

Then he looks to you, pulling you from your nervous stupor. With quick hands you pull out a paper bill from your wallet and hand it to him, which he accepts with a polite smile.

“You’re all settled,” he tells the two of you, though he hands each of you a business card over the table, one in each hand. “I’m a part of the youth committee,” he explains as you each take the business cards from him. “We’re all in high school, and we’d love to have more members.”

With another heart-stopping smile, he thanks you for your purchase and bids you two goodbye. As the two of you exit the area with your pumpkins in hand (easily handled in only one hand), you bid a silent farewell to him, the handsome boy who you’ll likely never see again. If only, you wish, you were a bit more bold and unafraid.

Goodbye Pumpkin Boy, you think to yourself as you look over the business card in hand. Your eyes bulge at the sight as you flip over the card to the blank side: Lee Jeno :) XXX-XXX-XXXX

You can barely keep the grin off your face as Heejin nearly drops her pumpkin, screaming in joy for you.

Once you arrive home, you text him with Heejin’s encouragement.

She complains half-heartedly that you don’t seem to be nearly as excited as she is, though she congrats you with an amused smile. In fact, your excitement is greatly hidden: you had never been the friend, between the two of you, to get boys’ numbers. Now that you have, a strange feeling of happiness makes its way into your chest.

After Heejin leaves, you text him. New pet pumpkin tucked on the windowsill of your bedroom, you type his number into your phone meticulously, and send the first nervous text.

To: XXX-XXX-XXXX Hi, is this.. Jeno? I’m the girl from the festival.

You frown at the message. It is so bland, so uninteresting. Why had he been interested in you? You’re surprised, however, when your phone beeps only a minute later.

From: XXX-XXX-XXXX Hey. Yeah, it’s Jeno :)

From: XXX-XXX-XXXX Did you make it home safe?

A smile bites at your lips as you quickly type a response.

To: XXX-XXX-XXXX I did. Did you finish volunteering?

His reply is just as fast as yours, if not faster.

From: XXX-XXX-XXX Yup, we just finished putting all the pumpkins away. Heavy, those things.

You chuckle, sparing a glance to the pumpkin on your windowsill.

To: XXX-XXX-XXXX Well thank you for your hard work. I’ll appreciate my pumpkin very much.

From: XXX-XXX-XXXX I hope you do.

From: XXX-XXX-XXX Listen, I’ve got to go but I’d love to talk to you some more. I’m glad you came to the patch today.

Your mind runs over to earlier this morning, when you had greatly battled Heejin’s decision to take you to the harvest festival on your day off. Surely, you should learn to trust your best friend’s intuition more often.

To: XXX-XXX-XXX Me too. I’ll talk to you later.

From: XXX-XXX-XXX Bye :)

You lean back in your bed to suppress the shy, overjoyed shrieks that threaten to leave your mouth and despite knowing full and well that his name is Jeno, you save his number under the name Pumpkin Boy.

Over the next few weeks, you indeed learn that Lee Jeno is just as kind as his first impression.

You learn that his birthday is in late April, a few months preceding yours. Somehow he lets it slip that he too, has never been in a serious relationship. Through a thorough game of twenty questions over the phone you learn that he plays volleyball at his high school as the libero, drives a car older than him, and dislikes mint chocolate chip ice cream.

The ice cream part is enough to cause your mint-loving self to make a face, but not enough to stop your feelings from growing rapidly.

It is the first time that you have freely conversed with someone besides Heejin without inhibitions or worries. Talking to Jeno comes so easily, no second thoughts.

Though he attends a different high school than you, this doesn’t seem to hinder your conversations, and you find yourself always wanting to talk to him. He texts you good morning, and you respond. You text throughout the day between classes, and he sends you one last smile-inducing message before going into volleyball practice. You take this time to study, so that you can be free when he comes out. On days that you have rehearsal, you’re lucky that these after school practices for your dance team occur at virtually the same time as his volleyball practices.

Since your meeting you’ve met only a handful of times. You went out once, to get ice cream (which was how you came to learn of his abominable opinions about your favorite flavor). The next, he invited you to watch him play a match at his school. You had been amazed then, at how this soft kind boy turned into a focused monster on the volleyball court. Then, you had met him for lunch, while telling your parents that you were meeting up with Heejin to study.

You share your first kiss when he comes to play a volleyball game at your school.

It is after the game has finished with your school facing an embarrassing defeat, and Jeno is walking with you down the open breezeways, that he kisses you.

He presses his lips to yours softly, but not without asking for permission, at which your heart warms. Dropping his volleyball bag to the floor without second thoughts, he tilts your face slightly upward by the chin, meets your lips, and you swear your world stops.

You’ve been kissed before, but never like this. It’s overwhelmingly, in every sense of the word, perfect.

Though he pulls away after a moment, you smile with only an inch between your lips, and pull him back to you. In that moment you feel an overwhelming joy down to your bones, and a strange power at your ability to initiate your second kiss. You feel weightless, yet there is an undeniable force tethering you down. It is Jeno, himself.

You realize then, this is what first kisses are supposed to feel like.

When you finally pull away to gasp for air, you register his laughing and a quiet “Wow.”

When he walks you off campus and out to your campus, he intertwines your fingers together. Your hands slip effortlessly into each other, curling naturally as though they were made for each other.

Three months have passed since you met when you’re laying in bed with only your bedside lamp on, hands hidden in your sweater as you FaceTime Jeno.

On the other end, he is wearing a hoodie and grey sweatpants, placing you on his nightstand as he gazes at you from his bed. He props his head up with his elbow, and smiles at you as you go on and on about your day. He peers at you with full interest from over his glasses, which you’ve seen him wear only a number of times.

It’s a Sunday night, nearing 11PM, but you don’t tell Jeno that you have a calculus test you’re supposed to be studying for. For all your parents know, that’s precisely what you’re doing in your room right now. But it’s not. Rather, you’re enjoying yourself with a bright laugh as you listen to Jeno retell a joke that his friend Jaemin had made earlier in the day.

“It was a lame joke,” you tell him once he finishes, leaving you in residual giggles.

“Why are you laughing then?” He raises an eyebrow, though an amused smile makes home across his face.

“Because you’re funny.” is your quick reply, covering your mouth with your sweater-covered hands. You simply cannot help the giggles that escape your mouth, a bright sound in the dull space of your room. Jeno simply has this effect on you; with only a smile or a lame joke, he is able to turn your dreary world into a place of carefree conversation and uncontrollable laughter.

Unable to control himself at how you simply fall apart at his joke, Jeno mirrors your laughter, though the sound is much different than yours. His laugh is deep, and after months of hearing it you start to think that you could listen to him laugh forever.

“You’re so cute,” he tells you once your mutual laughter has died down. At his sudden confession, you have the decency to smile, a warm feeling of espousement spreading through your chest.

“You’re cuter,” you manage with a shy smile.

“Impossible.” If you were being honest, you were surprised at how smoothly Jeno delivered his sweet lines to you, considering his truth that he had never had a real girlfriend. It makes you smile now, thinking that perhaps like you were experiencing all these newfound emotions for the first time, he was too.

A moment of silence passes over you, though you don’t argue. You simply stare at each other, throwing strange ugly faces back and forth as you both attempt not to laugh.

You lose when he makes an irresistible face, crossing his eyes and sticking out his tongue. Exploding into giggles, you lean back in your bed and let the laughter overcome you, though you keep it quiet so as to not alert your parents of your lack of studying.

This was what you loved about Jeno. Never once did he make you feel that you were betraying your parents, for he always managed to make you smile in response.

When you finally quiet down after a fit of laughs, Jeno’s voice is sudden: “Be my girlfriend.”

Immediately your eyes widen, and you look at him surprised. The look on his face is just as shellshocked, as though he didn’t know the words that came out of his mouth. He quickly recovers, smooth as always.

“I really like you, Y/N. I like talking to you, and making you laugh, and hearing you laugh. I like seeing you all shy in your huge sweater, and I like the way you giggle when I kiss you. I like your mind, and the way you think, and even the way you think mint chocolate chip is the best flavor when it is far from the truth.”

His mention of ice cream makes you laugh again, pulling you from your shocked state. Only Lee Jeno himself would mention ice cream in a confession.

“I really wanted to wait, until we were in person. But you’re so busy, and I know you try to make time for me but you still are. And you’re laying there, looking so cute in your sweater and laughing so adorably, and I just-” He stops himself, taking a breath. “I couldn’t stop myself.”

“Will you be my girlfriend, Y/N?”

A warm smile makes its way across your face as you hug your blanket to your chest, as though you were hugging Jeno instead. “Yes.” You say finally, watching him break out into a bright smile at your response, sporting the famous eye smile that caught your eye in the first place.

Some people desire large grand-scale confessions of love, public and outrageous. On the other hand, some people prefer such moments to be small and intimate. Most people just want their confessions to be in person, actually.

But no, you decide that Jeno’s rushed and shy FaceTime confession is the best form, and the only one you want. It was perfect, and you could not imagine anything better.

Later when you yawn too loudly and Jeno wishes you goodnight with a “goodnight my adorable girlfriend,” you change his name from Pumpkin Boy to My Boy.

Your first date after becoming official is not even a date, really.

Jeno picks you up in his car, bids a nervous hello to your parents, and drives the two of you to the local library, where the two of you plan to study for your upcoming winter finals.

With final exams breathing down your back, the only way your parents will let you out is if you promise to study. Jeno finds no problem with this, so a week after that heart-fluttering FaceTime call, you find yourself pouring over your books alongside your boyfriend.

You were still trying to get used to calling him that.

What you didn’t need to get comfortable with was Jeno’s presence. Despite the majority of your conversations happening over the phone, you felt yourself slip into a comfortable silence with him as you both opened your textbooks.

His hand rests comfortably in yours, fingers curled together as the two of you look over your study materials. The library is quiet, though filled with students.

Though you try your best to focus, it is hard to stay so whenever you think about him next to you. He is wearing another casual t-shirt from the youth committee that you never ended up joining, and dark jeans with his glasses perched on his face. Without even trying, he looks effortlessly handsome. He constantly occupies your thoughts.

“Stop staring,” he says, not looking up from his notes. You pout.

“How did you know?”

“You started rubbing your thumb over my hand and you only do that when you stop reading.” Your pout grows deeper as you continue staring at his side profile, shamelessly now.

“I didn’t realize you were paying such close attention to me,” you respond while returning to your work with a sigh. There was surely no way you were going to be able to focus on physics and calculus with him right next to you.

“Of course I was. Just not as obvious as you,” he laughs lowly, careful not to disturb the silence of the library.

“Hmph,” is your response, as you begrudgingly turn the next page of your physics textbook. Oh, how boring simple harmonic motion is in comparison to the boy sitting next to you, who you’d much rather like to put your attention on.

“You wanted to study, now focus,” he says next, leaning in to place a chaste kiss on your cheek, leaving you warm with shyness. You simply don’t reply, just tightening your lips to prevent the proud smile threatening to spread across and returning your focus to your pages.

“Ah, so cute,” Jeno coos as he turns back to his textbooks.

Later when he returns you to your home he kisses you on the forehead and wishes you a quiet good luck on your exams. As he turns away and jogs back to his car, old indeed, you smile to yourself and think that this was the epitome of a great first date.

Finally summer comes, and you and Jeno are able to spend more time together.

Graduation has passed, both of you attending the other’s, and university awaits you. Though you and Jeno are attending the same university in Seoul, you know that this is the calm that awaits the storm. So, you take advantage of all the time this summer with the boy who has made his way into your heart.

Sometimes you found it difficult to comprehend that you had made it through six months in a relationship with him, given your schedules and both your lack of experience. Yes, your relationship was a ride, but you would do it all for him.

Especially now, as the two of you are connected in a liplock in his bedroom, you consider giving it all to him. Atop his bed, with him hovering over you with a kiss that makes your head spin, you feel for the first time a strong overwhelming desire.

His tongue slides over your lips and you let him in easily, these lines blurred as your tongue meets his. You’re not unaware of his hands that grip your hips, and the fervor with which he presses his body to yours. Within seconds his warmth is gone, and you pop your eyes open to find that he has pulled away to rid himself of his shirt. A smile makes its way across your face, and the shirt is long forgotten on the floor somewhere when he meets your lips once again.

Though the room is hot, you grow even warmer in the coming minutes as he presses his body to yours, your clothed cores meeting in a burning manner. Moaning into his mouth, you wrap your arms around his neck and pull him closer, begging for more friction.

He moans your name in response and groans, about to pull away. It is not the first time, after all, that the two of your have cut your makeout sessions off short.

You had discussed your virginities before, and had agreed that when the time came, it would be right. And to you, it felt right just about now.

“No,” you call out to him as he peels himself off of you and makes a move to get off the bed. Reaching to him, you grip him by the belt hook of his jeans, and pull him back atop of you.

Gaining newfound courage, you bury your face into the crook of his neck, kissing the skin. “I want you,” you moan into him before beginning to suckle on an area of skin.

You feel him tense in your hold, as though contemplating it, and he moans aloud. “Fuck, babe,” he curses as you pull away to reveal a pink spot at his neck, which will surely darken in the coming hours.

“Are you sure?” He asks, breath hot against your skin as he returns the favor, lips and teeth playing over the sensitive pallor of your neck. Yes, yes, yes. A hundred times yes.

You are sure there is nothing you’ve ever wanted more.

“Yes, Jeno,” you respond as you tilt your head back in pleasure, though it leaves your mouth as more of a moan than a reply. Not needing any further confirmation, he pulls away (getting a whine out of you) and reaches over to his nightstand, producing a condom from the drawer.

“I wanted to be prepared,” he explains sheepishly at your look.

“Whatever,” you respond, only reaching up to him to pull him back to you.

And your first time is indeed, with Jeno, all you imagined it to be.

The summer is a blessing.

Over the next few months, you are able to learn about Jeno in an entirely new way. It is almost intimate, the secrets and quirks you discover about this boy of yours.

You learn how to rile him up in a way that will surely end with him pinning you to the bed. You discover the spot on his neck that he loves you sucking on, and as he becomes increasingly daring in the progression of your sexual escapades, you come to find that no matter how rough he is in the act, he becomes the softest lover afterward.

But you also come to learn about what makes Jeno, Jeno.

You come to easily recognize the face that he makes when gaming, brows furrowed in concentration. Though he argues with you that he will watch whatever movie you want, you learn that he will almost always fall asleep in your arms whenever you turn on a chick flick rom com movie. You can’t even be mad at him, because you know he tried. As much as you told him it was okay to watch one of those action movies that he loved, he insisted on watching your movies, and that warmed your heart.

During your first sleepover, you find that Jeno likes to cuddle in his sleep. Though the victim is most often his pillow at home, it soon becomes you which he clings to in his sleep.

And when you’re not falling asleep in his arms, you do it to the careful sound of his steady breathing over the phone. It has become a routine now for the two of you, calling before bed and ultimately submitting to sleep together.

These are things that you have come to love, as much as you love Jeno.

It is what you have always desired in a relationship: the easygoing love, that didn’t ask for much. Comfortable, so much that he can tease you about how you snore and that you can smack him on the chest whenever he makes a dirty joke. So much that him in his pajamas becomes a familiar sight for you, and you learn to stop worrying over and controlling how you look around him. His love, in some ways, is like a blanket, enveloping you in all the warmth you need.

Jeno makes you comfortable, and that’s all you can ask for.

One night, in early August, you are on the phone when he says to you, “It’s 11:11, make a wish.” Instead of listening to him, you make a face which he catches over FaceTime.

“What’s with the face, missy?”

“11:11 is so.. ugly.” You respond, and he laughs, throwing his head back in that typical Jeno-style of his. Though you cannot explain any further, you get the idea that he knows what you mean.

Jeno has, of course, come to understand your affinity for perfection, and your obsession with being the best, as instilled by your parents. Therefore he understands what you mean without asking for a further explanation.

“It rubs you the wrong way, doesn’t it?” You nod. Though everyone claims it to be a magical time, you cannot help but feel that it looks off putting. Why 11:11, and not 10:10? It made more sense after all—ten was considered to be a perfect number, that’s why people say ten stars out of ten. The logic between 11:11 simply did not make sense to you.

Jeno seems to know you better than you know yourself, for he says just this. “I’m sure something like 10:10 appeals a lot more to you, huh?”

“How’d you know?” You ask, genuinely shocked as you tilt your head at him. Had you perhaps said your thoughts aloud?

“I’m your boyfriend. I know how you think,” he laughs matter-of-factly. At his laugh you pout a bit unknowingly, not sure how to feel at the revelation that he knew you just as well as you knew yourself. “Alright how about this. Let’s let the rest of the world be inferiors who make wishes at 11:11, but you and me will have our own special time. 10:10. Yeah?”

The idea is stupid, but you find yourself nodding and smiling at the same time. Warmth envelopes you once again, and you come to realize that this is love you feel for him, strong, potent, overwhelming love.

His idea was definitely stupid, but you were stupid in love with him.

The next morning you trudge your way down the stairs after staying up all night on the phone, looking for breakfast. In the midst of your preparations you hear your phone ring, so you look to it.

From: My Boy 10:10. I wish you’ll have a good day today, love.

You look up to the clock displayed on the stove and find that it is indeed that time. You’re surprised, honestly, that Jeno has managed to remember, though you shouldn’t be.

Yes, summer was a blessing and Lee Jeno was your’s.

Fall approaches quickly, signaling your impending departure from your home and toward adulthood. You are more than excited for your new university life, something you have worked toward your entire life.

And you’re more than thrilled to be doing it with Jeno beside you.

While you’re a business major and Jeno is studying kinesiology, you will be in two completely different buildings but that’s okay. The fact that you get to attend college with your boyfriend, something that you had worried about in the early stages of your relationship, is more than enough.

He helps you move into your dorm, and greets your roommate, Yerim. With his help you manage to unload the majority of your belongings, including many pictures of the two of you. Your roommate doesn’t miss the chance to point out your necklace, to which you smile. Jeno had gifted you a promise ring before the two of you left, and because you did not like the sensation of a ring on your finger, you had slid it onto a chain. It is with an admiring smile that Yerim comments, “You two must be serious.”

Yes, you are becoming an adult, and your love with Jeno has begun to mature.

What you don’t realize, is that it could mature for the worse.

College is busy, and you come to realize this.

Jeno is still playing volleyball for the school team, and his practice schedule is much more demanding than in high school. Likewise, you have joined the school’s dance team, because you simply cannot give up your first love of dancing.

You both have full school schedules atop extracurricular activities and part time jobs. So, it becomes increasingly difficult to plan dates, even study dates which had been your easy escape in high school.

Now, the two of you lay in your bed at the dorm, relishing in the rare presence of each other.

“How about Thursday, after your lecture?” He asks as he inhales your familiar scent that he had begun to miss.

“I work on Thursday from 3 to 7.”

He sighs, warm against your scalp. “Okay, how about after work?”

You make a face, though it’s hidden to him. “I have rehearsal from 8 until 11. How about Saturday?”

“I have a game.”

“Oh, right.”

“Won’t you come? You can come watch,” he says as he pulls his face neck, instead looking down at you. “It’ll be like high school again, remember?” This is said with a smile and a nudge, for he is no doubt reminiscing about your first kiss.

You have to fight to keep the displeased expression from making a home across your features. Sure, you loved watching Jeno play, for he exerted a different energy on the court. However, you had a test on Monday and could surely use all the time you had to study for it. You had been willing to give up time to spend with your boyfriend, but if you attended the game you would only be watching him. If you were only going to be watching him and unable to interact with him until after the three hour match, then you’d rather take a raincheck until you are able to be with him in person. So you tell this to him, hoping that he will understand.

He is Jeno, so of course he does. Simply offering a nod in response, he presses a kiss to your forehead. “Makes sense. You should study, anyways,” he says this though he wears a disappointed smile.

“Is something wrong?” You ask as you look up to him with worry in your eyes.

“No,” he replies immediately with a shake of his head. “Nothing’s wrong, I promise. Don’t worry about me. I understand, babe.”

You know he does, because that’s what he’s best at: understanding you. He always has. And so you are not surprised that when Saturday morning comes, and you’re about to turn off your phone to enter the library, you see his text.

From: My Boy 10:10. I wish you good luck on your studying and your exam, my love.

You smile at your boyfriend, ever so thoughtful, and quickly type a response back before tucking your phone away.

To: My Boy Same here. I wish you good luck on your game ♡

The first time you do think something is wrong, is when you return to your dorm a little past 10PM after studying for your upcoming finals.

It is December now, and with your first ever college finals beginning to stress you out, you had invested in a little study group. Your boyfriend had texted earlier, asking when you’d be done; you had told him seven, but it had run a couple hours over.

You are just about ready to jump in bed and text him, only to find him already sitting on your bed when you open the door.

“Jeno,” you call, surprise clearly showing across your face. His eyes are not directed at you, but rather the bag of food that sits on your desk. You can read the label perfectly; it is from your favorite restaurant, about a thirty minute drive off campus.

Had he gotten it for you, because he knew you were stressed and overwhelmed with finals? That was so sweet of him, not that you expected any less. “Did you get dinner?” You ask as you shut the door behind you, already slipping off your jacket to prepare to be in his embrace.

“You said you'd be back at seven.” His voice is tired, but still remains an edge.

It occurs now to you that he’s angry. You two have had your fair share of arguments, considering Jeno was expressive with his thoughts and you had a tendency to ignore things that upset you. He’s angry because you’re late, and you sigh.

“I know, but we got caught up studying. You know much this course has been stressing me out,” you reason with him as you open the bag, pulling out plates of your favorite meals. Though your stomach growls in pleasurable hunger at the sight, Jeno remains seated on your bed with a stern expression.

“I’ve been here for hours. Couldn’t you have left early?”

“For dinner? I was studying, and my phone was turned off. I said I’m sorry, Jeno.” You reply sharply, getting quite annoyed with his behavior. Of course it was thoughtful of him to bring you dinner when you would have just settled on ramen, but he knew how you were when you were studying. Considering that you were taking nearly twice the amount of units as him, you thought he’d understand your workload. “If you wanted to have dinner together you could have just come find me at the library.”

“No, not for dinner. For our anniversary,” he spits out bitterly, turning his gaze away from you.

That’s when it hits you.

Your mouth falls open as your gaze at him; had you… forgotten your anniversary in the midst of your school-induced craze? There was no way. You would never.

Immediately you pull out the calendar from your desk, and search for today’s date.

No fucking way.

You had… forgotten your anniversary. A year ago today, around this same time, Jeno had shyly asked you to be his girlfriend over FaceTime. You had skipped studying to talk to him, and now, you had used studying as your excuse to forget such a monumental date.

Guilt washes over you within milliseconds, and you’re grasping for him. As soon as your fingers touch his arm he stands from your bed, frustration and disappointment on his face.

“Babe-” You call him, but he cuts you off.

“No. All this time I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, thinking you’d come back with some surprise to make up for being late. But no, not only were you late, you forgot. Is your studying that important?”

You are at a loss for an answer, because you know that the immediate answer in your head will only upset him: Yes. Yes, of course your studying is your priority, as your parents made it so. But the question you had to ask yourself was, was it more important than your boyfriend?

The fact that you cannot find an answer upsets both you and Jeno.

In a moment he’s already grabbed his hoodie and turned to leave. “Eat your dinner. Happy anniversary,” he calls bitterly behind him. Within seconds, he is gone.

And you immediately scramble for your phone, looking to call him, text him, anything. You know Jeno, that he gets upset and simply needs time to cool down, so you cannot go after him. But when he calms, you know that he will look at his phone, and so you want to give him something to see.

Your eyes fall upon the clock as you type your message, and though your anniversary is less than perfect, you hope that he will come back to you.

To: My Boy I’m sorry. It’s 10:10. My wish is that you’ll forgive me.

And so he does.

Your freshman year of college is coming to a close, and you have yet to attend a party.

Everyone tells you that it is a rite of passage in university, but you have not been able to pull yourself away from your books long enough to even consider a party. All of your time is divided between school, dance, and Jeno.

Jeno, on the other hand, being a part of the school’s official volleyball team, attends many parties. It is not so much that it is irritating or worrying, but he surely goes to enough parties that he begins asking you to come.

You are packing up your dorm, tucking your decorations into a box when you receive a text.

From: My Boy Hyuck is throwing a party tonight. End of the year stuff. Will you come?

Lee Donghyuck is someone that you don’t particularly like. Though your boyfriend has befriended him through their mutual membership on the team, you dislike the fact that he is throwing parties nearly every weekend, urging your boyfriend to attend. You wish that Jeno would stop being so nice for once, and just say no.

Much like you do.

From: My Boy Please? It’s the end of the year.

Glancing at the message on your lit up screen as you tape a box closed, you sigh. You had just finished your final exam hours earlier, and you wanted nothing more than to cuddle in bed with your boyfriend before you both headed home for the summer tomorrow. In fact, the last thing you wanted was to have to fight a hangover on the drive home.

To: My Boy Not feeling it. I still have to finish packing.

His reply comes immediately.

From: My Boy I’ll help you pack tomorrow. Come on, it’ll be fun.

To: My Boy Jeno, I said no. I’m exhausted and I want to finish packing now so I can rest.

To: My Boy I’m not in the mood to party.

You toss your phone onto the bed, and though it beeps quickly with his response, you don’t glance at it until you’ve packed away another box.

From: My Boy Can’t you have fun for once?

At his message your brows immediately furrow in displeasure and your fingers are quick in typing a response, growing increasingly annoyed by his badgering.

To: My Boy Did you come to university to study or to have fun and fail your classes?

It’s a low blow, for you know Jeno only failed his Intro to Psychology class because it was early in the mornings on the days after his volleyball practices past midnight. But it doesn’t mean you feel any less upset with him.

From: My Boy Wow. Did you come to university to study until your eyes bleed and you forget your anniversary?

Another low blow.

Your fingers move faster than your brain, and you send your response before you can even comprehend what you have written.

To: My Boy Yes, I did. Go to your party. But don’t bother picking me up tomorrow. I’d rather crash than drive with your hungover ass.

Once the weight of your words begin to sit on your shoulders, he responds, and you can almost feel his frustration.

From: My Boy Fine.

You don’t sleep that night.

You had asked your mom to pick you up from your school, and you were glad that she had not asked any questions regarding your original plans to return with Jeno.

Rather, she shows up early in the morning and helps you load your belongings into the car. So early in fact, that when Jeno knocks on your door around noon, all he meets is Yerim who tells him you had already left.

As much as you hate to admit it, there is a bit of satisfaction in your chest when Yerim texts you to tell you this. You had planned to leave at 10AM with him anyways, yet he hadn’t even woken up from his hungover stupor until near noon. It only goes to show that you had been right after all.

Jeno was too much about fun, and you knew that was detrimental to him.

In fact, the two of you spend the first week of summer vacation ignoring each other. He texts you a few times, to which you give short responses. You do not pick up his calls, though you find trouble sleeping without the sound of his breath over the receiver.

This is the longest you’ve gone angry at each other, and this fact does not escape you nor Jeno.

You are already missing him so much, feeling that you’re missing an essential part of yourself, that when he shows up at your doorstep at 9PM one night, you immediately envelope him in your embrace.

Your argument is long forgotten, until Jeno mentions it while you’re cuddling in your now mostly barren bedroom. Somehow, your nostalgic mind throws you back to last summer, to the nights you had simply enjoyed Jeno’s presence in your life and in your bed.

Though only a year has passed, you feel like a new person.

“You know I love you,” his deep voice resonates in your ears, and you nod, your head on his chest.

“And I’d never want to hurt you.” You nod again.

“And you know I’m sorry.” You hum in response.

“And it’s 10:10, so I love you more. And I wish that we can leave this behind us,” he says, referring to your week-long argument. In response, you nod and look up to him with bright eyes filled to the brim of pure love.

“Consider it granted.” This is your reply as you press your lips to his, to the lips you have grown to love so much. On reflex, his hands come up to press at your hips, the body that he has admired in so many ways.

And that night for the first time in what feels to be a long time, you make love. It is perfect, though your love isn’t always. It is a love you have both come to take for granted.

The summer proves to be very different from the last. Something has changed, though you don’t know what.

Though you and Jeno have made up, this doesn’t mean you see each other as much as you’d like, or that your schedules clear up for each other, or that you become more understanding of each other. You take a summer job at your mother’s business, which fills your entire weekly schedule from nine to five. Meanwhile, Jeno busies himself as the assistant coach for a boy’s youth volleyball team which practices every other day.

The days belong to the world, but your nights belong to each other. Because your parents no longer care about the seriousness of your relationship with Jeno, they pay no mind to him spending the night, or you at his.

Tonight it is his bed that you lay in, his chest pressed against your back as he holds you by the waist. As much as you have been arguing lately, finding excuses to avoid him whenever your words hurt each other, you cannot deny that in his arms, you feel safe.

You feel, no, you know, that whatever the world throws at you, you will be okay as long as you have Jeno.

As soon as this thought occurs to you, you feel a strange emotion spreading across your chest, though it is not unfamiliar. There, his arm slung over your waist and his steady breath in your ears, you feel love seep through your veins and consume you.

Jeno is your home. You know that.

He is your person. The one person in the world who knows you for you. He accepts you for your flaws, like your overstudying, your habit of stressing yourself out, your desire for perfection. Jeno knows all these things, and accepts them.

Whenever you make mistakes (and you have made a lot of them), he forgives you. He accepts you with open arms, though you had never even left his heart. And through this he has taught you to do the same for him.

He laughs without hearing your punchline. He smiles for you without needing a reason to. He loves you, cherishing you as though you are perfect when you are far from it.

You know people all over the world spend their lives hoping for a love like this.

“Jeno,” you call to him, your voice breaking the silence though you know he was nowhere close to sleeping.

“Hm,” he hums in response, embrace tightening.

“Why did you pick me that day? In the pumpkin patch. Did you… come to me because you liked me? Or… was it fate?”

Not that you had ever believed in fate. You believed that fate could only work so many miracles: as much as destiny lends a helping hand, one will get nowhere without hard work. Hard work was your relationship.

He is quiet for minutes, but you know he is not asleep.

Finally, he answers. “I came to you.”

“Why?”

“Because. I knew you were special.” You? Special was surely the last word you would use to describe yourself. As though sensing your confusion, he continues. “You stood out to me. In the crowd of hundreds of people, I found you. I felt that you were special, and in the end, I was right. You are special. You are so determined… so smart. Forgiving, loving, strong-headed.”

You turn and bury your head into his chest as he continues to shower you with compliments. Even after almost two years together, he could still fluster you this way.

“I love you,” he finally says, a closing statement. He is good. He is too good to you, you think as he presses a kiss to the crown of your head. “Goodnight.”

You could never let him go. He is your perfect.

Four months later, two weeks short of your second anniversary, you nearly do.

You and Jeno are sitting in your shared apartment, the two of you having decided that you were ready to move in together. It had been a big milestone for the both of you, but you knew you were both ready. In actuality, you only saw each other so often in the apartment.

He’d wake up first and go to the gym after leaving a kiss on your forehead, and by the time he came back, you'd already left for your 8AM lecture. The next time you would meet would be briefly for a shared dinner, between your two discussions and before his volleyball practice.

Then you would slip into bed with him a little before midnight, having just returned from dance rehearsal.

Tonight though, you had decided to skip on rehearsal. It has been a couple weeks since your last quiet night with Jeno, so you made a sacrifice, one he had been begging you to make for a while now.

You know that Jeno misses you, just as much as you miss him. But the weeks are busy, and on the weekends Jeno almost always has games and events to attend. On occasions you join him, but you soon find them to be exhausting.

You much prefer these quiet nights with him, with his arms around you on the couch and a shared bowl of popcorn balanced between the two of you.

Tonight, you are uncharacteristically tired. With finals coming up, you have been overworking your mind to the max, and with the additional stress of dance on your shoulders, you have been getting less than enough sleep.

This is why you find yourself dozing off in Jeno’s arms, your head on his shoulder as your eyes begin to droop.

You love this. It is this comfort that you have long mentioned and adored.

You love that you can fall asleep in his arms, and know that you will wake up safe. You love that he loves you enough to carry you back to bed when you doze off, and you love that he loves you.

You love him.

Just as you’re about to slip into the abyss of sleep, you hear Jeno sigh.

“Seriously? You’re falling asleep?”

His annoyed tone makes you open your eyes, and you do so to find yourself facing his frustrated eyes. “Hm..?” You ask, voice still clouded with fatigue.

His response only reflects his growth in vexation. “We haven’t had a night to ourselves like this in weeks. We’re only thirty minutes into the movie and you’re already falling asleep. Are you that desperate to be rid of me?”

His words trigger a response in you, and you feel a huff of disdain leave your lips. “I’m tired, Jeno. I’m exhausted.”

“And you think I’m not? I have more units than even you this semester, and I have volleyball to deal with. You think I’m not tired, but I suck it up to spend this time with you?” He unhooks his arm from around you and you frown, knowing he is both physically and emotionally retracting from you.

“No one asked you to,” you reply angrily, feeling your annoyance grow by the second.

This seems to upset him the most, because he stands to his feet and begins to pace. You hate when Jeno paces.

“Of course no one asked me to. You shouldn’t have to in a relationship. But lately it’s always, ‘Oh Y/N, won’t you please have dinner with me tonight?’ ‘Babe, can’t you stop studying for two minutes to cuddle me?’ ‘Can’t you skip rehearsal?’ I’m tired of always asking you to put effort in.”

His answer infuriates you and you stand to your feet as well, volume of your voice rising. “I did skip rehearsal for you. And I’m trying my best, didn’t I promise you once that I’d always give my best for you?”

He scoffs, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah, because this is your best.”

“This is my best!” You retort, feeling angry tears well in your eyes.

This was not your Jeno. Your Jeno was understanding, accepting. He loved you for all your bullshit, everything that you gave to him. Now your indignation is valid; you don’t recall ever yelling at him, or even getting personally upset, whenever he had knocked out during your movie nights. The nights were he would argue and insist on watching a movie of your choice, only to fall asleep before the end.

You could have made a scene then. Could have yelled at him for being insensitive, and that you would’ve much rather watched a stupid action movie with him than watch a rom-com alone.

But you didn’t. So it infuriates you that he has the audacity to complain, the first time you do what he does so often.

“Well maybe your best isn’t good enough.”

His answer stings, and hangs in the air, for you cannot formulate a response.

Not good enough.

Those were familiar words to you.

You had heard it from none other than your parents for the majority of your life. As much as you loved them, they were to blame for your insecurities, for your inconsolable need to be the best. You would only be the best by working your ass off for it.

You never would have thought you’d hear it from your boyfriend, who was supposed to love and accept you in all forms.

With sad, betrayed eyes you nod and scream back. “I know I’m not enough. I’ve never been enough. Is that what you want to hear?”

“No, it’s not. I want you to argue. I want you to fight back. You never do! You just let things happen, you just ignore them and think they’ll go away. You forgot our anniversary, and didn’t even chase after me. We got into a disagreement, one little disagreement, and you ran home without me.”

“Well fuck, Jeno, you’re saying you want me to be a mess?”

“No, I want you to fucking try for this relationship once. For once, I want you to pick me. Pick me over your stupid study groups, or your nights out with your friends when you barely even have enough nights for me. Pick me over your dance team, or studying, or any other stupid thing you have going on in your life.”

You glare at him, crossing your arms across your chest as he lists off the aspects of your life. “And you think I don’t try?”

He stares, and stares, and stares. You can practically see the deliberation in his eyes, hear his thoughts in your mind. This you can do because you know him, you have learned him from the inside out.

But perhaps you have not learned everything.

“No. I don’t.”

Finally, your tears fall. Hot and angry, they leave wet trails down your cheeks which leave you feeling weak and hopeless. Crying is not weak, you know this. But crying means to you that you have run out of things to exert your frustration into, and this can only mean one thing.

It is the end.

So you turn away, shuffling with quick feet into your shared bedroom, and slam the door shut, ignoring when he comes after you and knocks rapidly on the locked door.

To: Heejin (◕‿◕) Hey Heej. I need you.

It has been weeks since you last spoke to your best friend. Because she decided to study abroad in Japan, you have since become somewhat distant. But she is the only person besides Jeno whom you can run to, though perhaps you are tired of running.

A best friend indeed, she replies within seconds.

From: Heejin (◕‿◕) What’s up babe? It’s so late, what happened?

With shaking fingers you write your response.

To: Heejin (◕‿◕) I think

To: Heejin (◕‿◕) I need to break up with Jeno.

It isn’t until you press ‘send’ that it hits you. Perhaps because you had written it into existence, but your anger becomes replaced with sadness.

Your Jeno.

Your first love, your first. You could not imagine ever letting him go, yet you had just admitted to it. When your phone vibrates, you can tell that your best friend is just as shocked.

From: Heejin (◕‿◕) Oh honey. Call me.

An hour later you have gotten off the phone, and your tears have dried.

You clasp at your bedsheets, though you find that for the first time in your relationship, Jeno has slept on the couch. This is the worst it has ever been, and you can’t decide what hurts more: the fact that you had come to this decision, or the fact that he had let you.

Heejin had spoken calmly in comparison to you.

You had cried, you had argued with her, and you had denied the things she said. Because she was your best friend, she was not afraid to say things that would hurt you. Because unlike Jeno, she knew that you would love her forever.

She had helped you see the truth, and it had become much clearer now.

You and Jeno were no longer compatible.

He had taken you for granted. He only saw you for your shortcomings, for the dates that you had skipped out on or forgotten. He did not choose to see the things you did for him.

Things like making breakfast for him before you left for your class, knowing he’d see it when he returned from the gym. Things like replacing his shampoos, because you knew he was too busy to notice it with the stress of volleyball running in his head. The little things, which required little thought to perform but a lot of thought to recognize.

You had agreed with her here.

Then she told you the ways in which you had wronged him.

You had misunderstood him. No, she had told you, you had never even taken the chance to understand him. Rather than see that he simply enjoyed parties for the sake of freeing himself from stress, you saw him as irresponsible. You wanted to believe that him asking for your time was him being greedy.

You had always expected him to understand you without saying anything, yet you could not even attempt to understand him even when he was saying it, asking you.

What she had told you at the very end, as you were nearly crying into your pillow, was that you had mistaken comfort for distance.

Because you had assumed that he would always be by your side understanding you, it was easy for you to stand him up for unimportant things like study groups and nights out with friends. Because he had understood.

But being pushed to the side had become too much for him, when you began to abandon the great things, like seeing his team win the championship because you had rehearsal, or missing your first anniversary because you were studying.

That was what had shook you to your very core.

You had been pining, hoping for a comfortable, understanding love that you did not realize when this comfort that he had provided you turned into laziness on your part.

And though you were angry at him, you knew that you should be just as angry at yourself.

That night you fell asleep, and dreamt of a handsome young teenage boy in an ugly orange t-shirt, offering you a mini pumpkin and a lifetime of love.

Your breakup went, as you would say, perfect.

You had both seen it coming, and so when Jeno mentioned it two days later, you were not shocked. Just because you had expected it though, doesn’t mean it hurt any less.

Because the house was in your name, he had left it, along with his key on the counter.

Within a weekend he had rid the apartment of his belongings, though he left your shared things behind. Your pictures, the hoodies that he had ultimately given you. Your promise rings.

It scared you almost, how calm the two of you were in the process.

When he left, he gave you a tight hug, and whispered to you for the last time: “I love you.” Except this time, “I’m sorry” followed suit. Then a gust of wind and he was gone.

It was amicable. There was little screaming, there was a polite goodbye. He was kind enough to leave his gifts to you, and to take the gifts you had given him, though you were sure they would soon be discarded. He had even had sense to make the bed before he left, and clear the bathroom of his toothbrush.

Only Lee Jeno would be so thoughtful in a breakup.

And so as you fall to the floor with tears in your eyes and sob on your lips, you hate yourself for falling in love with such a kind, perfect man.

A year passes.

You are in your third year of university now, though you have moved out of your previously shared apartment and into a new, smaller one which occupies less space. You don’t need the excessive room anymore, with only one person.

Perhaps you have moved on.

Originally you had allotted yourself two years of time to let Lee Jeno leave your mind and your heart, that having been the amount of time you spent together. But sometimes, you truly feel that you have gotten over him.

Because you had rarely seen him on campus even during your relationship, you do not run into him on your large campus. You avoid going to volleyball games, or any sports games for that matter.

You even go on a few dates.

First there is Huang Renjun, an art major who you meet when he accidentally spills paint on you. But no, he is too harsh with his words, you learn when he gives you the hell for cancelling last minute.

Then there is Kim Jungwoo, who you meet at the coffee shop off campus. He is a barista, but you cannot find more than attraction for him in your soul because he is not ambitious, he has no more dreams besides making coffee.

You even find yourself sleeping with Lee Donghyuck once, but you quickly find that he is annoying and too brash, not like Jeno.

Like Jeno. None of them are like Jeno, and that is why none of them stay.

And so even though you tell yourself that you are over Lee Jeno, because you can give your number to strangers in the coffee shop and you can sleep with overzealous frat boys, you know deep in your heart, that you have never been close to moving on.

It hits you most when you are alone, especially late in night when you cannot fall asleep. And you remember what it was like to fall asleep in his arms, with his warmth and his breathing which brought a feeling of sturdiness.

Especially tonight, you are in bed early when you think about the fact that today marks one year since he has left you.

As poorly as your relationship progressed, Jeno has changed you for the better.

After your breakup, you came to realize your shortcomings.

It was true that you never made time for anything in your life, especially not for him. You no longer wanted your significant other to have to beg for your time, and so you began to take more time for yourself.

Study less, not that you needed to study as much as you did. Breathe more. Take walks. Sit for an hour or two in the coffee shop without a goal.

It slowed your life down. Jeno taught you this.

And despite the tears that you spilled for him, he taught you how to love.

He taught you that love was not perfect, as much as you strived for it to be. There would be bumps, there would be fights. There would be the pumpkin patch moments; those are the ones that make you feel on top of the world, as though your love could trump all. Then there are the moments of longing, where you haven’t felt the comfort of the other’s presence in what feels like millenia. There also exist times of peril, where you scream at each other and slam the doors in each other’s faces over who falls asleep in a movie.

What Jeno has taught you, however, is that you have to make the pumpkin patch moments outnumber all the other negatives.

He has taught you that like you have to work in life for a degree or a job promotion, you have to work for love. You have to chase after that person when they storm out. You have to calm down, and listen to the other’s words in a moment of anger. Sometimes, you have to forgive them, you have to acquiesce, as Jeno had often done for you.

And most of all he has taught you that you never forget your first love.

Lee Jeno was the perfect first love. He had loved you carefully, with your best efforts in mind. You could not have asked for anything more.

Even if you can have other loves, you don’t want them. You want your first love, and you want him to be your last. You would start over with him in every single way if you could, except you would be better this time.

Even if this is not possible.

You would never be able to return to the way you were, to a bright-eyed boy with pumpkins in his hand and a shy quiet girl with too much ambition for her own good. You cannot ask for him to be the boy you first met, because you cannot fulfill that role for him either.

But you don’t want to return to those days, as good as they were. You want to continue on your journey of growth with him by your side. You will never have the chance to now.

Your phone rings from beneath your pillow. You pull it out, gaze at the message on the screen, and smile.

You had never been able to change his name after all this time.

From: My Boy 10:10. My wish is for another chance to make you happy.

#nct #nct dream #jeno #jeno lee #nct jeno #jeno fanfic #jeno angst #jeno fluff #nct dream fanfic #nct dream angst #nct dream fluff #this is loosely inspired by my own life experiences #and lessons #so it was a bit cathartic for me to write #jeno x oc #jeno imagines

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mysingularitybts · 3 years

Text

Will You Marry Me? || M. YG

Pairing: Min Yoongi x OC

Genre: Idol!au, romance

Warnings: none

Word Count: ~2.5k

The sun was barely peeking out from the horizon, it was too early and yet here I was waking up. It was automatic no matter how many hours I slept I was bound to rise with the sun. I laid on the bed, stretching my tense muscles, waiting for my brain to turn on. Relaxing and sinking on the bed again, I carefully peeled the bed sheets beside me to reveal my boyfriend's face. He had the bed sheet's imprinted all over his puffy face. It all made him look even cuter than he usually is.

I debated if I should wake him or not, but knowing he was going to wake up soon I got closer to him brushing his hair away from his face and proceeding to kiss all over his face. Feeling the soft pecks his eyes slowly blinked in an attempt to get rid of the sleepiness.

"Merry Christmas Yoongi," I whispered halting my attack.

Yoongi took his time stretching, yawning, and scrunching his face before responding a soft, "Merry Christmas, Yun."

Laying on his back, he opened his arms, knowing I'd want to cuddle him before we had to get up. It was a habit we had to talk about how we were feeling that day and about our plans for the day. There wasn't much to do today it was Christmas after all, the only things allowed to do was be lazy and open presents.

Alluring me to stay in bed for longer Yoongi kissed my lips very well knowing he was my weakness. It felt like we spent hours whispering sweet nothings as if scared someone would hear when in reality, we were the only ones in the whole apartment. Yoongi's hands almost lulled me to sleep again as he caressed my hair.

"Remember, we're going over to Hobi's for the Christmas party," Yoongi told me in between kisses.

"Stop thinking about Hobi while I kiss you," I laughed, pulling away, "He's not the one marrying you."

"From what I recall, I'm not marrying you either," he quickly responded, eyes narrowing in question and lips forming its natural pout.

He had a point, but it's only because he hasn't asked! We've talked about marriage before and it's something we both want to do we just don't know when. I know I'm ready to take the next step we've been in this relationship for about five years, we live together, we're basically a married couple already and that's fine I'm happy with what we have. But I would love to marry him officially, have a ceremony, say our vows to each other, and most importantly, call him my husband, the love of my life.

Sitting up on the bed, I straddled him, holding his shoulders and getting close to his face and asked, "Min Yoongi, will you marry me?"

Yoongi's eyes widened for a second before going back to their natural shape, "No."

"Why do you keep saying no?" I whined, slumping down in his chest.

Yup, it wasn't the first time I had asked. In fact, it's been a month since I first asked, and he keeps saying no. Every time he'd say dumb excuses as to why he wouldn't marry me by now it was more like a joke to see what silly thing he'd come up with.

"I'm too young to get married," he explained with a whine while grabbing hold of my thighs and flipping us over.

"Yoongs you're 29," I said, rolling my eyes.

"Exactly, I'm a baby!" he exclaimed, burying his head on my neck.

"At what age will you consider saying yes?" I sighed, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.

"35," he said, the sound coming out muffled.

"That's a long time by then we would have been dating for ten years," I grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back to look at his face.

"So?" Yoongi shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm gonna keep asking in between in case you change your mind."

After an hour of waking up I finally stood from the bed and went into the kitchen to get breakfast started. I turned on the coffee maker first and prepared our preferred cups to pour it in. Just as I placed Yoongi's cup on the counter, he emerged from the room with a new set of pajamas and damp hair.

"You should dry your hair don't want you getting sick," I mentioned over my shoulder while whisking together the ingredients to make pancake batter.

Cold hands landing on my hips made me jump, "Yoongs your hands are freezing."

"Sorry," he lightly chuckled behind me, "In that case you should put on a pair of pants too."

"You should know by now I'm a rebel I do what I want," I sassily said, turning to look at him.

Yoongi was looking at me with a blank face, "You forgot to do laundry, didn't you?"

"Yes," I admitted with a sheepish smile.

"Alright, let me get my coffee and I'll dry it," he sighed letting go of me.

I thought I was alone when I felt a harsh sting to my backside, "Ow Yoongi that hurt!"

"That's not what you said the other day," he yelled from the hallway.

"Yoongi!" I swear this man is so inappropriate sometimes.

After breakfast we stayed in the living room and exchanged our Christmas gifts. It was honestly a very relaxing morning between the two of us and I couldn't be happier. We watched old Christmas movies and drank hot chocolate to get even more into the Christmas spirit. Somewhere in the early afternoon we crashed and napped on the sofa while 'Home Alone' played in the background.

"Yun...Yun...Yun," I heard Yoongi's soothing voice calling me and shaking my arm.

"Five more minutes," I mumbled, hiding my face in one of the cushions.

"Come on, wake up we have to get ready for Hobi's party," he said, rubbing my arm soothingly.

"On one condition," I pouted, lifting my head.

"What's that?"

"Marry me?" I asked, a smile sneaking past my lips.

"Ugh, I can't, I already promised this girl in a fan meet," he groaned, pulling me by my arms so I'd sit up.

A girl can only try. I don't want to be that girl who keeps insisting her boyfriend to marry her, but like I love this man so much I want to make it official! If he would've told me in the beginning, he didn't believe in marriage, I would've prepared myself and accepted it. Sometimes it makes me question if he isn't sure about us, luckily, I know him well enough to know he loves me just as much as I love him. I mean marriage is a huge step, and between my job and his career as an idol it can get tough. I understand he wants to have a more stable life before taking this step and possibly starting a family.

Feeling well rested, I got ready for tonight's party. Yoongi has been telling me about this party for the past month apparently Hoseok wanted everyone there because he has a surprise for everyone, I think he's finally going to introduce us to his girlfriend.

With my make up done and my hair curled I put on my red dress I bought it solely for this occasion. Yoongi helped me pick it out in the store there were so many good choices and at the end, I was in between two dresses. I had no choice but to ask for his help. With one long glance at each he ended up picking with the red one, he made a good decision because I looked stunning in this color.

"Yoongi are you ready?" I yelled while slipping into my heels.

He was in the other room because he insists I kicked him out of ours and that is a lie. I simply told him to get out of the way because he was hogging the mirror and I needed to do my makeup. The mirror he was using has the best lighting.

"Yes," he muttered, stepping into the room. He stopped in his tracks taking in how I looked, "You look beautiful."

"Beautiful enough to marry me?" I jested, shooting him a flirty smile.

"More like too beautiful for me to marry you," he grinned, walking over and pecking my lips.

"Don't be acting cute," I pouted, melting at his words, "I love you."

"I love you too Yun," he murmured, kissing me again.

When he pulled away, he had red all over his lips. Giggling, I grabbed a makeup wipe from my makeup bag and brought it up to his lips to wipe off any lipstick.

"There we go perfect once again."

Thanking me he grabbed my hand and off we went to Hobi's house. He didn't even let go of it on the drive. I'd spontaneously squeeze his hand tightly to see if it bothered him, but due to my lack of strength, he barely felt it, in turn he squeezed mine making me wince.

"Ow, stop hurting me," I whined, tapping on his hand so he'd let go.

"I barely did anything besides you wanted to hurt me first," he argued yet his hand was still on mine and I didn't dare let go.

"No, I wasn't," I defended myself, "It was an experiment to test my strength."

"In that case you have the strength of a toddler," Yoongi deadpanned.

"I know," I huffed, there was no denying that fact.

Once parked in front of Hoseok's house Yoongi opened the door for me and together we went to the front door. Hoseok opened the door with a huge smile and ushered us in.

"Sooyun, it's been so long I missed you!" he cheerfully said, pulling me into a hug.

"Yesterday was so long ago, my sunshine, the sky was so glum without you," I laughed as he rocked us side to side.

"I'm so glad you're here I want to introduce you to someone," Hobi excitedly said, dragging me with me. Before he pulled me away, I grabbed Yoongi's hand, so he'd follow us.

I was right Hobi wanted us to meet his girlfriend, Soojin. She was really sweet and nice I could totally see why Hobi likes her. We talked for a long while getting to know each other from my peripheral I saw Hobi constantly looking over in our direction and smiling happily that we got along. It was cute how he wanted us all to get along.

The night was filled with drinks, food, and lively chatter. Not soon after Yoongi and I got there the rest of the boys started filing in with their significant others. Something I didn't know was that the boys did a secret Santa amongst themselves, so it was a real treat seeing them exchange gifts and sweet words.

It was 2 am when we left the party. Hoseok and Taehyung were still hyped up, I just know they were going to collapse soon.

"Did you have fun?" Yoongi asked, briefly looking in my direction. We were in the car on our way home, music playing on the speakers at a low volume.

"I did, I'm exhausted though. I can't keep up with Hobi," I chuckled lightly, shaking my head.

"Tell me about it," he agreed.

"I can't wait to get to bed," I told him, kissing the back of his hand.

"We're almost there," he gently squeezed my hand, "Can you get my phone from my jacket pocket?"

"Sure," I nodded, turning in my seat to get the jacket he threw to the back seat.

After grabbing it from the back, I straightened in the seat and searched through the many pockets of the jacket. In the last pocket where the phone was supposed to be I found a small black velvet box. Opening it there was a beautiful diamond ring staring back at me. It had everything I've ever wanted on a ring it was much like the ones I had saved on my Pinterest page.

"Yoongi..." I barely spoke above a whisper.

Why was this in his pocket? Did it mean what I thought it meant? Did I ruin a surprise?

"What?" He asked with a side smile.

"What is this?"

"A ring for you," he answered nonchalantly.

"For what?" I insisted, determined to find the answer I wanted.

"To marry me," Yoongi lovingly added.

"Don't joke with me Yoongi," I pleaded, hoping this wasn't some sick joke.

"I'm not, I'm serious," he insisted.

"Wh-what? Pull the car over," I ordered him, I needed for him to tell me this was real, eye to eye.

"Okay," Nodding, he pulled into a fast-food parking lot.

"This is serious? This isn't because I keep asking, right? If you don't want to marry me, that's fine and I'll understand. You don't have to feel forced to do this," I felt guilty a part of me couldn't help but think this was because I kept asking him. It started with me being serious, but it's more of a joke now. Of course, I want to marry him that much remains true, but not if he doesn't want to.

"Yun, I'm as serious as can be. I've been thinking about it for a while now," he admitted, taking his seatbelt off and turning in his seat, "I wanted to surprise you and I know that if I did anything overly romantic besides our dates, you'd be on to me," he finished explaining.

"Oh." My mind was processing everything that happened in the last 5 minutes. The thing that I wanted most was happening and I couldn't believe it. The love of my life asked me (kind of) to marry him and I said 'Oh.' Way to go Sooyun.

"So, what do you say? Will you marry me? Spend the rest of our lives together until we're old and gray?" he asked, a nervous look in his handsome face.

Tears streamed down my face and with a vigorous nod I accepted his proposal, "I will."

"Don't cry or I'll take it back," he jokingly threatened, taking the ring out of the box and slipping it on my ring finger.

"I love you," I sobbed despite his words.

"I love you too," he warmly replied, cupping my cheeks and kissing my waiting lips.

"Let's get home so I can kiss you and hug you properly," I told him after our kiss.

"Your wish is my command," he chuckled, pulling out of the parking lot.

And that is how my wonderful boyfriend now fiancé proposed in front of a McDonald's, not very romantic yet surprising and I wouldn't have it any other way. I loved this man, and it didn't matter if he proposed with a ring pop because I would've agreed in a heartbeat. I'm sure there was a long time to go until we had the ceremony but this was enough for me.

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penny-anna · 4 years

Text

A Strange Mirror

“I suppose it wouldn’t do to be leaving little witchers around the place, would it.”

“Witchers are sterile.”

“Hm?” Jaskier glanced up from his notes, doing a startled double-take. “What, all of you?”

Jaskier learns something new about witchers.

(on AO3)

The air in the room was thick with the smell of rain from their damp clothes drying by the fire. Their hosts’ voices carried from downstairs, muffled by the walls and the sound of the beating rain. Jaskier sat upon the bed, already changed into dry shirt and breeches and humming to himself as he scratched away in his notebook.

The farmer and his wife had given them a bed for the night and invited them to supper. Geralt didn’t used to get invited to supper. The last few months it had been happening more and more.

“Don’t suppose you could kill something more interesting next time.” Pausing in his scratching, Jaskier glanced up at him and added, “no offence.”

“Interesting?” said Geralt.

“You know,” said Jaskier. “Something a bit sexier than drowners, so I can make a song out of it.” He went back to his notes.

Geralt paused in the act of unlacing his damp shirt. “What kind of monsters do you think are sexy?”

Jaskier drew a line under a significant word in his notes. “Wyverns are pretty sexy.”

“They are?”

“Basilisks,” said Jaskier, gesturing with his quill. “Very sexy.”

Geralt looked at the darkened window. “The fuck are you talking about?”

“Just offering some constructive criticism.” Jaskier took in Geralt’s face and said, “alright. Point taken.” He went back to scribbling, his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth. “The daughter was making eyes at you.”

“I noticed.”

“She’s pretty.”

Geralt grunted. He’d noticed that too, but he wasn’t about to encourage him.

“Not your type?”

The window rattled in the window. Geralt threw his shirt over the rack by the fire and turning away began to unlace his breeches. Behind him Jaskier’s pen scratched away.

“You must get a lot of that,” he said. “With your whole – thing.”

“A lot of what?” He stepped into his dry breeches.

“You know.” Jaskier drew a meaningful circle in the air with his quill. “Beautiful women making eyes at you. Throwing themselves at you. Terribly grateful to you for –”

“I don’t,” said Geralt, “do that.”

“Right.” Jaskier cleared his throat. He went on writing.

Geralt shrugged on a dry shirt, and laced it. “I’m careful about who I bed,” he said. “Have to be.”

“I see,” said Jaskier. “I suppose it wouldn’t do to be leaving little witchers around the place, would it.”

For a foolish moment Geralt couldn’t grasp what he meant. Then it struck him, and he didn’t know what to say to it. People’s knowledge of his kind was – patchy, and unreliable. It was hard to predict what a person might know, or not know. He had assumed Jaskier knew this. Jaskier did not know this.

He said, “witchers are sterile.”

“Hm?” Jaskier glanced up from his notes, doing a startled double-take. “What, all of you?”

“It’s by design.” He reached for his boots.

“Oh,” said Jaskier. “Oh – I see.” He fidgeted with his quill. His posture, which had been so idle, one leg crossed over the other, one foot drawing lazy circles in the air, was suddenly tense. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

Lacing his boots, Geralt didn’t reply.

“I’ll not bring it up again.”

In truth, he didn’t care if Jaskier brought it up again, or didn’t. There were few subjects in the world that had the power to hurt him and this wasn’t one of them.

He said, “hm.”

The kitchen was too full of people, too warm and too humid. The family was large enough without two extra bodies crammed in. They were too poor to pay him for clearing their well, so they did their best to make up the debt by filling his belly.

He wasn’t about to complain. He was grateful for Jaskier’s presence, for his keeping the conversation going while he ate. The farmer’s wife and her oldest daughter doted on Jaskier, the whole family hanging off every word of his stories. It was easy for them all to forget who the guest of honour actually was.

When the meal was over and the plates had been cleared, the youngest of the children scrambled into Geralt’s lap, babbling at him cheerfully, eager to tell him all about the farm, to tug on the ends of his hair. The farmer and his wife shot each other nervous looks. They said nothing.

He excused himself early.

Though it was barely nightfall Jaskier came up to bed not long after him, stumbling a little on the stairs and cursing to himself, fumbling with the latch.

“Oh,” he said as he stepped over the threshold, stretching out his arms in an exaggerated yawn. “Oh, it’s been a long day.”

“Hm,” Geralt agreed.

Jaskier was a little tipsy from dinner. His cheeks were pink and he smelled faintly of wood smoke. Stripped down to his shirt, he climbed into bed. He lay alongside Geralt, propped up on one elbow, regarding him intently and clearly not meaning to sleep any time soon.

“Go on, then,” said Geralt to the ceiling.

“Hm?” Jaskier’s eyes were big and innocent.

“You’ve been chomping at the bit all evening.”

“I haven’t.”

“I’d rather you ask than lie there all night making faces at me.”

“I’m not making faces,” said Jaskier, though he was. “And I don’t want to pry.”

“Just,” said Geralt, “ask.”

Jaskier shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “When you say it’s by design,” he said. “What do they do, exactly?” Before Geralt could answer he went on, “I mean, do they – do something to you?”

“Depends what you mean.” He’d lost track of what Jaskier was driving at. Do they do something to you. Of course they did something.

“Well, do they –” Jaskier broke off with a sigh. “Is it a.” He motioned in a way that meant nothing at all. At Geralt’s blank look, his eyes flicked anxiously to his crotch, and it hit him what he was trying to ask. “Do you – have everything you’re –”

“I’ve got all my parts.”

“Oh thank the gods,” Jaskier said in a rush. Geralt snorted. “Don’t you laugh! It’s been worrying me all evening.” He smacked Geralt’s chest by way of chastising him. His hand lingered there, resting on his sternum.

“And it all,” he said after a moment, “works as normal?”

Geralt grunted.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yeah.”

“Well.” Jaskier patted his chest. “That’s splendid.”

“I don’t see why you care,” said Geralt.

“Why wouldn’t I care?”

“They’re not your parts.”

“I suppose I just don’t like the idea of a man having his parts tampered with,” said Jaskier. “Is that so wrong?”

“No. I suppose not.” Jaskier was still looking at him, his gaze no less intent for having got an answer to his burning question. He wasn’t used to people looking at him the way Jaskier looked at him. Sometimes the way Jaskier looked at him made him feel stripped bare.

He didn’t hate it.

“So, um,” said Jaskier. “What is it they do, exactly?”

“It’s a by-product of the mutagens.”

“I see,” Jaskier said. “But an – intentional one?”

Geralt grunted an affirmation.

“Now, if you want to stop talking about this, do say so.” Jaskier sat up a little more. “But – I don’t see why.”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not – not really. No.”

“Witchers are mutants,” said Geralt. “Any children we had would be mutated. It wouldn’t be pretty.”

“Well, when you put it like that it does sound reasonable.” Jaskier sighed to himself. “But it doesn’t seem fair.”

“How so?”

“People ought to have a choice in these matters,” said Jaskier. “Oughtn’t they?”

“No-one chooses to be a witcher.”

“No,” said Jaskier. “I suppose not.” He clucked his tongue. “Just seems like a pity.”

“Hm?”

“I just can’t help thinking you’d be a good father.”

Geralt turned to look at him, incredulous. “What?” Jaskier shrugged, as if to say, isn’t it obvious? “No. I wouldn’t.”

“I think you would,” said Jaskier.

He wondered, not for the first time, what it was Jaskier saw when he looked at him. He didn’t think Jaskier saw the hero he put in his songs – he was sure Jaskier knew that much of what he wrote was bullshit. But he didn’t think Jaskier saw the truth either. He saw something between fantasy and reality. Jaskier’s eyes were a strange mirror to look into.

“You can’t have a child on the path.”

“Well – leaving the witcher thing aside for a moment –”

“You can’t leave it aside,” Geralt snapped, in spite of himself starting to grow heated.

“Say you could,” said Jaskier, unfazed.

“No-one would want a witcher for a father.”

“Why not?”

You know why, he wanted to say. But Jaskier was pretending not to know. “Witchers are monsters.”

“Oh – yes,” said Jaskier, drawing his brows into a stern mock frown. “You are a truly terrifying monster.”

“Jaskier –”

“I quake in my boots at the sight of your hideous countenance, for you are such a fearful beast and I am so very afraid –”

“Maybe you should be.”

Jaskier cocked his head. “Why?”

So very many reasons, he thought. “I could tear you apart if I wanted.”

“Ah, but you haven’t.” Jaskier patted his chest warmly, as if he’d made a conclusive argument. “You’re in a mood,” he pronounced.

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” said Jaskier. “A gloomy one.”

“I’m always gloomy.”

“Untrue,” said Jaskier. “You’re often gloomy but sometimes grim and I’ve known you to be grumpy.”

Geralt grunted at the ceiling.

“Anyway,” said Jaskier, “children aren’t afraid of you. That little one tonight loved you.”

Geralt thought of the way the farmer and his wife had looked at each other when the child had crawled into his lap. “Children aren’t old enough to know better.”

“Or, alternatively, one might say that they’re too young to have been taught to be afraid,” said Jaskier.

“It makes no difference.”

“It makes all the difference.” Jaskier’s hand shifted, sliding up his chest to his shoulder. He took a lock of Geralt’s hair and began idly to twist it around his fingers. “Anyway. I feel safe with you.”

“Do you?”

“Completely safe,” said Jaskier. “What else could you want out of a father?”

“A lot of things.” Geralt looked at Jaskier, bewildered. “Are you trying to say you think of me as a father?”

“What?” said Jaskier. “No. What – no.” Dropping Geralt’s hair as if it was hot he sat up. “Absolutely not. No. Don’t say things like that.”

“Why not?” It seemed a reasonable enough question to him. He’d never got the impression Jaskier thought of him that way – didn’t like the idea of Jaskier thinking of him that way – but he couldn’t imagine what else he might be driving at.

“It – upsets me,” said Jaskier. “It just does. And this conversation has got wildly off track.”

“Was it ever on track?”

“Briefly.” Jaskier lay back down. “Anyway, please don’t ever suggest that you’re like a father to me again.”

“I wasn’t,” said Geralt. “I thought you were suggesting it.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know,” said Geralt. “I was confused too. What were you trying to say, if not that?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Jaskier vaguely. “Look. All I’m trying to say is how sorry I am that that was done to you. It’s not fair.”

The thing of it was, Jaskier wasn’t the first person he’d had to explain this fact of his biology to. He’d had to explain it now and then, mainly in whorehouses, and the reaction, even when not explaining it to women anxious that they might end up carrying a mutant child, had been one of relief or understanding. He’d never had someone express their condolences at the loss before.

He said, “hm.”

Sighing, Jaskier shuffled in closer to him. He draped an arm over his chest. “I wish things were different.”

“If things were different you’d never have met me.”

“True.” Jaskier yawned, a genuine yawn this time. Long minutes passed, and were it not for his breathing Geralt might have thought he had fallen asleep. In the grate the fire was burning down low.

At length, Jaskier said, “what they did to you. Did it hurt?”

Geralt breathed out. “No,” he lied.

#the witcher #geraskier #infertility cw

492 notes · View notes

barkkletshunt · 4 years

Text

Those Worth Fighting For Part seven

Part one Part two

Part three Part four

Part five Part six

Part Seven (You’re here) Part eight

Taglist:

@ladybug-182 @fruit-snacc-ace @miraculous-simmer7 @lavenderjunes

@use-flamethrower @fan-written @all-mights-asscheeks @birdie-posts

Sorry if the tags aren’t working, I tried and I’m not sure where I went wrong with it?

If I have time the next part will come out with some art! Don’t expect the art to be any good though lol

“So then, I go to the window and there is Adrien on Kagami’s front lawn with a big sign that says prom on it, and by the way neither of us knew he was going to be in France at all. It was a total surprise. So I’m so shocked my mind completely blanks out and I shout down to him that yes, I’ll go to prom with him. He yells back ‘tall Kagami’ and I turn around and just ‘your boyfriend just asked to go to prom with me.’ Without skipping a beat she leans out of the window and tells him he’s too late, she already asked me.” Marinette laughed, wiping a stray tear from her eye that began to form from how hard she was trying to not burst into a fit of giggles until the story ended. “In the end the three of us went to prom together.”

The four around the table shook their heads. “Mari, dude, if you can’t get through that story without laughing how are you supposed to do your toast?”

“I’ll just practice it a lot until it’s no longer funny to me, simple. I’m not even going to worry about it anymore.” The blue haired girl shrugged. When she was younger she would have worried about that, but she was long since past that. At least, she hoped she was. She had done enough interviews with Alya in her teen years, and then enough speeches as Ladybug to fill her with a confidence she lacked as a teen. She was nervous, but instead of the all consuming nervousness that would make her fumble and trip over her words it was now an excited nervousness. She was excited about it.

“I think you’ll do fine,” Felix winked at her, his face never changing from the impartial look he had on since he came into the restaurant.

They all had made their way back to the same place after the amok, even if Felix was late once again. The blond had made his excuses of needing to take care of some errands that he had forgotten, but it hadn’t mattered much to any of them. Marinette had saved a seat next to her for him and he was more than happy to take it.

“Why not talk about the moment you realized those two were perfect for each other?” Nathaniel asked, playing with the straw in his drink. “I know you have a million stories about that.”

“Something like Adrien saving Kagami from a bully, or a dance of just the two of them where they lock eyes and suddenly the whole room disappears?” Marc hummed, their author brain going into overdrive at the thought of romance. “Maybe you saw him protect her against an akuma or amok?”

Marinette thought for a moment. What was it that made her realize that they belonged together? After all those years fawning over Adrien, it was Kagami’s love for him that made her step down, but what was the exact moment?

“It was at Chloe’s fifteenth birthday party.” Marinette started, recalling the time before Hawkmoth had lost and her world began to fall apart and fix itself simultaneously. “Adrien’s dad thought it would be a good idea for Kagami to go with him and keep an eye on his son, and they started the evening miserable because the paparazzi outside the hotel told them that they always looked so perfect that it made sense that they would be perfect together. I only got to spend a few minutes with them before being pulled away by Chloe, but when I went to find them and bring them some hot chocolate they were on the roof ruffling each other's hair and talking about anime, and goofing around like I hadn’t seen either of them do before.”

“They saw that the other understood their background and chose to help break out of that image with each other and just be kids.” Felix’s words surprised her, but he understood exactly what had happened.

“They were so embarrassed when they saw me that I challenged them both to hot chocolate drinking contests to ease the awkwardness. They didn’t even realize I didn’t have one for myself before chugging theirs and burning their mouths at the same time.” Her two messy friends meant the world to her, and she knew no one would understand them like they understood each other. Both of them had strict parents that would only let them escape and be kids when they were with the other, and they took those opportunities and made every moment count. They were what each other needed, and then when they got their freedoms they were still the ones they chose. “I think that’s also when they stopped acting perfect in front of me. Adrien really started to bug me to watch anime so he could talk about it with someone other than his girlfriend, and Kagami soon demanded to be my dress up doll because she never got to do that growing up. They became my best friends and honestly, I think I’m better for it too.”

“How romantic.” Marc swooned, leaning against Nathaniel who caught his significant other with a laugh. “Childhood friends, to rivals, to lovers. 50K slowburn.”

“Once there was an akuma trying to hurt Adrien and Kagami picked up the nearest weapon she could find and just went at ‘em and I have never seen Adrien’s face light up like that. The boy just wants to be loved and protected.�� Nino joined in. “Alya and I were shocked, we both had our money on Adrien ending up with someone else, but we’re both happy about it. Speaking of which, I gotta update her on what’s going on here. She’ll flip.”

Felix shifted in his seat, catching Marinette’s eye as Nathaniel and Marc continued talking about Kagami and Adrien’s relationship. He wasn’t there for all those moments, he wasn’t a long term friend of everyone so he didn’t know Alya or Chloe and she wouldn’t doubt it if he had felt out of place in the conversation.

“Pst,” she scooted herself over, getting closer to him and leaning over to whisper at him. “You look nice today.”

Felix blinked in surprise. Within seconds his face was growing warm and he used his hand to cover the lower half of his face as inconspicuously as possible. “Aren’t I the one who’s supposed to say that, Miss. Dupain-Cheng?”

“I’m afraid I beat you to it, Mr. Graham De Vanily.” She whispered back. “But it’s okay, you might get me next time.”

How long had it been since she was able to flirt with someone without losing herself in the what-if’s and teenaged anxiety that had plagued her? How had one battle fighting side by side with Ryuko, Alley Cat, and the others given her so much confidence that she hadn’t had even during the fight itself? Was it that damned cat’s words? He had unknowingly complimented her to her face and she was still beaming with pride over being called brilliant. Being complimented on her looks was nice, but the way he had complimented her on her mind was something else. She supposed that was what did it, after all. Being told that she was great because of who she was and not because of how she looked filled her with a pride she didn’t even want to describe lest it dampened the feeling inside her chest.

“Well then, until next time, you look wonderful. You’re outfit choice is on point, as always.” His comment hit straight to her heart. There it was again. A comment on something she chose being good. “And although you are trying to start a fire with my face, I am enjoying this time with you away from colour pallets and order forms. I like seeing this other side of you, Marinette.”

“I’d like to say the same thing, but it has come to my attention that you seem to only wear suits, Felix. This is the same side of you I always see.” She couldn’t help her grin. There was a strange formal banter between them that she found exhilarating. In it’s own way it made her feel like part of the aristocratic world that he and Adrian and Kagami belonged to, without having to deal with the fakeness that the latter two often complained about. “Dare I say, I don’t believe you own anything that isn’t a suit.”

“I’d hate to inform you of this, but you’re incorrect on that front.” Felix moved the hand that was covering his face to let himself rest his chin upon it. “I do, and I’d prefer it if you don’t go to the press with this, own a few sets of pajamas.”

“And are they silk and made to look like a suit?” She asked, now leaning against him to softly poke at his arm. “I bet you had them custom made so that you would never appear unprofessional.”

“Well, well, aren’t you curious to see my pajamas? Shame you won’t get to see them until our fourth date.” Felix leaned his head against hers, and her heart began to race.

“So, are you two actually a thing?” Nino’s voice broke them out of their moment. Marinette and Felix realized how it must have looked to the others and immediately sat straight in their seats.

Nathaniel elbowed Nino in the ribs. “Dude!”

“What? I’m just trying to clear things up for my daily Alya report.” Nino tried to defend himself from the onslaught of hands trying to hit him from Marc and Nathaniel. “It gets complicated sometimes and you know my girl won’t let anything rest until she has all the info!”

“If Miss. Dupain-Cheng would like to, as you put it, actually be a thing, then I would be honoured to.” He said it so simply that Marinette wasn’t sure why she had hesitated before. He did like her.

“Only if you wear your pajamas to our next late night planning session.” Marinette wasn’t willing to let the pajamas slide. “I have to see you out of a suit before we get all lovey dovey. It’s a rule.”

“Did you make that rule just for me?”

“Of course.”

“Well, don’t I feel special.” Felix thought to himself, making a bit of a show of it as he tossed his head side to hide. His braid that previously rested on his shoulder now swinging back and forth behind him, looking like a cat's tail as it got ready to play. “I think I have room to negotiate here, so if I may I am going to put the added condition that you must also wear your pajamas.”

“I don’t think this is supposed to be a business transaction, dude,” Nino tried, but Marinette held her hand up. She could negotiate.

“I’ll accept those terms on the condition that you buy coffee, and we get to watch a movie together with some popcorn.” Marinette raised her brow, daring Felix to try to get a better deal out of her.

“If I am purchasing coffee, popcorn, and a movie, then I will push for some baked goods from your parents bakery.” Felix held out his hand. “Well?”

“You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Graham De Vanily, but I accept your terms.” Marinette took his hand and shook it. That was the most fun she had ever had while figuring out plans for a date, and she knew she’d have more fun watching the movie with Felix than she just did. “A movie date in our pajamas with snacks it is.”

“I’ll pick you up friday night at eight?”

“I can’t wait to see your suit pajamas.”

“I bet you have frills on yours.”

“And you don’t?”

#felix x marinette #felinette #fanon felix #felix graham de vanily #Marinette #marinette dupain cheng #marc anciel #nathaniel kurtzberg #Nino lahiffe #adrigami #adrien x kagami #Those worth fighting for #twff

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moldisgoodforyou · 4 years

Text

march madness

this is dedicated to @sunnypogue and @oopmyheartwent-obx because they’re the homies and I said so

wordcount: 2.2k

warnings: cursing, I didn’t edit this for shit, mentions of sexual situations

____

Every year, the Delt house held a March Madness bracket competition. There were cash prizes involved and it was taken extremely seriously, only significant others were also invited to participate (no hookups allowed, unless the hookup was consistent enough to stick around through the end of the tournament in April). James was in charge this year as brotherhood chair and was taking it to the next level, upping the buy-in and scheduling several watch parties throughout the month.

When Rafe casually let it slip that he was participating, Sophie’s interest was piqued right away. They were all hanging out in his room, Sophie’s legs draped across his lap while Rafe kept a constant touch on her ankle, her calf, anything.

“Can I do it with you guys?”

“Well...” Rafe trailed off, trying to think of any excuse possible. He knew Sophie’s competitive nature to a tee and was already predicting the fight that’d come of it.

Unfortunately for him, James loved nothing more than seeing Rafe lose in the tournament every year. “Yeah, of course you can. Why not?”

Rafe winced and Sophie caught it immediately, furrowing her brow. “Yeah, Rafe, why not?”

“No reason.” He squeezed her ankle and gave her a little smile. She merely raised her eyebrows back, skeptical, and started googling on her phone, pulling up a few sites.

“What are you looking for?” Rafe asked, leaning over to see.

She quickly moved her phone out of his reach. “None of your business.”

“Sophie, c’mon.”

“Jeez, Sophie, is he always this whiny?” Colin teased and Sophie laughed, clicking her phone off. “You should know, you live with him.”

“Nah. He’s different around you. Softer.” James reached over and ruffled Rafe’s hair, causing a mini scuffle between them.

“Yeah, see, he’s always aggressive with us.” Colin pointed out.

“He could stand to be a tiny bit more aggressive with me.” Sophie mumbled under her breath with a smirk, just loud enough so only Rafe could barely make out what she said. He whipped around, eyes wide. “What did you say?”

She grinned and batted her eyelashes innocently. “Nothing. When can we fill out our brackets?”

“They’re due in three days.” James told her, handing her an extra blank bracket from his desk. Sophie accepted it with a thank you and stood, not before kissing Rafe on the cheek. “Looks like I have some work to do then.”

“It’s not that complicated, Soph, you can just pick it on, like, jersey colors or mascots or whatever.” Rafe told her carelessly. She kept up with Ohio State sports and knew the rules of the game, but didn’t really seem to care otherwise. She’d prioritize alone time in the architecture studio for big games sometimes, or study through a tailgate instead of watching the other games on air that day. What Rafe failed to remember is that she was also extraordinarily stubborn, and always determined to win.

“I’m not just going to throw my money away. I need to research.”

He laughed. “When have you ever researched before a game in your life?”

With that she flicked him in the head, scowling. “I’ve never needed to before. Have you filled yours out yet?”

Rafe went to bat her hand away a moment too late, letting out a little yelp. “Hey! No, I’m just going to fill out the day before. Let the experts help me out.” He gestured to the TV, where ESPN hosts droned on in the background.

“Hm.” She gathered her things and Rafe leaned over, tugging at the sleeve of her jacket. “No, wait, stay. We can do it together, if you want?”

“And let you cheat off me? Absolutely not.” She fixed him with a scrutinizing look. “Why, need someone to tell you whether the green or red team is better?”

He laughed. “No, baby, I’m not just gonna wing it.”

Even James could feel the annoyance radiating from Sophie in the moment and he face-palmed behind her back, anticipating her response. She frowned at Rafe, arms crossed. “So why would I just wing it?”

“Well that’s - that’s not what I meant -” He hastily backtracked.

“Smooth.” Colin muttered under his breath, shaking his head. She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure. Now if you’ll excuse me, darling, I have some work to do.” The pet name held absolutely no affection to it, hurled like an insult instead.

“Darling? Huh? Sophie, I didn’t mean it like that -” Rafe started again and she leaned over, kissing him shortly to cut him off. “Sure you didn’t. When do we hand them in, James?”

“6pm, Friday. Hard deadline.” He responded cheerfully.

“I’ll have it to you tomorrow.” She grinned and gave them all a little wave before leaving, ignoring Rafe’s small noise of protest. It wasn’t til she had hardly stepped out of the house to walk home when she had three texts from James with individual links to stats from prior tournaments and comparisons of each team’s performances throughout the season.

James: If Colin and I can’t knock his ass out, I’d want you to do it

Sophie: :) I’ll accept the honor

The next day, Rafe was entirely unbothered by Sophie’s participation in the bracket challenge, after she had reassured him that she was mainly teasing about his comments. She also knew the exact time the Bracketology show aired on ESPN, as well as the shows on other networks, and made it her mission to distract him at every opportunity possible.

She was over again the next day while James and Colin were busy, so they had the room to themselves. Sophie had brought over her homework, like usual, and the two were just enjoying each other’s company for a while - until she noticed Rafe pull out his bracket, completely blank. “You’re not done yet?”

“Huh? No, the ESPN show’s about to be on. Do you mind if I keep the volume low?” He reached for the remote. “That’s fine, I just have a few questions left on this.” She purposely made a show of stretching her arms high, the hem of her cropped sweater lifting just enough to show a flash of her lacy bralette.

He stopped in his tracks, clearly eyeing her over. “Your sweater’s short.”

She hid a smirk, giving him a confused look instead as she tugged the hem back down. “Is it?”

“You said you have how many questions left?” Rafe tried curling his hand around her hip and pulling her close, but she swatted his hand away. “Just five, but they’re long answer.”

“Just five.” He nodded to himself and turned the TV, remembering why he had gotten his bracket out in the first place. She kept her head down, working as she listened to the hosts’ banter for a few minutes. When they started actually getting into the bracket predictions, Sophie rolled her shoulders, then tilted her head to crack her neck. “Rafe?”

“Mm?” He replied, half paying attention to her as he scribbled out some of the early game decisions.

“Do you mind rubbing my shoulders? They’re killing me.”

“Course not, c’mere.” He turned on the couch to face her, keeping the bracket and pen in his lap.

She didn’t waste any time pulling the sweater over her head, letting it drop to the floor as she moved to sit closer to him. He laughed, loud. “What was that for?”

Sophie glanced at him over her shoulder, moving her hair to expose her back fully. “Figured it’s easier to massage on bare skin than through a bulky knit sweater.”

She had fully captured his attention now, and he ran a finger down her spine, grinning. “Just a shoulder rub?” She was glad to be facing away from him, unable to hide her eye roll. “Mind out of the gutter. Just a shoulder rub.”

Rafe nodded but couldn’t resist placing a few kisses along her bare shoulder before massaging her shoulders, pressing hard. When she noticed his massage got weaker as he got more distracted by the TV, Sophie let out a breathy moan. It sounded horribly fake even to her ears, but got his attention right away.

“Soph.” He warned.

“Hm?” She questioned, wincing as she faced away from him, hoping she sounded innocent enough.

Lucky for her, Rafe was pretty clueless to the motives of her game. “You can’t say just a shoulder rub then make sounds like that.”

“Sorry, sorry.” She grinned. “I’ll be good for you.”

“Sophie.”

“Rafe.” She mimicked, turning back around and finally giving him an eyeful of her chest. He groaned and pulled her onto his lap immediately, hands going straight to her waist. “Sure you need to finish your homework?”

She grinned. “How long are James and Colin gone for?”

“Uh...” He glanced toward the door, at the TV, then at his watch. “We have an hour.”

Sophie stood, blocking the TV, and held both her hands out. “Let’s take advantage of it then.”

Her plan worked perfectly over the next three days, right up until the deadline for turning in the bracket. It laid forgotten on his desk while they made out on his bed, lazy kisses shared as their hands wandered. James barged in with only a single, split-second knock. “Hope you have your clothes on!”

(They both did - they had almost been caught once and Sophie always triple checked the lock before taking her shirt off after that.)

Rafe groaned and threw his pillow at James. “Give us a fucking warning, dude!”

“Bracket’s due in five. You finished yet?”

“Oh shit.” Rafe sat up immediately, glancing around for it. “No, I’ve been busy.”

Sophie held back a smirk. “I think it’s on your desk.”

“Did you ever finish yours, Soph?” Rafe asked as he got up to scramble for a pen. Unfortunately for him, she had taken all of them over the last few days - not a hard task, because he only owned four.

“She turned hers in two days ago. It’s like, annotated and shit. You have four minutes now.” James tapped his watch, then decided to take pity on him and toss him a pen from his own desk.

Rafe frowned, frantically filling out the bracket. “Annotated? With what?”

She shrugged. “Stats to help me out.” Sophie leaned over, watching him fill out his choices. “Texas Tech is red and Purdue is gold, I think you should pick Purdue there. Gold is a fun color.”

James snorted. “Two minutes, Cameron.”

“Fuck, okay.” Rafe finished it quickly and handed it over, but Sophie grabbed it out of his hands first.

“Wait, you picked Michigan to win? God, Rafe, do you have no loyalty?” She was violently offended, disbelieving of her eyes.

“They’re a solid pick!”

“They’re our fucking rivals!”

He laughed and grinned, smug, as he remembered the nickname she had tried to use against him days earlier. “I’m playing to win here, darling. You didn’t seriously pick Ohio State to win, did you?”

“I picked Villanova, thank you very little.” She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Oh.” He was surprised at her logical pick, which irked her even more. “Well, I don’t have the emotional attachment like you do here.”

“You’d think two and a half years of school would be enough. Don’t need your parents as alumni to do that.”

“She makes a point.” James chimed in, thoroughly entertained by the arguing, but made his way toward the door to collect other brackets. “Dude, you’ve had weeks to work on this, what happened?”

“I don’t know, every time I’ve turned on ESPN to watch I...” He trailed off, thinking.

James shook his head and made his exit, making a point to securely shut the door behind him.

Rafe finally put two and two together and pointed an accusing finger at Sophie. “You sabotaged me!”

She grinned, giving herself up right away. “Yeah, what of it?”

“That’s so low.” Rafe shook his head, scowling.

Sophie laughed, sitting up on her knees and leaning forward to smirk at him. “Yeah? What are you gonna do about it?”

He stood at the edge of the bed and placed both palms on her knees and slid them up her legs, leaning over her. “You don’t really think you’ll win, do you?”

“Might not, darling, but at least I’ll beat you. You screwed up on several brackets, by the way.” She met him with a kiss, nipping teasingly at his lower lip.

“Huh?” He mumbled against her lips.

“Wichita State plays Marshall, not West Virginia, and Auburn plays Charleston. Not Clemson. So that’s already two games you’ve lost.” She grinned as he curled his fingers into her thighs and stood up on her knees to kiss him harder, locking her hands to rest behind his neck.

“And you didn’t correct me once. I can’t believe you.” He slid one hand up to squeeze her ass, laughing when she let out a small squeak of surprise.

“Cameron.” She tried pulling him down to the bed.

“What.” He didn’t budge, keeping a firm grip on her butt.

“Shut up and finish what you started.”

“Yes ma’am.”

#rafe cameron #rafe cameron fanfic #rafe cameron x oc #rafe cameron fanfiction #obx fanfic #outer banks fanfic #rafe x sophie #mine #college rafe #frat rafe

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mira--mira · 4 years

Note

Madara and Hashirama for the ask meme 👀

Hashirama

What I love about them:

I really love Hashirama's stubborn optimism. I say "stubborn" here bc I think after a certain point of pain in misery in someone's everyday life, in some way it is a choice to remain optimistic despite that suffering. I don't characterize Hashirama as constantly happy and he can recognize the more realistic/pessimistic possibilities, he just refuses to accept them. I have it in my notes for OoT but haven't worked it in verbatim but Madara would call him "ruthlessly optimistic " and while that's tinged with Madara's own bias, I think it fits quite well.

What I hate about them:

Hashirama is stubbornly optimistic LOL. It's a double-edged sword and I think by the time he reached adulthood in a canon setting, Hashirama was so desperate for there to be peace he maintained his "everything will work out" attitude when he otherwise shouldn't have. There were the concerns with Madara and the Uchiha, his own brothers views that he certainly should have recognized could become a problem, and, after depending on when Tobirama took on students/how old they were, the possibility of biases being passed down and a Danzo like figure coming to power. However this was not Hashirama's responsibility alone to fix. I don't think, despite his love, Hashirama alone could have kept Madara in a village that hated him and a clan that distrusted him. Tobirama was an adult and let his own bias pass under a veil of "logic" and passed that, either intentionally or unintentionally down to his students. None of this is Hashirama's fault, but I think part of the canon story being a tragedy was he was blinded by a bright, hopeful future that he failed to see the early signs right in front of him.

Favorite Moment/Quote:

"To me, Madara was like a gift from the divine."

Even thinking about it makes me melt. It's so sweet and really emphasizes how much Madara means to him. 🥺

What I would like to see more focus on:

In fics? Hashirama's mental health and how his childhood affected him. Most of the long fics I've read focus on Madara. Which I understand, Madara has an arc into becoming a villain while Hashirama is just kinda "there" and it's easy for him to fulfill a support role to helping Madara in canon Au fics. A sort of unshakeable, always optimistic stone for Madara to depend on and stop his downward spiral into villainy. But, what makes hashimada so great for me is that Madara and Hashirama are equals. There will be times one falters and needs to depend on the other, and they're capable of giving each other that support. It'd also be great to see Hashirama struggle yet continue to choose optimism and compassion time after time because that feels more weighty and important than an eternally optimistic characterization that never wavers.

Headcanon wise...this isn't something I've found but desperately want to see (and will come up in all of my own aus) is the connection between the god tree and the god of shinobi who's famed ninjutsu is wood release and who's cells can be used for everything under the sun and are specifically needed to control the gedo statue / ten-tails. 👀 Look when I got back into Naruto and only vaguely knew about the war arc plot I thought Kishimoto was Doing Something with that. He was not. I am.

What I would like to see less focus on:

This is pretty much mentioned above but Hashirama as mainly a support for Madara rather than getting his own (non romantic) arcs in long canon Au fics. Headcanon wise, this is such a small nitpick, but Hashirama constantly being the one described as warm whereas Madara is cold. The big tree can *retain* heat, but he pales in comparison to Madara's ability to *generate* heat.

Favorite pairing with:

Hashimada (Hashirama x Madara)

No one should be surprised. I can wax prose about this for days but it's about ultimately finding someone else in a terrible world that *understands* you that you can grow with and support. I'm a sucker for friends to lovers and battle couples so guess what's right up my alley?

Favorite friendship:

Canon/BoaF- Hashirama & Mito

I know Madara & Mito is more popular, and I do love their dynamic but christ Hashirama needs friends outside Madara and Tobirama and I think they'd be good friends. Canon!Mito would provide a good level-headed perspective and wouldn't have the messy, complicated history like the three founders have together and it'd be good for Hashirama to get a break from that. BoaF!Mito and Hashirama are cousins their relationship eventually progresses to a sibling-like bond. They’re quite protective of each other and gossip endlessly together. Mito’s not as good as gardening, but they do it together and incorporate Uzumaki sealing techniques for certain houseplant decorations. Mito also might know about Madara 👀

OoT-Hashirama & Sakura or Hashirama & Sai

His and Sakura's relationship is p similar to how I would characterize his and Mito's but with the added hilarity of Sakura being his "student" yet having 0 deference for him once they actually get to the "teaching" part (surprise: Hashirama's most uttered lines are "you do the thing, you know the thing, you know you just...do it. The thing. Madara "translates" a lot of their sessions.) Hashirama and Sai antagonize each other constantly and he *will* tease Sai into oblivion as any older brother would. Tobirama never reacted to Hashirama's mischief in ~fun~ ways and he felt bad about messing with Itama, who was even more emotional than he was and Kawarama, who hero-worshipped him. Sai is the perfect "if anyone messes with you I will personally make them regret being born yet *I* will tease you mercilessly to my hearts content" kind of little brother.

NOTP:

Hashitobi (Hashirama x Tobirama)

I don't do incest. At all. Even "non-incest" aus where they aren't technically related squick me out.

Favorite headcanon:

Hashirama can Speak to the trees.

Either humorously or seriously, I love this kinda, sorta, maybe not quite human power.

Madara

What I love about them:

Madara is kind and does his best to do what he thinks is right. The “kind” point is a lot of Hashirama talking/flashbacks and the “good” intention behind the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Making everyone a “winner” in the dreamworld, while absolutely insane and full of holes, is odd for a villain’s motivation. His role in the war arc is mostly focused on watching him wreck absolutely everyone he comes into contact with but I love Hashirama’s flashbacks and the glimpses of kid!Madara we get. Madara believed in his philosophy from a lifetime of pain that ended in him losing everything and being manipulated but he was still seeking a way to “help” the most people he could. He’s such a rich character that makes it easy to want to imagine other what-if scenarios where things turned out just a bit differently.

What I hate about them:

Madara takes all responsibility onto himself. This is more speculation because we don’t get Madara’s POV of his childhood or any significant scenes with the clan. However, I think this is one of the primary roots of most of Madara’s problems. If he blamed himself for mistakes that weren’t technically his, he could get into a cycle where he only blames himself and doesn’t seek help/support when he should have and purposefully reduces his support circle because he becomes paranoid that he won’t be able to protect them. A smaller issue that is both about Madara and not is he didn’t fall victim to the Talk no Jutsu, but was Madara aware of what was happening when he was possessed(?) by Kaguya? I forgot but if he wasn’t...I don’t think he’d agree Hashirama’s way was the right way at the end, merely his way was wrong. Because, in Madara’s point of view, the village may have been “better” (used very loosely) than becoming food/power for an alien goddess but it wasn’t good. It wasn’t the solution. Hashirama saying they were both wrong in some way saved the scene but Madara still jumped back to Hashirama’s dream being the right one too quickly imo.

Favorite Moment/Quote:

“What are you going to do about the second [meteor] Onoki?”

I’m sorry, that was just hilarious. We see this man slaughter an entire division and drop a meteor from the sky...two kages desperately try to stop it and it looks like they managed to succeed and he just...cool. What about the second? Really cemented Madara is Here and he is Dramatic. A close second fav is him flying across the battlefield to confront Hashirama only for the “I’ll deal with you later” line.

What I would like to see more focus on:

I really love it when fics fill in the blanks of Madara’s childhood/his time with the Uchiha so that’s always a plus for me. The other thing is Hashirama calls Madara a “fundamentally kind man” and according to Tobirama the Uchiha feel love “too deeply” so I like fics that do focus on these aspects of Madara’s personality while staying true to his prickly demeanor. For headcanons I love, love, love exploring kekkei genkai/ninjutsu/genjutsu and how they individually affect people/clans. Digging deeper so that “fire affinity” means constantly running hot/pushing into possibly having fire resistance/unable to distinguish “too hot” / or even affinity acting like a secondary blood type so even if two people had AB blood if one had a water affinity and the other fire their blood would be incompatible. Also the mundane ways powers can be used (I have some Ideas for non-combat genjustu applications that the Uchiha use and those will come up in OoT 👀)

What I would like to see less focus on:

This again kinda ties into the Hashirama segments, but Madara completely depending on Hashirama and Hashirama alone for happiness. Especially in long AUs where he’s still in Konoha but has a poor relationship with the Uchiha. That’s fine starting out! But if the fic ends or doesn’t seriously work on improving that relationship it just sits a bit weird with me bc I don’t think Madara could be truly happy in that situation. (NSFW start) The other thing I see commonly is Madara is extremely passive/submissive in bed with Hashirama which is...weird to me? There’s also a reoccurring thing where he doesn’t have a lot of experience but Hashirama does and this leads to embarrassment and the aforementioned passive/submissiveness. I understand lack of experience can be embarrassing and I do believe Madara could be embarrassed, but instead of withdrawing into himself I think he’d push through it with something close to bravado and his usual single-minded intensity, for better or worse. I do think Madara usually bottoms in his and Hashirama’s relationship but both of them are as enthusiastic about sex as they are fighting and neither is especially submissive or dominant. (NSFW end)

Favorite pairing with:

Hashimada (Hashirama x Madara)

See absolutely everything else 😂

Favorite friendship:

Canon/BoaF- Madara & Naori or Madara & Hikkaku

I really like focusing on the Uchiha clan and exploring the dynamics within it. We get nothing about Madara’s early life outside of Hashirama so this is almost completely speculation. For the angst of canon, I like Madara being close to his clan only to lose them after his friendship with Hashirama is revealed bc he awakened his sharingan over Hashirama and that can’t be easily hidden. For BoaF, a large part of it is exploring the clans’ cultures before they made the village so this necessitates actually fleshing out said clans. Naori and Izuna are v similar in personality and both live to prank Madara and annoy him, but they hardly ever team up bc they start squabbling amongst themselves. Hikakku is stoic and calm in contrast to Naori’s mania and Madara’s intensity but he keeps track of every little favor and Madara dreads the day he’ll act on them because he knows it��ll result in something embarrassing for him. But like all BoaF!Uchiha, they’re fiercely protective of one another and you really don’t want to insult the wrong person.

OoT - Madara & Naruto or Madara & Sai

I really Madara and Naruto’s dynamic, it’s very entertaining and fun for me to write and they’re both positive influences on each other. Madara gets more people to smother with his brand of affection and Naruto gets early recognition and training. Their weird non-training shenanigans (coupon collecting, gaming, etc.) also is p amusing. Madara and Sai have a similar relationship but I really like writing theirs from Sai’s POV bc he insists that he doesn’t feel close/like when Madara treats him like a little brother when he really does.

NOTP:

Madatobi (Madara x Tobirama)

Logically, I know why this pairing is popular. Fanfic is saturated with the enemies to lovers trope yet emotionally I Do Not Understand it. Personally, I don’t enjoy toxic relationships, to read or write. And, to me, that’s what a close canon Madara and Tobirama pairing would be. Tobirama tried to convince Hashirama to kill him, he killed Izuna, even if it was in war, and I don’t think Madara could or would get over that. If Tobirama has similar attitudes about the Uchiha it makes it worse. AUs exist to rewrite this, of course, but I still don’t enjoy their romantic chemistry. At best, I like Tobirama and Madara as reluctant frenemies who insult each other and try to one-up each other.

Favorite headcanon:

Madara is fire proof.

I have a whole rant about this in OoT’s author notes 😂 Sasuke’s Amaterasu should have been a serious threat when it hit him. Instead the man just lets his clothes fall off then kicks their asses. He’s fire proof.

In response to the ask game:

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babybitchegg · 3 years

Text

Five Days In a Week

I really don't know what I'm doing, but I hope you enjoy this. I wrote it for fun...also, I didn't specify who this is about, originally I wrote it as a Kirishima fanfic, but a friend of mine said It seemed like a Bakugo fanfic. The choice is yours. This is the first fanfic I've written since I was a young child, so I hope it's not too cringe.

Extra note: Gender-neutral (no mention of gender), slight fluff

Warnings: Slight gore (Just the teensiest bit), general angst, character death, maybe bad grammar, and orbs

_____________________________________________________________

We were by each other five days of the week. You complained and begged for more, but I was resilient. While spending time with you lifted me from my hell, you needed time to yourself and others, even if you denied it. That’s the way it always was, from our days in elementary to now. Five days and nights by each other, two days and nights apart, it felt comfortable enough. A constant schedule, week by week, little to no change. At least, that’s how it was supposed to be, but, alas, even in comfort, there lies pain.

Monday: 5 Days

Five days ago we were studying. I forced you to. You complained about how we were wasting our precious time together doing menial tasks. I scoffed and retorted that studying wasn’t a death sentence; it was an investment towards the future. You pouted, smiled, then pulled out your materials. We sat in silence doing work. Every once in a while, asking each other for help and d clarifying the unknown. It ended when you put your pencil down at around 10 p.m, grabbed my waist, hoisted me up in the air, laughing maniacally as I screamed in surprise. You apologized and laid me down on your bed. I got up protesting as I still had work to do, but you gently grabbed my hand. I looked over at you, staring into your ruby orbs; it was a mistake I always make. I sighed and laid down with you, limbs interlocked, and the night ended.

Tuesday: 4 Days

Four days ago, we sat on my bed, choosing a movie. We have decided to watch The Titanic. A timeless film of sorrowful love. I laughed when Jack slipped; you sobbed; it was silent when the movie ended. You asked me how I could laugh at such a sad scene; I wondered how you could cry at such a hilarious scene. I received your blank stare; I sighed and said that if it made you feel any better, I would either die with you or sacrifice myself for your life. You gasped and said not, that you would protect me at all costs and no one would die. I smiled at that. I didn’t want to start an argument. We went to our rooms that night.

Wednesday: 3 Days

Chaos is an understatement of what happened that day. We decided to make some treats for the class, innocent fun, a time for bonding. Except it wasn’t. Everything was going well; we managed to mix the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients. Until we realized the batter was too wet. My mistake was ignoring the mischievous smile on your face when I asked you to get the flour. The next thing I knew, there was flour on the tip of my nose. That was your mistake. I sneezed, and flour got everywhere. We stood there in silence with shock until you let out a boisterous laugh that filled me with fear yet unbridle warmth. Laughs led to wars; wars led to giggling. Giggles led to Mr. Aizawa finding us covered in ingredients in a messy kitchen. That mess led to us getting scolded and a day of house arrest.

Thursday: 2 Days

Due to our antics of the previous day, we got house arrest. Nothing too significant happened as the class made sure we were busy. Only occasional smiles were thrown before we went to bed.

Friday: 1 Day

I felt anxious the entire day; I spaced out a lot more than I usually do in class. You immediately noticed something was off about me. You asked me, yet I couldn’t give an answer, how could I when even I didn’t know. All I could say was that something felt off. You reassured me, saying that you felt the same way. We decided to brush it off and went on with our day, yet it was so ever-present in the corners of my subconscious. Later that night, as we Laid in Your bed, sleep was difficult to come by. You felt it too. Instead of rest, we decided to go to the balcony. We stared deep into the stars, contemplating meaningless questions, pandering with the time we didn’t have. All through the night, the same dread didn’t go away,y but I couldn’t bring myself to say it. As the sun rose, we talked about the future. We saw each other. We saw our years go by. If only destiny saw the same.

Everything went wrong that day. Villains attacked as we were doing training lessons. We were separated. I tried my hardest to find you in a mess; I’m sure you did the same. When we did come to each other, you were struggling. The brilliant smile you wore was replaced with a grimace. You were trapped. The villain was trying to kill you, yet like a pillar, you stood firm. Yet you were cracked. I took a step forward; that step turned into five steps, four steps, two steps, one more...and then none. I heard you scream my name. I looked over and saw you as a child, crying holding your eye, to you as a middle schooler standing beside me as we watched a large villain antagonize those girls, to you when we walked into UA for the first time, to you when you asked me out, to you when we shared our first kiss, to the current you. Bloodied and battered, eyes rimmed with tears, screaming my name as you ran towards me.

You managed to catch me. I never realized how warm you indeed were. Or how cold I was. You begged me to stay, begged me to wait five days more, even just 5 minutes more. Yet, I couldn’t. I tried reassuring you as I had countless times,s yet all I could manage was a breath. I smiled. You frowned. The five days were up; you are now free to spend the weekend and the rest of the five days with others. I closed my eyes and listened to you sob; my heart slowly stopped, my senses slowly faded, the last thing I remembered was the five days spent watching the world turn, the way our hands interlocked, the comfort you brought. Then darkness.

#bakugou #bakugou katsuki #bnha kirishima #bnha #angst #bnha angst #my hero academia #one shot #gender netural #boku no hero academia #bnha fanfiction #I hope I tagged this sufficiently

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xxgoblin-dumplingxx · 3 years

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Mission of Mercy: Thirty-Two

Bucky opened your car door and bowed slightly, teasing, “We’re gonna be late to the ball, Cinderella.”

You quirked an eyebrow but took the hand up he offered to get into the truck, “What ball?”

“You’ll see,” he said, grinning. He hoped that you liked what he had planned. He really did.

‘Bucky,” you say, biting your lip.

“I promise, doll,” he said quietly, stepping up and kissing you softly, taking to opportunity to buckle your seat belt. “No cemeteries. Just all the tricks this old dog can remember.”

“Just your old tricks?” you ask, smiling a little.

“Maybe some new ones,” he said winking, kissing you again. He hopped down and shut the door carefully taking a deep breath as he walked around the truck. It was going to be a bit of a drive but… As soon as he saw the place, he knew there was no better place to take you. He hadn’t even known places like this existed but… he could see you there. And he wanted to take you there. Somewhere you could feel… free. Without the constant bombsat of feelings and needs and wants tugging your attention this way and that. You’d described it to him once like being a teacher in a classroom full of really rowdy kids. Everyone needs or wants something but some people’s needs and wants are more urgent. Kid A broke his pencil but kid B has just stapled his homework to his forehead somehow. So how would you prioritize them? It’s a constant triage, trying to decide what to ignore and what to act on.

To Bucky it just sounded like a maddening tangle. And even just thinking about it for too long made his head ache and his eyes water. It gave him a new appreciation for your need for silence.

When you claimed his hand, Bucky laced his fingers through yours and skimmed a kiss across your knuckles. “Where are we going?” you ask quietly, staring out the window absently. You’re thinking, he knows. Wandering down little rabbit holes in your head.

“You and I,” he said, “Are going to go spend the night somewhere… Fun.”

“That was a suspicious pause,” you say suspiciously.

Bucky grinned and glanced at you, hesitant to take his eyes off the road too long. “Well. I know it’ll be fun for me,” he teased, “Spoiling you within an inch of your life and making you deal with the fact that I love you for a solid 36 hours.”

“Buck-”

“Nope,” he teased, kissing your knuckles again, “I promise. It’s just going to be you and me and as many of your favorite things as I could cram into an overnight trip.”

“I didn’t pack a bag.”

“I packed it,” he said grinning, “I didn’t want to give you time to talk me out of it.”

You give him a look over the tops of your sunglasses and he mock scowls at you, “Listen, whipper snapper,” he scolds. “You’re going to have a good time… I hope. I just wanted you to get out of the tower for a while. You’ve been tired, baby. Tired and sad and I know you’ve not been eating because your stomach is always in knots. Stuff’s been hard. And you deserve a break. And I miss my girl.”

He squeezes your hand and smiles, “Just… relax? Let me do this. I haven’t gotten to do this kind of stuff for anyone before. At least not without us having to sign the hotel register pretending to be married.” He gives you a suggestive look and you can’t help it, you giggle.

“Who’d I have to kill in a past life to get this lucky, huh?”

Bucky grinned so broadly his molars gleamed, “Well. I killed Hitler so-”

“You can’t remember that Sam and I had lunch plans but you remember that?”

“One time,” he protests but shuts his mouth with a soft snap when you giggle. It was good hearing that sound. It had been a little too scarce in the past couple of weeks.

________

He turned down the road, thankful that he’d had to learn to read maps and memorize directions. Sure. The address wasn’t significant to you, but. He wanted you to be surprised. And he was enjoying deflecting your attempts to get information. You were excited. You sparkled with optimism and curiosity. You weren’t just going through the motions for him and he knew it. He could feel it.

“Bucky, what-”

He paused at the top of the drive and let you just take it in for a moment. It was a cottage, covered in ivy with a wrought iron fence. And magnolia trees shed petals that drifted lazily on the breeze. Willow trees bent like gnarled old women providing pools of shade. And beyond that, in the yard there was a hot tub and a fire pit. He looked at you and grinned. You looked stunned.

“How?”

“Google,” he said, kissing the hand he was holding. “And some money.”

“Bucky-”

“Before you start fussing at me about it being too much, just know. This is where we’re staying… but it isn’t it.”

“It’s so much,” you murmur. You aren’t sure what to say. Or how to act. After a lifetime of Birthdays that were mostly crying over photo albums and maybe some cake and a couple presents this… This is a lot.

“I know,” he murmurs, “But- I’ve got a lot of birthdays to make up for… and a shit load of back pay burning a hole in my pocket.”

“But-” You can feel the backs of your eyes sting and he tilts your chin up gently.

“No pressure,” he reminds, wiping tears away and kissing the tip of your nose. “It’s just going to be us, hanging out here.”

“Okay,” you murmur.

“Good girl,” he says softly, stealing a kiss and jumping out of the truck to open your door.

“It’s so pretty,” you breathe, leaning against him as he walks you up the cobblestone path.

Bucky doesn’t answer but he kisses your head as he walks you inside. It is intensely satisfying to see you so stunned. And he’s more than a little proud of himself for pulling this off and keeping the secret from you to pull it off.

He follows you from room to room watching you be in something close to awe at the four-poster bed, the hot tub, and the champagne.

“You thought of everything didn’t you?” you ask, standing on your toes to kiss his cheek as he opened a bottle of champagne.

“I might have snooped just a little,” he admitted, “And Nat helped me fill in some blanks.”

“What’d you snoop in?” you ask, more curious than angry.

“Your phone when you were asleep,” he said grinning, “And I asked Sam if you’d ever told him any ideal date kind of things… He told me to ask Nat. But I tried Sam first because he’s known you longer.”

You nod and take the glass of champagne he offered you and plucked a chocolate-covered strawberry off the waiting plate. “Sneaky,” you scold.

“Oh, baby. You don’t even know.” He chuckled and leaned down to kiss you, savoring the sweetness on your lips.

“What-”

He held up a finger and pressed it to your lips, “Before you have time to work up a good worry, can I give you a present?”

“I-”

“Good,” and before you have time to think he steals a kiss and disappears through a door. You can hear him, talking softly and the rustle of cardboard and tissue. It was curious. New. Bucky didn’t usually talk to himself… It was a bad habit for someone who needed to be stealthy.

You take a seat and take a nervous sip of your champagne taking a deep breath. You know Bucky means well. He crafted all of this just for you. To make sure you had a good day. But you can’t stop the gnawing feeling in your stomach. It was alien territory.

“Doll?” Bucky said, holding a box.

And you smile, snapping back to this instant like a rubber band.

Bucky smiles a little. You look good in your sundress, lounging on the plush sofa and sipping a drink. It makes him feel warm all over. He wants this life for you. To come home from work and see you waiting for him. And he crosses the floor, putting the box in your lap.

“I know I probably should have asked first but,” he stole a soft kiss as he knelt at your feet, “I saw this and… It was perfect.”

He watches you tilt your head and nudges you, “Open it,” he coaxes, “I’m not gonna tell you!”

You tug the ribbon on the box carefully and Bucky holds his breath. He really hopes this was the right choice.

And the moment you set the lid aside and make a noise. The softest little noise. Not quite a coo and not quite a gasp, his heart does a backflip as you take the Aussie Shepherd puppy out of the box.

This time when you start to cry, he doesn’t have to wonder if it’s a good thing or a bad thing as you snuggle the ball of fluff that Bucky had fallen in love with the second she attacked his shoelaces.

#Bucky x reader #fluff #Soft!bucky #hurt/comfort

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radiorenjun · 4 years

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Rain Rituals || Z.CL

Pairing: Zhong Chenle x Reader

Genre: Comedy, fluff

Summary: Chenle's high school life was more than tedious to say the least. That is when he caught you screaming under the rain.

Warning: fluff. Comedy. Mentions of detention. Second hand embarrassment. Cliché

Wordcount: 2.8K (it's short)

A/n: please ignore my terrible editing skills and happy birthday Chenle!

Chenle was just a simple rich high school boy who, like any other student, just wants to get school and exams over with as soon as possible. He was bored of waking up everyday only for the same exact thing to happen over and over again.

Wake up. Eat. Go to school. Endure hell for 6 hours straight. Go home. Eat. Study. Sleep.

Repeat.

It was boring to say the least. Chenle wanted something to spice up his life, anything to make life more worth living. He wasn’t one to pay attention to whatever’s happening around him, he just wasn’t interested. But one faithful day, a chaotic social hazard of a Chemistry classmate of his decided to change that. Well, technically, the situation was unexpected and absolutely ludicrous for the young boy’s mind to comprehend.

It was a cold, raining evening. Chenle was just getting out of basketball practice, sweat trickling down his forehead as he slung his backpack over his shoulder. Chenle was just on his way to the parking lot, fumbling with the car keys in his hand, his uniform blazer draped over his head to prevent him from getting even more wet than he already is.

A loud scream pierced the quiet atmosphere, causing Chenle to flinch at the sudden sound. His head rapidly turned to see where the scream had come from before his eyes squinted at a blurry figure standing in the middle of the school garden.

‘What the fuck?’

Curiosity kills the cat, as they say.

Chenle went closer to the figure who let out another alarming scream, his brows furrowed in confusion as the figure became clearer and clearer with every step. The soles of his new Air Jordan’s making soft sounds as they made contact with the puddles that formed on the ground.

He leaned his head to the side when he was close enough to see the figure clearly. His eyes widened to see none other than you, the class clown of his grade. Also known as ‘That Girl Beside Me Who Wrote Three Pages Worth Of A Test Answer To Spite The Teacher’.

You were quite infamous for your extroverted demeanor. Making friends and cracking jokes left and right as if it was as simple as breathing air. Joking around and riling up teachers as if they were your closest friends.

To Chenle, you were quite peculiar.

But the sight before him was more than odd. You were standing soaking wet in the rain with your arms stretched out, your hair sticking to your forehead as you leaned your head up as if you were doing some kind of satanic ritual or religious sacrifice.

You let out another scream before groaning in frustration. “Jesus Christ!” you cursed out, kicking a puddle with your shoes as if it would do anything to make your frustrations go away.

Chenle just stood awkwardly not far behind you as he watched you throw a mini tantrum for whatever reason, his pupils dilating in concern with a frown on his lips. ‘This is just sad and embarrassing,’ he thought with a shake of his head.

The second hand embarrassment Chenle felt as he watched you push your wet hair back, letting the raindrops hit your face was almost as extravagant as the time when he watched his seniors attempt to flirt with one of his classmates.

A part of him wanted to just leave before someone (or you) catches him staring at you with a look of disappointment and sympathy. But another part of him was interested to see what you were whining on about in the middle of a heavy rain at 4:57 PM in the evening when you could be doing all this nonsense in the comforts of your own home like a normal person.

“God dammit!” you cursed once again. “Why the fuck am I single!?”

Chenle’s frown deepened when he heard those words exit your mouth. ‘Seriously?’ he thought with a click of his tongue, ‘she’s screaming out here like a lunatic all because she’s single?’

“Come on! Being single is a choice, right? I didn’t choose to be the only single one in all of my friend groups, so why the fuck am I single?” You rambled, letting out a loud groan afterwards. Chenle shook his head in disappointment, he wanted to walk away instead of looking at whatever you were doing. But yet again, he was far too entertained to even look away.

“Oh God.” you clasped your hands together, intertwining your fingers and shutting your eyes tighty. “ If you can hear me up there. If you can hear me screaming my lungs out like a lunatic. Please, oh please, give me a fucking boyfriend! I think I deserved that much for being good for all my life, right?” You paused at the last part, opening an eye as if to rethink your words before you shut them tight again. “Well for the most part of it, anyways!” you added.

Chenle couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight, his arms crossing as he let out a soft laugh. ‘This is just getting really sad, I almost feel bad for her.’ he thought before looking down at his Apple Watch, eyes widened at what time it was. He turned to make a run to his car, pulling out his car keys to unlock it.

As Chenle dried himself off with the spare towel he usually keeps in the compartment box of his car, he made a mental note to himself to bring this up to you the next time he sees you. He’s sure that your reaction to him having blackmail is just going to be absolutely satisfying.

You were sitting in your desk, listening to your friend ramble about the things she did with her significant other after school the other day. A small sad smile forming on your lips as you try to listen to her conversation without feeling too sad about your pathetic, almost nonexistent, love life.

But yet again, it’s been a couple of days since you threw a tantrum at the school garden. Cursing at the sky and rain to give you a boyfriend. Only for the principal to come up to you to tell you to go home and get some rest, her expression filled with worry and concern. She probably thought you had your screws loose. And honestly, you couldn’t blame her.

You screamed till the boys at the basketball team had already gone home, your parents scolding you for being out so late in the rain. You spent two days in bed with a fever, worrying if anyone saw you acting like a delusional maniac for two hours straight. But you were relieved to see that it’s been a while since your little outburst and nobody had brought up the topic of you screaming and yelling in the middle of the rain.

Not even the janitors.

That is until you had your Chemistry class.

Your desk mate, who was none other than the infamous Chinese rich boy, Chenle came up to you with a grin spread across his face. You had never spoken to Chenle before, mostly because he was quite cute and you didn’t know what to say to someone so adorable and quiet.

You were just minding your own business, jotting down notes that your friend lent you because you couldn’t make it to school last class because of said fever. “Hey,” Chenle greeted, nodding at you as he placed his bag on his chair. You look up in surprise, eyes widening slightly at the fact that Chenle was actually talking to you and starting a conversation with you.

“Hi?” your throat was dry as your mind went blank, trying to use your extrovert powers to desperately try to come up with something to keep the conversation going. “What’s up?” you added, looking down at your notebook as you continued jotting down notes. Chenle sat on his chair, staring at you with a suspicious smirk spread across his lips.

“Can I ask you something?”

You hummed a small ‘yes’ under your breath, eyes scanning your notes.

“You have to answer it truthfully, though.”

You replied with another small hum, nodding slightly.

“Were you that girl screaming like a lunatic in the middle of the rain the other day?” he asked with a casual hum. His words made your hand stop writing, your eyes going wide as you felt your heart almost stop beating. ‘Shit. Oh god. Oh Dear God, no. You can’t do this to me,’ you thought with a nervous bite of your lip.

You attempted to shrug it off casually, keeping an emotionless expression as you continued writing on your notebook. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you responded, feeling your heartbeat nervously against your chest. Chenle’s smirk widened at the way you gulped nervously and avoided eye contact when he brought it up.

“You sure? I’m pretty sure I saw you kicking and stomping puddles the other day, cursing and what-not,” Chenle taunted, watching as your hand weakened their grip on your pen. You cleared your throat, “again, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really? You sure you weren’t the girl who screamed ‘Dear God, give me a damn boyfriend already?!’ in the middle of the school garden like some kind of deranged maniac?”

“You saw that?!” you gasped, your head shooting up to glare at him with wide eyes. You then cupped your mouth when you realised you accidentally gave yourself away. Chenle let out a laugh, pointing a finger at your reaction. “Called it! So you were the girl doing a satanic ritual the other day!” he exclaimed, an amused smile playing at his lips.

You frowned, rolling your eyes as you looked back down at your paper. “Shut up, Zhong Chenle,” you grumbled with a small pout on your lips. “Come on, Y/n. What the hell happened to make you go all bat-shit crazy like that? I mean, not gonna lie it was quite amusing, you should definitely do it again,” he chuckled, leaning his chin against his hand, his elbow propped up on his desk.

You gave an exasperated sigh, looking up at him with a tired expression. “God I wished I took a video of it. Sadly, my phone ran out of battery at that time,” he added with an innocent smile. “You done? I get it, I publicly embarrassed myself. Is there anything you would like to add to that?” Your lips twitched in annoyance when Chenle took a moment to actually think of an answer.

“Give me a minute,” he hummed.

“That was a rhetorical question,” you frowned.

“I publicly embarrass myself on a daily basis, Chenle. What do you want from me?” you let out a soft chuckle, shaking your head at the boy. “Threatening to spread the information isn’t going to embarrass me that much. I’ve done worse things,” you added, finishing the last few words of your notes.

“No shit, you walked into the boys bathroom to hide from some guy.” Chenle exclaimed with a laugh. “Survival is a reasonable explanation. I still wanted to live, you know! I’ll have you know I only got two weeks of detention for it,” you closed your notebook with a huff, getting up from your seat.

“And was your little tantrum under the rain another part of your survival instincts?” Chenle provoked, causing you to clench your teeth. “I don’t think doing a religious sacrifice on a rainy school day can be called survival, Y/n. Especially whining about how single you are,” he snorted against his palm.

You flushed in embarrassment, turning your body away as you grabbed the notes you borrowed from your classmate. “Shut up. I should’ve performed a demonic ritual to wipe you off of the face of the earth instead,” you spat back, walking away from your shared desk to head on over to your classmate’s.

“It still won’t get you a boyfriend, though.” Was the last words Chenle said to you before you walked away.

It was safe to say you had to apologize to your friend for crumpling their notes.

“I still can’t believe screaming like a lunatic under the rain actually works,” you shuddered, sipping your hot cocoa with a traumatized expression. It’s been almost a year since then. You graduated high school, now you’re in your first year of college.

It was honestly a surprising journey but a couple months after your little tantrum, you manage to find yourself an actual boyfriend, who you now share a flat with. It’s all just ironic really, you screaming under the rain like a deranged psycho was supposed to be something to laugh at in the near future.

But now, the story became even more laughable when the world decided to drop your boyfriend right in front of you not too soon afterwards. Even though you didn’t get along very well at first, it was still pretty worth it, if you say so.

“You still can’t believe what, babe?” you heard your boyfriend call out from the kitchen, the sound of his spoon stirring inside one of your ceramic mugs hitting the air. You let out a soft laugh, shaking your head as you scrolled through your old picture file on your laptop. Pictures you and your friends took before you all graduated high school to capture your last moments with each other.

“Remember the day I screamed and cursed at the sky because I was tired of being single?” you laughed, remembering the moment as if it happened only yesterday. There was a small pause before a loud dolphin-like laugh pierced your ears. “Oh my god, that was so iconic!” he exclaimed, tapping the spoon against the edge of the mug.

“Right? God it was so embarrassing! I finally stopped when I realised the principal was going home. Damn, thank god I didn’t get detention,” you joked, opening a picture of you and your boyfriend laughing and smiling under the heavy rain. “I’m still pissed off that I didn’t record it, it could’ve pinpoint the day I decided to talk to you,” Chenle chuckled, coming out of the kitchen with a mug of his own.

“Shut up, I know for a fact you’re never going to let it go if you actually did record it,” you stuck your tongue out teasingly, scooting over to the edge of the couch to make room for him to sit. “Indeed, it could’ve gone viral, you know. I could post it on Tik Tok or Youtube with the caption ‘Girl Screams At How Single She Is Not Knowing That Her Future Boyfriend Is Standing Right Behind Her, Recording Her For Epic Black Mail!’” Chenle grinned, emphasizing his words with his hand.

You rolled your eyes. “Shut up, I hate you,” you huffed, pushing the laptop closer to the two of you so he could see. “What are you looking at by the way?” he asked, leaning over to see your screen clearly as he sipped his beverage. “Old photos from high school, you were way more annoying then,” you commented, giggling.

“I’m not annoying now?” he raised his brow at you, making you grin. “You still are, don’t worry. Just slightly less than back when we started dating,” you pinched his cheek gingerly causing him to chuckle. “That means I’m not doing my job as a good boyfriend,” he pouted, pressing a kiss to your cheek.

“Chenle, no.” You shook your head at him.

“Chenle, yes.” He nodded with a cheeky grin.

“I’m breaking up with you,” you deadpanned, turning away from him to continue scrolling. “Sure you would,” he said sarcastically, wrapping an arm around you lovingly. “You love me too much to even think about breaking up,” he said, grabbing your cheeks in both of his palms, turning your head to make you look at him. He pressed your cheeks together, making your lips pucker up for him to press a loving kiss against them.

“Remind me why I like you so much?” you mumbled against his lips before he pulled away. He hummed, thinking it over for a moment. “I’m just too damn amazing. Plus, a clown like yourself deserves someone to over-clown you,” he giggled. “I prefer the term ‘rival’ because over-clowning isn’t a thing but go off, I guess.” you let out a soft laugh, nuzzling your nose against his.

“Maybe you should do what I did and start screaming at the rain to make us rich,” you suggested.

“Y/n, no. You’re not funny.”

#NCT-WRITERS #neowritingsnet #neo-constellations #nct x reader #chenle x reader #zhong chenle scenarios #chenle scenarios #zhong chenle x reader #nct dream x reader #nct dream scenarios #nct u x reader #nct 127 x reader

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